Posted: Jul 07, 2014 3:58 am
Animavore wrote:Thinking about it, I'm not even sure what the link between atheism and Natural Selection is even supposed to be. Is it because Dawkins just happens to be an evolutionary biologist that people are making this link?
I was raised Catholic in Ireland and the Church have no problem with evolution and the issue just isn't controversial over here (except in the North). I was taught evolution in Catholic school and accepted it from a young age. It just seems obvious to me almost.
I accepted evolution as a Catholic. I accepted it as a lapsed Catholic. I accepted it during my stint with Buddhism and I still accept it as the best explanation for the diversity of life now as an atheist. The topic had absolutely no bearing on me losing faith what-so-ever. Not only that, I never even heard of creationism until I read The God Delusion. I was something like 26 at the time. I can still remember the first time coming across creationism. The complete bafflement that there were people out there that believed such monumental bullshit it must've been dropped down from Taurus in the sky hit me so hard I was stopped in the next town for speeding.
Creationists seem to be blissfully unaware of just how made-up on the spot and modern their cult is. And how American it is. And also how heretical worshipping a book before God is. I mean, it's the fisrt fucking commandment.
EDIT: unaware
Natural selection gives a mechanism for how life achieves functional patterns without mind. [ie the creator-god myth]. Science generally [cosmology, physics, biochemistry etc] has begun to answer questions traditionally "answered" in religions. Thus, at the very least, the natural causes are in competition with god-causes. This does not mean that a theist is incapable of looking for natural causes, but an atheist [at least one coming from reason] would naturally look to natural cause, rather than divine cause to explain the world. Of course one does not have to use reason or have science to hold an atheistic position, but an atheistic position seems more intellectually respectable as there is no longer a requirement for a watchmaker god.