In the thread about the Pope's comments, Tusko and I were discussing "evolutionism," mentioned by the Pope as a danger to religion. I suppose we can define evolutionism as an atheistic philosophy that arises out of the Theory of Evolution. Evolution suggests abiogenesis, and abiogenesis, I would argue, suggests no God.
Tusko disagrees as follows, making an interesting parallel with heliocentrism:
I agree that some people might see God as an optional extra if they accept evolution and chemical abiogenesis to be true. But I disagree that this is necessarily the only course of action that a theist can take; personally, I think it would be a mistake. I don't think the existence of God becomes any less likely if we decide that life arose from natural processes at some point rather than god reaching down and shuffling carbon and hydrogen atoms like a magic trick. An omnipotent God who sets everything up and lets it roll is just as hands on as an interventionist god, because everything goes exactly according to plan.
Those who didn't want to admit that the earth wasn't the centre of the universe saw heliocentrism as a challenge to their notion of the Almighty. Now as our notion of God has adapted, heliocentrism is largely an irrelevance.
I'd argue that its similar with evolution and abiogenesis. These concepts challege people's notion of what God is and does, but there is still plenty of room for a pretty coherent notion of God that takes into account that life didn't necessarily originate with a Kazzam! one day when some omnipotent being felt like doing something a bit different.
As I mentioned in the previous message, my hunch is that that if you play up the "preplanned" nature of the universe, God is made no more of an irrelevance than when earth just became the third rock from the sun.
The issue here is whether evolution is the same sort of thing as heliocentrism.
My own view is that evolution leads quite naturally to evolutionism and is devastating to religious belief.
(I hope I got that right, Tusko).
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