More on Religion pt3

“You say "Evolution is also an attribute of many religions, so would we then say that evolution is religious?" Well, I think that we could both find religions that have the attribute of being evil, so does this logic imply that all religion is evil?”

Well, I am glad we both saw the leap in logic there. And that was precisely my point, in response to your previous statement, “Scientologists and Muslims and Christians are all creationists (at least I think so) but the religions tied to their disparate creation stories are different. I would say, generally, that creationism is an attribute of some religions, but it is not in and of itself religion.” So if both evolution and creationism are parts of religious paradigms, but are not religious because of those associations, as your statement about evil so clearly illustrates, why then do you consider creationism religious?

Further, you said, “Evolution is not even remotely religious; it is a description of modification through descent that occurs in many natural systems. Saying "Evolution is religious" is roughly equivalent to making statements like "The sunshine is religious".

I am guilty of poor communication on this one. I assumed that as we spoke of “evolution” that we were talking about the ideology of the descent of life and various species, not of the adaptation that we currently observe in creation. And though adaptation is still founded and dependent upon worldviews, it is the extrapolation of this idea combined with the ideology of uniformitarianism to account for origins that I was addressing. As to this belief of evolution I think you and I would both agree that it, like creationism, is based upon an unprovable set of assumptions about the origin and early progression of the physical universe. Since both theories are then based on unprovable (by modern scientific standards) ideologies and both address the origin of the universe why is one religious and the other not?

I tend to think your answer would be contained in the statement, “If you believe in a creator you are religious and believe in a religion.” So is “belief” in something non-physical then the test of religion, rather than “worship” (for worship is nowhere mentioned and yet you still consider creationism to be religious)? Which brings this very long and intricate discussion back to the original question about the definiton of religion. Whew! My head now hurts, how about you?

Looking forward to your counter-point of my counter-point of your counter-point of my…