Hi thousands_not_billions - welcome aboard!
You didn't use your signature in your post, but I thought you might want to read the full article from which the Michael Ruse quote in your signature is taken (I found a copy at
http://www.omniology.com/HowEvolutionBecameReligion.html). Here's the text of your signature for the benefit of others:
Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint and Mr [sic] Gish is but one of many to make it the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today. Michael Ruse
Quite obviously Michael Ruse does not believe evolutionary science is actually a religion, so the question arises, "Why did Ruse say this." The quote turns out to be the hook near the beginning of a longer article. It's intended to provoke in the reader the response, "Wait a minute, how can Ruse, a prominent supporter and advocate of evolution, say this?", thereby causing the reader to continue reading. If you read on to the end you'll see this:
The important point is that we should recognize when people are going beyond the strict science, moving into moral and social claims, thinking of their theory as an all-embracing world picture. All too often, there is a slide from science to something more, and this slide goes unmentioned -- unrealized even.
For pointing this out we should be grateful for the opponents of evolution. The Creationists are wrong in their Creationism, but they are right in at least one of their criticisms. Evolution, Darwinian evolution, is wonderful science. Let us teach it to our children. And, in the classroom, let us leave it at that. The moral messages, the underlying ideology, may be worthy. But if we feel strongly, there are other times and places to preach that gospel to the world.
--Percy
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