| yo_john117 said: Actually I was just stating a fact that most people don't know about. A religion is basically a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe...sounds like evolution to me... Its just rather funny that atheists say they don't believe in religion yet most believe in evolution which is basically a religion. |
No, you're simply bending the words way beyond their breaking point.
Religion is not merely having any point of view about faith and gods, just as being a cynic doesn't mean having any point of view about how common desires shape our life.
Religion is a set of beliefs that strictly affirms the existence of gods/spirits/trascendental but personal forces that interact with the world in some way.
As to evolution being a religion, that's nonsense. Evolution through natural selection is a working theory that as all great scientific works has explained complex phenomena in simple, consistent terms, and has withstood the challenge of other theories and further evidence.
Scientists are ready to ameliorate and change the working theory if a better one comes along, even though most people are not knowledgeable enough to participate in that process.
When I was 15 I knew the fundamental theorem of algebra, but I could not perform its formal proof. Still, I assumed it was true and performed my calculations in consequence of that hypothesis. That was not a religious faith statement, merely the kowledge that a lot of people have formally proved it before and that in some conditions that's a correct block to stand on to perform further useful work. Or even that I would be one day able to prove it myself if I wanted.
Even though most people won't know the details of the supporting evidence for natural selection, their trust in people who know because of a self-improving scientific process is fundamentally different from blind faith in people who declare they know because of an opaque revelation. Can't you see the difference between conditional, temporary results and absolute beliefs?
