Posted by Kromey at 12:56am Dec 14 '07[This was originally written as a response to this post, but I quickly realized this needed to be on the Extreme boards.]
I can certainly understand believing that the world around us is in and of itself proof of creation (hell, I myself believe that some supreme being did in fact create the universe), however to deny that the small evolutions we can observe around us (Darwin's finches, bacteria evolving to be more resistant to drugs, etc.) lends a strong credence to the idea that everything evolved to where it is today is the sign of a small mind incapable of grasping the immense scale of time that it took for this to happen.
Yes, the statistical probability of the right two amino acids combining in the right way under the right conditions is tremendously small, but when you consider just how many of those amino acids there were and how much time it took to finally get those perfect conditions, it becomes a statistical certainty that those acids will combine and DNA will make its appearance.
Factor in the random genetic mutations we have observed for years and extrapolate over the eons the Earth has been here, and only those minds too small or too lazy to comprehend this immeasurably immense scale would ignore what we can see and put their faith in the divine.
The ancient Greeks didn't know what made the winds blow, so they came up with the Four Winds. The Vikings didn't know what made thunder, so they invented Thor. The ancient Japanese didn't know where their islands came from, so they created...
You get the idea. Gods and myths and created by the minds of people who don't understand the world around them in order to make themselves feel like they do. Why? Because the unknown is scary, frightening, and because it is comforting to have rules handed down by more powerful leaders.
It's certainly a possibility that evolution is not what brought us to where we are now - it's certainly possible that a heretofore unknown process instead did it. Logic and science allow for the possibility - rather, the fact that we don't know everything. Put your faith in a moldy, 2,000-year-old book that claims to be the absolute truth, and you have locked yourself away from this possibility for growth. Anyone can invent a great story about the beginning of the world, but only those minds freed of such limitations can ever hope to truly understand our world.
Remember the Dark Ages? They weren't called such because no-one could find the light switch...
I can certainly understand believing that the world around us is in and of itself proof of creation (hell, I myself believe that some supreme being did in fact create the universe), however to deny that the small evolutions we can observe around us (Darwin's finches, bacteria evolving to be more resistant to drugs, etc.) lends a strong credence to the idea that everything evolved to where it is today is the sign of a small mind incapable of grasping the immense scale of time that it took for this to happen.
Yes, the statistical probability of the right two amino acids combining in the right way under the right conditions is tremendously small, but when you consider just how many of those amino acids there were and how much time it took to finally get those perfect conditions, it becomes a statistical certainty that those acids will combine and DNA will make its appearance.
Factor in the random genetic mutations we have observed for years and extrapolate over the eons the Earth has been here, and only those minds too small or too lazy to comprehend this immeasurably immense scale would ignore what we can see and put their faith in the divine.
The ancient Greeks didn't know what made the winds blow, so they came up with the Four Winds. The Vikings didn't know what made thunder, so they invented Thor. The ancient Japanese didn't know where their islands came from, so they created...
You get the idea. Gods and myths and created by the minds of people who don't understand the world around them in order to make themselves feel like they do. Why? Because the unknown is scary, frightening, and because it is comforting to have rules handed down by more powerful leaders.
It's certainly a possibility that evolution is not what brought us to where we are now - it's certainly possible that a heretofore unknown process instead did it. Logic and science allow for the possibility - rather, the fact that we don't know everything. Put your faith in a moldy, 2,000-year-old book that claims to be the absolute truth, and you have locked yourself away from this possibility for growth. Anyone can invent a great story about the beginning of the world, but only those minds freed of such limitations can ever hope to truly understand our world.
Remember the Dark Ages? They weren't called such because no-one could find the light switch...