Sunday, August 06, 2006
Journey to Belief (Part 1)
When I was 17, I participated in a regional science fair. During the banquet, I got into a conversation with one of my 'colleagues' about evolution, God, and creation. I noted a particular speculation I had at the time that God intervened during those 'punctuated' events of Gould's punctuated equilibrium theory.
"Well, what did he do, bring them up to his lab in the sky and genetically alter them?" my acquaintance mocked.
"I don't know, but God has a bit more finesse and power than that," I replied. "He doesn't need a lab."
It was my first experience talking to a skeptic about creation, but certainly not my last. I was angry, upset, and felt ridiculed. I deeply wanted to be accepted by those around me at the time. These were the people I felt most comfortable with. I find it ironic that if I had followed the course my feelings pushed me to, that professors and science colleagues alike would have congratulated me on freeing myself from the shackles of my religious delusions. But I could not have been considered a free thinker or a critical thinker, despite their accolades. Instead I would have been a follower of social pressure.
But that also meant I could not believe in God because of social pressure.
To be continued ¶ 4:58 PM
When I was 17, I participated in a regional science fair. During the banquet, I got into a conversation with one of my 'colleagues' about evolution, God, and creation. I noted a particular speculation I had at the time that God intervened during those 'punctuated' events of Gould's punctuated equilibrium theory.
"Well, what did he do, bring them up to his lab in the sky and genetically alter them?" my acquaintance mocked.
"I don't know, but God has a bit more finesse and power than that," I replied. "He doesn't need a lab."
It was my first experience talking to a skeptic about creation, but certainly not my last. I was angry, upset, and felt ridiculed. I deeply wanted to be accepted by those around me at the time. These were the people I felt most comfortable with. I find it ironic that if I had followed the course my feelings pushed me to, that professors and science colleagues alike would have congratulated me on freeing myself from the shackles of my religious delusions. But I could not have been considered a free thinker or a critical thinker, despite their accolades. Instead I would have been a follower of social pressure.
But that also meant I could not believe in God because of social pressure.
To be continued ¶ 4:58 PM
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It's possible to believe in God and also believe in evolution--even without buying into Gould's punctuated theory. A fellow scientist once told me that he believed that God started the universe--the big bang--or started the seeding of life on this world. To me, he was a free thinker--coming to his belief based on his studies of the complexity of the animals around him.
My problem with the idea that God had a hand in some changes of evolution is that if he thought enough to intervene at those places, why let humans wreak such havoc on the world and on each other. It was Gould's theories, which I read while in college, that turned me into an agnostic and then an atheist.
My problem with the idea that God had a hand in some changes of evolution is that if he thought enough to intervene at those places, why let humans wreak such havoc on the world and on each other. It was Gould's theories, which I read while in college, that turned me into an agnostic and then an atheist.
I agree, that one doesn't need my idea of the time. It was an early thought of mine on the subject. What was more interesting was how the fellow student reacted to me.
This is just the beginning of how I came to believe what I did.
It appears to me that your problem is with free will. Why should God give us free will when it has been used so destructively? Am I right?
This is just the beginning of how I came to believe what I did.
It appears to me that your problem is with free will. Why should God give us free will when it has been used so destructively? Am I right?
It is more complicated and simpler than a quibble over free will.
I just don't feel the need for a higher being. Phill says I would have been burned at the stake as a witch in earlier times.
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I just don't feel the need for a higher being. Phill says I would have been burned at the stake as a witch in earlier times.
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