By making humans no more special than pond scum, a revision of our relationship with a Creator is inevitably contemplated.
That would be considered the Sin of Pride. Last I heard, that was still one of the
Seven Deadly Sins. Or is that just a
Catholic thing?
I would recommend that one follow the link you provided and read the rest of the article. I don't quite feel that your quote represents the thesis of the article, so it would require the rest of the article for context.
Also, the last "paragraph" you quote is the introduction into another section of the article. The first part was from the section, "EVOLUTION & ATHEISM", and the last sentence was from the section, "EVOLUTION & RELIGION". Here is that second section's entire first paragraph:
quote:
EVOLUTION & RELIGION
Thus while accepting evolution may not cause atheism or even necessarily make atheism more likely, there is a good chance that it will at least force a revision of what one thinks about their theism. Anyone who consciously considers and accepts evolution should think about it long and hard enough to cause them to seriously question some of their traditional religious and theistic beliefs. Such beliefs may not be abandoned, but they may not continue untouched.
And what might some of those "traditional religious and theistic beliefs" be? How's 'bout the list of YEC beliefs in a 6,000 year old earth, immutability of species (which creationists constantly violate with the hyper-evolution required by their "basic created kinds"), Noah's Flood. Beliefs which contradict the reality of their god's alleged creation. If you hold beliefs that contradict your own god's Creation, then shouldn't that be a clue that there might be something wrong with those beliefs? So shouldn't you want to detect such defects in your theology and to correct them?
But a major theistic belief among creationists and IDists appears to be the
God of the Gaps. For example, Lawyer Phillip Johnson, one of the founders of ID, stated that the primary reason he objects to evolution is because it leaves God with nothing to do. That's the attitude and kind of arguments that I keep seeing from the creationist side: if we find a natural explanation for something, then that means that God did not do it. If they were truly creationists, then they wouldn't be saying such nonsense. If they were actually creationists, then they would believe that God did create
everything, including those natural, material processes that get things done.
Evolution, along with all the other scientific ideas, describe what happens in the real world. Creation says that God created the real world and everything that makes it run. There is no inherent conflict between evolution and creation. One does not disprove the other.
But if you misrepresent either or both of those, evolution and/or creation, then you create conflict where none actually exists. That is what creationists do. And do please note that it is a small subset of creationists, YECs, who have usurped that title for themselves. A very great number of believers in Divine Creation would be excluded by the YECs for calling themselves creationists, even though that is what they are. I have read a number of anti-YEC creationists complain loudly how their own title had been usurped from them.
And it is those YEC creationists who insist that evolution is atheistic, along with all other science that does not agree with their own narrow false theology. Plus there are those non-Christians who hear YEC creationists declare that accepting evolution requires you to be an atheist and they make the mistake of accepting what they are being told at face value.
So then, no, there's nothing at all atheistic about evolution. Nor about any other scientific idea. Of course science does not mention the supernatural nor can accept any supernaturalistic explanations, but that is because science simply cannot deal with the supernatural. It says nothing about whether the supernatural exists or not, because ...
who can even tell?
So then, no, accepting evolution does not in any way require atheism. However, it may well require you to re-examine a number of facile ideas you may have about theism, but that is a good thing.