by Frank Lobsterman

Created on: January 01, 2008   Last Updated: November 19, 2009

God and Darwinism can absolutely coexist, though believing in evolution does place some restrictions on what one's faith may entail. That is not a fact limited to Darwinism, however. Every belief that a person has is potentially in conflict with another belief. As intelligent creatures living in a complex world, we are entitled to wonder about and seek answers for a multitude of questions about the universe in which we've been placed. The religious should not be afraid to inquire about Darwinism, nor should those who already believe in evolution fear or despise religion simply because belief in evolution may conflict with some religious beliefs.

In the millions of cultures and subcultures in the world and throughout history, there have been innumerable concepts of some god or gods, ranging in number from a single, all-encompassing God (monotheism) to a god for literally every object (pantheism), from entirely passive to completely involved, and from loving to vengeful (sometimes both at once). Out of these concepts, every one has a unique identity and personality, and every religion that postulates that one or some of these gods exist has a unique set of rules and beliefs to go with that belief. Of these billions of religions that have existed over time, only a handful explicitly disagree with Charles Darwin.

Among those that remain, many religions may take issue with some of what the theory of evolution states, but they are not directly opposed to evolution. For instance, nearly every religious text includes a tale about how the world began. It is up to the reader to determine how literally to take that story. It is important to realize here that, for centuries, man has sought to explain the origin of existence, and many of the earliest concepts in the religions of the world are an attempt at exactly that. But they are no more than attempts. Divinely inspired or not, it is important to note that all religious texts have been written, copied, and handed down by humans. This does not constitute a flaw in any religious text. "Where do we come from?" is the biggest question we can fathom, and a book that claims to have all the answers had better include a swipe at existence among them.

Ultimately, science and religion are out to answer the same questions. Before man devised a scientific method, all our ancestors had were guesses and supposed divine inspiration. Once a theory is tested rigorously and shown to be right with an otherwise inexplicably low margin of error, however, the reasonable thing for one to do is alter his beliefs to fit the new data. Whatever the circumstances, some historical inaccuracy in one part of a religious text almost never makes the whole thing automatically false. There is always room for some concept of God. Luckily for those who wish to retain faith, as we dive deeper into our scientific understanding of the universe, we almost invariably end up asking more questions than we answer through experimentation. We will always have some idea of something smaller or more distant than we can see or measure, some dimension or level of existence that is unattainable from the universe in which we reside, and some separate existence that we can't truly detect. Therein lies God, if nowhere else.

Learn more about this author, Frank Lobsterman.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.