As I was habitually wasting my life last night on Facebook, I came across a shared article titled “Why did God create apes with human features?” The satirical article, which can be found at answersingenesis.com, attempts to answer as to why God would create apes if He knew that they would be used by scientists so vehemently in the defense of the evolution of species by natural selection.
The author makes three really prominent conclusions, all of which seemed acceptable enough to the person who posted it. First, she states that the commonality between species is evidence of a common Designer (fair enough). However, the rest of her argument completely disregards the findings of nearly every field of modern science. She stands by the story of the seven day creation and its literal interpretation. Ultimately she concludes that God created apes with human features just because “He wanted to.” Hmm, now that’s a convenient, untestable hypothesis.
Well, what does science have to say about all this? First off, planet Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Life on Earth (like prokaryote life) has been around for about 3.6 billion years.
Woah, right? That’s not even the coolest part. Modern humans did not show up on the scene until 200,000 years ago.
Think about it this way. If Earth were a bar on the Square, humanity paid an outrageous cover just to walk through the door and be ushered right back out because it closes in five minutes. That’s how long we as a species have been on this planet. We didn’t just show up by magic, either — at least, not initially.
We humans are part of an epic biological drama that has been going on for billions of years. Look up our ancestors! (australopiths are quite adorable). We as a species have evolved to this point and we are still evolving. Don’t believe me? Do you have your wisdom teeth? Not to be super sacrilegious here, but why would God create a species that is “finished” that doesn’t have room in its mouth for a third molar? It’s because we’re evolving. As our food morsels have gotten smaller and easier to chew, our jaws have gotten smaller. There is just no room for our third molar anymore.
Where am I going with all of this? I’m not trying to prove to that there is no God. We could discuss that all day, maybe get really angry at each other and get practically nowhere. What I do want to talk about is: Why aren’t we talking about this? Why aren’t the findings of science applied more enthusiastically to our religious and spiritual intuitions? What are we afraid of becoming?
Atheists, agnostics, and nontheists are going to have to begin to give some credit to the religious experience. Belief in the supernatural is a powerful, driving force in our species. To simply deny millions their beliefs just because modern science even remotely suggests that they may be wrong is definitely not helping the discussion. Furthermore, outright denying the existence of God or the supernatural without sufficient evidence isn’t really scientific.
I’m also going to ask believers to suspend their belief for a second, however. Creationism is not science. Literal interpretations of religious doctrine just do not stand up to the repeatable, methodological explanations of scientific research. This, however, does not make thousands of years of traditions and beliefs suddenly invalid. In my opinion, it makes the ultimate questions we have dealt with for thousands of years that more intriguing, that more bizarre.
So let’s starting talking about the implications of religion adopting science and vice versa. More importantly, let’s start attempting to apply it in our lives.
But where do we begin? First, let’s not forget that there are religions other than Christianity and they are all trying to solve the same problems. So let’s look there. Let’s not allow our intuition to overcome the logic of science, though. Instead, let it guide our logical inquiries.
I have a feeling that whatever the ultimate reality is it is most likely weirder than we could have ever imagined. What if God is a complete natural phenomena? What if our spiritual intuitions were right all along? Science can help us understand these questions. We just can’t be afraid of what we might find.
Ryan Felder is a public policy major from Philadelphia, Miss.
