What to believe!

HBO recently aired a docudrama called “Doubting Darwin”.  It was mostly a presentation of religious prejudice of Darwin’s philosophical hypothesis on evolution.  Preachers, theologians, homeschooling moms were interviewed for their doubts on evolution and the negative social results that stem from teaching evolution as fact.  One evolutionist was presented as the single advocate for evolution and she repeated the same dogmatic statements often presented by the evolutionary community.  Things like:”without evolution, nothing makes sense in biology” and “all of our present progress in medicine, cell biology, molecular genetics and disease must be thrown out if Darwin was wrong” and “denial of evolution is a denial of science itself.”  None of these statements are true since no one has yet tested or proven evolution in a scientific way except to repeatedly show that the mechanism for how it is supposed to work has not been discovered.  If you can’t prove how it works then it remains a poor hypothesis – a best guess and adds little to our knowledge of the world.  Overall, the film showed that both scientific and religious people as poorly informed about the the lack of evidence for the process of evolution.

The film did make me think about beliefs.  It is a great puzzle to me how people arrive at their beliefs.  This observation of mine is not only of religious people but even more of those who place their faith in such strange and unexplained phenomena as evolution;

the former having committed to a catechism of biblical authority and the later influenced by the educational system, supposing what they have been taught is science and not scientism.  The current and continued debates between religious teachings and scientific theories will never be resolved through the subjective curtain of beliefs but of a proper understanding of what is real.

 

Is God a real entity?  What is the evidence?  Did life change through time by a process of natural selection from stardust to attain the pinnacle of animal evolution; Homo sapiens?  If so, what is the evidence?  Did the cosmos

come to be from some explosion and has the evidence accumulated since this proposal supported this as fact?  Or has this become fiction as many in the field of cosmology suspect?  Is the planet 6000 years old and what is the evidence?  Is it billions of years old and what is the evidence?

I have read the Bible, studied its content, harmonized its seeming contradictions, benefited from its insights and I still have questions about some very strange events presented within its pages.  I have spent 45 years trying to figure out why there are 3000 Christian religious sects and at least a dozen ways to discover forgiveness of sins; the major thesis of both the Old and New Testament sections of the Book.

I have also studied the scientific theories surrounding the creation of the universe, the development of the solar system, the evidences put forward for determining the age of the Earth, continental drift and biological evolution.  I have spent 35 years, 13 in higher academia, two years in post doc, discovering that every one of the current paradigms for each field is fraught with artificial and highly imaginative speculations in order for anyone of them to hold a fringe of credibility.

 

 

 

Just as the Christian must rely on the unfathomable wisdom of a God who knows better than to give an obvious answer to pray, the scientist relies on the mystical forces of the universe that in spite of known laws of physics

and chemistry must have, at one time, allowed polymerization to proceed to created complex bio-molecules.  Both positions require a bucket load of faith.  How blind this faith is really depends on how deeply committed one is to their position- regardless of facts!  But even to think somehow science has a better standing than religion is just arrogant, or ignorant or probably both.

 

What I have determined to do is to rest my beliefs on reason.  Belief that we are stardust is not reason, it is

faith and blind faith at that.  Our current understanding of the universe tells us we are at least 3 generations removed from the stars that should have been the product of a big bang and there is little evidence to support that either the material science or physics can legitimately account for the existence of stars let alone planets let alone the Earth.  Belief that God spoke the universe into existence has far more scientific support than most are willing to believe, except, quite amazingly, the cosmologist themselves.

What we are left with is popular opinion and consensus views, and a liberal media that tragically fails to report,

with any real clarity, the contradictions, anti scientific assumptions, re-interpretations of findings that are used to hold a godless view of reality.   Sad but true, we find ourselves at the precipice of incredible technological advances without civil or moral advice or ethical foundations, which science cannot address for us, save to echo its hollow belief that humanity is just a pestilence on the planet.  Because no one has learned to play nice, or to be plain honest, we have begun to use our advanced technology to perform advanced heart surgery in the womb to save life and dilation and curettage of the womb to take life.  Something is missing.

 

 

What we want most and even more, what we need is a higher authority who will intercede, instruct, clarify,

guide, direct… and just fix our world and us.  The evolutionist will say that there is no one to save us and the Christians say we are waiting on His return.

Well, what if there is someone, and what if he already came?   If both sides knew this was true, would it make any difference?  Or is humanity just too dull to ever make the connection?  I fear too much ego and too little humility get in the way of our thinking.  We are hopelessly deluded with completely selfish motives whether religious or secular.  We are of all creatures most to be pitied.