Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Science vs. Religion

Some years ago, I saw a PBS documentary regarding a moth in South America. The moth had a 12 inch snout that could reach the bottom of a 12 inch flower and retrieve life sustaining nectar. The narrator stated that the moth had evolved to be able to obtain the nectar. The question entered my mind as to how the moth survived while its snout was just three inches long during the time it was evolving to 12 inches. Did the moth and the flower evolve together? If so, why did they need to evolve? Couldn't life have been just as good for both if flower and snout had stayed at three inches or 5/8 of an inch or 18 inches? I do not know the answers to these questions and I doubt any evolutionist does either. All the evolutionist knows is that the snout and the flower evolved.

To me, it makes a lot more sense to believe that the moth and the flower were created that way. I have nor argument with science. Questions perhaps, but no argument. After all the computer and keyboard on which I currently type are the creation of scientists. Of course they didn't evolve, they were created.

Years ago, I had a visit with a believing doctor. I was a young Mormon missionary doing what we call tracting (going door to door) in Shreveport, Louisiana. It was rainy and cold that day. The good doctor was a Methodist. He told us that he didn't want to hear what we had to say, but that he would tell us a story about his conversion from atheist to believer. It was an awful day and we were happy to come in where it was warm. The doctor stated that while in medical school, he was working on a cadaver, probing around the eye. He found that a certain muscle ran from the eye, around a kind of pulley and was attached inside the head. This arrangement allowed the eye to move from side to side. This amazed him, but it was when he found that where the muscle ran through the pulley, there was a lubricating gland which made sure that things didn't wear out. It struck him at that moment that the human body had a design. There was a source beyond happenstance that had created the body. The doctor finished his story and turned us back out into the elements.

So did that muscle, pulley, gland system evolve? I have to agree with the doctor that there was an intelligent creation beyond the power of evolution that created the system and hundred of thousands others that keep each of us going every moment.

On the other hand, I know people who say, "The Bible says it, I believe it, end of story." So starting at the beginning, was the world created in seven days? I don't think so. The word "day" in Hebrew refers to a period of time. If there is a God, could he or she have created the world in seven days and made it look like a longer time? I suppose, but what would God's motivation have been to do so? Would it have been to show a superior intellect? No need there. Would it have been to tease us? I don't think God has a sarcastic sense of humor. And to complicate the issue, in Genesis, God says, "Let us go down..." Evidently God had company? That's heresy for most believers, but the Bible says it.

May I bring this to a grand conclusion? We do not know. We were not there at the creation. If there is a creator and designer of this world, and I agree with the doctor mentioned above that there is, we have not been told the processes that were used in the creation of this world. Evolution may have been one of the processes. We do not know enough about religion or science to make a good judgement. What we are supposed to do is get along, love our neighbors (that's good science and religion), treat everyone well, learn as much as we can and don't freak out about things we don't understand.

Blessings.

No comments:

Post a Comment