Part 1b: The Bible: Evolution vs. Creationism
Creation/Evolution
I was an old earth creationist. I really didn’t know what happened in-between the first and second verses of Genesis chapter 1, but I suspected it wasn’t evolution. After all, that is just plain silly. Who heard of a dinosaur giving birth to a chicken. Come on…
But there was enough evidence that the earth was more than 6K years, so we had to have an older earth, and the dinosaurs probably lived before the first flood. You know, the one that happened between vs1 & 2. God doesn’t make things imperfect, so he must have started with a ready-made world, they sinned (maybe that Lucifer thing) and he flooded it. “the earth became void…”
But there were multiple creation stories that don’t jive when you sit down and think about it. So maybe it was just an analogy, a parable. God does that in the bible. Right?
After my struggles with many other pillars, I came to realize that evolution vs creation was a moot point in my struggles. After all, there are plenty of Christians who see evolution as fact. The creation story as a parable thing. Besides, the proof of a designer does not prove that the designer is the Christian God. Or that the designer is good. Loving. Caring. Concerned with humanity or individual humans. That it is any god(s)(ess[es]) that humanity worships. There’s even a chance that after it was done, it up and left the universe.
So this argument no longer became worthwhile to me. Either way, it could not prove or disprove a personal god.
And while this was going on, my parents started getting into young earth creationism, which I had never bought into, so in curiosity I started trying to figure out what evolution exactly was. My experience with it was second-hand. My HS biology teacher was a Christian so we skipped that chapter. In addition, I had no reason to go looking before.
So I read Why Evolution is True and was amazed that it wasn't as ridiculous as I had been raised believing. Then I read the Greatest Show on Earth and found some of the evidences for evolution to be remarkably compelling. If we were to look at the evidence, we might discover that there was no designer at work, or if he was, he was likely drunk. Why have 2 waste removal systems? Why have the eye built in a way that it is more vulnerable with the nerves on the outside? What about that nerve that goes up the neck and back down - even in giraffes? The fact that dna lines up in a family or organisms, and you can find the same dna sections in related species - even if it is for an feature that is not helpful. Shouldn’t he have realized: “oops, this didn’t work so well, let’s adjust.”
I was an old earth creationist. I really didn’t know what happened in-between the first and second verses of Genesis chapter 1, but I suspected it wasn’t evolution. After all, that is just plain silly. Who heard of a dinosaur giving birth to a chicken. Come on…
But there was enough evidence that the earth was more than 6K years, so we had to have an older earth, and the dinosaurs probably lived before the first flood. You know, the one that happened between vs1 & 2. God doesn’t make things imperfect, so he must have started with a ready-made world, they sinned (maybe that Lucifer thing) and he flooded it. “the earth became void…”
But there were multiple creation stories that don’t jive when you sit down and think about it. So maybe it was just an analogy, a parable. God does that in the bible. Right?
After my struggles with many other pillars, I came to realize that evolution vs creation was a moot point in my struggles. After all, there are plenty of Christians who see evolution as fact. The creation story as a parable thing. Besides, the proof of a designer does not prove that the designer is the Christian God. Or that the designer is good. Loving. Caring. Concerned with humanity or individual humans. That it is any god(s)(ess[es]) that humanity worships. There’s even a chance that after it was done, it up and left the universe.
So this argument no longer became worthwhile to me. Either way, it could not prove or disprove a personal god.
And while this was going on, my parents started getting into young earth creationism, which I had never bought into, so in curiosity I started trying to figure out what evolution exactly was. My experience with it was second-hand. My HS biology teacher was a Christian so we skipped that chapter. In addition, I had no reason to go looking before.
So I read Why Evolution is True and was amazed that it wasn't as ridiculous as I had been raised believing. Then I read the Greatest Show on Earth and found some of the evidences for evolution to be remarkably compelling. If we were to look at the evidence, we might discover that there was no designer at work, or if he was, he was likely drunk. Why have 2 waste removal systems? Why have the eye built in a way that it is more vulnerable with the nerves on the outside? What about that nerve that goes up the neck and back down - even in giraffes? The fact that dna lines up in a family or organisms, and you can find the same dna sections in related species - even if it is for an feature that is not helpful. Shouldn’t he have realized: “oops, this didn’t work so well, let’s adjust.”