A Lack of Color

vs AND I ask a lot of questions which apparently comes form my personality type of INTJ.  It is a curse.  People hate me for it.  If I have an idea or a question I will never stop until I’ve completely figured it out.  It does explain my obsession with school.

The other morning, awake at an ungodly time, I was contemplating evolution.  I might have been looking at my hands or maybe there was no reason for my wind to wander that direction.  It is really easy for me to accept that primates evolved to humans but before that I have no understanding of what really happened.  Luckily I’m madly in love with the smartest and most patient boy – I think our relationship depends on those qualities he wonderfully brings to the table.  Jason kindly explained each step (similar to the image above) and I realized that for me to really grasp the concept I needed to constantly remind myself of the millions of years this all took.

It seemed like common sense and I struggled with the fact that religious theology does not coincide with these facts/theories.  In religious studies at an undergraduate level in a secular school theology is not up for debate.  I know this is a hard concept for non-religious studies majors to understand but we study the history of religion, ideas, people, consequences.  As a scholar it is not up to us to agree or disagree with religious theology so I was surprised my mind actually went there.  The fact: Christians believe in creation.  As a scholar I accept this fact.  It is irrelevant to my studies if creationism is true or false.  My thought process: why can’t there be a compromise?  Yah right! I know stupid question and re-reading it now is so embarrassing.  Compromise? Religion? Science?  Never!  But I strongly support respecting of religious thought that is different from your own. For about two minutes I accepted this and tried to fall back asleep.

But wait! We’re forgetting the location for all this evolution: Earth.  I thought, if scientists have identified the process of life on Earth than what about the life of the Earth?  My brain works in steps: Humans, primates….single cell organisms chilling out in the ocean, Earth -  but even we know that Earth is one of many planets/stars/junk in space.  If Earth is the next “step” on my backwards trace of existence then I need to know where it came from.  Here’s the conflict: did God create Earth or did science?  Evolution is undeniable so let’s pretend that we can agree that it has been explained for now.  I still don’t know where the Earth came from so do I say God?  I mean, what is the farthest back science can take us?  There must be a point where science ends and cannot explain anymore (for the time being).  I thought this was Earth.

Insert wonderful boyfriend for the second time.  If God didn’t make the Earth than who did and how?

According to science:  Gas and dust = big cloud.  Sun forms as gravity pulls these materials together.  The remaining particles collide, larger objects form, collide more (think snowball) – this is called accretion.  One of these large objects – Earth.  Fact: gravity, GAS (helium, hydrogen, etc, etc) are scientific facts. A larger object formed by smaller objects is fact. Get some play-dough.  Fact: different gasses form different elements and coincidentally these elements are the basis of a living planet like Earth.

So phewf.  Earth’s formation is explained by science and not by God.  What about the Earth’s location?  What about Space? The Universe? Where did that come from!?! Just when you think it’s settled it really isn’t at all.  Sun and all the planets, including Earth, are in a galaxy, the Milky Way.  The Milky Way is in the Universe.  Here is where science ends.  The Big Bang Theory is one idea of how this all began but a theory nonetheless.  Logic:  science leads us back to the Universe.  The only unexplained but essential part of creation is the Universe. Science ends here.

Let me show you what God created, according to the Christian/Jewish traditions:

Genesis (NIV version) Chapter 1; Verse 1 -8

¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

² Now the earth was ^[a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

³ And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

⁶ And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” ⁷ So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. ⁸ God called the expanse “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

Problems with this: God created Earth but what about Jupiter? The Milky Way? We already know Earth, Light (Sun) and water were created through scientific means.  Let’s give Jewish and Christian authors circa 100 BC – 500 AD a break because they did not have the scientific proof we have now.

Solution for scientists: Accept that creation was an idea formulated before there was any reason for dispute.  Understand that faith overcomes science because faith requires no physical evidence.  Faith in religion can be blinding in the presence of science.

Solution for creationists:  Understand that science is undeniable. I understand that it is easy to think that God created science as a test of belief.  I am the Queen of Stubborn-land and it can be hard to admit fault! But no one is at fault or wrong for believing in what they choose to believe.

Compromise: There is conflict everywhere in the world so why not eliminate one conflict at a time when we can?  Just because God did not create Earth or man does not mean He created nothing.  What can science not explain?  The universe.  What if God created the universe?  Now settle down because that does not imply that God therefore created the Sun and Earth and everything the term universe envelopes.  I mean, simply that The Big Bang was God.  Is it so crazy to think that God was the one who went ‘bang!’  No one can legitimately prove this wrong.  God went ‘bang!’ and created the universe, went back to sleep and evolution took place.  Scientists get evolution and creationists get God. Ebony and ivory living in perfect harmony.

Genesis (Brooke version)

¹ In the beginning God created the universe.

² Billions of years later God named the first man Adam.  A man who had evolved from a primate who had evolved from a ………..

Until…..The God Particle.