What is the likelihood that you'd still be atheist if you were never taught evolution?

Answer 1

There were atheists before evolution was discovered.

Evolution has nothing to do with my atheism; rather, the absurdities of religion does.


Evolution has made the stance easier to defend academically, though......so people like Hume, etc were relatively brave.

Answer 2

The thing is, the answer to the question "where do we come from" demands an answer. The Biblical account is obviously nonsense, though it served its purpose in less enlightened times. Genesis is merely science for the first millennium BC. We've moved on. Now we are all scientific, including you, because we all want the benefits that science brings. With such an unsatisfactory answer as "God did it", someone was always going to keep looking for a better one. So a world today without evolution was never going to happen.

And the answer to the problems it brings to the religiously minded is NOT to not teach it.

And I was an atheist long before I learned about evolution. How sweet evolution seemed when I read it in detail though!

Answer 3

I do not see any logical relationship between atheism and evolution. One can be a theistic evolutionist, and one can be an non-evolutionary atheist (everything exists as it is for all time with only apparent change within fixed parameters). There were atheists before Darwin.

Having said that (giving due weight to the word "likelihood"), evolution does make it easier to imagine an adequate explanation for natural and human development without recourse to a deity.

Answer 4

Very high, I guess. I was an atheist before I was taught about evolution. My parents never indoctrinated me, so I imagine I would have required some sort of evidence for a religious belief whether I understood evolution or not. And since such evidence doesn't exist, I can't see how I could have picked up a religion.

Answer 5

100%
I'm not an Atheist because of the Theory of Evolution. I am because when I started to check up on the stuff in the bible none of it held up. When I looked back across history I realized that every civillization had the same basic structure of religion and it always explained things the people didn't understand I.E. What happens after death.

Evolution and the Big Bang theories both have evidence and facts that support them. Both could be wrong and I'm open to other models as long as the facts support them.

Answer 6

While not an atheist, I rejected the fundamentalist concept of judeo-christianity because the stories in the bible were at odds with known and observed facts. I accept the bible and it's teachings as allegorical. Evolution and the big bang were consistent with known and observed facts, and allowed me to develop a religious philosophy which could account for both.

Answer 7

I was a Christian, and as long as I "believed" that evolution was a lie or made up by a bunch of bumbling scientists I stayed that way. Once I realized the massive amounts of evidence for it, it started me checking out evidence for other things. This occurred recently in my adult years.

But, no, being taught evolution did not effect my beliefs in school.

Answer 8

Well, I guess if I was only taught the religious side, and not given any science, then I would believe in God. It is obvious that if you are only aware of one belief, you will accept it. But if I was not taught evolution, or about religion, then I would probably be atheist.

Answer 9

100% it isn't just evolution, it is all the sciences, evolution just offends fundamentalists because if death did not begin with Adam's sin, then Jesus was not only a false prophet, he was unnecessary. If dinosaurs existed, then Christianity is false. However, that isn't the only set of false claims in the bible. The bible is so riddled with errors that any fundamentalist should become an atheist.

Answer 10

The same as the likely hood that I would know 2+2=4 if I had never been taught math.