Can you be an atheist and not believe in evolution?

[her209]

I'm assuming an atheist and creationism/intelligent design are mutually exclusive.

 

[DingDingDao]

Seems pretty difficult for the two concepts to coexist. If you believe that there is no god, then there was no creator/intelligent designer.

 

[mugs]

Yes. Belief or non-belief in religion is not necessarily linked to belief in a particular theory on the origin of species (though they usually are linked).

An atheist wouldn't believe in creationism/intelligent design, but that doesn't mean he has to believe the theory of evolution. In practice, atheists do believe in evolution because it's the generally accepted theory for the origin of species.

 

[nakedfrog]

It's possible, I guess, but it doesn't make much sense.

 

[shocksyde]

What about Agnostics?

 

[destrekor]

Depends on how "outside of the box" one wants to look at things.

Does creationism/intelligent design need to be linked to an actual god/deity? Or just the concept that something out there dipped their hands a few times to make the progress work how they wanted, kind of like a real life game of Spore?
I like to kick around the idea that, maybe, just maybe, some intelligent species out there seeded life on other suitable planets and had fun in a sandbox. How much they intervened, or how little, might make evolution still a necessary 'theory'.
Note: I don't really believe that. It's just one of the many fun theories I have kicked up while trying to fall asleep. Also in the same vain: alien visitors were actually the god(s) ancient civilizations worshiped. I stress these are just my "what if" ideas, nothing more. Gives me something to make life a little more interesting, since my current stance on life and our origins kind of puts me in a "damn this is worthless, no point in any of this, beyond our own invented reasons to push on" type of mood.

 

[DingDingDao]

Originally posted by: shocksyde
What about Agnostics?

I'd say you have to be pretty unsure about creationism vs evolution as well here. If you have a definite belief about creationism or evolution, I'd say you were not agnostic.

 

[torpid]

Of course. You can be anything and not believe in evolution. All it takes to deny the principles of evolution is a basic disregard for science.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: torpid
Of course. You can be anything and not believe in evolution. All it takes to deny the principles of evolution is a basic disregard for science.

I'd say that's tough to actually put into practice. How can one not believe in a deity, yet maintain a stance against science, and still have a functional belief on species origin? Unless they simply, and firmly, believe in the type of ideas I proposed in my reply a few posts up.

 

[MrWizzard]

Originally posted by: torpid
Of course. You can be anything and not believe in evolution. All it takes to deny the principles of evolution is a basic disregard for science.

You know evolution is a theory not science until we can fully reproduce it. So not really. But I didn't come here to argue that.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: destrekor
Does creationism/intelligent design need to be linked to an actual god/deity? Or just the concept that something out there dipped their hands a few times to make the progress work how they wanted, kind of like a real life game of Spore?
I like to kick around the idea that, maybe, just maybe, some intelligent species out there seeded life on other suitable planets and had fun in a sandbox. How much they intervened, or how little, might make evolution still a necessary 'theory'.

That just sort of leads you back to the origin of the aliens, though. The buck has to stop somewhere

PS - All these worlds are yours, except Europa.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: MrWizzard

Originally posted by: torpid
Of course. You can be anything and not believe in evolution. All it takes to deny the principles of evolution is a basic disregard for science.

You know evolution is a theory not science until we can fully reproduce it. So not really. But I didn't come here to argue that.

Yes, it's a scientific theory. Not a "I have a guess as to what happened here" theory.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: MrWizzard

Originally posted by: torpid
Of course. You can be anything and not believe in evolution. All it takes to deny the principles of evolution is a basic disregard for science.

You know evolution is a theory not science until we can fully reproduce it. So not really. But I didn't come here to argue that.

hmmm. Did you know Gravity is a theory?

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Originally posted by: MrWizzard

Originally posted by: torpid
Of course. You can be anything and not believe in evolution. All it takes to deny the principles of evolution is a basic disregard for science.

You know evolution is a theory not science until we can fully reproduce it. So not really. But I didn't come here to argue that.

/facepalm

Be more ignorant. Please.

 

[JulesMaximus]

You can believe whatever you want. Evolution isn't a religion despite what the religious nutballs want you to think.

 

[theeedude]

Atheists can believe that aliens from outer space genetically engineered us.

 

[MrWizzard]

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt

Originally posted by: MrWizzard

Originally posted by: torpid
Of course. You can be anything and not believe in evolution. All it takes to deny the principles of evolution is a basic disregard for science.

You know evolution is a theory not science until we can fully reproduce it. So not really. But I didn't come here to argue that.

/facepalm

Be more ignorant. Please.

I see my point was missed, but it's ok arguing things on the interwebs is a moot point.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Originally posted by: senseamp
Atheists can believe that aliens from outer space genetically engineered us.

Panspermia is not necessarily incongruent with evolution.

 

[AstroManLuca]

You can be an atheist and think that species originated through a different means. While evolution is by far the most widely accepted theory, it's not universal even among scientists. They're more likely to dispute the exact mechanism behind it, though. While natural selection is an easily observable phenomenon (obviously a bird born with no wings is going to die without being able to reproduce), the larger dispute is whether genetic mutations could be the cause of all the variations in life we see today. Some claim that they can't, and while most of those people are ID/creationists, a few are scientists who want a more complete explanation than genetic mutations alone.

P.S. Honestly, there are still creationists spewing the "it's just a theory" line? STILL? I thought that went out of style like 20 years ago.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt

Originally posted by: senseamp
Atheists can believe that aliens from outer space genetically engineered us.

Panspermia is not necessarily incongruent with evolution.

it sounds so dirty when you word it like that.

 

[actuarial]

Originally posted by: MrWizzard

Originally posted by: torpid
Of course. You can be anything and not believe in evolution. All it takes to deny the principles of evolution is a basic disregard for science.

You know evolution is a theory not science until we can fully reproduce it. So not really. But I didn't come here to argue that.

You obviously don't understand science. There are many scientific theories which we have evidence of, but cannot reproduce. Science means taking what we know about the world and applying it to come up with a theory of why something else happened. We then take that theory and test it to see if it makes sense. Disregarding science is to just grab theories out of a hat.

Also, we have at least seen micro evolution in bananas, dogs, birds etc. We also have fossils of 'humans' in a less evolved form. We make an extraction that if a small step can happen, over a long enough time period those small steps can amount to what seems to be giant leaps.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: MrWizzard

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt

Originally posted by: MrWizzard

Originally posted by: torpid
Of course. You can be anything and not believe in evolution. All it takes to deny the principles of evolution is a basic disregard for science.

You know evolution is a theory not science until we can fully reproduce it. So not really. But I didn't come here to argue that.

/facepalm

Be more ignorant. Please.

I see my point was missed, but it's ok arguing things on the interwebs is a moot point.

No, not really. Your point was seen. It's just been dismissed many many times before as being an invalid argument.

Short story: We've seen life forms evolving. They do so constantly, and the effects are easy to discern. They don't change into different species simply because "species" is an arbitrary categorization which we applied; the time required for one species to change to another is greater than a human lifespan.



Anyhow, I know someone on these forums is big on this "Raelian" movement thing - aliens created humans.

There are plenty of things to believe, but still not believe in any deity.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Even the Catholic church accepts evolution as being natural law. They just believe God has the ability to sidestep the laws he created, and did so to shape humans.

Not many educated people reject evolution as natural law, they just consider that aliens or god(s) might have tampered with the normal evolutionary process in certain cases.

 

[torpid]

Originally posted by: MrWizzard

Originally posted by: torpid
Of course. You can be anything and not believe in evolution. All it takes to deny the principles of evolution is a basic disregard for science.

You know evolution is a theory not science until we can fully reproduce it. So not really. But I didn't come here to argue that.

You and others are having a major issue with terminology. We have reproduced evolution countless times. There are two "valid" uses of the word evolution:

A. The fact of changes to populations of species over time
B. The "theory of evolution" or modern evolutionary synthesis - a working model that describes and predicts how evolution (the fact) works.

Using the word "evolution" to mean "common descent" is not really a valid use of the word. I suspect this is your usage.

Also, saying a theory is not science is complete nonsense. It's like saying fermat's last theorem was numbers not math until we proved it.

 

[SSSnail]

Originally posted by: DingDingDao
Seems pretty difficult for the two concepts to coexist. If you believe that there is no god, then there was no creator/intelligent designer.

What if you believe in aliens?