Question, is Evolution a religion or cult?

Answer 1

Evolution happens. The evolution theory is a theory.

Answer 2

I studied the formation of cults for some time and it seems to me that religions start off originally as cults, but then gain social acceptance, at which point people start calling it a different name.

Evolution is a scientific theory, however, some people accept the theory of evolution as *fact* or "truth." This still wouldn't qualify quite at the same level of cult, since there is no actual form of worship involved nor a central figurehead collecting donations and asking for a tax abatement. Still, it has some elements of what society calls a religion. I call a religion a belief system that is unprovable, but something that someone sincerely hopes is true, regardless of reality. This makes my definition applicable to every religion and to those who take the theory of evolution (are you sure it should be capitalized?) as absolute and incontrovertible fact. I expect that, for whatever reason, behind their faith in evolution is a hope that evolution is true for whatever reason they may have.

Evolution by itself, however, is neither a religion or a cult, but an idea. To say that an idea does not exist while also discussing it is rather contradictory, don't you think? But then again, stating that an invisible pink unicorn exists is also an idea, if not really inspiring or useful.

A scientific theory, however, is a bit more interesting because there is this whole notion required of evidence, which happens to be shared by many religious folk, which you will notice from their talk about how a book proves something, which in some regards isn't really much different from somebody saying that a fossil proves something. So I suppose if you were going to go to the extreme of saying that people who study the theory of evolution are somehow a part of a cult, then there might be scant relationship pretending to connect the two...

Why is this even important?

Answer 3

Wayne, on behalf of all Atheists and Agnostics and Christian Evolutionists I would like to apologize.

Evolution is a lie started by Satan. Satan tricked us into saying these things, like the human evolved from a common ancestor with the chimpanzee, to try and break a wedge between you and your God.

I am very sorry.

Of course, we believe as you do, that the world is flat as it says in Revelation 20:8 and that God made the human out of dust and clay as it says in Genesis 1:26-27 and Genesis 2:7.

Now that I have admited that evolution is a lie, and that we believe as you do, we can move on in friendship to love and serve the lord.

However, I still do not believe in God. And therefore my soul will roast in the lake of fire per Revelation 20:10-12.

My question to you Wayne, is will the aroma of my burning soul make a scent pleasing to the lord your God?

Answer 4

It's called science, look up science and you and your limited mind will understand. Evolution is a fact, it really happened and is happening. Humans can't understand it because we only live a fraction of the time it takes for evolution to do it's work.

Answer 5

In the West, the theory of evolution continues to be promoted as if it is a proven fact or a secure, testable and tested law. This presentation implies that there is no room, let alone any need, for discussion. The most common media cliche is that the evolutionary chain has been confirmed yet again by yet another discovery of the missing link proving human ancestry from apes. Faced with this kind of promotion and presentation, and the sheer pervasiveness of it, it is no surprise if non-specialists come to accept that the theory must be true, and that it must be accepted by all the specialists, the whole scientific community, with no serious doubters. However, that perception is far from the reality. In the first place, the theory lacks completeness on two major counts and there is no likelihood of these deficiencies ever being made up. In the second, there are major voices of dissent from within the scientific community, alongside alternative theoretical explanations which demonstrate a far superior conformity with observed or experimentally obtained data.

The origin of life
To have any enduring claim to viability the theory of evolution must explain the origin of life in its own terms. It must be able to answer the question, “How did life evolve from non-living forms?’ It needs also to explain how the notion of “selection for survival” operates before life exists, to explain how “life” is the best way for non-living forms to exist longer. Just as the theory tells us that, because rhinoceroses with the thickest skin did best in battles with other rhinoceroses, over aeons of time rhinoceroses evolved skins as thick as skins can possibly get while still functioning as skins ñ so too, it needs to tell us how life is an adaptation. If it is, what is it an adaptation to? Moreover, if life is an adaptation, why is it the same across the whole range of living forms (animal or plant or in-between)? We have innumerable varieties of living forms (adapted, we are told, to different conditions of climate and competition for food resources) but we do not have different varieties of being alive. Is that what we should expect? Should we not expect that the creatures who lived longest (and had offspring the least often) would have out-survived all competition, until eventually they lived so long it was for ever? Or, vice-versa that those who lived the shortest lives (and therefore had more offspring more often) eventually fell back, after aeons of trial and proof, into hardly being alive at all individually, but merely replicating themselves? In fact, of course, the same climate and conditions of competition for food resources support both relatively long- and relatively short-lived forms at every level of complexity and thoroughly intermingled within even the same individual life-form.

Life rests upon an infinitely precarious equilibrium among the proteins, the building blocks of life, found in the simplest to the most complex of living forms. Denying the existence of a conscious Creator, the theory of evolution cannot explain how this equilibrium was established and protected. The theory proposes chance and coincidence as the only scientific way to think about the question. But a scientific way of looking at a problem must have at least some likelihood of being true, if we are to expend energy fruitfully on verifying or falsifying it. In other words, a hypothesis must be reasonable to start with so that we can test and judge it. It must not be irrational: the appeal to chance and random coincidences is nothing if not an abandonment of reason. Proteins are amino acid sequences, made up from 20 different amino acids. Each protein with its unique design presents a highly sophisticated structure consisting of thousands of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen atoms. Even some simple mutations in these sequences may render a protein useless. For those who study the structure of the proteins, it is as hopeless for these proteins to have formed by chance as the for the Aeneid (the long Latin epic by Virgil) to have been composed by random association of the letters of the Latin alphabet.

Another evolutionist scientist has offered a different analogy with the same conclusion. The probability of a chance formation of only one of the proteins required for life (Cytochrome-C) may be likened to the probability of a monkey writing out the history of humanity by randomly pushing the keys of a typewriter.

What evolution theory defends is exactly this nonsensical assertion. Yet, the examples above are only the probability calculations for the chance formation of a single protein. However, millions of similar impossible coincidences should have been realized consecutively in order for the evolution of life to be effected.

The probability of chance formation of a Cytochrome-C sequence is as low as zero. If life requires that certain sequence, it is likely to be realized only once in the whole life-time and space of the universe. Now it could be proposed that some metaphysical power(s) beyond our definition consciously enabled its formation. But to entertain such a proposition is, apparently, not appropriate for the modern enterprise of science. Therefore we have to fall back on the first hypothesis as the best we have at present.

If, as it appears, the theory of evolution is not justified by the information we have, how does it survive? Has questioning it become, among the specialists, a taboo which they violate at the risk of their reputation and their careers? If so, why? We will return to this question.

Answer 6

Neither. Evolution was started so people who don't believe in God can believe in something.

Answer 7

A scientific fact

Answer 8

neither... but religion and cult defines creationism/ ID

Answer 9

The truth, reality, the reason we are here. Pick one but leave religion out of it because it has nothing to do with it.

Answer 10

cult