"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth..."
- The first words of The Bible. Genesis 1:1

"God created the world in six days. Now, Look out! Here comes Genesis and it can now do it in six minutes."
- Dr. Leonard McCoy, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan

"Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat-tails."
- Clarence Darrow, Defense Counsel at the Scopes Monkey Trial

"Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas."
- Clarence Darrow, Defense Counsel at the Scopes Monkey Trial

January 19th, 2005

Well, I started a small fire with my last rant on Televangelists II. This prompted my friend Brian from college (ie - a fellow Jesuit educated apostate) to compose his own guest rant on Creationists and Darwinists (more on the former than the latter).

He and I are like minded about 90% of the time with regard to politics and spirituality and have followed similar paths in our lives. Here are his views

Creationism, or Intelligent Design is the Bible Beaters' attempt to scientifically prove that a god (the Judeo-Christian god) created the universe according to Genesis, and that the timeline for the creation and subsequent history occurred exactly as laid out in the Old Testament. For example, Creationists have asserted that the Grand Canyon was the result of Noah's great flood. You can find out all about it in the book that is available in the Grand Canyon gift shop (I shit you not!). The events going forward from the New Testament are (fairly) well recorded and (reasonably) provable. At least, the earthly events are.

That this is a ridiculous position to take goes without saying.

One does not have to look very hard at the Creationists' "evidence" to see that they are 100% WRONG! Unfortunately, very few Americans are looking very hard. Discover magazine conducted a poll and found that one-third of Americans believe that the Creationists are right, or that regardless of any Creationist "science" that evolution is wrong and the Bible is right. One-third of Americans believe in evolution, which is good (but I'll address the main weakness here as well). The final third "don't know." A thinking person may then conclude that two-thirds of Americans are complete idiots, but the problem is worse than that.

I will ALWAYS respect someone's beliefs if they've thought about them and examined them. When I lived in Charlotte, N.C., several college-educated, young types were recruiting for their Baptist church. They questioned me about my beliefs and I gave them. Unsatisfied that I was agnostic and that I believed that the Old Testament and Creationism were a lot of hooey, they changed from asking me what I believed to questioning my beliefs. I tried a couple of times to warn them off, asking them to respect my beliefs, as I did theirs.

They didn't listen.

I proceeded to question their beliefs and hammered them with logic. I asked them which of the three versions of the Genesis story they subscribed to and was factual, and when they seemed puzzled that there were three (or more), I reminded them that THEY were the ones who went to Bible camp every summer (yes, there is such a place). I suggested that perhaps they just swallowed what they were told and that, to paraphrase, "An unexamined faith is not worth believing." Thus, I could not in future respect their beliefs.

My faith, or lack thereof, has evolved, much like every creature on Earth and elsewhere, and continues to evolve, just as every other living being. I would be hard pressed to say that I ever truly believed there was a god. It would be easier to say that as I grew up and encountered different ways of looking at belief, I began to think about whether a Judeo-Christian god existed and what that meant. So, I moved from a not-real-believer, to a bit skeptical, to agnostic, to almost atheist. This is where I currently am. To me, to have faith is to believe in the face of almost complete lack of evidence. This is not to say that I don't believe in the extraphysical world, which some may call the spiritual. There are a number of well-documented events and circumstances, some within my own experience, that lead me to believe that the physical world is not all there is to it. But, maybe I'm an idiot for believing even that.

There was a famous atheist in Britain, but he's since stated that he was wrong and now believes. The fact that he's quite old and thus close to death may have something to do with changing his mind, to my thinking, and may be covering his bets. There are no atheists in foxholes, I'm told. I don't doubt that for a moment.

My mother bought a book for me recently and asked me to read it. It was, "Why I'm a Catholic." She worries about my soul because she believes me to be merely a lapsed Catholic. She's one to talk, though. She also believes in reincarnation. Catholics are rarely Bible adherents. Most are shopping cart believers. "OK, I believe this, but not this or that, and hey, throw in some reincarnation and some of Buddah's sayings…" It's difficult to take their beliefs seriously.

I told my mom that I appreciated the thought behind the gift, but that my problem was not that I didn't subscribe to church thought, but that I don't believe in a god. When I say believe, I mean believe! That entails the certainty that there is a god. I've heard that no one can be certain, and this is where "faith" comes in. I could never make that leap. If you're unsure, then maybe you feel as hypocritical to speak the Apostle's Creed, as I once did. The Creed is a litany of beliefs that I don't hold. Eventually, I couldn't speak it aloud at church (when I did go), because I felt that I may be compounding a sin (of non-belief) by lying too.

My problems in believing are manifold. First, it's primitive. The Judeo-Christian god, historically speaking, is merely the latest stage in the evolution of religious belief, right Zeus? Apparently, we've been worshiping him correctly for only the past two thousand years. Five thousand years if you count Judaism, but they have been incorrect for the past two thousand years.

Second, I don't see a reason to worship anything. Thank God for my existence? I'm sure I did that many times in the past, when I was a child. If I do something for somebody, one thank-you is enough, thanks.

Third, disease, war, tsunamis, birth defects, children suffering, etc. show the hypocrisy of religion. Why should a god care whether I get that promotion, or give me strength to get through what I sometimes think is a tough day but sweatshop laborers would give one of their eyes for? Or that I get through a tough traffic jam when he gives children brain cancer?

Last, when the aliens land, will they be carrying crosses a la the Conquistadors? I doubt it. If they do, I'll either believe it to be stronger evidence or lose respect for the aliens.

Very few of those who accept Darwin's evolution theory, however, would agree with me. Most who believe in evolution are not atheists. Yet most of the Darwinists would look at the Creationists and call them Bible-beating morons who are trying to push religion in our public schools. If you ask them whether they believe that a god created the universe, most would say yes, but not as the Creationists think. It's like they think a god created the universe not physically, but metaphysically. I'll call them Darwin's Creationists, or DCs.

Many of these DCs say that a god is the reason there's something rather than nothing. For the universe to exist, there HAD to be a creator. To this, I reply, that according to that logic, if we exist solely because a god created the universe for us to exist, then some other, even greater god, had to create our universe-creating god, and so on up the food chain.

Many DCs say yes, a god created the universe, and planned for us to pop up after billions of years of "evolution" (but really planned). This is merely Creationism with a greater timeline. For the DCs then, to be so critical of Creationists is really hypocritical.

If you're a DC you may now say, "you know, you're right Brian, belief in a universe-creating god AND evolution is logically impossible, as they're mutually exclusive." I then have a further question. If there is a god, but not one that created us and the rest of the universe, then why all the worship? Do we fear being punished by some powerful being who never did a damned thing for us? How bully-like, how petty, and how pathetic is this god?

I don't require worship. Why does this god?