Creation v Evolution or Fred Flintstone Meets George Jetson

Posted on by RRRingo

CREATIONISM v EVOLUTION or FRED FLINTSTONE MEETS GEORGE JETSON

The problem with this ongoing debate is the failure of each opposing party to at least consider the others proposal. The evolutionist – generally the rational/scientific approach type – scoffs at the notion of a God that created all that we know, all that is, in a week of cosmic hyper-activity. The creationist – generally the bible reading type – refuses to study scientific evidence, such as fossil record and carbon dating, that explains a lot about the universe and is often fact-based.

It is difficult to dispute the myriad scientific evidence compiled by detailed study over centuries of examination that Earth is old and that the universe is older. How can a dead animal turn to stone in 8,700 years, give or take a few centuries? It is equally difficult, at least as viewed by believers, to dispute that an omnipotent God did not create the universe in a week, since the bible tells us so. And, omnipotent is able to do anything, after all.

So where do the twain meet?  Having the ambassador’s nature of trying to bring two opposing sides to a common place, I have a different view. On the one hand I ascribe The Great One far more credit than having waved a magic wand as in, Let there be light. And there was light. On the other hand, I find the belief in the randomness of creation a little too simple.

In spite of vast progress made over the last two or three centuries in scientific endeavors, we cannot even create an alga cell. Our greatest achievements and discoveries have occurred largely in the inanimate realms, i.e. physics, inorganic chemistry, and other non-living and easily understood topics. So, while we cannot create a simplest form of life, we are masters at manipulating 1s and 0s (computer brains) and taking old dead plant and animal residue and turning it into – dubiously – useful products (plastic). The pinnacle of our achievement to date is nicely illustrated by the smart phone, which combines both 1s and 0s encased within a plastic shell made from dead dinosaurs. 

And if the bible is the Word, why did mankind evolve (some might argue that we declined) from stone tablets to smart phones in just a few thousand years?

The principles of science and the observations of nature are frequently described as elegant. The beautiful balance between electrons and protons. The perfect structure of the photon. The connection of all matter in the universe by gravitation. Is it possible that the universe was created by a Higher Order? That instead of waving a magic wand the Higher Order created the perfection we call Nature? That the universe is unfolding as it should? Could science be nothing more than mans inchoate attempt to explain what The Great One built on the foundation of natural laws?

The Ringo Zone

6 thoughts on “Creation v Evolution or Fred Flintstone Meets George Jetson”

  1. You seem to be invoking ‘the god of the gaps’. “I don’t understand how water can come out of a rock, ergo, water-rock god.” Chance is enough. Chance is a mighty engine if one admits that chance can take out “beneficial” traits just as easily as negative traits. As to making a living organism in a lab, I think it will happen in my lifetime and there is a group at Tel Aviv and U Chicago who may pull it off with a single cell, equivalent to a mitochondria, in a year or so. The hard part, synthesizing a full set of instructions in manufactured DNA, has been done and successfully injected into a cell with a removed nucleus. The cell divided right on schedule.
    Steven Jay Gould envisioned ‘two magesteria”, science and religion, which need not overlap since , when they do, religion looks quaint and often silly. E. O. Wilson postulated a concordance between religion and science but his book was such a muddle that his idea died a natural death. It is interesting that his studies on sociobiology and altruism are the modern basis of the “Who needs a god to dictate morality?” logic.

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    • Hello Old Diver. I would say mitochondria is more akin to a central nervous system than to a cell. I think “morality” is engrained in our childhood, as so much of who each of us are is. It can be remolded through extreme trauma, as in combat and war. Morality to you and me is not the same as morality to a man who has just stabbed to death his daughter for shaming the family by slipping away for a tryst with a boy. He is moral to those who advocate sharia. Check out my new note on islam.

      And thank you for your thoughtful insights.

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  3. Jung felt that there were many strong ‘forces’ (instincts, perhaps) besides the sex drive that Freud proposed. We are born wrapped in an ancestral cloak of many colours. Some years ago I came across a paleontologic (is there such a word?) article about THE PAINTED CAVE. You can find it if you wish. A European Cro-Magnon cave art site that in one grotto had a ceiling which had been modified to resemble the night sky with constellations. A curious archeologist wondered why theose ancient ones had put something on a cave roof far from the light where no one could see. He shined his light on the floor and a face stared back at him. A face sketched into the rock 40,000 years ago staring at he night sky deep in the earth. There were other faces on the floor. Recognizable, unique men and women.
    That , my friend , is Religion. It has always been there and always will be. It can be transmuted into different forms like COmmunism, or Nazism, or Science; but it’s all the same thing. It all comes from the same wellspring.

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