"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things." - Romans 1:20-23 NKJV
"for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:" - Acts 17:23 NKJV
Religion is a naturally occurring phenomenon in human beings. From the moment we are able to comprehend and wonder about the creation, we begin wondering about its Creator. This is especially evident in Acts 17, where Luke comes across some pagans who, though they knew God exists, were unaware of exactly who or what he is. Even today, scientific studies show that children are theistic by default. In Japan, for example, children ask their parents about God, despite Theism being relatively absent from Japan's religious culture.
As science has developed, and we are able to take an even closer look at the creation, we see even more evidence of God's hand. We see the machine-like nature of living bodies. We see the fine tuning of the universe that enables our planet to support life. We see a complex language system far more complex than any computer code in every living cell. On a regular basis, scientists are discovering new and amazing things, all of which are testament to the power of our God.
Yet despite this evidence, mankind has often sought to push God aside, diminishing His role in our world, or even denying His existence altogether. It is worth noting that Evolution itself has existed in various forms in various cultures throughout history, only recently piggybacking on science.
But however "rational" Evolutionists claim to be, Evolution is a foolish religion. Numerous times, the Bible tells us that fools take no pleasure in understanding, which perfectly sums up Evolution. Scientific inquiry into the topic is heavily suppressed, even to the point of dissenters being ostracised from the scientific community, and even society itself.
The reality is, Evolution is just one more religion setting itself against the knowledge of the living God. To quote Michael Ruse, an Evolutionist himself, "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 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."
Such terminology goes against the grain of many in our culture, especially Evolutionists themselves. After all, isn't Evolution just a scientific process? And doesn't religion have to include some kind of deity?
The answer to both of these is a resounding no. Now, there is one caveat: The precise definition of Evolution is heavily disputed. Many Evolutionists define Evolution as just "change over time", which does happen, and has been happening for 6,000 years. Cain did not perfectly resemble Adam. Noah did not have to take 2 lions and 2 tigers on the ark, merely two representatives of the Panthera kind ("kind" being roughly equivalent to genus on the Linnaean classification system). It is generally unwise to phrase it like this, but if we define Evolution as merely "change over time", then even Creationists are Evolutionists.
But this definition is functionally useless for discussions of this kind. When we discuss whether or not Evolution is true, we're not discussing the things everyone already believes. Rather, there are things only an Evolutionist believes. The Big Bang (a.k.a. Cosmic Evolution), abiogenesis (a.k.a. Chemical Evolution), and Universal Common Descent (a.k.a. Biological Evolution) are all beliefs uniquely held by Evolutionists, whereas they are rejected by anyone who believes the Bible.
The issue with calling any of these elements "science" is that no one has ever observed them. We never saw them happen, we never find evidence that they could (much less did), we do not see them in motion, and we even have incredibly strong evidence that they are 100% impossible under known scientific laws. Most importantly, whether they happened or not, the key word there is "happened", as in past tense.
Tense matters. Whenever we describe a scientific process, it technically works in all three tenses, but we generally describe it in the present tense. This is because nature is unchanging. Gravity, for example, is a force which draws objects towards each other until they encounter resistance. It's why you can't just start flying. The Earth is pulling you towards it, and, to a significantly lesser extent, you are pulling the Earth towards you. This is what is happening, and because the laws of nature are constant, it is what has always happened since God established the heavens and the Earth, and is what will always happen until the end of creation's history. Past, present, future tense, with an emphasis on the present.
By contrast, Evolution works in neither the present, nor future tenses. It supposedly happened in the past, and so that is where its emphasis must be placed. We can say (though of course erroneously) that humans evolved from ape like ancestors, because that is the contention of the Evolutionist religion. We cannot, however, say that humans are evolving from ape like ancestors, or that we will evolve from ape like ancestors, because we are already here. It is worth noting, on top of this, that our supposed ape-like ancestors have never been discovered.
Thus, Evolution cannot be an issue of science, simply because science deals with natural processes in the observable present. Even many Evolutionists admit this. As was once found on the NCSE website, for example, "According to this naïve view, the key to the unique success of science at producing true knowledge is “The Scientific Method”, which, on the standard account, involves formulating hypotheses, making predictions, and then going into the laboratory to perform the crucial experiment. (...) In contrast, the work of many evolutionary biologists involves the reconstruction of the past. The methods they use do not conform to the standard view of “The Scientific Method”".
The NCSE is an anti-Christian lobbying group, marketing itself as an organisation that defends and promotes accurate and effective scientific education, helping students overcome their misconceptions about science. Yet, here we see them flat out admitting that whereas the scientific method, on a standard account, involves formulating hypotheses, making predictions, and then performing experiments, Evolution is about the past, and thus the methods of Evolutionary biologists "do not conform to the standard view of the scientific method".
But if Evolution is not science, what is it? The academic field dealing with the past is actually called "history". Evolution, therefore, rather than being a fact about science, is a myth about history. It is a variety of claims about what supposedly happened in the past, not a description of testable processes still going on in the present.
So, what about the claim that religion must involve a god of some kind? This, it turns out, is so easily proven false that all I need is 4 words: Buddhism has no gods. Now, although I could stop it there, I am of course going to expand on it. To begin with, I must confess that my knowledge of Buddhism is extremely limited, and frankly, I trust National Geographic about as far as I can throw one of their magazines, but here is what they say regarding Buddhism: "Buddhists do not believe in any kind of deity or god, although there are supernatural figures who can help or hinder people on the path towards enlightenment."
Thus, we see that gods are not necessary for religion. Though Buddhism does not include any gods, and would certainly not speak highly of monotheistic gods like the Holy Trinity, no one denies that Buddhism is a religion. And there are a great many religions aside from Buddhism that do not believe in gods. Ultimately, there are no dictionary definitions that make gods, or even the supernatural, a requirement to classify a belief as religious.
It is unfortunate that "religion" is yet another widely disputed term, and I cannot actually find two dictionaries that agree on what it means. However, I have, in my lifetime, managed to find a single definition of religion that encompasses all things commonly recognised as a religion without including things such as hobbies about which one is passionate: "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs."
Does this describe Evolution? As much as I have seen Evolutionists object to this, the simple fact is that yes, it describes Evolution perfectly. There are a few objections, however.
To begin with, they note the second part, "...especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs." This, they claim, excludes Evolution. There are three problems with this defence, however. The first is that it would, once again, eliminate a large number of other religions. It is worth noting that I have selected this definition entirely because I want a definition that will not do this. I don't want to define "religion" in such a self-serving manner as to exclude atheistic religions, any more than I want to make a common Christian mistake by defining religion in such a way as to exclude Christianity. You've all likely seen it: Christianity is a relationship, not a religion. This is a great message until you realise that the word of God Himself says "Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." (James 1:27).
This basically means that although I have selected this definition, I am not wedded to it. I can happily take the first half and reject the latter. But I can do this simply because of the word "especially". "Especially" does not mean "necessarily". If I say "I love all dogs, especially my dog", does that mean all dogs are my dog? No, the vast majority of dogs do not belong to me. Yet, I said I love all dogs, which means I love dogs that are not mine. In the same way, while religions can include those other things, we can easily define it as simply "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe" without excluding the rest of the definition. We simply do not apply these extra elements in cases where they are not present.
But the third problem with this objection is that actually, a lot of it still applies to Evolution. As Michael Ruse pointed out earlier in this article, "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."
And ultimately, due to the nature of morality, it is 100% impossible for an origins worldview not to comment on morality. If you get rid of the government, does that not have an effect on the law? If you don't believe in God, therefore, does that not change the effect of His laws on your life? Of course it does!
Now, to be 100% clear, this doesn't mean Evolutionists believe Darwin stood atop Mt. Sinai and carved 10 commandments into stone. Atheistic philosophies like Evolution remove morality entirely, and so one can no more say an Evolutionist must kill off the weak and protect the strong than that he must flee from sexual immorality. However, removing God from the picture allows Evolutionists to form their own moral philosophies, with the one who is "right", ultimately, being the one with the biggest gun. If an Evolutionist, hearing his God-given conscience, wants to be a charitable individual who has compassion for the poor, pleads the widow's case, and seeks a somewhat Christian view of justice (as many of them do), there are no moral laws that say he cannot. It's just that there are no moral laws that says he has to either, and given the nature of Evolution, it actually makes more sense not to. As popular Christian apologist Ken Ham likes to quip, "Get rid of spare cats, get rid of spare kids". Or, as Darwin himself stated, "At some future period the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla." and "...excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."
You see, therefore, that Evolution is anything but scientific. It isn't even halfway decent as a claim about science. Rather, by the most reasonable definitions, Evolution is just one more man-made religion, designed to set itself against the knowledge of God. As Christians, we need to expose it for the lie that it is, so that those caught in its talons may come to know Jesus and be set free (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). Sadly, those who conclude their earthly sojourn with such an abominable view will themselves, save only for a conflicting faith in Jesus Christ, be assigned a fate worse than Evolution: An eternity suffering the righteous wrath of their Holy Creator.