The Evolution Hoopla

The very fact that there even is a debate just proves how very unevolved we still are. To the question, “Did we actually evolve?” I reply, “Not very far.”

I am flabbergasted by the horrendously arrogant attitude that just because we don’t yet completely understand something in every detail, especially such as those complex phenomena most entangled with chaos theory, then that must mean that divine intervention was involved. Why aren’t we realistic enough to admit that we need more time, and more study, in order to discern all of the facts? Why can’t we be humble enough to acknowledge that maybe our brains just aren’t yet sufficiently evolved to comprehend? On the other hand, perhaps I’ve just answered my own question, such that we’re not sufficiently evolved to realize just how far we still have to go before our brains will be equal to the task of even admitting how far we yet have to go. Depressing, perhaps. But unlike the creationists, I won’t reject that likelihood simply because I don’t happen to find it comforting.

As I often say to my hubby, whenever I hear the word “worship,” my mind instantly, inevitably envisions half-clad savages on their knees, bowing repeatedly, monotonously to the ground, muttering incoherencies.

During my teaching years, I had a colleague who beautifully and succinctly labeled religion as “medieval crowd control.” As such, I suppose that it occasionally served its purpose. But I suspect that it more often caused harm rather than good. As my dear father always said, “More wars have been fought in the name of religion than for any other cause.”

I am always reminded of how extraordinarily well my late great father dealt with a Jehovah’s Witness (or “Witless,” as Daddy said), who trespassed to proselytize one Saturday afternoon in the late 1960s, as he and I were mowing the lawn. Trailing her impressionable little son with her, she charged up to my father and expounded, “Do you realize that they are teaching evolution in the schools???” Just as vehemently, he retorted, “Well, I certainly hope so! The children have to get the truth from somewhere, and they sure as hell aren’t going to get it from any of the churches!!!” She clapped her hands over her son’s ears (apparently, he was not to be allowed to hear opposing viewpoints, and decide for himself), and quick-marched him off of our property, which was indeed where the two of them belonged in any case.

I suspect that this obstinacy against evolution, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, is less a case of belief, and more a case of a wish to believe. I submit that these deniers-of-the-obvious look at our apish ancestors and cousins, don’t like what they see, and reject them merely on that basis. Instead of viewing our predecessors as noble savages of whom we should be proud, who dragged themselves up by their own bootstraps against extraordinary odds to the world that we have now, they haughtily declare them beneath contempt, just as they do nonbelievers and even those who embrace different faiths. Have you noticed that those who are so quick to quote “Judge not lest ye be judged” are usually the very first to “cast the first stone” in any and all directions, both on the personal level and on the larger scale?