Is Evolution Compatible With Religion?

Physicist Victor Stenger concludes not.  Of course it depends on the religion.  Religion is not science and is not history, it is made up.  So someone can easily fabricate their religious belief to be compatible with evolution.


It would seem that a straightforward reading of Genesis of the Old Testament would make evolution incompatible with any religion which is based on Genesis.  But religious people are free to interpret the Bible any way they want.  And they do, as Stenger mentions.

I think Stenger should focus on evolution and intelligence.  Whatever one calls "intelligence" most people would agree that a rock is not intelligent.  Probably the same is true about plants and fungi.  Most people would agree that humans are intelligent.  What about bees?

Where one draws the line is irrelevant, what we can note is that intelligence is associated with nervous systems.  Nervous systems have evolved.  So any religion that posits an intelligent being guided evolution is being anti-evolution (unless they have evidence of how this intelligence manifests prior to evolution, and they don't of course).

Here's a clip from the movie Religulous with comedian Bill Maher confronting the head of the U.S. National Institute of Health, Francis Collins (mentioned in the Stenger piece).