About Chris

A Christian from a young age, with a father who's a minister, I often find I think on things that I want to be able to get down in some form. So why not share them?

Theories

It’s been brought home to me, in various different media and forms, that people on both sides of the argument struggle with giving time to both Theories of Evolution and Intelligent Design. It irks me that purportedly intelligent people on both sides of the argument cannot see beyond their prejudices and come to the conclusion that neither theory is mutually exclusive. So I thought I would get some thoughts down in the hope of trying to show the merits of either argument.

Firstly, let me say, that fundamentalists, both in the Christian and scientific worlds give either camp a reputation for intolerance, and neither side should be about that. Jesus taught that their should be grace and mercy in all things, so why must all that is written be taken so literally and aimed at persecution of others points of view. And science in its own way is about tolerance; hypotheses and theories should be given fair hearing until sufficient evidence comes to light to disprove them.

Now, we come to my main issue with the argument: believers in Evolution – and yes, they are believers, nothing has proven evolution without doubt – argue that there is enough evidence to prove that evolution is likely (I wholeheartedly agree), but then procede with a logical fallacy that leads them to put down all possible mention of a Theory of Intelligent Design. How can a scientific community not see the problems inherent in that argument?

The other side of the coin is the fundamentalist Christian – and here a large number of people begin to roll their eyes, possibly unfairly. It seems to be that a large number of these God fearing, often intelligent people, who are often happy to understand that parts of the Bible are plainly metaphor; a better way of beginning to understand the nature of God through human thought, the instant it is suggested that the story of creation may also be a ‘parable’ to try and conceive creaion through our own minds, the blinkers come down. Why must it be taken so literally? I have no doubt in my mind that the story of Creation is true, however I struggle with ignoring the evidence provided by scientific research.

Now, a quick tangent, away from the Evolution/Intelligent Design argument. Let’s look at the beginning of the bible, in this case the New International Version, a popular translation throughout the world.

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

It’s quite easy to bring both this and the Big Bang Theory together, who is to say that God did not create the heavens and the earth through the Big Bang?

Moving on from there and back to the point, first sea creatures, then birds and land animals are created. Again, there are parallels with the Theory of Evolution, sea creatures leading on to land and air dwelling creatures, sound familiar?

What is it that prevents people from seeing that both these Theories can complement each other? What is to say that evolution could not have been designed, gently nudged along the road towards humanity at the appropriate moments? How is it conceivable that a God who could create everything from scratch could not design Evolution, making each species live up to its potential by giving them the requisite skills for survival?