Faith and Evolution

Intelligent Design and Evolution has been huge in the news lately. So, let's talk about that today, just for kicks.

I will not hide that I am a Christian, not a shining example, but a believer never the less. I subscribe to creation as laid out in the bible. However, I am not delusional like some. I do not believe in creation due to evidence, logic, or theory. This is the basis for the whole Intelligent Design theory. I believe in creation because I know the one who did the creating, and who told us about it. I accept creation on faith, because I accept the creator on faith. Don't get me wrong, there is evidence that at the very least evolution can't explain, and at the best provides evidence for creation. However, the basis of my belief isn't in evidence (which can be faked or misinterpreted), but in the one I believe made what we see. Others have different viewpoints, but this is mine.

However, the thing that cheeses me off is people don't see, or deny the how essential faith is in evolution. There is a horrible mistake now days in accepting evolution as fact. It is a theory, not a law. Evolution is the best theory science has, but it's still a theory. Theories can be wrong, theories change, science is built on one broken or false theory after another. I will not digress into an argument for or against evolution, that is not the point of this rant. My beef is that people assume that since some smart person in some prestigious university says it's true, it must be. You have faith in that scientist, in his expertise, in his theory, in the evidence he claims to have found. Faith is essential in accepting science's explanation for the origin of the universe and life. But, the reason acknowledging faiths role in science is that faith can be misplaced. If we accept science as fact, it will blind us completely to other possibilities. Evolution, while the current leading theory, isn't the only possibility. So little information is known about the past, so little evidence has survived, and sometimes that evidence is misread or flat out faked by the scientist, leading to wrong theories and the continuation of old ones. If we accept evolution or any scientific theory as set in stone fact, we will ignore evidence to the contrary, and newer better theories will go undiscovered. Ignoring the fact that faith is the foundation of science means we will continue to blindly follow science down a dead end path, rather then creating, testing and proving or disproving theories as science like science aims to do. Blind acceptance of anything, Religion or Science, is always dangerous.

The thing is, Creation and Evolution aren't very different, they are two sides of the same coin. Creation starts with the assumption that a higher power, God in whatever form you believe in, exists. That is the foundation that Creation believes on, evidence comes later. The same is can be said for Evolution and the Big Bang, though it starts with the assumption that God does not exist, then the evidence comes later. The foundation of both is whether you believe God exists or not. They both fill the same need, to answer the "Big" questions of life. Countless times I have sat and listened to scientists speak on the awe and beauty they see in the universe and the processes of it, and the joy they feel in having some understanding of it, and in having the answers to those Big questions. What they said could have been taken almost word for word from what the preacher says on any random Sunday. Creation and Evolution aren't so different. Lately, both religious and science sides have been getting so heated up over this debate, maybe if we realize that we aren't so different things will cool down. The real answers will come, but to get all heated up is going to tear apart an already very polarized nation.

Ok, rant over, I'm feeling better now.