Liam

Evening all,

First off, the title. I can't be arsed to pick the middle ground that I'm not even sure of, between atheism and agnosticism.. so I won't bother :~) (and yes, I know the dictionary definitions.. so put me down as undecided) :~)

As you may have read in the relatively few posts I have put to this board, I frequent the BBC Creation/Evolution boards for the majority of my time.. but I wrote this, and posted on the aforementioned boards, about a year ago, and although I have seen, upon reading it again, a few bits I may alter in the future (and I see also, many areas capable of expansion).. I thought you may like to add criticism to it.. good or bad: I'm not exactly looking for peer reveiw, but your comments would be welcome..

I have to add that after deliberation, I left the final paragraph in.. although this is more of a personal reply to.. whoever that may be.. I thought it set my stall out, so to speak.

So, here we go

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Evolution has, by chance, thrown up a creature with an awareness of itself and, more importantly, it's surroundings. With that awareness comes a desire, a desperate desire, to explain and comprehend it's surroundings and the situation that it found itself in. This is us; humankind.. man, woman and child.

Our minds in those early days could explain everything with the use of Gods, and conceived theories collectively known as religions. All over the world different peoples used similar systems to interpret the hows, and whys, of their existence. All humans had an ancestral past, born of the same process, so this should not be too strange a concept to understand.

When humans, or our predecessors, first tried to figure out what was going on around us, it was easy to imagine that a supreme being, or initially and indeed is still the case in many cultures lots of demigods, were responsible. This, in ancient times, could resolve that in-built desire that we possessed, to understand our world. It did it very satisfactorily.

As we emerged from the forests we would have lived in hierarchical groups, where the Alpha male would have been the biggest, cleverest and strongest. What easier comparate than to assume that everything around us was the product of yet a bigger, more clever and stronger version of the Alpha male. Most monotheistic religions state that we are "created in the image of God." As our ancestors began to analyse their surroundings, that original thought would be built on, over the generations. When communication skills improved and advanced, from cave drawings to cuneiform and onwards, the ability to pass on these thoughts gained momentum. And as they grew from the interpretations made of our desire to understand, both moralistic and historic stories were passed onward and outward with every generation. They gathered and grouped these stories together. They were written in Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Arabic and in all manner of more localised dialects.

As more civilised hierarchical societies developed, the Kings, scholars and clerics would have certainly believed, along with the plebeians, the theistic models surmised by these ancient writings, but they would have also been able to use the belief of their subordinates, to control them. What better way to make people do what you want than to promise Heaven, or threaten Hell. As communication spread so did these belief systems. They have been carried to the depths of Africa, to the Americas and to the lands of the East.


But now, what do we have -Science- a study of our world, that doesn't need deity, faith, belief, idolatry (although the faith of Islam at least, is iconoclastic) and most important- God. It takes evidence, experiment and mathematical proofs as it's "sacred cows". It does away with the need for an altar, a resplendent all powerful being that requires homage and sacrifice. It shakes the very foundation of 5000 years of having something to cling to, a bedrock of faith, and someone to turn to when life is hard, or to rejoice in the splendour of His Glory when life goes well. This though is what has happened.

I'm not trying to take your faith in God from you, I fully respect the beliefs you hold; the that fact I don't hold with them is a matter for me and my conscience, not yours. But please think about fighting science armed with only your faith in God. It does no harm to our science, it will keep discovering and improving the theories which we hold dear to us, but it will never enforce and strengthen your genuine, all-consuming faith in God, as they don't use the same system of values. There is a big difference between science and religion:

Religion...believing is seeing

Science...seeing is believing

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All comments welcome.. but my parents were married, just to let you know..

Cheers

Liam

Albion

Good grief, whatever did James Avey think of that? I can imagine much gnashing of teeth at these heresies!

Have you read "Religion after God" (or some such title) by Don Cupitt? He takes a whole book to say pretty much what you've said.

Doubting Didymus

What?

Were you expecting someone to call you a bastard?

Sorry to disappoint you, but we are fresh out of creationists around here. Vanderzyden hasn't been seen for nearly a week, and he was about our only active evolution denier at the moment.

So, you're preaching to the converted I'm afraid.