A Question to Evolutionists - Does Evolution Prove That God Does Not Exist?

Question

I am a Christian and I am very interested in the evolutionist point of view. I am going to write a report on the evolution vs. creationism debate from an impartial point of view, and I was wondering if you guys believe that evolution proves that God does not exist. Would you please give a reason why or why not evolution proves the non-existence of God?

Answer 1

Not at all. The proof of the nonexistence of an object is much more complicated than that. However, it does proove that the way that many christians want to teach creationism in our school system is quite wrong.

If you are looking for proof that he does not exist, we can come close through statistics. But it is still not an absolute proof that he doesn't exist. Here's my postulate:

If our existence is improbable so much so that a supreme being had to create us, then the creation of a supreme being is that much more improbable.

Answer 2

Evolution neither proves nor disproves a creator/god. I am not sure that it can or that this is even a goal of evolution. However creationism tries very hard to interject a creator/god into it's hypothesis. This is one of the problems I have with creationism. If we do not have a scientific explination then we just interject a creator/god into the missing link. This does not work because when science finally does have an answer does this disprove a creator/god? Or if science never has an answer does this still prove a creator/god exsists? I do not think so...
I think that Gensis shows evolution in it writings. I think that the early jews and even the other ancient religions may have had this idea of evolution but did not know how to express it fully without the use of a creator/god.
I would say that the exsistance of a creator/god will never be known by the human population unless one of two things happen...
The first is this being comes to us at the same time and tells us all the same thing and there is some kind of world wide peace and acceptance of this being. Or a human dies... When we die we will all know the truth. If we see this being and go to "heaven or hell" then we will know that the religions were right. If however we drift off into nothingness .. well we wont no anything will we.

Answer 3

Wonderful! A Christian is going to write an impartial report! It is a miracle.

OK! The thing is that there is no way so far to disprove God. One of the reasons is that God is a huge "What If?" on its own.
Religions are remarkably reluctant to formulate a testable definition of God.

What evolution does if true is destroy the whole Adam and Eve creation myth. If that falls, then the rest of the Bible falls. It either has to be all true or it is not the word of God.
Evolution is the hardest one to defend from. There is just too much evidence for it.
However religion has survived harder challenges. The Sun no longer travels across the sky to get dragged back to its start every night, the Earth is no longer the center of the universe.
Mental disease is not caused by Demonic possession any more.
Superstition will survive. People are naturally credulous.

Answer 4

Well, I'm a Christian--and a scientist. Here's my view:

Religion (and philosophy) deal with certain kinds of questions--science with others. The two do not overlap--nor do they contradict one another.

Here's why. Science is limited--by definition--to asking questions that can be resolved by examining observable (empirical/physical) evidence--and nothing else. So scientists cand study biology, palaeontolgy, etc.--and learn a lot about the process by which life developed (evolved).

And that is ALL. Some scientists have claimed that "evolution disproves religion." These scientists are as wrong as the creationists who try to insist they can "prove" religion via scientific means.

Religion deals with other questions--important ones: What are moral actions? Why are we here? Is there a God? These are NOT questions science can answer (technically, this type of question cannot be "falsified"--it cannot be subjected to a test that will prove it false if it isn't true). That does NOT mean such questions are meaningless--far from it. The whole basis of our morality, ethics, culture, law--as well as particular religious beliefs--fall into this category.

The mistake the "creationists" make is to insist that ONLY a physically literal view of one particular text--the Bible--is valid. The majority of Christians--like most people in other religions--understand that such stories as the Creation are metaphors. There may not have been a "literal" Garden of Eden--but that's not the point. The point is that the story teaches very real truths about humanity and our relationship with God. The fact that that message is expressed in symbolic terms tha tmade sense to people 3500 years ago is, frankly, all but irrelevant. In focusing on the symbology, the creationists usually manage to miss the real message.

So, no, "evolution" does NOT "disprove" the existance of God--and can't prove or disprove that one way or the other. Evolution, for the believer,simply tells us something about how the Divine--however you conceptualize that idea--went about creating the diversity of life we see around us. No more--and no less.

Answer 5

Evolution was not meant to prove or disprove the existence of god. Evolutionist do not care what you believe in. Your belief has no influence on the outcome of any evolution theory. And by reading your question, I doubt you will be able to write your report from an impartial point of view.

Answer 6

As a scientist and a theist it is a simple abstract projection for me to say: Evolution is the process through which creation unfolds; or in other words; evolution is a tool of the creator.....More than enough scientific evidence has been found to assure the evolution in the process through which life changes, but there is no truly empirical evidence that says the same for creation: Thus creation has to be taken on faith; something that science can not measure. However, if absolute proof of God is ever found, it will be found by using the scientific method, not by depending on the so called "creation sciences"...........Studies in mathematics and science already suggests the existence of alternative dimensions; which will probably someday open the window into proof of the spiritual realms.

Answer 7

No.

Nothing that is known or likely to be known about evolution proves or disproves anything related to spiritual matters. It can’t. Evolution only describes the development of the physical world. Evolutionary scientists may suggest theories for how humans developed religion, but that is very different from proving or disproving the existence of God.

(Edit) Why would some assume that a Christian cannot be objective? How can it be thought that any scientist who aggressively denies the possibility of the spiritual, Dawkins for example, is objective? Just because one has no experience with the spiritual does not make it invalid.

Answer 8

The short answer, for me, is that it proves nothing absolute about God's existence.
It does to some extent, but I am sure there are some underlying principals of evolution that are not understood, that is a niche where "God principal" can fit in, but not the God of the Bible.
Evolution is fact, it can be seen actually taking place today, in a small way, that is in the evolution of so called "super bugs" MRSA etc.
Darwin certainly believed in God, so he had to be pretty sure about his theory before propounding it.
All of the intelligent design, or creationist, literature and films that I have seen set out a skewed version, and interpretation of the theory, and then proceed to knock it down, which they easily do.
Just like me saying that I can prove prayer doesn't work, as in so many particular cases it doesn't. That would be a very shallow argument.
I wonder if any Christians spend as much time, and attempt at neutrally, studying evolution, as agnostics on finding out about religion, and Christianity. I have yet to meet one, and would find it very interesting talking to a Christian who has a grasp of evolutionary principals beyond the simplistic idea that men come from monkeys.
I think that God and evolution could co exist, as, if you are determinned to believe in God you will always find a way to accomodate him, for instance the reason he causes good Christians to suffer horribly in many apparently pointless ways.
He is mysterious by nature so for committed Christians absolutely nothing would shake their faith.
I think of it as a self serving delusion.
But maybe it isn't.

Answer 9

Nope. Evolution explains the variety of life on earth. Not that God doesnt exist.

To be totally clear, the theory of evolution has its problems and limitations. But scientifically speaking, creationism is unscientific and cannot be used as an academic(or at least scientific, if maybe philosophical) explanation.

This is because creationism explains by using a divine being that cannot be observed using scientific means. This means that the divine being is supernatural. Something which falls outside the field of the observable natural world. Something which is unscientific.

Thus science doesnt disprove religion. It merely refuses to engage with it. Hope that helps. I myself have been studying the religion/science debate for a good year now.

Answer 10

That a scientific insight could prove or disprove God is a strategy that depends on the assumption that scientific evidence is the most reliable one. This is often referred to as scientism and could also be stated as such: the only way to truth is through scientific experimentation. The statement, however, has one major philosophical problem; it is meaningless.

Let me explain. If youclaim that science is the only way to truth you are making a truth claim. However, if the claim were indeed true, it would disqualify the statement since the statement is absolutely not scientific, cannot be tested in an empirical experiment. In other words, the statement is a metaphysical statement, and in case it were true would render itself useless. It's like the old liar's paradox where Epimenides states that all Cretans are liars - him included, so does he speak the truth?

Whether you BELIEVE in God or not is not something you can solve by means of science. Good luck with your paper.

Answer 11

It depends on which God you are talking about. Some fundamentalists believe that the existance of their own God is dependent on all of their stories of creation being literally true as written in the Bible. They believe that if evolution were to be true, their whole religion would be falsified and that would mean their God did not exist.

Neither evolutionary theory nor any other field of science says anything about any God. God is religion's domain and only religion creates God or destroys it.