EVILution VS Unintelligent Design

As many of you don't know, I'm a big fan of science: biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, astrology, alchemy...okay, well maybe not those last two. However, I'm also a Christian and believe that the Universe was created by, surprise surprise, God (I know some of you probably thought I was gonna blame the Universe's creation on Lord Ulrich, supreme leader of all German Speaking Aquatic Humanoid species in the Andromeda Galaxy, but you are quite wrong). It seems though, for those of you who never paid attention in... well... just haven't been paying attention at all your whole lives, that there is considerable tension between Science and Religion. Non-Christian Scientists tend to view their Christian counter parts as crackpots with zero scientific merit to their theories. And the Christian Creationists who believe in intelligent design, they believe evolution to be the root of all evil and a direct assault against the existence of God. In short, Creationists believe:

The Lord created the earth in six days. No more. No less. Six shalt be the days He shalt have created, and the days of the creating shall be Six. Seven days shalt He not have created, nor either did he create in five days, excepting that he then proceeded to day six. Eight days is right out. Once the day six, being the sixth day, was reached, then, rested he on the seventh day, and the Earth, which, being good in his sight, snuffed it.

And the evolutionists, well, they believe the Universe began with some sort of Big Bang. I think that maybe God lit one of his farts or something. I’m not really sure how that resulted in life though; no one’s really bothered to explain it to me beyond the fact that there was a really big explosion and all this life came out of nowhere. Maybe that’s why they keep blowing crap up in Iraq?

What do I believe then? I guess I’d consider myself a Theistic Evolutionist. In other words, God used evolution to create (and he continues to use it) the world and the creatures that inhabit it. How can I believe a theory supported by those sinners, those Evil, heartless, on a Highway to Hell Atheists? Simple, their theory doesn’t make sense without the presence of an intelligent designer. The signs, after all, are all around us. Patterns in biology, like how flowers usually have 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 or 55 petals. Notice how each number is the sum of the two preceding it. They are Fibonacci numbers (the sequence actually starts at 1, then 2, then 3…). And what about Newton and those little maxims he devised, the three laws of physics? Every thing doesn’t just follow a set of rules unwaveringly all the time. And laws don’t just appear out of know where. Something has to bring order and direction to this Universe. I once heard a pastor say, "A tornado doesn’t just blow through ha scrap yard and a 747 pops out (maybe a Cessna though, he didn’t quite clarify what a tornado is capable of doing given a few thousand tons of scrap metal)."

Then we have evolution itself. In order for evolution work, a gene mutation must occur that gives a creature’s offspring a marked advantage over the others of its species. Seems simple enough. Except there’s just one problem, many gene mutations are neutral and most others result in a disadvantage: cystic fibrosis or cancer to name a couple. The actual chances of a positive gene mutation, that actually gives a considerable advantage, are like a billion to one (or something like that, I couldn’t actually find correct statistics). Kind of makes you wonder why evolutionists don’t play the lottery more often. But then there’s God. I believe that God, whenever he wants to, reaches down and creates a positive mutation. Slowly, through the millennia, he has altered and changed his creation. It’s no more perfect then it was when he first created it, but it’s no less perfect either. Like an artist, he continues to create, continues to surprise us with his craft.

I don’t believe everything evolution teaches though. I don’t believe man came from apes. I think most of the evolution is minor. God changes the minor details in creation to help it cope with the world that we keep screwing around with and changing. Like those white moths that reproduced dark offspring so they could hide better against the soot-covered trees and walls of 19th century industrialized England. Of course, God probably also goes all out every once in a while and creates what is basically a whole new species (dinosaurs to birds maybe?).

Then there’s the Bible itself. It pretty clearly states that God created the Heavens and the Earth in six days and rested on the seventh. But then, is it really a literal description of the creation, or just a poetic declaration that God created the world? The seven days just drawing a parallel to the seven days of the week and the reason for resting on the Sabbath. I think the important thing to realize is that the Bible is not a scientific text. It’s meant to teach us, meant to show us the truth of who Jesus is, who we are, and the lives God wants us to lead. Besides, Moses could have began Genesis like this:

In the beginning, God Created the Monerans and the Prokaryotes. Now the Nucleus was without form, and the DNA was hovering in the bodies of cytoplasm.

Sure it makes complete sense today, but back then the Israelites would have been like, "What the &^%# are you talking about Moses. I mean, come on. We put up with your whole God wants us to walk around in this freaking desert for 40 years, but this? DNA, what does that stand for? Do Not Ask? Sorry man, but even the golden calf made more sense then this." Sure wouldn’t do much for God’s credibility back then.

The same is happening now too. In this we humans know everything and don’t need a God world people look at Genesis and wonder, "What the hell, this makes absolutely no sense." It’s too bad really. If only we could all see God’s presence in his creation. People say us Christians follow blindly, but then, everyone’s already blind anyway.

I could be wrong though. He could have done it in six days. He could have done it in a second and not rested at all. I just don’t think it really matters how He did it. It only matters THAT He did it, that it was beautiful and that He sent his only son to die for our sins. I just wanted to back up my own beliefs.