The Shallow Stream
It took a little stream of consciousness to get to this topic. Understand that the stream is pretty shallow and the water is usually murky. But the upside is that nobody is going to drown.
I was in a doctor’s office today. Arriving the suggested fifteen minutes early I checked in with the receptionist and then spent the next fifteen minutes trying as hard as I could not to touch anything (I never read the magazines in a doctors waiting room as I never know what contagious malady the person had who was reading it last). I was promptly escorted to the treatment room right on time and thought this was going to be a quick and easy experience. Well, at least as quick and easy as an experience in a doctor’s office can be. I then spent the next ninety minutes in the treatment room waiting for somebody, anybody to come in and give me some sort of medical sounding opinion. I swear, after ninety minutes had some guy walked in with a broom and a dust pan I would have pointed and said “What do you think of this?” So much for quick and easy.
While I was waiting I had ample time to study the anatomical posters decorating the walls. I now know more about different parts of the human body and the Latin names for each then most fourth year residents. But as I was studying these posters it came to me what a remarkably perfect machine the human body is. Each tiny part playing a vital role in the overall health and correct functioning of the body’s ability see, hear, smell, taste, feel, breath, digest and on and on. This led me to think about the possibility of all this being the result of some random act of nature’s good fortune versus the planning and creation of a supreme being, namely God.
There has been a lot of talk recently thanks to Sarah Palin about the teaching in schools of what is now called “Intelligent Design”. Governor Palin said she believed it would be proper to teach “Intelligent Design” as a differing opinion to the theory of evolution. Oh how the intellectuals and their worshipers titter at the thought. The fact that Governor Palin would suggest that the possibility of an intelligent creator making all that is seen and unseen be taught in schools alongside the scientific facts of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and it’s illegitimate cousin the Big Bang Theory brings the cocktail party smarty’s to convulse in fits of ”tisk tisks” and “Oh Please”. Who would suggest such a thing? Doesn’t this Alaskan rube understand that topics like God or even the possible existence of God are to be left to the dialog of the great unwashed and not to be taken seriously by those who have initials other then Jr. after their names? The “nothing greater than me” clans adoring followers in the news media join these elitist bubbleheads as they report Governor Palin’s comments with blank stares and mouths agape as if they were looking at somebody ordering Bordeaux with the trout.
I understand that the possibility of God creating man is a stretch for some of the more scientific minded folks. Quite frankly, understanding God is a stretch for most faith minded folks too. As C.S. Lewis put it “A man trying to understanding God is like a worm trying to understanding man.” Fortunately for us worms the stretch it takes to get to an intelligent creator is a lot shorter than the stretch it takes to get to the Big Bang and Evolution. That’s probably why there are more worms then scientists.
I have absolutely no problem with teaching the Big Bang Theory or Darwin’s Theory of Evolution as long as the most important part of each is taught, that being that they are both theories. Science teaches that in the beginning there was nothing, and then it blew up. This seems to me to take a much greater leap of faith then anything to do with a Creator. If there is nothing today then there will be nothing in a million or billion years, but if it took something to blow up where did the something come from? Science says something came from nothing and I say something came from a Creator. Neither can be proven and both take faith so it seems to me to be a draw. What makes their theory valid and teachable and mine religious drivel that will bring down the republic if it’s mentioned in school? I believe the reason intelligent design is not taught alongside the big bang is that when you put them side by side intelligent design is far more believable and makes more sense.
As the story goes, once nothing turned to something and blew up it created our galaxy. Now in this galaxy are millions or perhaps billions of stars made from the explosion. Our sun and the planets of our solar system were created and one of the hunks of debris happened to be just the right distance from the sun to allow the hot molten rock and sulfur to cool creating moisture that caused it to rain. The rain covered the molten rock and the whole cooling process caused gases to form and mix creating an atmosphere that somehow was just the right temperature and mixture to create, you got it, life. So out of nothing came enough combination of nothing to blow up and out of this came enough inanimate molten material and gas to create life. As science explains, life was first formed in the water and that’s where evolution takes over.
As this life, which came from nothing on a planet that was created by the explosion of nothing, grew in the water it began to evolve and eventually was able to leave the water and begin breathing air. Every living thing, both plant and animal, evolved from this early life form. Every DNA helix of every living cell of every part of every living thing. Using this logic the human being is actually evolved from a petunia as much as it is from an ape. How did these alpha cells know to mutate or evolve into organs or ears or eyes or lungs? These cells have no ability for cognitive thought, kinda like Nancy Pelosi. How did cells that cannot think decide to become brain cells that can? Even stem cells, which can become any other kind of cell, need to be directed into the cell it is supposed to evolve into. If you took a bucket of stem cells and stored it for one million years all you would end up with is a one million year old bucket of dead stem cells. There are more parts to the evolution story that have been theorized over the years, but the fact remains that science has no, what you call PROOF of any of this beyond the theory. Certainly plants and animal have evolved or adapted to their conditions during the course of millions of years but to my thinking that does not explain creation as a form of evolution.
And if evolution is responsible for the progression of man, a being that rules over all the other beings, why don’t we have any other species that were able to evolve to the same of similar levels of intelligence? Why don’t we have super fish working as programmers at Microsoft? Hell, they spend enough time in school (insert groan here). Why no super birds or super reptiles or amphibians? And if man evolved from the apes, why do we still have apes? What, did some of them decide they would rather not evolve?
The questions regarding the big bang and evolution are many and the inconsistencies in the whole theory are even greater. So with all this conjecture and debate, even within the scientific community why is it so outrageous to present another possibility to school kids? I believe in the separation of church and state. But that separation does not have to include the tenant that the church’s beliefs are for the weak minded or moreover do not exist at all. This country was founded on the basis of freedom of religion so that each could choose how and in whom if anything they want to believe not freedom from any mention of the possibility of God.
Just then the doctor came in, looked me up and down, told me to quit smoking and lose weight. That news flash cost me about $250.00 and two hours of my life. Maybe those non-evolving monkeys were the smart ones.
