New Atheists "Get It Wrong" - How So?

Richard Dawkins: author of The God Delusion, now being taken to task by Sean Illing for 'intellectual laziness' in responding to religionists.

Sean Illing in a recent salon.com article ('New Atheism's Fatal Arrogance:The Glaring Intellectual Laziness of Bill Maher And Richard Dawkins') tries to make the case that "New Atheism" is way off the beam and suffers from intellectual torpor. Illing writes:

"New Atheism became part of the zeitgeist, a well-timed reaction against religious fundamentalism. The New Atheists are notoriously pugilistic. In print or on stage, they never run from a fight. Whatever you think of their tactics, they’ve succeeded at putting fanatics and moralizers on the defensive – and that’s a good thing."

Damned right it's a good thing because we have taken tons of crap, epithets and insults from the hyper-religious for years, hell decades. Thus, it was only a matter of time before atheists collectively struck back - giving as good as they got.  The descriptor "notoriously pugilistic" is therefore not much use without also noting the pugilistic, hostile provocations that incepted it.

Illing goes on:

"But there’s something missing in their critiques, something fundamental. For all their eloquence, their arguments are often banal. Regrettably, they’ve shown little interest in understanding the religious compulsion. They talk incessantly about the untruth of religion because they assume truth is what matters most to religious people. And perhaps it does for many, but certainly not all – at least not in the conventional sense of that term. Religious convictions, in many cases, are held not because they’re true but because they’re meaningful, because they’re personally transformative. New Atheists are blind to this brand of belief."

In fact, this isn't strictly true. I've explored the basis for religious convictions in a number of previous blog posts, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/01/peeling-back-layers-of-religious-brain.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/04/brain-babble-orwords-from-on-high.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/01/brain-studies-show-religious-absolutism.html


Also, I explored the personally transformative aspect of religious beliefs in my recent book, Beyond Atheism, Beyond God, noting the appeal of emergent holistic God-concepts and how some of them (e.g. Brahman, Holomovement) could be reconciled with meaningful scientific tenets  - especially from quantum theory. Some aspects of this were explored in a number of other blog posts, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/12/gods-in-brain-but-not-personal.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/06/teilhard-style-conscious-evolution.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/03/michio-kakus-model-of-mijnd-is-too.html

The key point is not all arguments are "banal" as Illing claims.

Illing again:

"It’s perfectly rational to reject faith as a matter of principle. Many people (myself included) find no practical advantage in believing things without evidence. But what about those who do? If a belief is held because of its effects, not its truth content, why should its falsity matter to the believer? Of course, most religious people consider their beliefs true in some sense, but that’s to be expected: the consolation derived from a belief is greater if its illusory origins are concealed"

Once more a valid point that I've conceded in sundry blog posts, as well as in my recent book. Therein I noted the "Camus conundrum" discussed by Greg M. Epstein ( Good Without God, p62) to do with Albert Camus’ novel, The Plague.  The essence is embodied in a question Camus’ character Jean Tarrou asks his friend, Rieux:

'Why do you show such devotion considering you don’t believe in God?'

Epstein put this in a contemporary setting, referencing a 2006 book tour by Richard Dawkins for his God Delusion. According to Epstein,  Dawkins was somewhat startled when a young man approached him and asked directly: "Dr. Dawkins, I am thinking of committing suicide, what do you have to say?   Epstein relates that initially Dawkins was so nonplussed he could think of nothing to say,  then suggested the young man (a student at Harvard) could go to the humanist chaplain or – if he’d been at Oxford, he could go to the Anglican chaplain.  In understandable astonishment, Epstein observed (ibid.):


"Is that the best we can do? Rage, rage against the dying of the Enlightenment then shoo our troubled youth back to religion because we’re too distracted or cerebral or both to spend a few minutes of our deep thoughts on being more loving and more helpful?"

I went on to point out:

Let’s be clear the Camus conundrum highlighted in modern form by Epstein isn’t just a problem for Dawkins.  I am certain that in a similar situation, all the current hard core crop of atheists (including those waging wars on Christmas) would be at a loss for words. Overly obsessed with combat against the "believers"  and their myths they'd have lost sight of the human dimensions.

Hence, my arguments and reasoning have been fully in tune with Illing's as when he writes :


"The point is that such beliefs aren’t held because they’re true as such; they’re accepted on faith because they’re meaningful. Consequently, they have nothing to say to those who affirm God for existential reasons.  The New Atheist writers tend to approach religion from the perspective of science: They argue that a particular religion isn’t true or that the empirical claims of religious texts are false. That’s easy to do. The more interesting question is why religions endure in spite of being empirically untrue."

 And that is precisely the issue I addressed in my chapter  13 ('The Problem for Hard-Core Atheism-Reductionism' ) including  the Camus Conundrum and related issues, i.e. that Atheists of any stripe could not simply continue to harp on what they were against but had to state positively what they supported in the world, what they were for. This had special import in the socio-economic realm and I made specific reference to the Humanist Manifesto 2000 .

Atheists then were compelled to respond in some way to such socio-economic proposals and travesties as the "Ryan Budget", the "Ryan Medicare Plan" and overspending on defense (not to mention the Pentagon's inability to account for $1.1 trillion), when million of kids and families remained in poverty - due to Neoliberal policies and a warped system of economic justice. Atheists couldn't simply sit on the sidelines and wash their hands of the cultural and social battles raging in their midst. They had to wade in, or "lean in" as defined in much of the parlance today.

Illing again:


 "Camus was an atheist, but he understood the instinct for transcendence. And he knew that God was a solution (however false) to the problem of meaninglessness. Against the backdrop of death, what matters more: truth or a reason for living? “I’ve never seen anyone die for the ontological argument,” Camus wrote, but “I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others getting killed for ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living.” Today is no different; people continue to kill and die in defense of beliefs that give their lives meaning and shape."

Exactly so - and as I've pointed out, this desperate need for meaning in life is driven by specific brain centers. These brain centers, mainly associated with the OAA or orientation and activation area, are such that the person must give primacy to them in terms of honoring his or her beliefs. of this work has been done by Andrew Newberg, M.D. and his assosciate Eugene Daquill M.D.. Their main findings are published in their book, ‘Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief’.
As the authors note: (p. 5)

“In normal circumstance, the OAA helps create a distinct, accurate sense of our physical orientation to the world. To do its job well….depends on a constant stream of nerve impulses from each of the body’s senses. The OAA sorts and processes these impulses virtually simultaneously during every moment of our lives”

So, in other words, without the benefit of the OAA brain region, we’d be essentially discombobulated vegetables, unable to even get out of bed in the morning. We wouldn’t know which end is up or down, or right from left, and certainly wouldn’t be able to find our way out of a room, far less walk through a downtown of any major city.

The authors’ investigation of how the brain’s OAA translates an image into a religious reality is described in detail in their book, on pages 121-22. This is in connection with a person given an image of Christ and asked to focus on it. Within minutes, neurological measurements show electrical discharges spiraling down from the right attention area (right OAA) to the limbic system and hypothalamus “triggering the arousal section of the structure”.

Now, we know the hypothalamus has both arousal and quiescent components. The authors’ test results and measurements actually showed that as the subject focused on the image of Christ BOTH were activated. As assorted cortical thresholds were crossed, a maximal stimulation (given by spikes in the SPECT scans) produced a neural “flood” that generated feedback to the attention association area.

To make a long story short, the attention area of the OAA was seen to begin to deprive the right orientation area of the OAA of all neural input not originating with the contemplation of Jesus. In order to compensate, and thereby preserve the neuro-spatial matrix (in which the self could still exist) the right orientation area had to default to the attention area focusing on “Jesus”. As the authors put it (p. 121):

“ It has no choice but to create a spatial matrix out of nothing but the attention area’s single-minded contemplation of Jesus”

They go on to note that as the process of cortical threshold "re-emphasis" continues, all irrelevant neural inputs are stripped away until the only reality left is Jesus.

IN other words once the OAA is activated toward a certain belief matrix and certain cortical thresholds are crossed, the person is hostage to his own biology in driving that belief. Presenting him with epistemological or ontological facts is useless because the investment in the belief is already too great to part with it - and if he did his OAA would deprive him of neural input and even balance to enable mobility.

Illing once more time:

"The New Atheists don’t have a satisfactory alternative for such people. They argue that religion is false; that it’s divisive; that it’s unethical; that it makes a virtue of self-deception; that it does more harm than good – and maybe they’re right, but if they don’t understand that, for many, meaning is more important than truth, they’ll never appreciate the vitality of religion."


And I agree for the most part this has been true for most "New Atheists" - but not all. I have strongly defended a person's right to embrace God-concepts no matter how far off from the "truth" they may be - in the interest of attaining personal meaning and transcendence - or what appears so to the believer. This trumps truth because the believer's very life and life quality is bound up with it - given the OAA dynamic described above.

Illing ends with:

"The New Atheists have an important role to play. Reason needs its champions, too. And religion has to be resisted because there are genuine societal costs. One can draw a straight line between religious dogma and scientific obscurantism or moral stagnation, for example. That’s a real problem. But if religion is ineradicable, we have to find a way to limit its destructive consequences. Satire and criticism are necessary, but they’re not sufficient.

If we want to encourage people to care about the right things, we should spend as much time encouraging them to care about the right things as we do criticizing their faith."

No argument there. The question remains what will be the "right things" we encourage the religious believer to care about? I submit they need to achieve a practical translation beyond pure personal meaning. They need to activate that meaning into action in the real world.  That is why the precepts and objectives originally laid out in the Humanist Manifesto 2000 are so critical to tie in with meaning and the business of living - if for no other reason than to ameliorate the most radical extremes of religious expression - which are destructive to us all.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/eric-zuesse/62210/non-religious-population-is-soaring-in-america

Science Can't 'Disprove' God - But It Doesn't Have To

"The modern scientist is not so naïve as to deny God because he cannot be found in a telescope, or the soul because it cannot be revealed by the scalpel. He has merely noted that the idea of God is logically unnecessary. It does not help him to explain anything or to make verifiable predictions"- Alan Watts, in  'The Wisdom of Uncertainty'


Alan Watts' words above are timely on this Easter Sunday, and possibly might incite more thoughtful Christians to consider the question of the existence of God, as well as the concept of emergence. In fact, in a recent salon.com article : Science Doesn't Disprove God: Where Richard Dawkins and the New Atheists Go Wrong, author Amir D. Aczel considers these questions and declares Dawkins and the New Atheists far far from disproof of any divine Being on account of their over simplified narrative.

While Aczel touches on evolution, his primary focus is on consciousness, which admittedly has been over-simplified by too many atheists (new or old) and with the quality of emergence denied. Referencing the work of Daniel Dennett, for example, Aczel writes:

"Dennett and his collaborators consider the human mind from two problematic viewpoints: looking at the brain as a kind of computer, and looking at the brain as the result of animal evolution. The human brain is far more than a computer: computers have no consciousness. And to think of the brain as simply something that has evolved out of animal ganglia and primitive brains is also a mistake: there is a giant leap from the brain of a monkey or a dog to the brain of a human being."

This is correct, and I already gave the example of Michio Kaku being a victim of a similar brand of reductionist thinking in his own model of mind:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/03/michio-kakus-model-of-mijnd-is-too.html

Therein I pointed out the inherent problem in all New Atheist thinking (also highlighted by Aczel), whether of Kaku, Victor Stenger or Richard Dawkins:

Monistic physicalism in its most rudimentary form can be summarized by Victor Stenger’s comment (cf. God and the Folly of Faith, 155) :

It does not matter whether you are trying to measure a particle property or a wave property. You always measure particles. Here is the point that most people fail to understand: Quantum mechanics is just a statistical theory like statistical mechanics, fundamentally reducible to particle behavior.

In other words, all are victims of a form of scientism which interjects a kind of scientific "dogma", i.e. all of nature must be reduced to the particulate and mechanisms based on it.   This is why Aczel is led to next state:

 

Neither approach explains Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, Picasso’s Guernica, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, or the palaces on Venice’s Grand Canal. Neither do they explain Einstein’s general theory of relativity or Freud’s invention of psychoanalysis. Both the mechanistic and animalistic views of the brain fall flat in their attempts to explain any of these great historic achievements of the human mind.

 

By 'either approach' he means simplistic "rat-o-morphic" evolution (the human brain is just a more complex version of the rat's or lemur's), or the notion that human consciousness can simply be reduced to computerized components.  In neither case is emergence allowed, or tolerated. For example, Stenger is on record as criticizing one of the foremost physicists (and a 1977 Physics Nobel Prize winner), Philip Anderson, for his challenge to ardent reductionism, appearing in an article in Science with the title ‘More is Different’.  Basically, Anderson had the courage to question the indiscriminate extrapolation of reductionism to all phenomena by his peers. Stenger  then took umbrage noting: [1]:

 

the fact we cannot derive these emergent principles from particle physics  does not prove that everything cannot be just a collection of particles.

This is true, but only to the extent reductionism has been consciously chosen as the best way to not only analyze problems, but also interpret them. It is in the interpretations that the real problems inhere. For example, David Bohm’s holistic physics as wonderfully outlined in his Wholeness and the Implicate Order, is a majestic work that discloses all that fundamental quantum mechanics can do in exposing our eyes and other senses to higher dimensions – not taken into account. 

Anyway, this hyper-reductionist narrative pushed by the likes of Dennett, Dawkins and others is what prompts Aczel to remark:

An alternative explanation is that God gave us the mental abilities and that extra something we use in making decisions and in creating great works of art, sublime music, magnificent architecture, beautiful literature, and science and mathematics. Our incredible brains can do all these things because they contain some ingredients that science has not yet found or explained and whose origin remains one of the deepest mysteries in all of science.

 

The problem here is that "God" is not really an alternative explanation. It's what we call employing an argument from ignorance or invoking a "god of the gaps". So because Aczel can't fathom a scientific explanation he goes right to the supernaturalist one (assuming he believes, like most believers, "God" is a supernatural Being).

 

But as I pointed out in my recent book, Beyond Atheism, Beyond God, this isn't needed. Emergence, then, is enabled by the simple expedient of integrating quantum mechanics into brain function, as physicist Henry Stapp has insisted (but which most reductionists don't accept, or the New Atheists who embrace reductionism).   Stapp has pointedly noted that uncertainty principle limitations applied to calcium ion capture near synapses shows they (calcium ions) must be represented by a probability function. (Stapp, Henry, P.: 1993, Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics, Springer-Verlag, p. 42.)

More specifically, the dimension of the associated calcium ion wavepacket scales many times larger than the calcium ion itself. This nullifies the use of classical trajectories or classical mechanics to trace the path of the ions.  It thereby opens the door to quantum mechanics.  Once quantum inputs are permitted, the emergence of all the phenomenal human traits Aczel references can manifest, and no supernatural cause is required. Explanations thereby remain entirely in the physical realm.

By the use of such a full integration the late David Bohm provided a putative basis for a holistic quantum consciousness which he referred to as the Holomovement. This was done by positing a hyper-dimensional reality (e.g. 5- dimensional) in which mind was enfolded as part of an implicate order. To enable a unified mental field within this higher dimensionality, Bohm appealed to hidden variables obeying Heisenberg  uncertainty relations such that:

(d p)( d q) > h/ 2π


where p, q denote two hidden variables  underlying a sub-quantal scale indeterminacy relation. From this (leaving out lots of details) he developed an agent to assist in the nonlocal action of distal variables, and called it the "quantum potential", defined:


V_Q=   {-ħ²/ 2m} [Ñ R]² / R


for a wave function, U = R exp(iS/ħ)

where R,S are real.

If one then fully applies Bohm's Holomovement model to physical reality it is possible to show the relation of explicated individual forms to the universal aggregate  (or Holomovement) - which might be depicted:

INDIVIDUAL FORMS (EXPLICATE ORDER)

___Ç___Ç___Ç___Ç___Ç___

DIRAC ENERGY SEA (IMPLICATE ORDER)

The relation is holographic in the sense that each of the individual forms contains the information of the whole holographic field. The Dirac Ether is equivalent to Bohm's Implicate Order, or what he calls the holomovement, and is a pure frequency domain. If one imparts to it a universal consciousness (as Bohm does) it would also be the "Universal Mind". The difference from the  "God" that Aczel references is that this Universal Mind is impersonal and physical, as opposed to personal and supernatural.   Meanwhile, the ripples on Bohm's Dirac sea are the distinct material forms perceived as separate entities in the universe because we are generally unaware of the implicate order.  But - to the extent we become aware, whether by learning the applicable quantum mechanics, or using meditation - yes, we emerge as conscious forms manifesting the Whole.

Emergence of the type Aczel describes is enabled and indeed demanded by the relationship between the relatively localized ensembles of energy (in individuals or explicate forms) and the vastly larger whole which contains vast energy in each cubic centimeter of space.

At the same time the use of the word "God" becomes unnecessary, redundant. Since logically "God" can't be extracted as a separate entity from the oceanic reality i.e. which enfolds all the explicate forms, it makes no sense to call the word out or use it. You can't separate it out any more than a wave from the ocean. By extension, it makes zero sense for atheists to joust at it, because they are inveighing against a redundancy, a superfluous verbal construct. They effectively become like Don Quixote tilting at windmills of their own mind.

Once all and sundry agree the word "God" is only a regulative ideal of the mind, a verbal symbol to represent a concept that can't be really processed or extracted (differentiated) as a separate reality, then we move away from false onto-theology and useless polarizations - say between "believers" and "unbelievers".

In this context, Aczel is wrong for failing to see the futility of marking out "God"  separately via language and assuming one needs it  as a separate supernatural cause to account for emergence and all the wondrous talents humans  disclose.   The New Atheists and all the reductionist scientists are wrong for being mesmerized by their over-simplistic (explicate) particulate models which prevent them, or more accurately - blind them - from perceiving oceanic reality that binds the cosmos at its most fundamental level.  The simple expedient of integrating quantum mechanics into brain function would obviate this, but they won't hear of it - and hence this dogmatic refusal becomes scientism.

Physicist Bernard d'Espagnat advises caution for all those who'd willy -nilly hitch their wheels of reality to it: (In Search of Reality, p. 56):

If scientism were correct, or more precisely, if the view of the world it proposes so forcefully, that of a world ultimately consisting of myriads of small localized objects merely endowed with quasi-local properties were correct, then such an evolution of our mentality would admittedly be excellent. It is always good for man to know the truth! But on the other hand, if the ultimate vision of the world which scientism proposes is false, if its conceptual bases are mistaken, then this development is – on the contrary –quite unfortunate.

 

He continues by noting that in his estimation the presumptions of “common scientism” are false and he bases this not on subjective opinion but on specific scientific facts, e.g. the nonlocality disclosed in the (1983) Aspect experiment, and the existence of de Broglie waves as revealed by the Davisson -Germer experiment.

Aczel ends his essay thus:

Symbolic thinking allowed human beings to create amazing art many thousands of years ago. It brought us language, science, art and everything that makes us uniquely human. Neither computers nor animals can do any of these things. So the emergence of consciousness and symbolic thinking remain one of the most formidable hurdles in the path of atheism. We have no good explanation of how consciousness and symbolic thinking came about. These may well be described as divine gifts.

Or, we may more logically and rationally describe them as natural, physical offshoots of assimilating consistent quantum mechanics into brain dynamics. For those atheists (like me) who have already done this, neither consciousness or symbolic thinking pose a hurdle, and we don't buy the trope that "there is no good explanation of how they came about".  While not every nuance or particular  facet can be explicated, we do have a general idea - predicated on the quantum-based models of mind proposed by David Bohm and  Henry Stapp.  Also the singular one I advanced in my recent book, combining aspects of both Bohm's and Stapp's models.  The fact a reasonable physical conjecture exists, avoids the fallacy of ignotum per ignotius  which Aczel falls victim to.

The reader can make up his own mind, but s/he needs to be aware that there does exist a path, a rational way,  between the extremes of supernaturalism and reducing the cosmos to a mere assembly of particles and humans to animated meat.

 

In other words, there does exist a progressive atheism that has moved beyond the myopic version now on offer from the "New Atheists."

 

 

---

[1] Stenger, God and the Folly of Faith, 208

 

Muslim Author Slams Richard Dawkins - Why SHE Is the One Oh So Wrong.

Richard Dawkins: author of The God Delusion. When are clueless religionists - of whatever stripe - going to learn that he's basically correct as regards human evolution and the conflict between science and supernaturalist religion?


Salon.com contributor Sana Saeed in a ridiculous article ('Richard Dawkins is So Wrong It Hurts: What the Science vs. Religion Debate Ignores')  takes Richard Dawkins and other "New Atheists" to task for basically engendering a conflict between science and religion which is exaggerated.

Of course, this is nonsense. The conflict is real and pervasive, whether between Evangelical creationism and Darwinian Evolution or between the latter and any Muslim sect's claims - as I will show.

As I pointed out in my (March 23) blog post, science - based on naturalism and Materialism - is counterpoised to ANY system based on supernaturalism. It's like trying to mix oil and water. It is a fool's errand. Since ALL the monotheistic religions - whether Judaism, Christianity or Islam -  are based on supernaturalism, then science must be fundamentally opposed to the theological claims and doctrines of each.

ALL the monotheistic religions (and by extension their derivative cults, sects)  encourage and indeed, DEMAND one sacrifice one's mind to their respective beliefs and dogmas. Dogma is part of religion, at least most of them, as is "sacred revelation" (e.g. in "sacred scriptures")  which religious types are obliged to accept and do so unquestioningly. This is one of the reasons I left the Catholic religion behind.  I couldn't abide their ridiculous dogmas, whether virgin birth, immaculate conception, transubstantiation or whatever. None of it made sense, and given the Church's hierarchy didn't allow 'free thought" I had no choice. Either one is honest with himself or not.

Thus, from the outset Saeed is on shaky ground. This despite, writing a truly naïve sentence:

"It never once occurred to me during those years, and later, that there could be any sort of a conflict between my faith and science; to me both were part of the same things: This universe and my existence within it."


Well, if indeed this "never once occurred"  to her, it means that either: a) she didn't appreciate or accept the supernatural basis of her religion, or b) somehow believed science is invested in supernatural bunkum.

This is highlighted with her additional claim, pertaining to evolution, that :  "In my own religious tradition, Islam, there is a vibrant history of religion and science not just co-existing but informing one another intimately"

Maybe so, but this is more a matter of pragmatic mutual exploitation than anything else. The same has occurred in the Christian Western tradition, but that doesn't mean astronomers and astrophysicists as well as chemists and geologists, accept "souls" and life after death, or "heaven and hell".  Nor, as Saeed later admits (see below), does it mean religionists accept an ape-human common ancestor .In other words, cross-fertilization serves pragmatic purposes but doesn't alter the basic oppositional frame of reference, which often manifests as religionists cherry picking what they'll accept and what they won't.

This may be why Saeed can also state - presumably with a straight face:

"Muslims, generally, accept evolution as a fundamental part of the natural process; they differ, however, on human evolution – specifically the idea that humans and apes share an ancestor in common. "

But here, her whole thesis collapses, because if  Muslims don't accept the evidence of ape-human common ancestry then clearly they don't accept evolution as a whole. Human common ancestry with the ape is part and parcel of the whole theory, as I pointed out many times before on this blog, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/01/why-are-fundies-so-averse-to-accepting.html

As I noted therein the evidence is overwhelming for common ancestry between apes and humans, including:

- BOTH  human and ape have the exact SAME cytochrome –c protein sequence! If evolution is false we’d expect the human and chimp cytochrome-c sequences to vary dramatically given that it exhibits 10^93 variations in functionality with other organisms. That is, 10 followed by ninety three zeros!

- Photographic evidence exists for the telomeric fusion of the ape 2p and 2q chromosomes to become the single ‘2’ chromosome in humans. In other words, prima facie evidence of a common ancestor. (See, e.g.: Yunis and Prakash, 1982, Science, Vol. 215, p. 1525, 'The Origin of Man: A Chromosomal Pictorial Legacy')

If Saeed or her Muslim sect doesn't accept common ancestry then they don't accept the science behind evolution. One cannot willy-nilly cherry pick which parts of evolution they will accept and which they reject.  Richard Dawkins, contrary to what she claims - is exactly correct regarding the antagonism and conflict between supernatural religion and science. Those who try to sweep differences under the rug or minimize them do neither science or religion any favors.

And supernaturalism, for Saeed's information, would be the only reason to reject common ancestry. The reason is simply that the supernaturalist demands his point of origin be from a supernatural source, as opposed to a common ape-human ancestor. Philosopher Daniel Dennett ('Darwin's Dangerous Idea') compared the two versions of origin to skyhooks and cranes. Supernaturalists, whether Christian or Muslim, embrace skyhooks because they originate humans from the sky as it were, at the 'hands' of a Sky Daddy.  Cranes, by contrast, have to hoist from the ground up to effect their constructions. They're prosaic, dirty material-mechanical flotsam and jetsam like cells, electric signals and chemicals.

Embrace your faith and skyhooks, if you must, but please don't try to portray it as compatible with any realistic science!  Not unless you're prepared to accept your origin via the 'Crane'  paradigm!