Origins

Well, it’s been a while since I stuck my scientific foot in my religious mouth so today seemed like as good a time as any. Throughout this long holiday weekend I’ve been in Colorado with family and have had the opportunity to observe countless Canadian Geese coming and going as they stopped along their migration route at a local lake. This served as a reminder that the whole concept of long distance migration is just one of the thousands of miracles in nature which I feel science has failed to explain adequately. This brings us to a poem I wrote recently about a subject of personal passion, but first I suppose that full disclosure is in order. OK, I’m one of those narrow-minded religious people who believes that maybe a God created everything. Now, before you change channels on me it must also be noted that those who tend to disagree with me are often even more narrow-minded and less willing to discuss the subject. I challenge you, therefore, to lend me you ear (or eyes) for a few moments of consideration.

Those who cling doggedly to the concept of evolution often seem to be missing the answers to many of its most critical questions. I think we would all agree that the stronger lion or the faster fish has a better chance of survival and is likely to pass on its potentially superior genes to the next generation. Maybe that causes a species to improve and change a bit over time. That’s called microevolution, where existing forms change through time. The problem occurs when a fish becomes a lizard or lizard becomes a bird. There are some huge gaps in the theory for that process, especially when we infer that the fish will eventually become a monkey and then a man. That is called macroevolution, or the changing from one thing to another completely different thing. Worse yet, back the clock up however many billion years you like to believe and we have no explanation of how life began to start with. Here’s how current evolutionary theory works in my over-simplified idiot layman’s terms: First there was nothing. Then it exploded. Then that nothing which had previously exploded sprang to life. Then it eventually became us. Call me crazy, but I think that takes a lot more faith than believing in a God who created things. You judge for yourself.

The fact is that the earth, and the myriad of complicated systems it contains, is too perfect. Furthermore, our own bodies are chockfull of organs, electrical impulses, chemical reactions and interactions, and complimentary and mutually dependent systems to have simply happened by accident, in my humble opinion. My extensive experience with things which have happened by accident leads me to believe we didn’t “just happen.” The human body contains somewhere between three and three hundred trillion cells, all of which seem to know exactly how to form, what to do, and when. Please tell me that’s not a miracle. I’m sorry, but the “how” seems so overwhelming that I must conclude that there might be a “who” involved.

Well, I’ve wandered way beyond the few moments I asked for today so let me leave you with a final thought. Take a look at the facts for yourself and see if they all add up. If you see any possibility of intelligent design or direction, “the Force,” or what some scientists are beginning to concede as “dark energy” then I propose that we need to consider the possibility of a creator. If there really is a creator, or a God, then that changes everything about our existence and even our possible purpose for existence. I’m simply not satisfied with being the most recent monkey design in the evolutionary chain … and I hope you aren’t either. If you have any questions or comments about this subject, feel free to email me at the address on the top of this page. In the mean time, I offer the following satirical poem for your consideration. Feel free to share it with others in order to stimulate additional conversation on this subject. Oh, and enjoy your accidental day at the top of the food chain.

Origins
The finer points of astrophysics can be difficult to understand
First there was nothing, then it exploded, that’s how it all began
Then one rock in particular began to orbit around our sun
Somehow covered itself with water, but the story wasn’t done
For over the course of millions of years, though it’s difficult to believe
Proteins and amino acids combined and simply began to breathe
Then that little glob of life, which had made itself somehow
Found a way, of course, to reproduce … before you know it, holy cow
It grew into bacteria, or some other odd pond scum
Then evolution kicked in, and that speck both deaf and dumb
Grew gills and guts and gonads, a stomach, heart and skin
Eyes and ears, a mouth, a liver, a brain and even fins
It spawned a thousand different species, then ten thousand more
Then grew some legs and lungs and finally crawled up on the shore
It had some kids with snake skin and some more with feathers too
And some cousins on whose heads a bit of hair eventually grew
Of course, the hairy ones were smarter so they made fire and tools
Which they held with opposable thumbs, and used to build new schools
With their lofty knowledge, developed in such institutions
They fired God and then began to worship evolution
So let’s recap the story of our origins and history
First there was nothing, then it exploded, then it began to breathe
Developing complex systems by accident, ignoring laws of entropy
Nothing turned into something and evolved, somehow, into me
And here I am at the top of the food chain, evolution’s lofty pedestal
The pinnacle of natural selection, lacking any purpose or soul
So don’t you tell me about creation, since I’m nobody’s fool
Evolution has to be true … because it’s all they teach in school
By Frank Carpenter ©