They both believe that evolution disproves the existence of God. This is interesting to me because it also reveals that they have something even deeper in common: they both subscribe to a very bad theology. The atheist will struggle to maintain a very weak and immature concept of God in order to “prove” this God doesn’t exist; while a fundamentalist will have a very literal and simplistic reading of scripture that undergirds a very weak and immature concept of God, albeit in the guise of an “all powerful” God that in the end becomes self-contradictory or absurd, yet is meant to sustain a rejection of evolution. That both the atheist and fundamentalist are both confused in the same way about what science actually does say, goes without saying… but maybe not.
Science actually says nothing about the existence or non-existence of God. The method of science intentionally excludes anything approaching theological language in its task of explaining phenomenon. The scientific method wasn’t developed in a vacuum. The people who struggled to articulate the scientific method included people who believed that God existed. They understood that God is not something that can be measured, is not something open to the empirical sense, and is not something that is observable. Therefore, when one uses a method of explaining phenomenon that entails observation, measurement, and reproduction of results for all to see and duplicate through empirical senses, then one isn’t going to be able to say a word about God within that method. To talk about God requires theology… not science.
Clearly and eloquently put, thank you. They are mirror images, are they not? And sadly they have another thing in common, too often: the closed mind.