One of the epic showdowns in the common culture conflicts is the disagreement on the origin of humanity. This show down is the theory of evolution verses the theory of creationism by religion. This battle started when Charles Darwin published "The Origin of species" in the year 1859, which taught a theory that all the diversity of life comes from living things mutating through generations, and natural selection of the most well adapted surviving to repeat the process. In short, what works lives, and what doesn't dies, and over time living things change. Because the earth is so big, with may different climates and regions there is lots of room for species to separate to different populations and mutate into different creatures, even very different creatures over time.
This theory, as the reader likely knows, came into conflict, as the explanation of how the world had been created, had already been told. If there is one thing that commonly triggers human bias the most, it's likely being told that you are wrong. Naturally, many people rejected the theory, in favor of what felt right to them, creationism.
At this point, I wish to show the arguments both sides have in this debate, I will attempt to be non-bias towards both sides as much as I am able.
In evolution, there is a long list of evidences that support the theory. The fossils recovered from the ground seem to show creatures slowly changing over time. Sexual reproduction seems to be designed to speed up evolutionary process. The theory explains why so many creatures have similarities, in form and behavior, as change happens gradually and only with necessity. It's easy to point out impossibilities in various theories of creationism, according to what is understood in science. Evolutionary scientists look at the world, and think, all clues point to the same answer, accidents that work, survive and create a world like this.
In creationism, evidence is not what is important, religion is a matter of intuition with faith to fill in what can't be understood. Creationists point out, to truly know something is impossible, faith, in other words a trust in something that must be used. Likely one of the best arguments creationists have, is that the universe is such a wonderous place. Our human heart feels that some grand design must be behind it in some way, to them, that is evidence. And the various creation theories all have this focus on purpose, not chance, or accident. Creationists look at the world, and think, how could it all just be, without some force of intelligence to make it so.
So both groups believe they are right. Some from either group even may villainize the other. Our natural human instinct will push us to distrust and even hate people who think or believe differently then us. I have seen creationists that distrusted the scientific community because of this, and I have even seen some scientists that have seen religion has an enemy, that is dangerous. To be honest, with my own experiences, scientist tend to be the more mature, and patent ones in this debate, however there can be exceptions to this.
There is always danger, in villainizing those who act differently, look differently, or believe differently. Extreme believes can grow in any group, because deep in us, is the emotional components of a warrior ready to fight and crusade against the enemy. The right thing to do in an argument is to put off our natural selves. We do this with mental exercise and by exposing ourselves to good influences that help us break from these impulses. Stay away from angry mods, instead look for quiet discussions where both sides are allowed to speak, and both sides give effort to listen.
It never impresses me, when I see a person, however right they may be on a subject, dominate with anger over their foe. If people are in physical danger, then anger can be helpful for that situation, but those situations are rare, and are only for real battlefields after humanity has already lost it's self, not the debates that hold civilization together. I've been angry in debates before, and I find no joy in my personal history related to those moments. I suppose this is a lesson that every deep thinking person will have to grow into. Deep thoughts require deep control of our animal instincts that would have us kept as primitive people. There are parts of our natural selves that are good to use, and parts that should give way to our ability to reason, and discipline. Hate is one of these natural impulses, that will cloud our judgement.
I have witnessed many debates, some of them even good ones. I have gone back and forth on this issue myself, and have arrived at the conclusion I will now give. Both sides may not like my opinion.
To supervise my conclusion. I believe religion has never really had much in the way of evidence. This has always been true, but people will often accept what is confidently taught to them, so the lack of evidence never was much of a problem. Then came science, which said belief should be based on observation of evidence, not on what seems right, or feels right. So does this mean, science wins? No, like it or not, there is no clear winner in this case, because neither side has thought this through enough.
This is what I mean. To all those who believe in creationism, I say, evolution is the greatest evidence for the existence of God that has ever been confidently accepted. More on that later. Religion is not proven because ancient books are old. To be fair, being old doesn't disprove them either. To the religious I ask, if some of you dislike science or scientists, why? How do you know that God is not a scientist? God may very well enjoy this discipline of humanity, after all, if God created the universe, or a part of it, then it sounds like a scientist may be able to talk shop with God at some level of understanding. I don't mean to offend those with religion, what I mean to point out, is that thinking, however limited, is better when it's controlled like science is. It should be religions best friend, not an enemy.
Is not all of the universe a religious text in a way, cannot we know understand the maker a bit more, by understand the makers crafts? If science gives us even a small amount of additional understand of this vast universe, then would we not examine closely this new understanding, just like sacred texts. If God is the source of all truth? Then wouldn't truth however it was found, as long as it was truth, be holy?
To the scientists, I say, why is it scientific to be an atheist? Doesn't science teach to only believe in making conclusions from the observation of evidence? Atheists look around the world, and say there is not evidence of God, but are they so sure they know what the evidence of God would look like? Science has observed evidence that evolution is a process with living creatures, but how can this disprove the existence of intelligence in creation? Who are scientists to determine what a greater intelligence would do with it's creation? How does disproving ancient writings, disprove the existence of God? If there was a hidden room behind a wall, does it not still exist when we have no evidence of it? Does science really teach people to deny what is not proven, or disproven? There may be some anthesis that think they have proven God doesn't exist, but I have never been remotely convinced by their logic, and I don't see how a true scientist would either.
Evolution is wonderful as a theory, I personally love it, and believe it. However, the theory is missing a big portion of the origin explanation. That is, how does it explain the human soul? So, at this point, I can easily guess there is a lot of atheist's rolling their eyes right now. If it's religious then it must be rubbish right? Religion, that thing that is always suppose to be wrong, has come up with a concept call a soul, and it's the soul that is really what is alive according to common religious belief. This explains death to them. Well, I ask you this, what is the difference between a electronic computer, and a biological brain? One has circuits, the other cells, and other differences, but do they not both store information, do they not both process input, and deliver output based on internal abilities? Is a computer alive? A computer can be very capable of processing information, even innovative, like living things, and making them better is just a matter of finding the right math to do it. I feel like so many people have thought that life is created from intelligence, but how could that work? So many living things live without brains, like plants and fungus. I've heard atheists say the human body is like a computer that is turned off at death? To me, consciousness is something that science hasn't yet come close to explaining. We can't be just computer glitches gone right traveling through the universe on our two feet. We are alive. It's like the hidden room behind a wall, if we are not thinking of the possibility of it's existence, then it is truly hidden from us. The question is, what really makes something alive? If a bunch of atoms can come together and make a computer, and a bunch of atoms together can also make a living creature. What makes the living creature alive, and the computer a non-living machine? Are all thinks alive? And intelligence makes them aware that they are alive? My point, is that this is not answered? Why do you need a living thing, to make a living thing? Are we one consciousness that has been divided up trillions of ways into every living thing on earth? I can't think of anything that could really explain life, and I feel like the hardest questions never get asked, when it comes to humans. It's far from being answered, yet evolution is still sometimes explained as a strong theory, that solidly explains life, yet it clearly to me is still at it's beginning stages of explaining the origin of life.
Religion should love evolution. Think about this, according to current theory, life on Earth started four billon years ago, but at that time life existed as singled celled life forms. These cells were not like the cells that make up you and me, they were prokaryote cells, they had no nucleus. Prokaryote cells are always singled celled life, so you can't make a multi-cellular life form from them. Two billon years goes by with prokaryote cells being the only life on earth. After two billion years, a mutation is finally ready, and eukaryote cells now appear. Another half a billion years the eukaryote cells start to change into different kinds of cells. About a hundred million years after this, these different eukaryote cells start grouping together to make multicellular life. Different eukaryote cells make different living things, some become plants, some become fungus, and some very tiny creatures that move around. There are so many points of interest to discuss in the evolutionary time line, and I just realized I can't write about them all.
Skipping to the point, one thing is very obvious to me, the necessary mutations to go from a prokaryote cells to a human being, keep getting closer together in the time line. To finally see something resembling a fish is 500 million years ago, to have something like a mammal 100 million years ago, for something resembling a human, it takes 8 million years go. But with all that accomplished, it is only 200,000 - 300,000 years ago that homosapiens appear.
The point to understand, is how far apart these events are separated in the timeline. The evolutionary leaps are happening more frequently as the timeline progresses. It seems to me, the more evolution establishes, the faster it gets and making a whole new stage of evolution.
So think about this. If in four billion years, some prokaryote cells can become a human being. What can human beings become in four billion years of evolution? Whatever humans may become in four billion years, what could come from that living thing having another four billion years of evolution? What limit would their be for life. To have the power to create technology that can extend our body's ability. All technology does this, tools extend the ability of our hands, vehicles extend the ability of our legs, cooking extends the ability of our digestive system. Cameras around the earth extend our ability to see. Medicine extends our ability to heal. At what point does all this external technology possibly come back to directly update the abilities of our bodies, rather then augment them?
Yes, this all probably sounds like science fiction, but to me, evolution is the best theory from science that shows that God is possible. Is it possible that through evolution, something immortal and capable to creating this universe can exist? Would that God create worlds in the same way others were created? We don't know. Yet with that thought, can we at least understand, that there are big things that we don't yet understand?
So to me evolution is the greatest thing given to religion. Yet, religion rejects it. This is an example, of how people should embrace truth. That doesn't mean embrace everything people teach each other, because falsehood is possible, but if something is true, and it's embraced, it will become a boost for us. We won't always know how, but it will help us somehow in the end. Religion may need to have faith in truth, when it points to the unknown, and science may need to not rule out possibilities that it has not observed yet, or thought of yet.
Perhaps our big problem in this debate is that we all think they know more then we really know.
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