F...ing Christians, part 3

The real reason some people don’t believe in evolution is that they can’t get their minds around the fact the not only is evolution a proven fact but it is also the consequence of God’s unimaginably incredible creation. The Catholic Church has supported both the Big Bang Theory of the creation of the universe and the Theory of Evolution for at least 50 years now. One of the biggest problems some people have is distinguishing between the definition of theory in the strictest sense of the word and the scientific definition of theory. In the world of science, a theory is a group of postulations that most closely describe a given set of phenomenon. If something arises that challenges those postulations, the theory is not thrown out, it is modified to address the differences. Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity have been tested rigorously over the last 85 or so years and have passed the tests in every case. The technology in modern day conveniences like television and computers are based on Einstein’s theories. Kind of disquieting to thing that things we use in our everyday life are based on theory, huh? Most people would say at that point that they don’t need to be called theories any more and should be called laws. Scientists, however, are very skeptical people by profession and will continue to call it a theory until every possible challenge has been exhausted, which would be never. There will always be someone out there with another bright idea about how the world is put together.

In regards to evolution, the empirical evidence is overwhelming and it makes me laugh when the creationist’s explanation for dinosaur fossils that appear to be from before the time God created the “heavens and the earth” is because He put them there to test our faith. As I said before, we were given the faculties to question our existence for a reason. That reason is to discover how great God’s creation really is. Everything we discover in science reinforces my belief that God is really omniscient, all powerful, all caring, all merciful and all the other alls you can think of. People who have a problem with scientific discoveries contradicting with their faith either don’t want to expand their mind to grasp the idea that God is all that or they don’t have the capacity to. The latter is excusable, the former unconscionable.

Many of the fundamentalist religions want God to be a creator who is only able to create one planet in the entire universe that harbors intelligent life and on that one planet he was only able to create one species with the intellect to understand him. Well folks, I got news for you. The statistical chance that we are the only intelligent civilization in God’s grand creation is infinitesimal. The line from Carl Sagan’s book and the movie of the same name says it all “What a waste of space.” We may not even be the only species on the planet capable of understanding the concept of a creator. All the hallmarks people have used in the past to separate man from the rest of the animal world have all fallen away one by one. Language used to be the determining factor but we now know chimpanzees, dolphins, parrots and even octopus’ all use language of different types to communicate. Tool using has also been sent packing as chimps have been observed fashioning and using tools to gather food.

I am anticipating that the discoveries of the next few years will further bolster my belief and faith in my God. Sometimes I wonder if the people who are so against evolution and the theories surrounding the creation of the universe are worshipping the same God I am. Their God seems to be vengeful, spiteful and limited in power. My God is capable of all things.