October 18, 2009
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The Miracle of Evolution
Note: If you are an anti-evolutionist who is going to feel the need to respond in anger/disgust/despair that I am talking about evolution in a positive manner, please read the below disclaimer before doing so.
The other day I saw the film Creation. A film about Charles Darwin. It left me in complete awe, just thinking about the miracle that is life. The fact that over millions of years life on this earth evolved to become us alongside every other living thing. That I am the product of billions of tiny little changes and adaptations. That we can dig into the earth and find fossils of what came before us.
Now I realise that Evolution is technically a theory. But it is a theory in so much as unless someone has a secret recording of the earth from the moment of it’s creation to this day, it can never be proven one way or the other. But the evidence is there. There are layers of earth in which differing types of fossils have been found. Evolution is the best explanation for that. No one has come up with a better explanation. Other then ‘God says it didn’t happen so it didn’t’.
Every now and then evidence is found that doesn’t quite fit into the map of evolution. And so the map is shifted slightly. Nothing has been found that completely destroys the map. Most evolutionists are not pretending that we somehow know exactly what happened, how it happened and in what order. We are saying that something along those lines happened and that it is amazing. It is not an attempt to ‘disprove’ God. It is not an attempt to make Christians (or people with similar Creationist ideas) look stupid. It is certainly not an attempt to ‘brainwash’ people against Christianity. That is a misconception created by Creationists out of fear that people may stop blindly following their way. That is a misconception created out of despair that a two thousand year old idea may be slipping out of their grasp.
To me, the idea of evolution is as incredible, as mind blowing, as amazing as a Christian feels about Jesus dying on the cross for them. To me, it is worth learning about, it is worth thinking about. To me, it solidifies my belief that there is a God.
You can choose not to believe it happened. You can choose to tell your children that what school is teaching them is a lie. But you can’t remove the fact that there is evidence to support it and no other reasonable explanation for how it got there. You can’t remove the fact that there are people on this earth who are interested in the world and how it became what it did. It is not going away. Your children will be taught it at some point in their lives. And they will not (or should not) be taught ‘intelligent design’ alongside it. That is not a scientific theory. That is an idea based on a religious belief instead of scientific evidence and therefore should not be taught in Science lessons.
It is not a war. It is not a competition. Stop acting like it is.
Disclaimer:I realise that I may have spoken about evolution as a fact. But before you complain and insist I constantly and always refer to it is a theory, please consider the amount of times you have used sentences such as ‘God IS amazing’ ‘God performED this miracle’ ‘God HAS saved me’. I do not insist that you adapt your way of speaking to ‘God MIGHT be amazing’ in order to acknowledge the fact that there are people that do not believe that there is a God or people that would argue that there is little evidence to back up the idea of a God. I accept the fact that in your heart you believe that is the truth. In my heart I believe that evolution happened. This is not an attempt to start an argument. I have respect for all your chosen beliefs even if I feel that they are wrong, have respect for mine.
Comments (21)
Have you read/watched any of the stuff about Ardi?
I never believed in evolution before, but now I’m not sure. I’m still trying to figure out what exactly I do believe in.
The 40-day flood of Noah easily caused the multiple layers of earth that we find dinos within.
Just a thought.
Oooh I totally feel the same way about evolution. From a young age I felt that the creation story (of which there are TWO in the bible, by the way) couldn’t be completely accurate because what about the dinosaurs? What about the cavemen? There are so many things that couldn’t have existed simultaneously with Adam and Eve. And if the world was created when the bible says, that would only make it a few thousand years old, but we have proof that the earth has existed for millions of years!
I’m still not 100% sure whether I believe there is a god or not, but I think that if there is, whoever wrote the bible must have been mistaken with certain facts (after all, man physically wrote it down and man is infallible) and god would have had to create earth and nature and allow it to evolve. Thats the only godly explanation that makes any sense to me.
i have a theory! mine is that there was some sort of animalish-humanish creature that became extinct (like dinosaurs, dodo birds, the quagga etc) rather than evolution from monkey to man.
I like the disclaimer. I was raised not to believe in evolution; now i’m on the fence about it. Either way, there’s no reason to take it as an insult if someone believes something you don’t.
I know what I believe in.
Evolution and Creation Theory are not necessarily at odds. Many scientists believe in a Divine Creator. They just want to better understand the details of how this incredible abundance of life came to be. As you say, the evolution of life is itself a wondrous thing.
This highly offends me. Clearly, as any intelligent person knows, The Flying Spaggetti Monster created us all with the whim of His divine noodly will. Shame on you for espousing this propoganda!
@SimplyNita - It might help if you realize there are two parts of the theory of evolution actually.
The first part is that creatures evolve. We know this is true because we have evidence of it, we can see species that have evolved from natural selection within the last hundred years even. We can see bacteria that mutate and become different species within years or less. We even help evolution along by breeding race horses to be faster. So the fact that species evolve is a pretty well established fact.
The other part of evolution is the theory of how humans came into existence…..are we related to neanderthals? Is the skeleton they found in Africa really our ancestor? There’s a lot less evidence around this because, well, most things that lived in the past have already decomposed and only a few became fossils. So it’s really hard to know what happened.
Anyway that might help.
@Magniloquentia - I apologise, I should have known better. The next time I mention evolution I will be sure to mention The Flying Spaghetti Monster.
@happyworld_ofharibo - that’s better. haha
You are right in the statement that we may never be able to prove or disprove the creation of this earth. Science is progressing at such leaps and bounds of course mapping must change. That’s the idea with science: any living thing evolves over time. If this earth has been in existence for millions of years, wouldn’t it be logical then that man today is not the man of yesteryear?
one little contention on my part: It’s not “just a theory” It’s a scientific theory, the most sought after achievement in the scientific community. A scientific theory means every study ever done and all evidence has supported it and no study ever done and no piece of evidence has ever refuted it. If even a single study demonstrated that evolution was false, the entire theory would collapse and be proven false, but it’s never happened.
Other than that I have no problem with it and totally agree. Even if evolution were false and intelligent design were true, it is still the case that one belongs in a science classroom and one does not.
Hah, you copycat you. I have my entry on Creationism up before you!
Anyway, well put.
Loved your disclaimer. Many atheist parents are counselled by friends, even atheist friends, to tell their children that “god might not exist” rather than “god doesn’t exist”. This is supposed to give the kids more freedom to decide for themselves. But of course the Pope etc. never declares that god might exist.
@ironic_vertigo - Oh dear, I apologise. I am afraid I have been terrible at reading (or even noticing) other peoples posts lately, but I will go and read yours now.
Good post except for one thing. Why should I respect your beliefs (and theories) if you do not respect mine? Why should I allow my children to be taught something that I believe is a lie (notice my wording, it is a lie, but I will go ahead and say that I believe it to be a lie) and not be taught what I believe to be the truth (again, it is the truth, but I will say what the PC police say I should say)? Just like we are supposed to be tolerant of everyone except those who believe that Christ is the exclusive way to Heaven. I don’t mind my children being taught evolution. In fact, I will teach them micro-evolution. But I want macro-evolution taught as only a theory, with circumstantial evidence, but not overwhelming by any means. But I also want them taught creation, and I will trust them to choose which is correct.
Mike
@EsotericTheaterLover - I do respect your beliefs as much as I respect all other beliefs in this world as long as they are not used to harm others. I disagree with most of them but I respect the fact that you have chosen to believe it. Feel free to refer to your beliefs as the truth, if you notice I didn’t ask you not to, I simply asked you not complain when I speak about what i believe as the truth. Either it is ok to refer to them as the truth or it is not. And if you believe that it is ok for you to speak of the God you believe in as the truth then it is ok for me to speak of what I have chosen to believe as the truth. As for the teaching of creation in schools, I have no problem with that as long as it is taught in the correct place. Meaning not in a science class as it is not based on scientific evidence or research, it is based on a religious idea. If it is ok for religious ideas to be taught in science then I assume you would be ok with beliefs such as Scientology being taught in science classes too?
As for this … ‘Just like we are supposed to be tolerant of everyone except those who believe that Christ is the exclusive way to Heaven’…. either you believe in tolerance and respect or you don’t. No it isn’t fair when others ask you to respect them then trash you. But if you believe in tolerance and respect then you should do it anyway, regardless of what others do to you. I believe the phrase is ‘do unto others as you would have them do to you’ or something similar. If you don’t like people trashing your religion then make sure not trash theirs. If they choose to trash yours anyway then that is their problem rather then yours. (I realise that in my post I asked for your respect, but you could have chosen to ignore it. you could have chosen to trash all my beliefs. And if you had I would have been upset but i wouldn’t have resorted to trashing yours in return because I believe in respecting others.)
Great post, as ever your disclaimers only make it better!
@happyworld_ofharibo - I don’t care what other people say is the truth. They can say the truth is that the sky is purple for all I care. That doesn’t mean I have to acknowledge it as truth. Just as I do not care if anyone acknowledges my views as the truth. There is no real science behind macro-evolution, even Darwin himself did not advocate it. All the real (non-prejudiced) science on the subject is either inconclusive or points to intelligent design. But no one wants to hear that, so I would tolerate both theories being taught. I don’t believe this will be the case any time soon, but by the time they get evolution in school my children will have a good enough background in the science involved to know fact from fiction. I just pray that it does not adversely effect their grades if they refuse to buy the party line.
Mike