Well, another week has passed and I apologize for my lack of activity. Now that we are back, I would like to ponder the idea of evolution. This little diddy comes from BBC News and it quite interesting. Evolution has been a hot topic for me since I just read Inherit the Wind, which I highly recommend (I will post on my favorite quote from this play soon). In addition to this, a pal at work blew my mind when explaining his beliefs on creationism. This coworker explained that they believed that the Earth was no more then ten thousand years old. Naturally, I was shocked by this revelation, so I posed a question about the existence of dinosaurs. The coworker responded that said dinosaurs were on Noah's ark. This was the moment that my mind was blown. However, this person is wholly entitled to his opinion, and I completely respect the dedication that this individual shows toward their beliefs.
Now, on to the article that I have linked. Looks like I'm in some trouble. While I am probably closer to the coffee colored skin tone than some, due to my height, I think I'm on my way to being mayor of Goblinville. Well, I hoped this will give us all a laugh in the name of science, and good luck to those of us who will become giants and eventually have 120 year life expectancies.
2 comments:
Wow. Such a deep subject, or shall I say subjects. Anyway, on to the meat of this...
First, a bit of background. I was born and raised a Methodist (love that green bean casserole), have since married into a Catholic (Irish, although they don't really drink much) family, and have since comfortably settled myself as a spiritually agnostic believer in generalized Faith AND Science. *my wife shares similar feelings/thoughts on the matter.
I have taken a good deal of non-western civ classes in my (very erratic) formal education, and would like to believe myself to be a fairly logical and intelligent human being.
Given all of that, I'm not sure how lengthy to make this. This could easily be a GINORMOUS entry. lol First let's start with the Theological aspects of this.
I haven't read much of my Bible in a few months (a year perhaps), but as memory serves, according to Scripture...
*The Earth is between 6,000 and 10,000 years old
*People were living to the ripe old ages of 800 and 900 years (Genesis)
*Dinosaurs were the work of God (Genesis and Job I think), but were not on the Arc - more on Dinos later
My memory is quite cloudy on a lot of this, and I'm far too lazy to go Googling everything, so you might need to cut me a bit of slack on details. I believe that we can break the 'Old World' into three main areas when it comes to Religion.
Monotheist Gods/cultures - Yahweh, Mithra, Allah, Jesus (God incarnate), etc
Polytheist Gods/cultures - Greek, Roman, Norse, etc
Philosophical beliefs - Plato, Epicurus, Confucius, etc
Now on to my own independent thoughts - a question:
If each of the aforementioned 'Theological sects' all have people who claim to be/have been in an intimate setting with the one true Creator, or to have exact knowledge of how things came to be - why is it that those people are not completely and totally banded together?
It is my belief that, and I'm simply applying the logic of thought on this, if there were truly ONE pure entity - that all of those followers would be grouped together. Ah, but there is always the 'Devil's Advocate' side of things...
Using Christian Scripture as an example - Man is fallible. It could be very likely that all of those people are indeed correct, and that the reason they are at odds is due to their own mistakes, call it 'Free Will' if you like. Or it could be there is one true Creator, and that all of those people do have direct connections, yet they simply have different means of connecting.
^^ponderous, huh? ;)
Anyway, my belief structure is formed by my experiences. I do have Faith. It manifests itself in a completely different fashion than most, I believe. But it is Faith nonetheless. I cannot place a name on my 'Creator'. I cannot explain how this 'Creator' exists. I can only say that there are times in my life where I feel I have purpose. That I was 'made' so that I could do good. I offer a story -
I was on a silent retreat at a Jesuit Monastery a few years ago. As the only non-Catholic there I was a bit more challenging than most I'm sure. I posed these two questions to one of the Monks during a private session - 1)Regardless of my beliefs, isn't the important thing for me to go forth and do good work? 2)Shouldn't I be walking in the footsteps of a carpenter's son as opposed to talking about doing it?
I got encouraging words back, but I believe they were meant for me and me alone, so I apologize for merely offering the questions now. But they are good questions to ask yourself individually.
I believe that there was a man who walked the Earth named Jesus Christ. I believe that this man was very influential. I believe that this man was severely persecuted. I believe this man did good things throughout the course of his life. But that is about where my beliefs in this man end.
Isn't that enough? I don't mean to sound judgmental, but how many times in life do we truly do GOOD things for others? Isn't that what we're supposed to do as practicing members of whichever Religion we follow?
OK - that could get a bit more out of hand if I let it, so let's move on to the next part (a shorter one for certain).
Dinos - it is assumed (or whatever word you like) that the Lord God created Dinosaurs. It is also assumed that He created, and eventually destroyed, as much as 50 different eras of creatures inhabiting the Earth before settling on his 'own image' (Dinosaurs were just one of those eras). If that is true, that neatly explains where they came from. But it does not explain the timeline. Nor does it shed a very favorable light on the Almighty.
Timeline - recorded (Biblically speaking) History dates back 6k to 10k years. It doesn't mean that there was nothing before. It simply means that that is the portion of it that we are familiar with. Devil's Advocate says tho, that if that were the case... then He didn't actually 'create' the Heavens and Earth on day 1 - they had to have been there (created) prior to that.
Omniscience - if there were as many as 50 earlier efforts at populating the Earth, and the Creator is all-knowing... why would he have had so many that failed to make the cut? Devil's Advocate says tho, that who's to say our eventual 'judgment day' isn't coming down the pipes just as theirs did? It could be that He gave all of the others a chance, just as He is giving us a chance now.
On to Evolution - I believe in it. Period and point blank. You can see evidence of basic Darwinian evolution all around you. I point to the finches on the Galapagos Islands for simple proof of that. Natural selection indeed. We experience the same thing in day to day life. The better candidate typically outperforms the lesser one (except in Presidential elections) in pretty much every arena.
Believing in Evolution is not mutually exclusive of having Religious beliefs though.
I take issue with organized Religion, granted. But that does not mean that my mindset is not similar in function, even if it is drastically different in form. What I mean by that is that I have a hard time believing that any group claiming to be practicing good teachings can allow people to go hungry in their streets while they are busy building their newest megamillion dollar 'tribute' of a building.
In close, and applying both Evolution and Theology, I am left with one thought. When you and Smeagol inherit the Earth from all of us taller, smarter, more attractive humanoids - I ask only that my children's children have a warm place to sleep and a roof over their head.
OK, so a quick follow-up of sites that I quickly Googled, or knew about, that may be of interest on this topic...
http://www.newadvent.org/
http://www.allaboutgod.com/faq/dinosaurs.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_founders_of_major_religions
http://whyfiles.org/125galapagos/
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