(originally published on Apr 11, 2010 8:30 PM at my old site)
I think this is the necessary/appropriate second post. I have made a big, sweeping declaration of faith, and now it is time to deal with the issues. to defend. to justify why i believe that what i believe is truth. or at least, that is what i will attempt to do. This post will discuss the apparent conflict with science.
I have always been interested in science. As a child, i would ask "why", and keep asking it, the recursive "why"s going until the end of time, bedtime, or the other person got bored, whatever came first. I would take apart broken appliances and marvel at their workings, not understanding, but amazed, trying to comprehend such complexity and wondering how any person could have made so many different components all work together.
i have always thought about things very analytically, so it was inevitable that i eventually began to think about how things began. and it was inevitable that eventually the 7 day creation story soon ceased to satisfy me. i read A Case For A Creator by Lee Strobel. it was IMO a terrible book, and many of the arguments could be easily debunked by a layperson like me. for example, irriducible complexity seemed like a way of saying "we don't understand how this would be possible so therefore it is not possible". But despite the failish arguments and reliance on alliteration and rhyme for logical support (dead serious), it presented a new concept to me. The idea that things like the Big Bang theory and Evolution were not necessarily at odds with God. That the 7-day creation story was not meant to be a literal description of creation but rather an allegory or myth meant to convey a message, not historical facts. Next i read The Language Of God by Francis Collins. This book was great. The arguments actually made sense. This is what provided the support for my current view on creation. Since then i have heard some speakers and discussion on the topic, and i have come up with an idea that makes enough sense at least to satisfy me. So the following rant is based on my opinion which is based on:
The Language of God, A Case For a Creator, some interesting seminars i attended, and what makes sense to me. Hopefully also based on truth, but, as a disclaimer, i can't be sure. And chances are that a good chunk of what i am saying is wrong. so feel free to counter this; that's what comments are for. ok, here we go.
Science and religion have been at conflict for a long time. The Church has tried to suppress advances that seemed threatening, such as the heliocentric model of the solar system, and the idea that the earth is round. It seems that the Church goes through cycles of encountering a theory, trying to suppress it, being overwhelmed by the evidence, and suddenly realizing that the theory is actually not threatening at all. I think that the Theory Of Evolution is another example of this cycle. Belief is easier when we can say God created the world in 7 days. But when God is not directly visible in the creation process, it requires more faith to believe that he is still the Creator.
Science and religion have been at conflict for a long time. The Church has tried to suppress advances that seemed threatening, such as the heliocentric model of the solar system, and the idea that the earth is round. It seems that the Church goes through cycles of encountering a theory, trying to suppress it, being overwhelmed by the evidence, and suddenly realizing that the theory is actually not threatening at all. I think that the Theory Of Evolution is another example of this cycle. Belief is easier when we can say God created the world in 7 days. But when God is not directly visible in the creation process, it requires more faith to believe that he is still the Creator.
I see the creation process as a matter really not at all in the jurisdiction of Christian faith. Faith is concerned with who the creator is, and the fact that the Creator loves us a lot. I believe God made our world. He is responsible for the existence of us all. But that is all. The rest is left up to theories and legends. The Bible is not a physics, biology, history, science, or anything textbook. It is a text. God gave us this book not so we could figure out world history, but so that we know that He loves us, and so we can know how to live our lives (Not to say that the Bible does not contain historically accurate data; I believe that much of the bible, especially the Gospels, are absolute truth. Stuff like the creation story, Noah's Ark, etc will be discussed some other time).
Evolution is a part of nature. It is happening even now, and it is not so much what started nature as what is nature. Our world is constantly changing, and organisms are constantly evolving. Evolution is not a mechanism of creation, but a mechanism of change. A massive, beautiful cycle of life and death that started when God created the world, flourished into life as we know it now, and will one day probably move on to better, cooler forms of life. And, like the rest of nature, it is God's creation. While it could be said that we were synthesized by evolution, that the randomness and selection generated us from scratch. But God created nature to give birth to a species-generating system like evolution, He made the framework of the universe with the rules we take for granted, so that evolution would work out the way it did.
I think we object to evolution because we do not see the big picture. We see nature as static and unchanging. The world, in its present state, is creation. Any previous states the world may have been in, where things looked at all different from now, was not creation. We see that as like the world partway through creation. But evolution is not a process of creation. It is a process of evolution (hence the name). It is about increasing the complexity of the systems on earth, and bringing about constant change, in the same way the seasons and tectonic movement do. So then, why is it such an issue? What causes us to overlook this and reel away from a logical, acceptable explanation of the world we live in?
One could say it is rigidness and unwillingness to accept that the 7-day creation story is meant to be mythical, but i think that is not the real issue. It could also be said that we live in an extremely small slice of time in our planet. In the diagram below, you can see this wheel of time from the formation of the earth till now. "2 Ma: first humans" points at a tiny orange speck shown on the outside of the wheel representing the amount of time we have spent on earth. in fact, i don't even think its visible in this scaled-down image. clicking on the image links to the full-size image (although its an external link, so its probably gonna break within a month anyways), if you zoom in you can see the little orange stripe.
anyways, imagine if the entire wheel was, say, a week of our time. as in our rate of passage of time changed so that the life of our entire species was a split second. we would be living in a very different world. we could build a city in the ocean and it would take millennia for the water to even begin to bend. Out on this ocean, we would be surrounded by a static, unchanging landscape, and the thought of it waving and (verb for the ocean waves, grr i can't remember), whatever, would be incomprehensible. It would be a stationary world, and the thought that the mountains of water naturally formed themselves might end up being considered heresy. so it could be said that we simply can't comprehend the timescale of evolution so we reject it. but many scientists accept the theory, and comprehension is a big thing in science :)
I think the main issue is us. Darwinism claims that our bodies, brains, and behavior are all natural, physical, mechanical. We are organisms, biological machines governed by the same laws that govern the predictable things in nature that surround us. We cannot be people then, only homo sapiens. But we are supposed to be made in "God's Image". God is not a machine; he is not predictable. But, look carefully and realize that we do not have to be machines either. When we die, our body stays in the ground, rotting and decomposing. But we move on. Our brains are the CPU, RAM, and I/O. Our minds are the OS and software. But we are the user. Our humanity is not defined by our brains, our intelligence; that is a trait that we will soon share with computers. Nor is it defined by emotions, which in the end are just factors that influence our thoughts and I/O (as in how we perceive the world around us. i see emotions as factors that emphasize different aspects of a thought. for example happiness emphasizes the positive aspects of a thought. But i digress.) No, these are all physical things, mechanical things.
We are humans, people; Spiritual beings. While our thoughts and behaviors can be explained physically, what goes on inside, in the soul, cannot. Some part of us transcends this world of ours, and operates in the spiritual dimension. As said above, we are the user of our brains and bodies, but we are not the brains and bodies. (unfortunately, this idea, as well as many other important ideas, cannot be proven scientifically; only the lack of disproof supports it)
So does it really matter where our brains came from? Our brains are just portals between us and the physical world, the media on which our thoughts occur. So what about us? I think we may need to accept that as one of those mysteries that we will not be able to answer. At least, not during our time in this world.
well, i guess, reading over this, i also sorta discussed my view on free will too. sweet. its like 2 posts for the price of 1!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.�
Evolution is a part of nature. It is happening even now, and it is not so much what started nature as what is nature. Our world is constantly changing, and organisms are constantly evolving. Evolution is not a mechanism of creation, but a mechanism of change. A massive, beautiful cycle of life and death that started when God created the world, flourished into life as we know it now, and will one day probably move on to better, cooler forms of life. And, like the rest of nature, it is God's creation. While it could be said that we were synthesized by evolution, that the randomness and selection generated us from scratch. But God created nature to give birth to a species-generating system like evolution, He made the framework of the universe with the rules we take for granted, so that evolution would work out the way it did.
I think we object to evolution because we do not see the big picture. We see nature as static and unchanging. The world, in its present state, is creation. Any previous states the world may have been in, where things looked at all different from now, was not creation. We see that as like the world partway through creation. But evolution is not a process of creation. It is a process of evolution (hence the name). It is about increasing the complexity of the systems on earth, and bringing about constant change, in the same way the seasons and tectonic movement do. So then, why is it such an issue? What causes us to overlook this and reel away from a logical, acceptable explanation of the world we live in?
One could say it is rigidness and unwillingness to accept that the 7-day creation story is meant to be mythical, but i think that is not the real issue. It could also be said that we live in an extremely small slice of time in our planet. In the diagram below, you can see this wheel of time from the formation of the earth till now. "2 Ma: first humans" points at a tiny orange speck shown on the outside of the wheel representing the amount of time we have spent on earth. in fact, i don't even think its visible in this scaled-down image. clicking on the image links to the full-size image (although its an external link, so its probably gonna break within a month anyways), if you zoom in you can see the little orange stripe.
anyways, imagine if the entire wheel was, say, a week of our time. as in our rate of passage of time changed so that the life of our entire species was a split second. we would be living in a very different world. we could build a city in the ocean and it would take millennia for the water to even begin to bend. Out on this ocean, we would be surrounded by a static, unchanging landscape, and the thought of it waving and (verb for the ocean waves, grr i can't remember), whatever, would be incomprehensible. It would be a stationary world, and the thought that the mountains of water naturally formed themselves might end up being considered heresy. so it could be said that we simply can't comprehend the timescale of evolution so we reject it. but many scientists accept the theory, and comprehension is a big thing in science :)
I think the main issue is us. Darwinism claims that our bodies, brains, and behavior are all natural, physical, mechanical. We are organisms, biological machines governed by the same laws that govern the predictable things in nature that surround us. We cannot be people then, only homo sapiens. But we are supposed to be made in "God's Image". God is not a machine; he is not predictable. But, look carefully and realize that we do not have to be machines either. When we die, our body stays in the ground, rotting and decomposing. But we move on. Our brains are the CPU, RAM, and I/O. Our minds are the OS and software. But we are the user. Our humanity is not defined by our brains, our intelligence; that is a trait that we will soon share with computers. Nor is it defined by emotions, which in the end are just factors that influence our thoughts and I/O (as in how we perceive the world around us. i see emotions as factors that emphasize different aspects of a thought. for example happiness emphasizes the positive aspects of a thought. But i digress.) No, these are all physical things, mechanical things.
We are humans, people; Spiritual beings. While our thoughts and behaviors can be explained physically, what goes on inside, in the soul, cannot. Some part of us transcends this world of ours, and operates in the spiritual dimension. As said above, we are the user of our brains and bodies, but we are not the brains and bodies. (unfortunately, this idea, as well as many other important ideas, cannot be proven scientifically; only the lack of disproof supports it)
So does it really matter where our brains came from? Our brains are just portals between us and the physical world, the media on which our thoughts occur. So what about us? I think we may need to accept that as one of those mysteries that we will not be able to answer. At least, not during our time in this world.
well, i guess, reading over this, i also sorta discussed my view on free will too. sweet. its like 2 posts for the price of 1!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.�
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