I don't like the claim "believing in evolution". I accept the evidence that science has gathered, and that evidence confirms the Theory of Evolution through natural selection. But should new evidence arrive that renders that previous evidence null and void we would not hold on to that theory and find another explanation.
As for Evolutions "reason for God" (another phrase I don't like at all, evolution has no "reason").
Gods are credited with creating and controlling things we didn't understand at the time. If something is beyond your ability to understand, by explaining it away (God did it) you can move on to something else - something that is not outside your present ability to understand correctly. If we did not do that we'd be stuck trying to explain lightning but never succeeding because we never move past it to explain electricity first and come back to lightning later. It allows us to postpone a decision on something far out of reach, and learn about and explain correctly those things which are within our intellectual reach - and that is an evolutionary advantage for use of a god.
Today we no longer need gods to provide these stop-gap explanations - partly because science moves so fast nowadays, but also because the track record of the gods is so miserable. But beliefs passed on from father to son, from tribe to tribe, from country to country, for centuries to millennia, are not that easily dismissed.
As science progresses and more explanations are found, the role gods play become less. From a specific personal anthropomorphic god gods became more and more an untangeble obscure supernatural formless something. A cosmic finetuner, a string creator, a first cause. It is nothing like the god as found in the Torah, Bible or Quran.
As for Evolutions "reason for God" (another phrase I don't like at all, evolution has no "reason").
Gods are credited with creating and controlling things we didn't understand at the time. If something is beyond your ability to understand, by explaining it away (God did it) you can move on to something else - something that is not outside your present ability to understand correctly. If we did not do that we'd be stuck trying to explain lightning but never succeeding because we never move past it to explain electricity first and come back to lightning later. It allows us to postpone a decision on something far out of reach, and learn about and explain correctly those things which are within our intellectual reach - and that is an evolutionary advantage for use of a god.
Today we no longer need gods to provide these stop-gap explanations - partly because science moves so fast nowadays, but also because the track record of the gods is so miserable. But beliefs passed on from father to son, from tribe to tribe, from country to country, for centuries to millennia, are not that easily dismissed.
As science progresses and more explanations are found, the role gods play become less. From a specific personal anthropomorphic god gods became more and more an untangeble obscure supernatural formless something. A cosmic finetuner, a string creator, a first cause. It is nothing like the god as found in the Torah, Bible or Quran.
Best regards,
Leo van Miert
Horsepower is how hard you hit the wall --Torque is how far you take the wall with you
Leo van Miert
Horsepower is how hard you hit the wall --Torque is how far you take the wall with you
