One of my favorite podcasts is from slate.com. While most of the Intelligent Design pieces are anti-ID and anti-creationism, the radio piece Evolution and Religion: Quit pretending they’re compatible is very interesting. The author discusses how evolution does contradict faith, and we see this in demographic data – more people abandoning faith, as well as more people disbelieving evolution despite the “obviously true” claims of evolutionists. The author is not in favor of creationism, nor is he making political statements, just factual ones. This supports my contention that evolution is not faith-neutral (see also Why Most Evangelicals Don’t Like Evolution). From the radio essay:
“It’s just a reality that evolution does threaten belief. I’m not sure it does any of us any good to pretend that it doesn’t. It doesn’t mean that they are contradictory…or that you can’t believe in both things. But the historical reality of what happens when evolution is accepted and becomes a more prevalent belief is that religious beliefs diminish.”
Ha! So much the worse for religion. Superstitious nonsense.
The Enlightenment began the secular movement that you are blaming on evolutionary theory. Science is no more to blame for people abandoning their faith in one theory than another (say versus atomic theory or germ theory of disease). People either adapt and take a natural view of the universe, abandoning ignorance and superstition in favor of materialism, or they have their cherished worldview crushed under the weight of evidence which continually contradicts "scientific creationism" and shrinks the "god of the gaps" to a rightful place. It is bad theology and anti-reason to trumpet creationism in any form. That god will soon go the way of the dodo, and it isn't Darwin's fault–it's the fault of those who cannot make that god bigger than the bible that claims to own god.
Good science causes people to abandon superstition, not faith. And sometimes people mistakenly abandon faith thinking it disagrees with science, often throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Bad science causes people to abandon truth, both material and supernatural, including genuine faith in objective spiritual and historical truths. Evolution is such a science.
Your synonymous use of faith and ignorance/superstition indicates that you do not know the difference between the two, nor how they are related.
Also, your definition of creationism as a "god in the gaps" approach is an evolutionary canard, a red herring, a misrepresentation of what creation science is. Go do your research.
Unfortunately, I used to be a creationist, youth pastor, and hold revivals under which "the Holy Ghost moved" and people "got saved"…so I think I actually may know a little about these subjects. More than you may think.
Wow. So why did you leave it? I left charismatic xianity for 10 years, and am now returning after having explored (and enjoyed) buddhism.
If you know more about creationism, you shouldn't make "god in the gaps" accusations – that's a straw man – sure, some uneducated christians may approach it that way, but the main authors and organizations that push creationism are more educated than that.
http://creationmuseum.org/