I am always astounded by the neglect of intellect and stubbornness without accountability of religious nuts. This isn't a knock on faith or people with honest beliefs. As long as your religious opinion reflects a good deal (or more) of suffering/meditating/contemplation that let you to your belief then fine. That is the only religious view I will accept. As in most facets of life it is the preferably stupid that cause most (not all) of the problems. It is truly astounding that some intelligent folks, brilliant in many ways, are idiots when it comes to faith matters.
There are some simple outlines here to help those (or help you explain to them) how to use the fully functioning brains they have (even conservatives). I am not going to go too deep into serious understandings of "God" here, that will go into a locked blog as serious revelation in those without the mental capacity to understand it are dangerous; think a nuclear bomb in a country with no formal education but lots of pissed poor people.
Evolution. Is Evolutionary Theory correct? One, remember that theory is a scientific term here, meaning accepted knowledge, not some random guess. Theories can be proven wrong, and that is what science does. Science eliminates the wrong answers to get you the right ones, it doesn't prove things, it disproves them. That is for our simple folks, now try to keep up. People of many faiths and religions and nationalities have worked to prove the theory wrong. In all instances I know of the expiraments to disprove Evolution instead reinforced that the Theory is correct, hence its acceptance of knowledge in the community. Again, that COULD change, but with so much effort to prove it wrong coming up empty, we ought for now accept the science. Atomic Theory is the same way. Do you believe it? If not take a look at Hiroshima, Japan, they seem to believe it there.
Back to Evolution. Many zealots claim this is blasphemous and that God created the world in 6 days and rested on the Sabbath. But I find it funny that they stick to such a silly time frame. Could God do it all in 6 days? Yes I suppose God could do it in 6 milliseconds, or instantly. That isn't the point of why people like me don't lay any credence to the time frame. What is a day? For us it is Sunup, to Sunup again. Officially now time starts at midnight but I am assuming that is a more recent decision. I believe the Bible is powerful book with many important stories. But I think they are more like the stories the Native American Indian Tribes had. I don't think they are really real but stories meant to bestow wisdom about life as a whole rather then documentaries. I see more that the 6 days are 6 periods of creation. The length is multi hundreds of millions of our years give or take. They describe the periods of evolution. First God created light, this seems a likely metaphor for the Big Bang. An explosion that created something out of nothingness. A spark that set all in motion, that sounds a bit better for a Supreme Being.
Then other periods followed. The planets and other solar bodies formed. Geologic forces create land and water, oxygen and nitrogen. The planet cooled and became temperate and flora appeared. Flauna begins and goes through many mutations leaving us to the current time. Evolution isn't over, humans will likely eventually develop anatomy to deal with newer environmental challanges and they will mate and spread the mutation that will win out with dominant genes and a newer more evolved human will be the norm. Of course this is a very lengthy process and will happen long after our great great great great great great grandchildren are dead.
Ok, next is to answer a question that I have heard on TV, radio and in print and can't believe is even out there. "If man came from monkeys then how come there are still monkeys?" or some variation. Ok, this is simply a symptom of ignorance and I will lay it out in more simple terms then it really is but if you want that go get books on zoology and evolutionary biology. Anyway it goes like this. You make a chart that is a like a family tree but is more in pyramid form. Remember, this is very simplified but you should get the idea. On the very top in the very middle we put a single cell organism like an amoeba. Now this next jump is too much but we are keeping it simple. So under the Amoeba you have two categories that evolve. On the left you have vertebrates and on the right you have invertebrates. Now we go to under the invertebrates. two lines, incects and worms and so one to all the bugs you see. Under the vertebrates you have 4 lines, mammals, fish, birds, reptiles. Now lets go straight to the mammals and you have land, sea, and air mammals. from Land Mammals we break down into Ape-monkey like ancestor and the rest go under line two.
Now another new pyramid under Ape-monkey ancestor. I am not sure if its been determined what this species is or if we have yet to find record. Not all carcases leave fossils so it can be hard to fill in every hole. But there was a species at the top of that chain. That ancestor had mutation and two groups formed. Apes side and Monkey side. The monkey side broke down into all the monkey you see that have tails. The Ape side walks more bipedal and doesn't have tails. The Ape side begins to split more as different environments and breading (like with dogs) begin to separate different traits. Eventually a few species broke off with less hair and larger brains. These smarter species intermated until we had Apes and humanoids. The apes differentiated down into the species of today. The humanoids broke into multiple types that yielded sapians, Neanderthals, and Erectus. The others died out and sapiens eventually got reduced forheads and jaws and the brains got bigger till we finally learned to pass down knowledge and human history really began.
Here is a simple drawing of the human side. http://www.feralchildren.com/image.php?if=figures/steeves1
So you see we and apes came from a mutual animal millions of years ago. An we and the monkeys came from the same ancestor millions of years before that. So we aren't the same thing but we have the same ancestor. How do we know this? Well for one thing we share 98% of our genes with Chimpanzees (an ape) and they are our closest relatives. Does that mean we are Apes? No they are a different differentiation. There is astounding amounts of research and documentation that has brought about this theory. And much of it was initially done to try to prove it wrong. It always fails.
Now I ask you. Much as in the big bang theory and the description in the bible of "Let there be light." What is more likely God snapped his fingers and it happened, or he put in place an amazing process that lead to galaxies and our planet over billions of years? I would think the latter sounds more likely considering how life works. Nothing just happens, it all is built on preceding
So how about how we came to be? Did God just say, I want humans and snapped them into existence? Or did God start a beautiful process that over millions of years gave the planet a huge about of different plants and animals and finally humans? Again, since I would consider of Omniscient and Omnipotent, the second path seems more likely.
Well, that is my thoughts about evolution. Remember, viruses change all the time, that is why we aren't immune to them all by now. Granted Viruses are exactly alive but they are genetic codes and they mutate often. A snapshot of how it works. We have many more genes and a much bigger genetic code but those simple gene viruses sure get us sick. There is actually a theory out there, though not often discussed in public forums, that is very secular and pisses of religious folks but is purely scientific. Which is that humans are a byproduct of our genes goal of surviving. It is had for just a gene to be so they evolved complex outer structures to aid their facilitation. Kinda wild but an impressive idea all the same.
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