Do you think Darwinism is incompatible with all forms of religion, or just with the literal 7-day creation story?
I think that any Abrahamic religion, no matter how loosely interpreted, is fundamentally incompatible with Darwinism. For Eastern religions, it's more complicated, but most versions are incompatible. The one I'd say has the best chance of potentially being compatible would be Advaita Vedanta, or perhaps the atheist sects of Buddhism. The only way in which Advaita Vedanta is incompatible with science that I can think of, would be that it is idealist rather than materialist. So it may not be incompatible with evolution itself, just with science more broadly.
Then there are philosophical ideas such as pantheism and deism. I would not consider these religions, since they are not widely practiced and developed more through philosophical thought rather than through folklore and dogma. I think it might be right to say these are compatible with Darwinism, and that the reasons they are bad philosophy have more to do with internal problems than with any incompatibility with evolution.
I think if you were to poll people, they would have a very different (and very wrong) impression of the compatibility between science and religion in general, and especially between evolution and religion. So it's good to see movies clearing this point up.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: religious darwinists
Date: 2010-10-12 09:20 am (UTC)Do you think Darwinism is incompatible with all forms of religion, or just with the literal 7-day creation story?
I think that any Abrahamic religion, no matter how loosely interpreted, is fundamentally incompatible with Darwinism. For Eastern religions, it's more complicated, but most versions are incompatible. The one I'd say has the best chance of potentially being compatible would be Advaita Vedanta, or perhaps the atheist sects of Buddhism. The only way in which Advaita Vedanta is incompatible with science that I can think of, would be that it is idealist rather than materialist. So it may not be incompatible with evolution itself, just with science more broadly.
Then there are philosophical ideas such as pantheism and deism. I would not consider these religions, since they are not widely practiced and developed more through philosophical thought rather than through folklore and dogma. I think it might be right to say these are compatible with Darwinism, and that the reasons they are bad philosophy have more to do with internal problems than with any incompatibility with evolution.
I think if you were to poll people, they would have a very different (and very wrong) impression of the compatibility between science and religion in general, and especially between evolution and religion. So it's good to see movies clearing this point up.