God Created Evolution

Living through our current culture wars gets me down from time to time. We act as though every cultural issue we come up with only has two diametrically opposed sides and we must choose whose truth we will believe. And if we choose that truth we take all that goes with it even if it goes against what is best for ourselves and our families. I'm taking none of it.

The creation vs. evolution debate gets me riled every time. This issue has been discussed ad nauseum, but essentially the creationists and evolutionists are talking past each other. They represent two different systems of thought that use different ways of thinking. It's like explaining art using math and vice versa. You can explain how Jackson Pollock used fractals in his paintings (which is how they find the fakes), but it won't be able to explain what it's like to stand in front of his paintings and feel your soul enter a new place. Just like knowing that 2+2, 2x2, and 22 all equal four does not move my heart to greater beauty and understanding of my soul (although it is pretty cool.)

The scientific world does a pretty good job explaining the world that can be observed using our 5 senses and overall I have no beef with it. Religion deals in the realm of the unseen -- of mystery. Religion that deals with certainty is where we go wrong -- and yes, I have a beef with that.

We have a book written between 6,000 and 2,000 years ago that contains a lot of Truth, but to force those writers into a scientific mindset is madness. And to equate truth with fact is foolish. Science and Religion inform each other, but they should not rule each other. I think the religious world so often forgets that our power lies outside of the systems -- that's where our true influence is; bringing kindness and compassion to a world that lacks it and speaking truth and justice to world that does not want to hear it. Somewhere along the line, certain churches and denominations began to feel that they were the oppressed because they didn't like what they heard, so instead of speaking for the poor and the disenfranchised, they spoke for themselves, demanding rights and power. They use the Bible as a weapon and many, many people have turned away from seeking any spiritual truth because of it. And then the church just represents another system that's after power and domination.

And the question at the end of the day is, so what? What does it matter how we came to be? The important thing is what we do here and now. We can be informed by the scientific mindset and an earth millions of years old, and we can live in the grace of being made by a loving God. It seems like forcing God into a box of 6 days and a few thousand years of life makes God a lot smaller. What an amazing thing to think we evolved from cells to the amazing creatures that we are. What strikes fear into people's hearts to think we evolved from the same creatures as monkeys? And while I'm glad most of us have evolved past eating our own poo, thinking of our cellular connection to all living things on this earth inspires me to awe and gratitude for this amazing world teeming with life, mine and yours included.

It's time for a paradigm shift. Instead of either / or, it's both / and. The culture wars are a lack of imagination. What if both sides of an issue represented an aspect of truth, and what if they were a million more ways to look at the same issue? And what if, instead of fighting about it and insisting we are the only ones with truth, we listened to each other and gained more knowledge and truth? Let's set aside our self-righteousness and begin to listen to each other. We might actually learn something.