Why is evolution sometimes viewed as an atheist conspiracy?

Question

I find this very difficult to understand when used as an argument by believer that somehow science and evolution are related to atheists being 'out to get you' or 'trying to take God away from you'. Scientists are Christians and atheists and Hindus and Buddhists and Sufi's and Muslims and.......and.....Acknowledging the evolution theory has nothing to do with belief in God. If you are open minded you can see that belief and evolution can coincide. What does it matter how you were created? Believe in God and enjoy your life. It isn't an atheist conspiracy. (Buddhist Yogini)

Sorry about some of the weird typos, new keyboard and no coffee: not a good typing combo:)

This isn't open season just to start attacking people either so please don't think that's what I want. Thoughtfulness and kindness go a long way......

But their are Christian Evolutionists and they aren't backing Creationism......I don't understand the difficulty here. I really don't.

I believe they made a play about the trials called 'Inherit the Wind' if my acting memory serves me correctly........

Answer 1

It is by a small subset of fundamentalists that evolution is seen as an atheist conspiracy.

Evolution is science, not religion. However, they think that if they can poke holes in evolution (which they really don't do at all, but think they do) then they somehow prove the existence of God.

Yeah, I don't get it either.

I am a Christian and I don't deny evolution by any means. I also don't deny gravity. Most churches back evolution, too.

Science can be said to deny the whole "young earth" business of certain creationists.

I think I've known three people in real life who actually think the world is 6000 years old. It's just that they're the loudest, most adamant ones, and thus people think all Christians are like that.

We're not. I promise.

Answer 2

According to some Christians, the Bible was written directly by God. Since God is perfect, he must be telling the truth. If anything in the Bible is not true, that would mean that either God is imperfect or that the Bible is not accurate. Either way, it would lessen the importance/value of having faith in the Christian view of spirituality.
Evolution says that the world didn't start with humans and dinosaurs and fish, etc. It says that abiogenesis occured, giving rise to protobionts, then prokaryotes, then eukaryotes, etc. This implies that the story of creation as told by Genesis is inaccurate. Rather than just ignoring this small, insignificant part of the Bible, some Christians insist that the Bible must be 100% literally true and therefore must oppose evolution. (They use theological, not scientific evidence to argue against it.) Of course, simply admitting that a small section of the Old Testament is not literally true wouldn't be unprecedented. For instance, look at Leviticus 25:44-46, which encourages ownership of slaves. Today, that passage is no longer viewed as literally true.

My point is that some Christians are so insecure that they are unwilling to admit that a small piece of the Bible isn't literally true, so they try to convince others that it is simply a trick to may make them lose faith.

Answer 3

The 10 incarnations of Vishnu, one of the 3 main Hindu deities, are in sync with the evolution. This is commonly known as Dashavatars (10 incarnations)
1. Matsya -- Fish .. the carrier and navigator of the ship of all vital creatures and knowledge required for the creation of universe.
2. Kurma -- Turtle
3. Varaha -- Boar
4. Narasimha -- Half Lion and Half Human
5. Vamana -- Dwarf Man
6. Parashurama -- Saint with Axe
7. Rama -- King
8. Krishna --
9. Balarama -- But in most books this is treated as an incarnation of Shesha Naga, the snake on which Vishnu relaxes ..
or
9. Buddha --- The incarnation of Vishnu as Buddha
This is controversial as many books and temples toggle between these 2 great people as incarnation of Vishnu...
10. Kalki -- The final incarnation that shall result is completion of the cycle and result in destruction of this universe to be flooded such for Matsya to be born again to start a new cycle.

Answer 4

It is only really a problem for a certain subset of Christianity. These are the ones who believe in 100% blind faith in the Bible as being the literallly true word of God. For them the creation story, Noah's flood, talking animals, all of it are literally true. No metaphor or allegory.
If evolution is correct than Genesis's account (actually there are two different Genesis stories but thats a whole other topic) can't be literally correct. This means their beliefs and view of God are challenged. Since they aren't open to modifying their belief this puts them in conflict with science. They have opposite values from science, for them changing view based on new data is a weakness, continuing to believe the same thing regardless of data is faith. In science being willing to alter your belief and thinking and adapt to new information is a strength in the search for knowledge. Not all Christians are like this but the Christians who believe like this now are saying they are the only true Christians.

Answer 5

Well, religionists want to be the "experts" in all things. Denial of "evolution" is historical, because it quickly followed the refutation of the Earth as the center of the Universe.

Science and religion have been in conflict, and religion denies almost everything science says (science does not deny, it merely fails to support religion). It depends on whether or not you want "belief" (something held as truth with no basis in fact), or "evidence" (that which demonstrates empirical support for an idea.)

The "purpose" of science is NOT to demonstrate that religion is false (this is a Christian myth), but to offer ideas that have actual evidence to support them.

Chistians "see" evolution as something that attempts to refute "creation". But an interesting question is just how did God "create" the universe? Perhaps the details of His creation might be called "evolution" - the Bible does not say, but Christians cannot admit this obvious fact.

Ron.

Answer 6

Many do not believe God and evolution can are compatible. Those people will tell you that evolution is an athiest conspiracy. They point to the Skopes monkey trial in Tennessee as evidence. That was a bit of a conspiracy by all parties to get evolution introduced into the schools along with creationism. Up until that point it was against the law. It pitted a noted athiest against a noted fundamentalist and the athiest was so brilliant in court he actually ruined the life of the fundamentalist (although he did win the court battle). The athiest actually called the fundamentalist christian prosecutor as a defense witness and publically humilitated him.
People take this as evidence of an athiest conspiracy (that is where it started).
People are not opened minded about religion. Many people believe it is their way or the highway.
My physics professor was an orthodox Jewish man and he was quite comfortable in both roles.

Answer 7

There are many people in this world that are "afraid" of what they do not understand. They "fear" that if they listen to something that goes against their current "beliefs" that it will inspire them to go away from what they hold dear. A true Christian does NOT fear science, or any of it's findings..as a matter of fact, we rather welcome it's "findings" insofar as many of these are just "theories" and should be thought of as such, until there is distinct & UNdebatable evidence that these "theories" are absolute facts. The evolutionary THEORY has WAY too many flaws & yet many people in the "scientific" world wish to continue to push this "theory" forward as truth. I am only interested in facts...and I find your statement about evolution as an atheist conspiracy rather amusing. However your question about "what does it matter how you were created?"....that DOES concern me, as God has given us the intelligence & desire to answer that question to the benefit of ALL humanity!

Answer 8

Evolution theory is a religious belief that fundamentally requires adherence to the religion of atheism and/or the religion of pantheism. “Evolution” is a hypothetical, unobserved process (without any known scientific mechanism) by which all things in the universe are said to have created themselves from nothing without needing the existence of a Creator. Evolution is a hypothetical process of onwards-and-upwards self-improvement where all things somehow create themselves and somehow increase their complexity of their own accord.

Answer 9

The problem is that the development of Man by naturalistic processes makes God unnecessary in explaining our existence. The fact that evolution has been around more than 2,000 years and natural selection was developed by two Christians (Darwin had not yet become agnostic) is completely ignored by those who prefer lies to facts.

Answer 10

Fear. The idea of evolution threatens what they have believed for years. Most people respond with rejection if you tell them they have been wrong all along. Galileo was forced to take back what he said about the earth not being the center of the universe. If you look at history, this is nothing new. This link is a great essay explaining the history of new discoveries. (yes, it is an atheist site..take it how you will)

http://englishatheist.org/zsvc.shtml