PioneerWhat comon factors are there betwen the theory of evolution and general relegious beliefes?

I disagree, I wouldn't call a scientific theory a 'belief system', and it certainly isn't dogmatic for the theory has changed over time as new evidence came up.

1) Both are *belief systems*, with the difference that Evolution is supported by huge amounts of scientific research, and Religion only by "divinely inspired scriptures"
2) Both are dogmatic, essentially arguing that "Since it (Evolution, Creation) cannot have happened in any other way, it (Evolution, Divine Creation) must be true"

@Lukas Wie schon gesagt: Es endet schlussendlich in einem Glaubens-Krieg. Anderer Level sagte ich nicht, höher oder geringerer... Anderer Level verlangt nach anderen Quellen.

Who ever said 'it is the same as Darwin proposed'? Darwin didn't even know about genetics, so obviously, the modern synthesis in the 40s added some stuff. The remarkable thing is that Darwin still got it right most of the time.

"only look at the genetic code and judge over people / species"
Stop constructing straw men, nobody said that either. Evolution states that living organism descended from earlier species through modifications. All life shares a common ancestor. I don't see anything that justifies judging people by looking at their genetic code, that's another subject (genetics).

There is this thing called Separation of Church and State. If you lived in a Muslim country, would you be happy to hear all the time that the Qu'ran is scientific fact? Or if you lived in India, would you want to hear the Vedas as science? People have different believes, and no belief should be preffered at the cost of the others, EXCEPT if it's no longer a belief but actually science.

This is the part you really don't seem to understand. Science doesn't claim to be 'on the same level as faith'. Science is on a HIGHER level. Faith is belief WITHOUT evidence. Science is knowing BECAUSE of evidence. If the evidence changes, science changes. When was the last time the Bible adjusted to the facts? Right - it's unchangable dogma.

And a 'theory' in science has a very defined meaning different to what is meant in every-day English. The biologist Stephen J. Gould has neatly expressed this in his essay 'Evolution as Fact and Theory':

(by the way, the following text is excerpt from my Matura Paper 'The Public Acceptance of Evolution - Why Darwinism is Received with so much Resistance')

“In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact"--part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evolution is "only" a theory and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can't even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? […] Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.”

Scientists do regard it as a fact that organisms evolved. How they did it is explained by the theory of evolution. A theory can never become a fact, yet this doesn’t mean that natural selection is at all likely not to be the main mechanism behind it. Any current scientific theory, such as the theory of relativity or the germ theory of disease, has successfully predicted the outcomes of hundreds of experiments and has never been falsified by evidence. The modern synthesis is among the most rigorously tested theories; the likelihood that it has got the main mechanisms wrong is astronomically low.

(End excerpt)

You should really question your beliefs. I recommend doing the research. There is this thing called DNA comparison. Just like in textual criticism, one can produce a tree of ancestry by comparing the DNA of different species. And the resulting tree (even the fact that there is a result is evidence for evolution) matches up perfectly with evidence from geographical distribution, fossil record and embryology.

Kurz gesagt, ich erachte das nicht mehr als wissenschaftlich, wer die System-Grenze so weit hin aufmacht, dass er neben der Evoluti-Theorie oder was auch noch immer den Glauben hinzu nimmt. Das ist doch absurd.
Die Theorie muss sich in den zuvor eng gesetzten Grenzen aufhalten, sonst läuft sie die Gefahr, nicht mehr gültig zu sein... Und Wissenschaft zeichnet sich dadurch aus, dass man im untersuchten System möglichst viel ausschliesst - nicht einschliesst. - Anstatt wird hier mit einer Theorie einfach schier beliebig weit zurück interpoliert, um etwas zu erklären, was man nicht erklären kann.
Wir wissen nur, dass Leben aus Leben kommt. Viel mehr wissen wir über Leben auf dem wissenschaftlichen Level (mit deren Quellen) nicht. Andere Quellen stehen der engen Wissenschaft auch nicht zur Verfügung - ausser man öffnet die System-Grenzen hin zum Glauben...

Aber dann ist der Evoluti ein gläubiger... der an seine Theorie glaubt...

BTW: For about 40 till 60 years it was just normal to pray in the school, sing a "religious" song, listen to the stories written down in the bible, etc. Whats not normal is that some theory-people come in and say "we are on the same LEVEL as the believers, through away your god!"
WHEN it is science, why then do they talk and act on the same LEVEL of the believers do?! That's stupid at all.
Let the science be the science (with all there misleading, etc. in the past... "THE EARTH IS FLAT". That was a scientific FACT... not as far way from know...) and the believers be the believers at there level.
All else is some kind of judge people before they can speak for them-self.
It's nothing wrong when a atheist do science (and become later on christian or not) - or a christian (or other religious) do science and become atheist or not.

Again, it's an other level. Faith is an other level. Don't mix up.

Else I must take all atheists as believers and they mix-up science with faith. That's not serious at all.

What's scientifically wrong at the moment does not mean it is on the level of faith. (If in an other culture it's is normal that you can be on more then just one place in the same time - you can't take this as an evidence for an alibi.)

I repeat: "It's not the same as Darwin stated (!)) originally". Read the source. Ask a historian. Believe is an other level of thinking. Propaganda works good... as in other fields of so called "science"... ;-)

"In the US, 40% of the population thinks evolution is a lie. Even in Switzerland the number is around 25%, that's alarming."

It's alarming, that there are people who think they have a *only* a theory without any practical applications nor reproduced anything - so that they can only look at the genetics code to judge over other people... other races... other species... THATS ALARMING!

"I think religion has always been a catalyst for conflict between people of different cultural backgrounds." --> right, and horrible. this is because often the religious leaders, as soon as they realize they have an influence on their followers, they start inventing rules "based" on what God said and they use them to increase their political power. and they quit their "theological" job to take on their "dictator" hat...
Wouldn't it be great sitting around a table with some beers (or some pizza, depending on religious beliefs haha) and just discussing about what we think God is or is not, as friends, enriching our experience listening to the opinion on other people?
Evolution is something that should be discussed among life scientists and not in the church.
(Ah, I live in Switzerland although I am not Swiss, and I doubt that 25% of people here refers to evolution as a lie...)

I think religion has always been a catalyst for conflict between people of different cultural backgrounds. Only since the Enlightenment, there are now some 'moderate' religious denominations one can actually reason with.

I think evolution does have serious implications on philosophy, so it definately shouldn't be ignored. If modern theologians manage to unify their faith with science, that's great, but one is left wondering how much of the original meaning of their religion is still left. I think it's horrible how many people reject science based on their religious motivation. In the US, 40% of the population thinks evolution is a lie. Even in Switzerland the number is around 25%, that's alarming.

Many years ago, Religion was about God and not about if the fish and the frog are relatives or not. Now Religion is about haircuts, clothes, food, hats, bombs, sex, money, politics...
The real theologists of centuries or millennia ago, who where studying God, don't exist anymore, the theologists of nowadays are just spending their time to find reasons to call themselves and their followers "right" and their neighbour "different" or even "wrong" or "evil". Religion is the cause of ALL the wars nowadays.
Evolution is a topic for the faculty of Biology, not Theology.

I can't really think of any similarites. Evolution is neither a religion nor a philosophy, it's a scientific theory just like gravity or the germ theory of disease. Religion advocates human-centered world views, whereas evolution tells us that humans are one of millions of species, all of which have evovled for an equal amount of time.

So while it is certainly possible to be religious and accept science, this can only be achieved by rationalizing and reinterpreting traditional religious texts. There's nothing in evolution as a concept that has anything in common with the belief in a 'soul' or just anything 'special' about humans. Evolution has no goal, while teleology is a central aspect in every religion.

And yeah, MZ Mustun is wrong, people don't 'believe' in the theory of relativity or the theory of evolution, they accept it because of the overwhelming evidence.

I think that it needs much more to believe in a abstract theory like the modern evolution is - (BTW: It's not the same as Darwin stated (!)) - then to believe in God. So one similarity is that both must believe in it, theory or creation. (Sure, a fanatic evolutionist will not tell you that he is a believer...but he really is...)