The Washington Post‘s Michael Gerson recently wrote:
The latest findings of the Pew Forum’s massive and indispensable U.S. Religious Landscape Survey reveal some intriguing confusion among Americans on cosmic issues. About 13 percent of evangelicals, it turns out, don’t believe in a personal God, leading to a shameful waste of golf time on Sunday mornings. And 9 percent of atheists report that they are skeptical of evolution. Are there atheist creationists?
Well, there probably aren’t any atheist creationists, although, if Richard Dawkins can be an “Atheist for Jesus,” anything is possible. Yes, these folks may be severely confused (“deluded,” if you prefer).
However, perhaps many of these atheists, while not being creationists, are simply skeptical of the Darwinian mechanism. (Gerson seems to miss that lack of belief in Darwinism is not the same as creationism — at least if words are to have any meaning.) Clearly they have to believe in some sort of naturalistic evolution. But that doesn’t mean they think there is good evidence for Darwin’s particular theory of natural selection.
But hey, if Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett can argue that belief in God is a trick of our brain evolution, I suppose our brains can play all sorts of tricks on us leading to not only false but contradictory beliefs. It should (but does not) surprise me that no one can be found arguing that lack of belief in God is a trick of the human evolution. Today I have a podcast arguing that far from evidencing that God is a trick of the brain, the latest findings of cognitive and developmental psychology actually buttress theistic belief.