I’ve met an
alarming number of creationists lately with whom – due to circumstances – I am unable
to debate publicly. On one hand, I largely do not care what people believe as
long as they’re not jerks or insist on foisting their beliefs on others. On the
other hand, people are so unreasonable, it boggles reasonable minds and
something must be said about their erroneous beliefs that they do want to foist
upon others. Of course, the belief in creationism over evolution as an explanation for how life may have begun fits
the bill.
While
evolution doesn’t really explain how life began, people of many faiths and denominations
of those faith take this to mean they should devise an explanation that is
supernatural. What has long bothered me about creationism as an explanation for
life’s origins is this – a believer, probably unknown to themselves because they
do no critical analysis of their beliefs, is in essence saying that it is more
likely that some divine being took a lump of clay and breathed life into said
clay to create a man than molecules could spontaneously come together and at
some point begin replicating themselves. The believer believes this despite
ample evidence that the universe often displays self-organizing behavior; the
formation of galactic clusters, galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets and the
elements all of those things are made of to say nothing of the laws of physics
that keeps everything stable enough for long enough in order for things to
organize. Granted, this doesn’t speak directly to the origin of life, but
indirectly speaking it seems plausible that a molecule – possibly RNA according
to biologists current theories – might start copying itself or make other
molecules due to natural chemical reactions and just might organize themselves
into a larger system. As I said, the universe is not without a few examples,
examples that are even prior to known life.
Moreover, the
explanatory power of evolution is much greater than that of creationism whose
powers of explanation do not go beyond the initiation of life. For the
creationist who wishes to have their cake and eat it too, meaning they believe
in creationism which is guided by evolution thereafter, they are merely
shorting the process of evolution by one step. Why not just accept the first
step as well or simply admit that one does not know how life began?
Evolutionists – at least the ones who know what they’re talking about – will always
say that the theory of evolution does not (yet) explain the origin of life,
though from what they have inferred from the process thus far, it seems more
likely that some molecule in prehistory began the evolution of life rather than
submitting the explanation that an invisible and supposedly benevolent force made
life simply pop into existence. In short, questions about the origin of life boils
down to this: Is it more plausible that life suddenly popped into existence
thanks to an invisible force that is sentient or that life began by some simple
molecules organizing themselves? Maybe the answer depends upon how much one
understands chemistry and biology, and maybe even physics.
As is always
worth noting as well is that the very premise of life having a supernatural origin
while the originator itself has no creator is completely nonsensical and
arbitrary. If a creationist is going to be arbitrary in their beliefs or even
claim evidence for their beliefs, why is it wrong for an evolutionist to be
arbitrary in their beliefs or claim they have evidence for their beliefs? In actuality,
both groups of ‘believers’ have life originating from non-life. Better to have
something rather than nothing in common one supposes. Only, why something rather than nothing?
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