On the subject of evolution, the science vs religion debate is a deeply
polarized one. However, there was not always this schism between the two. Unfortunately today the more man grapples with trying to understand even a fraction of the cosmos he seems to get no further from the rather basic ‘Is there a God or not?’ debate. A more saner debate may be “This universe is amazing and we seem not really to be able to understand it but lets keep our hearts and minds open” – discuss.
Examining something very complicated and still coming away with the conclusion that we cannot understand it does not mean it has no creator. Rather it is better to realise we have limited capacity to understand things that are by their nature, much bigger than us with our empiric methodologies.
Maybe we do not have the appropriate devices to see God, as we are not looking through the eyes of faith, but merely a blunt microscope?
Why then do we still then expect to see Maha-Vishnu at the heart of the atom – using only these crude instruments?
I guess, the theory of evolution is half right but this is where it is dangerous. As Mary Midgley pointed out in her excellent book ‘Evolution as a Religion’ where she calls the theory “an inert piece of theoretical science”, the elevation of this theory into the domain of canonical fact has obscured some of the real issues.
Personally I believe in God, and I also believe in evolution. in the sense that life does, in a general sense, progress and move forward. However when we talk of evolution – we are talking about the evolution of what?
Is it mere atoms or dead matter?
There is no place for the eternal soul in this scientific evolutionary equation but the soul is what is actually missing from this equation. As an aside many scientists seem to want to push God out of the equation and fill that gap with themselves.
This is modern scientific atheism. Everything that is created in this world has a designer or architect. Cars, computers, operating systems and planes don’t make themselves. It is therefore sensible to abstract this knowledge out by saying that this observed logic can also apply to our universe and everything in it. Even more so when science shows us just how complex, elegant and astounding our world is. It is therefore more reasonable to say we don’t understand the architect, rather than there is no architect.
As a final note. I also don’t believe that the architect left us abandoned in this world with no clue of who he is or how to get back to him. But each buys in the market in accordance to what he can afford. We must therefore with faith move from baby infants before higher things can be understood. The state of our world is surely a plain indication of just what class mankind is currently in.
This post was sent to the Pat Kenny show during March 2008 in response to a discussion on this topic.
[Please note that I generally view doing this kind of thing as the premature onset of middle age.]
Joshue O Connor's Unpasteurised Blog 
i am gonna show this to my friend, guy
this is great dude major kudos but i wonder what do you mean when you say i believe in God and evolution? are you talking or micro or macro evolution?
@Jeff:
I don’t really know what the terms micro or macro evolution mean. What I mean is that I don’t see a dissonance between the existence of God and the idea of life being in a state of constant evolution. I just don’t believe that our creation was a random accident, or to put it another way; that we live in a merely mechanistic universe, though in many ways nature seems like a machine.
However, everything rests on consciousness, all life is conscious in some way. So before this universe there was consciousness. I believe that this is divine consciousness and this source is the architect of all that is. I also believe that he is a person.
Our capacity to understand these things is limited but we do have /some/ capacity to do this. This is the boon of a human birth as other animals do not have this ability. Therefore our energy to some degree must be put to this task to make best use of the opportunity we have been given.
One of my problems with theoretical evolution (as an ideology) is that it does not satisfactorily explain consciousness. Its existence, source etc. We talk about life just somehow evolving and improving, but how? On a cellular level? Is all life sharing a collective knowledge that informs how it should develop, and if so how does this happen? Why does this happen?
Lets set the bar a little higher rather than using poor reductionist logic to take on a world view that is mechanistic, devoid of compassion (as this is an aberration in the framework of theoretical evolution) and does not fit with the wider harmony that we can see in nature. I have a sense that true picture is rather more beautiful, if the patterns in nature are to be believed or indeed the finer sensibilities of the human heart are to be listened to.
Or are they only an accident?
@Josh
there is clear defference between micro and macro evolution. micro evolution is on a small scale WITHIN THE BREED. and example of this is a dog and another dog mating and creating a cross breed. micro evolution has been witnessed in nature obviously. but on the other hand the theory of evolution in darwinism claims macro evolution (which has never been witnessed randomly, and has yet to even be recreated. and i do stress that if we were to recreate macroevolution it would only hurt the theory even more because we CREATED it, it proves a creator) an example of this is of course the monkey over time changing into a human.
you cannot believe in macro evolution and God of the Bible. God said in Genesis that all living things were to populate “according to their kind”.
Maybe we aren’t conscious enough to prove what we believe, so maybe we shouldn’t believe at all.
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation 🙂 Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Chest!!!
To Josh:
I think what you have said about your beliefs is valid and you have every right to belief what you do. I am not writing this to argue or PROVE that I am right, I too have a belief though. My belief is in science, and I think it is a beautiful thing just as you think your creation to be beautiful. I only ask that you take an evolution course to understand better how science explains evolution before you judge.
Thank you
I’m amazed at how naive people are who believe religion. They think that they are going to heaven and (sit around little white clouds in heaven – – – and do what?) Where are all the dead people doing – playing harps — sitting on Little clouds singing and playing harps all day? It’s all a fantasy!
Wtth all this going on for eternity.
How can anyone not looking out into a clear night sky and not see the vastmess of the universe. The vastness of space and space of Earth
I find the PBS program (Evolution/change/deep/index.index.html.) very puts a graphic picture of the ecolution of the species and that led to man. It shows a very graphic illustrations
I think that is so hard tor most poiple to understand the enormas amout of time that has occurred from 4.6 Billion years since the beging. If this time were compressed into a 12 hour clock it gives it a special perspective.
Formation of EARTH began at 12 Noon – 4.8 Billion years ago – – – Noon
Life begins in the form Bacteria at 3.5 Billion Years ago – – – – – – – 3:40
Multi-Celled plants and animals appear at 1 Billion years ago – – – -9:24
Crustaceans appear at . . . . . . . . . . 650 Million years ago – – – – -2:48
Insects appear at . . . . . . . . . . . . 380 Million years ago – – – – 11:00
Reptiles appear at . . . . . . . . . . . 340 Million years ago – – – – 11:07
Mammals appear at . . . . . . . . . . 213 Million years ago – – – – 11:27
Humans appear at . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Million years ago – – – – 11:59:41
Religion appears at . . . about 2 Thousand years ago – 11:59:59.9999996
All of the above information, except religion, has been proven through scientific research. There is, however, no scientific evidence to support religion, plus it occupies and extremely small portion of time commpared to the age of Earth. It is my opinion that religion is based in the fear of the unknown and fantasies.
I believe religion may have been ‘created’ to control people. We are being controlled today…why not back then?
@John C Burritt:
Thanks for the post. I can’t vouch for going to heaven or sitting around on little clouds for eternity but I find it very interesting that you describe the above cycle of time and then outline an evolutionary ontology (sic). This cycle of time is indeed vast but lets expand your idea and compare it to a different viewpoint, the Vedic conception.
The Vedic conception also provides a cyclic chronological frame that is vast in scope and actually, on closer examination, quite similar to the traditional western Judeo Christian view of creation but for the purpose of illustration lets consider them for now as separate. In this Vedic ontology the universe has been created by a personality called Lord Brahma. His has both a day and night, like us that are in a relative sense the same, but in terms of time are vastly different. Each of his ‘days’ are according to Vedic calculation approximately 4.32 billion of our years. On of these ‘days’ of Brahma is known as a Kalpa, During this time partial creation and destruction takes place. Therefore in this conception the day and night of the Gods operate in a vastly superior time frame that the Vedic conception is quite explicit about. Note that his night is also equally long.
According to the Vedic conception the duration of the life of Lord Brahma, is 100 solar years, which is approximately 36,000 of these Kalpas, this translates to roughly 311 trillion of our years. Then then he also dies. Lord Brahma is traditionally depicted as an old man with a beard, which may sound familiar.
I am outlining this (as I find it interesting) to illustrate a separate and distinct model. This is also a very old conception which posits that actually all things came from him (as the first created person, though he also in turn, has a creator, but that’s a discussion for another day). Lord Brahma is also described as the most intelligent being in the universe and all Arts and Science come originally from him, so the traditional evolutionary view of intelligence or human consciousness as being developed gradually as we raised ourselves (somehow) from the slime, it is very much challenged by the Vedic conception. It’s a complete reversal actually.
This conception of time is nicely illustrated on Michael Cremos website, (I also highly recommend his books ‘Human Devolution’ and ‘Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race’), and even Wikipedia gives a nice overview of this conception of Vedic time as a logarithmic scale. [1] [2] [3] [4]
[1] http://www.mcremo.com/vedic.htm
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_units_of_measurement
[3] http://www.humandevolution.com/
[4] http://www.forbiddenarcheology.com/
So he make a clear argument for why:
1. There is no logic to a Creator sitting around for Billions of Years looking at only pretty lights (stars) before getting the ball rolling on something slightly more interesting (life), to say nothing of Revealing His Awesomeness to us in barely the last second of this cosmological day.
2. That science has revealed all this timeline to us, but science (by extension, created by God) has revealed nothing of him, rather, all we have is what has been passed down for millenia in a highly edited book, with conflicting passages and the (highly suspect) words of those that choose to take the pulpit.
3. How incredibly boring a real Heaven would be for eternity. Now think about this really for a bit. Either in heaven you learn without end and eventually know as much as God on day (or possibly, Poof! You get all that knowledge immediately when passing through the Pearly Gates, which in reality would take all the fun of discovery out of the equation), OR, you stop learning growing, experiencing new things ONE DAY in the distant future (the saddest day of your eternal existance since now you understand the word BOREDOM at a GOD’S LEVEL, which trust me, surpasses Greatly the boredom we experience). In the first case you have become just like God and in fact are a God on equal footing with Him, which is just weird – do you get to create your own Universes then??? In the second case, you spend eternity experiencing nothing new, nothing unknown Bored Out Of Your Mind.
…and your total response to his post is to simply lay out another timeline from a completely alternative mythology?
Jeopardy anyone? I’ll take pointless counter commentaries for $200 please…
@anthropology major:
Thanks for the post. I am also very interested in Science and I consider my own inner evolution to not be exclusivly to based on faith, but also on logic, scientific reasoning and parsing the combined work of great thinkers, artists and seekers. As far as an evolutionary course goes, I am pretty familiar with this model. It’s very hard to escape! It does however require as much of a leap of faith to believe it as the idea of a Divine higher consciouness. I guess that is the point I am making.
What is interesting is when you come across confounding variables, or disruptive data that does not fit neatly into the evolutionary model, such as possible evidence for the antiquity of man that goes back to hundreds and thousands of years. In fact there may be much of this this that is actively discredited, filtered out and even destroyed if it challenges the current evolutionary mantra too much. The current scientific edifice has too much to loose, but at what cost should it be maintained if it is wrong?
My problem, to borrow your term, is with “confounding variables” with the personal God / we are His Children perspective:
1. How do you explain the suffering of those born with birth defects like fatal brain cancer? Of course, I’m assuming that you believe:
a. Every living person has a Soul
b. Reincarnation does not exist
c. Pain is real and really felt
Please explain how our Loving and All Powerful Creator and Father allows a child to be born into a short, miserable life of pain and suffering only to die horribly at a young age, with no chance to experience or learn about his beautification?
Oh, and please resist the temptation to:
a. Say it’s because their parents sinned.
b. Say that they’ll get to go to heaven (–so they get a free ticket to heaven without ever having been tempted, and I have to spend years trying not to stare at my hot neighbors wife in her skimpy bikini to get there? get real).
2. Please explain how a Korowai cannabal of New Guinea who has never ever heard of God, Jesus, the Bible (let alone a Bible ever having been translated into his language) can be judged by God and by not confessing Jesus as his saviour be condemned to Hell for all eternity?
Again:
a. Please don’t say he goes to Hell, or, goes to Heaven for any reasons since again he didn’t have to do anything to get to either: How can someone completely ignorant of judgment be judged? If YOU didn’t know about the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is it fair in any way that he condemn you for not knowing it? And again, see my argument against a “free ticket” to heaven above.
The problem of a Loving God is morality. There is no morality in a personal God that allows suffering.
I’m fine if you need to believe in a God to have lit the Big Bang like some firecracker for His entertainment. Research has shown that the human mind has to seek causality and has in ingrained need to fill in those blanks; so that’s just your inability to rise above your mind’s in-built failed ability to grasp there doesn’t have to be a cause for everything. Which wierdly enough, somehow there doesn’t have to be a creator of your version of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (aka God).
But when you put Heaven and Hell into the mix, then I’ve got some serious problems. SO, if there is a Judgement Day, I’ll be glad to take some time off work and show up and sit in judgement of God. He has a LOT to explain and atone for. Perhaps He can get a good lawyer and use an insanity plea to his advantage.
Your second paragraph:
What does the “possible evidence for the antiquity of man that goes back to hundreds and thousands of years” even mean in an evolutionary discussion? Are you completely ignorant that Australopithecus became extinct 2 MILLION YEARS AGO???
Please, please discredit away kind Sir. I’m sure you have a scholarly background to discredit much of the evolutionary science and archeological findings that have assembled our evolutionary timeline as known so far.
“Current scientific edifice has too much to lose…” – HUH?? what does this even mean? Science by definition learns through research and discovery and is self-correcting along the way, that is the point of the whole thing.
You know, sort of like God, who one day learned that we don’t have to kill children for him anymore:
“And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and … offer him there for a burnt offering…. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.” — Genesis 22:2,10
or kill children for mocking him:
“And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.” — 2 Kings 2:23-24
or eat our own children:
And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. — Leviticus 26:29
And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters. — Deuteronomy 28:53
And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend. — Jeremiah 19:9
or take pleasure from:
“Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” — Psalm 137:9
Thank goodness the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, so that, you know, we can KNOW HIM.
Without being glib – we all suffer.
My view, indeed the Vedic view, is that not only has every living person have a Soul, but every cow, cat, tree, blade of grass, microbe etc. In fact, it is not that living entities have Souls – they /are/ Souls that are embodied.
I believe it does, in fact belief is secondary we see it around us in nature – regenerative cycles that constantly bring new life from old. Reincarnation is the basis for our journey through the machine, that is nature/the material world. All of our bodily positions are temporary – sometimes we enjoy, sometimes we suffer. This is on the basis that we are in his world to enjoy separately from God. The old maxim “Is it better to reign in Hell, or serve in Heaven” comes to mind. I am trying to learn how to choose the latter – actually the former has collectively been /our/ choice since time immemorial.
However, this is not to say that we are entirely lost. In the human form of life we have the ability for self realisation, and I believe that human life should be used for this purpose – to realise that we are eternal atomic spiritual sparks that are servants of the divine when in our ‘healthy’ state. I believe the purpose of life is to revive this state of consciousness.
Actually, all temporary pleasure and pain is as a result of our contact with matter, and this is experienced through the mind – as I understand it – we (in our spiritual forms) are not material so all that we experience in this world is a kind of dream. The Vedas say that the spirit soul is in a kind of slumber in this world. Like the pains/pleasure we experience in dreams – they seem real at the time but when we wake up, we realise that it wasn’t – the purpose of life is for us to wake up. Jiva Jago.
I believe we all get a chance, at various times – if you follow my argument that we eternal spiritual sparks. Depending on our desire for it, our sincerity and some good fortune. I also believe Gods mercy is causeless, sometimes we don’t have to go anything. Above all is the necessity to learn compassion, tolerance and respect for each other. We need to live lives that are not based on violence towards living entities, but we our so far from that now – our entire ‘civilisation’ is addicted to meat. This causes /huge/ suffering to living entities, and brings a bad reaction to society.
Ok, I’ll resist the temptation.
Well, I certainly won’t judge them. They have their own ancient tribal ways – we can learn a lot from older tribal peoples. Because they never know Jesus, doesn’t not mean they are damned. To say this is narrow, and also implies that the Christian church exclusively holds the keys to the divine. I don’t believe that for a second. The sooner that the Christian church realises it is only a part of a plurality of religious conceptions that must learn to peacefully co-exist without the arrogance of saying “we are the only way” – the better – in my book anyway. We need to move beyond religious sectarianism and learn some tolerance towards other theistic conceptions and indeed, each other.
I love your Flying Spaghetti Monster theory! I will remember that. Bertrand Russeul said something similar about a flying teapot that circumambulated the Sun IIRC.
I don’t agree. We must make some effort to try to understand why we are suffering. Actually, coming to the conclusion that there is some kind of God, divine force etc is actually the /only/ way out of a kind of existential madness. If you just believe that life is a random accident, that we are the product of atomic whimsy, them nothing means anything anyway. Morality is a sham, a concoction designed to fill a void inside our stone hearts? Most people deep down don’t believe this. They sense there is more. Unfortunately we live in a age of rather sophisticated atheism, that has a certain glamour and indeed logic. Humanism etc is a way of developing a moral framework, without a theological basis – and that is fine up to a point. However, in the darkest night we all reach for the invisible hand of a loving presence in some way or other, even if we cannot really sense it, we hope that it exists.
From my understanding of Vedic Cosmology, God has his own divine pastimes that are far superior! However, there is some truth in this – but I will turn it on its head and say that – he created this world for /our/ entertainment – as we want to enjoy separately from him and become the aforementioned masters in hell – we can see how well that going.
Yes, we are pattern seeking machines (as such).
I guess there is, when you leave your body someday.
I think you may loose that one 🙂
I highly recommend that you read ‘Human Devolution’ if you have even a passing fancy with these topics. Its not a Judeo Christian perspective, but rather written from the Vedic perspective, and it is a fascinating thesis even if you don’t subscribe to the authors particular world view.
No, I am very interested in the work of Wallace, and Darwin. I think the latters thesis has been warped beyond all recognition, is all.
Modern science is about conforming to certain norms.
In terms of your quote about sacrifice, yes. That is a very strong theme in Judeo Christian teaching – both human and animal. In terms of humanities ‘evolution’ – I hope we can move beyond such things. The only real sacrifice – is sacrifice of self – in terms of self giving, self control of the mind and senses etc.
Religion and Evolution does not matter. Here is what matters.
In 1973 the world’s population was 3.9 Billion people. In 2009 the world’s population is 6.8 Billion people. Experts predict that by the year 2050 the world’s population will be 9.1 Billion people. As you can clearly see the population is constantly increasing. Japan has already cut their people back to one child per family. And even then their population will still continue to increase. If there’s poverty, starvation, global warming and a hole in the ozone layer now, what do you think it will be like in 500 years? In the future the entire earth will be nothing but one big giant New York City. Your generations will cross the entire United States without seeing a single blade of grass or a tree. When this happens and the ozone layer is completely gone your generations are going to suffer hell like they’ve never suffered hell before. In the future on Christmas Day your generations will have a human body on the table for food because there won’t be anythingelse to eat. They will resort to cannibalism to survive. If you don’t want this to happen then I suggest that you stop creating and tell your children when they grow up not to create. Save your generations from pain and misery by not creating them. I am 100% sure they will appreciate not being created. Spread this message to the entire world. JC
@Jesus Christ.
Yes, that is a rather bleak world view. I guess I have some sympathy with it, as we could state that unless there is some major shift in our consciousness that the future could be bleak. Try and live a conscious life, and have some hope!
This is true. Everyone tells me “Oh you will have kids one day you just wait you will want to pop out 10 kids your body will scream for it.” NO. No I won’t have children and for this very reason. Why have one when the world you bring it into is fucked. We are overpopulated. People cry about farms being turned into housing estates. These people have children. Go figure.
http://eptiler.blogspot.com/ check this out, LoL :))
We all have a right to believe in what we want.
Mr. O connor, I can prove to you that there is a God and that there is JESUS! In the bible it speaks of demons, and I know there to be such a thing as demons. for the last 5 years I have had demonic activity at my house that I have lived in for the last 10 years. But the last 6 months my son has been possessed by a demon. I have noticed that the only ones who believe in demons are christians. I cant save the world by my testimony. My son who is possessed was at a mental hospital and the staff witnessed the possession, the Dr of that facility called me that night and asked me why my son was there that it was not a medical or a mental issue! And asked me how they can help my son. I have witnessed schiz. and multiple personality disorders as being a partial possessions by demons. I dont mean to offend any one here I am just giving my testimony to what I have witnessed and as for scientist I am sorry I watched some guy in a wheel chair that was a scientist speak of evolution and I had to chuckle cause the hour program that he was on T.V. to the people that have expierenced the dark entities as well as the good entities, A waste of my time listening to his theory. I know the bible speaks of demons! And I have witnessed many! I had a professor from TCU come to my house along with TAPS (ghost hunters) and do his paperwork trying to come up with a explaination but he never got back with me. Imagine that? Is it because he had no scientific explanation for the supernatural things that was happening? The bible speaks of supernatural such as parting of the Red Sea! Demons, etc. I am just wondering how can you explain demons without the bible? The entity that has possesed my son has told me he is a fallen angel. I know as a christian I am not suppose to speak to demons but how else can I learn of their supernatural powers. And I have witnessed more than you could ever imagine. People who believe in science, evolution etc. Dont want to believe there is a God! For what ever reason? I dont have a clue! Just asking for a scientific explanation? When the demon was in my son I saw supernatural powers come from my sons body. When the demon was in my sons body I witnessed him trip someone from across the room. My son cannot perform magic. My son is 14 years old. How can evolution explain demons? Does people think demons only exsisted when Jesus walked the earth? Actually it states that the evil will inherit the earth.
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