Scientist have written a piece of historical fiction about our human past. We very may have evolved from apes. I am not qualified to argue otherwise. But aren't those Discovery Channel shows with the animated halflings a work of imaginative fiction? Someone someday will find my bones. Is it possible that they could piece together my daily routine through my bones?
My dad shakes his head when he hears the scientist talk about the age of the universe. Hethens! The universe is only six thousand years old! Scientist with their large brains have performed many magical feats. Electronics. Radio. Combustion. Nuclear weapons. It seems only obvious that they have tapped into powers I can't understand. If they say the Universe is 13.5 billion light years old then so be it, just give me more magic. My biology is boring.
I went to hear a professor from the east coast talk on campus a few days ago. Her credentials as a paleontologist were solid. No question, she was more than qualified to share her knowledge of evolutionary biology with us. Her lecture was not about natural selection though, it was about how as a Christian, she reconciles her faith with her job, with her belief that evolution is true. She had multiple PhD's in science but her only qualification as a Christian authority is that she helped in her childrens sunday school classes. That hardly seems balanced.
She said that indeed, evolution is a fact. Natural selection, competition, all of that stuff is the mechanism that produces change in species. She then went on to say that the Bible is a collection of allegories and poems and should not be taken literally. She even went as far as to say that we can not even be sure that we have translated the bible correctly, being that the original Hebrew texts used no vowels or punctuation. So after she said that the bible is unreliable and in fact a work of fiction, she said that Jesus Christ was her Lord and savior.
I wonder. What does she need to be saved from? Sin after all is what we humans need saving from. You know sin--competing with your neighbors, coveting the neighbors wife, murder....The very things that will help us out on our journey to the top of the food chain. If the bible shouldn't be taken literally then why even live by it. I have read a lot of good books, myths, fairy tales, poems, that I thought were edifying to my soul, but I do not worship them, I do not hold them up as my law. Made me respect literalist and Christian fundementalist after hearing this woman contradict herself. At least they have a sound arguement, though thier premise may be questionable.
There must be a missing piece of the puzzle somewhere. There has to be an option other than our ancestors either being monkeys or our ancestors falling from a literal garden paradise.
Enter Middle Earth. Why not put one's faith in Tolkien? He had some good allegories, some pretty poetry.
I don't think you have to a Bible literalist to understand that there are moral rules that seem inherently right. Maybe creationism doesn't make good science. But it is obvious to me, when I look at the world, that there is a designer and a higher force. It's apparentness does not reside in my large homo sapien cranial cavity, but in my heart. I am willing to bet that God resided in the hearts of our ancestors just like in us. You can't find fossil evidence for this of course.
Our ancestors might have been small statured but there is no reason to believe that they were carnal savages. If I were the King of this kingdom, I would gather all the poets and tell them to write a past in which our ancestors were high elves. Crime rates would go down and test scores would go up.
4 comments:
I agree with you. Not a day goes by when I don't look at the world and think that there is no way simple chance could have created something this complex and beautiful. Life without God is life without meaning in my eyes, regardless of whether the world was created 6,000 years ago or 13 billion. I actually took an astronomy class a couple of years ago that talked about the creation of the earth and the planets, etc. That whole semester I kept thinking about how all of these stars and nebulas are God's artwork, put up there for us to look at. To me, God is not limit-able. Who, on earth, actually has the authority to say that one of God's days might not equal a billion of our years? There definitely is a middle ground; In my eyes, evolution and Christianity are absolutely not mutually exclusive.
Here is my dilima emily. I do not think that christianity and evolution are compatable. The fall of a man from grace and christs sacrifice for our redemtion makes absolutley no sense in a world in which we stared out as monkeys bangen each others wives, throwing our fecies, putting bannanas before our lord. I believe the scientist when they say the universe is 13.5 billion years old. I have no reason not to. I also have be not fully, but to my satisfaction, been convinced that evolution is happening, that life has gone from simple to complex. But I still want to live by Jesus's teachings, I want to know god. Even if it is all just a fairy tale, I believe it is better to live a fairy tale in which people love thier nieghbors and try to live rightiously, than live the life i've seen unfold through out history. Slavery, imperialism, genoside, murder, war. All things that can be justified using an evolutionary model. Maybe we really do live in an indifferent world, where the right way to live is live for yourself. But living for god, whether he exists or not, (and remember I am convinced there is some creative force that is responsible for all this) is better for society than the alternative. I hope that makes sense... this is my soul we are talking about:)
Hey,
Well, there was this episode in Friends where I recall Ross trying to persuade Phoebe that evolution is indeed a fact, yet Phoebe refuses to believe it, and is open to all sorts of other ideas like aliens and stuff.
There was one thing Phoebe said to keep Ross from annoying her. She said, "Scientists at one point were so sure that the smallest thing is an atom, then they opened that up and all sorts of crap spilled out. How can YOU, be so arrogant as to assume that evolution is indeed real?"
I thought that was really profound, even though it's just a comedy. I guess nobody knows anything for sure...
"And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul"
I'm not disagreeing with you, Matt. Regardless, I also believe that "Even if it is all just a fairy tale, I believe it is better to live a fairy tale in which people love thier nieghbors and try to live righteously". But it could be argued that God created man from earth, and there is a point after that in which God breathed into man and gave him a "living soul" separating him from the beasts of the earth. Also, is it so hard to believe that men would do these things? It's there in the Bible. In Sodom and Gomorrah, and in the story of people worshipping the golden calf after Moses led his people out of Egypt. Even in the bible, mankind has a history of turning away from their Creator. As an educated person and a historian I cannot (in my opinion) deny that the world took longer than 6,000 (human) years to create. However, as a Christian I cannot so deny my God as to call His history and His teachings no more than a "fairy tale" with "good morals". I have faith and trust that God can do whatever He wants in whatever way He wants to do it, and when scientists break down a piece of matter into a combination of chemicals and reactions, I am only the more impressed at how complex His work is. This is the way I choose to reconcile my scientific education with my spiritual beliefs. God wins...He's always more important. But He also works in mysterious and complex ways.
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