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Sunday, July 3, 2011

Degrees of Creation


I was doing some typical web surfing the other day and I came across an article about Charles Darwin. It was one of those "This Day in History" type of articles. The date referenced was July 1, 1858 and the blurb read:

"1858: The Linnaean Society of London listens to the reading of a composite paper on how natural selection accounts for the evolution and variety of species. The authors are Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Modern biology is born."

I read the article and was just about to move on, when I started reading the comments section (why do I do that!!!). One of the folks who commented contributed a real "gem" that included this:

"... Einstein came along and showed everyone the universe had a beginning . . . which any logical, unblinded person know means there is a beginner."

BACK AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER!!! That's what I am supposed to do...but it never happens. I posted the following in reply to him:

"I'm sure you would concede that by this "logic", your beginner would need a creator also. And then he/she/? would need yet another "beginner". I'm not bothered at all by people daydreaming their lives away, pondering the "six degrees of creation"...as long as you don't want it forced on my kid or want the government to endorse it. I prefer the humble position that doesn't claim to know all the answers, before all the evidence is in."

There hasn't been a response by the original poster and I don't suspect that there will be (not for any reason other than he has more of a life than I do). But I like my "degrees of creation" line. I don't know if it's original (I doubt it) so I shouldn't claim it as mine. But the argument from creation seems to always come back to "How can you get something out of nothing?". Always ignoring the fact that their answer, "God did it", requires us to believe that the creator arose out of nothing. To quote Penn...What the fucking fuck!?!?!? So while it may be a fun distraction to ponder any number of supernatural beings (hey, I love comic books...I read about superpowered dudes in tights all the time), I don't think it is helpful to close your mind and decide that your (not provable) answer is the right one. Call it faith and be done with it. Or if you think the answer to the theological question is knowable, search far and wide for the evidence that is required to prove it. Just don't claim that our lack of understanding or some ancient text authored by man is that evidence. Because it's not. You're going to have to do better to call it science.

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