"A Man's a Man for all that!" - Rabbie Burns

"Religion? No thanks. I prefer not to outsource my brainwashing."
Trying to get your average Joe creationist to understand the phrase scientific theory is as hard as getting a fish to enjoy mountaineering. Its an unimagined world for them - it requires a complete reversal of their normal modes of thinking and being. The fact that humans could explain the complexities of this world without a creating God is a world view they cannot grasp. It's like asking a tuna if it appreciates the view from the top of Mount Everest.

Oct 17, 2008

Just an average right handed Ape

Your average creationist has a great deal of difficulty accepting the evidence of the biological relationship between the Apes and Humans. The problem with the creationist position however is that the scientific evidence just keeps piling up by the week. Another nail was hammered into the coffin of creationism recently with yet more evidence of the biological similarity between Apes and humans.

A recent study shows that just like with humans gorillas are predominantly right handed and their communication is left brain localised as it is in humans. Given the ton of other evidence about the way that chimps, gorillas and other apes behave and their biological make up it seems impossible that any creationist could still attempt to claim that there is no common descent, that somehow we can pretend that we don't know that Apes and humans have common ancestry.

Creationist fundamentalists will of course continue to be wilfully un-persuadable in the face of the blindingly obvious as they cling fearfully to Genesis stories in their holy books

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

A child asks her mother about how she was born. The mother answers that God sent her as a gift through a stork. The next day, the little girl comes back to the mother and says, but Daddy says that we came from monkeys. Mom says, yes dear, I was talking about my side of the family and your father is talking about his.

Anonymous said...

Yes thats very true rummmuser

Looney said...

So the similarity of Dan Brown novels are due to millions of years of evolution?

Anonymous said...

Er yes Looney in the sense that Dan Brown's evolved(???) brain wrote both books. ( Dan Brown may be the exception that proves the rule of human evolution)

You are trying to imply of course common "authorship" in the creationist sense. However there is no comparison between an authored book and evolved biological organisms as even a moments reflection would reveal. Nice try though.

Oh by the way I spotted a recent news story stating that the Creationists favourite cod scientist Behe now indicates that he accepts that both micro and macro evolution takes place. Must get the reference for you.

Delirious said...

I have always looked at the creation of the world as a learning process of sorts. This isn't something my religion preaches, just my own idea. God formed one cell organisms, then two...etc. The ape would have been one of the last learning steps before forming humans. :) I must say, we don't know how many worlds were created before this one, so it could be that the process of learning how to create took much longer than just this earth's life.

Anonymous said...

Intersting proposition delirious. One problem that I see with your suggestion is that God is , by definition an omniscient being and all powerful. So in what meaningful sense could we talk of God "learning"?

If God need to learn then he would clearly not be all knowing and all powerful and would therefore not be God.

If he is all powerful but decided to "learn" anyway who was he fooling - himself? Could God pretend to himself that he didn't already know how to do something? That doesn't seem to make much sense.

How do you resolve these issues?

Delirious said...

I probably have committed one of the big mistakes of speaking about religion by giving spiritual "meat before milk". To a man such as yourself who doesn't even believe in God, it is especially difficult to explain things of God. But because I have already shoved that piece of spiritual steak down your throat, I should attempt to explain my thoughts. ;)

One of the presidents of our church, Lorenzo Snow taught,

“As man now is, God once was:”

“As God now is, man may be.”

This idea is unique to the LDS religion. In my mind, it doesn't take away from the oniscience of God, nor the omnipotence. But we believe that we are the spiritual offspring of God, and that as such, can become like him. He will always be our God, but we can become like Him, and continue to progress and grow if we are faithful in this life. Only those who earn the right to live in the highest degree of heaven will have the opportunity to continue to progress. I imagine that we will have a lot to learn in the eternities, including how this world was created, starting with the most simple of the creations. I am not sure I will be one of those to be worthy of that opportunity, but that is my goal.

Delirious said...

By the way...not sure how Scots view Ireland, but my sister will be moving there in the next month. I'm sorely tempted to go visit her while she is there. I have 2 kids in college, so I'm not sure if I will have the money, but this is my best opportunity I think, so I will try my best.

Anonymous said...

Hi Delirious,

I'll get to the s"piritual steak" in a minute. ( It wil be a minute steak in other words !)

Re Ireland: Lots off people in the UK have some Irish ancestry. Personally I have Scots, Welsh and Irish ancestry so I am a mongrel and proud of it. Where in Ireland is she moving to? It's been some years scince I have been to Ireland but I am sure you will thoroughly enjoy it if you do make the trip.

Back to consuming that spiritual minute steak -

The way you describe the beliefs of your Church it sounds a bit like Bhuddist/hindu beliefs in spiritual progression and rebirth ( well maybe without the rebirth bit). In which case you are worse off than them because you only get one shot at it !!

You said "To a man such as yourself who doesn't even believe in God, it is especially difficult to explain things of God. "

Why? Does logic and reason not apply to discourse about God?

Surely if God exists then he created mans ability to reason and use logic in which case he must surely have wanted us to apply these gifts to thinking about him and if he exists?

One of the things that perplexes me is that if God communicated with man through the medium of scripture then he clearly hasn't done a very good job when you look at the vast range of different interpretations different Christian sects put on scripture and what they reckon God is or isnt up to!

I am still not sure that you have quite dealt with my questions about God "learning" - does that course come after we have finished the steak?

Delirious said...

I guess my statement about it being difficult for you to understand is due to the fact that there are probably volumes I could speak on this matter, but because the first volume is hard for you to swallow, and we are at volume ten already, I don't expect you to be able to swallow this part. ;)

If God was once like us, then He would have had to progress to the point He is now, where He is omniscient and omnipotent. In college, when studying evolution, I remember thinking that it didn't matter to me if you said I was created from ape, or the dust of the earth...either way it was raw material, and what was created was something in the image of God. In the same way, it doesn't matter how God became omniscient and omnipotent, just that He is.

I might add another dimension of our religion that is unique to us. We believe in the scriptures, but we believe the Bible went through a lot, so has had some parts left out, and some things were translated incorrectly. One of our articles of faith states, "We believe the bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God." In addition, we believe in modern day revelation...not just in ancient scripture. Another article of our faith states, "We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of heaven"...hope I remember that wording right. So you are very right, many religions interpret the scriptures differently so that at times it is hard to know who is right and who is wrong. We believe in having a modern prophet who can receive modern revelation to solve those misunderstandings.

We do believe that this is kind of a one shot deal. We don't believe in reincarnation...we just get one body, one life, one shot at this. But fortunately, Jesus Christ made it possible for us to repent, so we can always wipe the slate if we are willing.

Let's see...my sister has started an Ireland blog. I really wanted her to name it "Blarney" but she didn't. :( She is moving to a suburb of Dublin. Here is the link to her blog if you are interested: http://irishjigs.blogspot.com/

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