A Case of the Evolutionist
By: Geo (November 19th, 2007)I was meeting my friend who working with a premier market research agency, after a very long time. We discussed the case of ‘skippies’ and the discussion took some interesting twists. My friend interrupted the discussions to leave. He had to finish off his business engagements and he promised to return later in the evening to continue our talk. As he walked to the door, he walked past several ‘skippies’ inside the café, and he looked back at me and smiled. I was planning to leave when this young man, apparently having overheard our conversations came over to me to talk.
He introduced himself as Rahul, a student of Science at one of the decent colleges in the city. He looked earnest.
Rahul: Forgive me for snooping but I could not help it.
Me: That’s okay. Please take a seat. (As he was sitting, I asked him) So what was it in our talk that caught your attention?
Rahul: You said something about ‘sharing time with God’! It sounded utterly crazy and outrageous. Moreover, it was not a usual way of referring to ‘God’ and so I thought of deliberating with you about it, provided, you don’t mind.
Me: Oh no. Please go ahead. It will be my pleasure, however, I don’t know if I can answer your queries or reason with you as you might expect me to, but nonetheless, shoot them.
Rahul: Who is this God anyway?
Me: GOD IS, therefore we are.
Rahul: Do I look amused? Such replies will not help sir. Just tell me who is God?
Me: God is a person. He is the Creator of all things. He is the Designer of this entire spectacular universe. He is also the epitome of love… He is…
Rahul: (interrupting me) What evidence do you have of what all you just said?
Me: The entire creation bears witness, rather I should say, proclaims and declares the evidence for a brilliant Designer.
Rahul: What evidence are you talking about?
Me: No need to look around for evidence. You just need to look at yourself. Can you hear your own heartbeat?
Rahul: No. I don’t think anyone can.
Me: You can hear noises as far as half a kilometer away but you cannot hear your own heartbeat! Isn’t it strange? While a stethoscope clearly resonates it into our very ears! Have you thought about why it is so?
Rahul: What’s the big deal about it that I should have thought about it?
Me: Rahul, the eardrums are one of the very few areas of our body that don’t get replenished directly by the blood. Blood transfers the nourishment to a fluid, which instead carries the nourishment across it by diffusion to finally nourish the eardrums.
Rahul: So?
Me: Don’t you see it? Someone purposely designed our ears to be that way! Usually, the blood supplies nourishment. If the usual thing had happened to the eardrums, the blood would have carried the vibrations of the very first heartbeat to it and we would immediately become deaf. Our eardrums cannot tolerate our pulse. There was a mind and the hand of an intelligent Designer behind it!
Rahul: There is scientific evidence of how the first cell was formed in a primordial soup and how this primitive cell evolved over a matter of a million years to be what all we see today. Including our eardrums!
Me: You mean the Miller’s experiment? Let me tell you a story. A man once told me that he had some rubber, plastic, iron, steel, glass etc all piled up in his backyard. There was a high-tension electric cable that went over his backyard. One day, this cable broke and fell on the pile of waste. There was an explosion, followed by a fire and sparks. When the smoke cleared, the man told me, that the waste pile has rearranged itself under intense heat to become a Bajaj Pulsar!
Rahul: That’s absurd (looking offended). That can never happen.
Me: If a bunch or random atoms drifting waywardly in some kind of a primordial soup can rearrange itself to become an independent and complex living cell, that too a cell that is self-replicating, then surely, that pile in the man’s backyard can create a much less complex Bajaj Pulsar. I mean, what is a Bajaj Pulsar in comparison to even the most simplest of cells? The amount of activities and processes that happen inside a living cell are more complex than a modern chemical process industry!
Rahul: But Miller’s experiment did create ‘coacervates’ that resemble a living cell!
Me: Firstly, latest research has cited that the kind of environment that Miller’s experiment provides is not actually the environment that existed in prehistoric times. Secondly, even if we consider a living cell was somehow formed, the upward climb of this cell, up the evolution ladder, is enormous, and that too at every stage.
Rahul: What do mean by that?
Me: For example, how did the first cell replicate? The process of DNA replication is so complex and so amazing that it cannot be an accident. Even if we assume that the first cell did somehow replicate, next major hurdle is, how or why did cells shift from asexual to sexual reproduction? How did the cells acquire mobility? How did they, at some stage of evolution decide to smell, taste, see, hear and touch? The appearance of sensory capabilities in the evolutionary ladder is incomprehensible.
Rahul: What about all the fossil evidence?
Me: Fossil evidence makes the things more difficult for evolution. There is a certain period in fossil history when all the fossils appear suddenly. Let me explain it. If entire history is considered to be 24 hours, then there is a half an hour stretch in this day when all the fossils suddenly appear. Scientists have no clue how to explain the sudden appearance of so many fossils and that too with so much of complexities and mutual differences. This phenomenon is called the Cambrian explosion. There are hardly any fossils before the Cambrian explosion and then suddenly so many appear. There was no enough time for evolution to happen for such a vast variety of creatures.
Rahul: Maybe they will soon figure out what happened. The lack of knowledge at this point does not become the victory of creationism. Who created your God? How did he appear?
Me: I concede that I cannot prove to you where God came from but I believe that he was always there.
Rahul: BELIEF. FAITH. These are the things that make people irrational and unreasonable.
Me: Oh is it? It takes more faith and belief to standby the evolution theory than to believe in a Creator. The odds against it as so staggering that to stand by it, you will need faith at every stage of the evolutionary ladder and believe that a miracle did happen to initiate the next level of evolution.
Rahul: Just because you can’t hear your heartbeat doesn’t prove a God!!
Me: Agreed. The pristine waterfalls, the glistening snow, the colorful rainbow, the divine clouds, the different cycles that keep the ecosystem going, the colorful trees and awesome and lush grasslands, the golden harvest, the sparkling diamond, the ever chirping and tweeting grand array of gorgeous birds, insects and flowers, their shapes, their sizes and their colors, their habits and their roles in the eco systems, the fabulous peacock, the incredibly shaped camel, the majestic lion and its pride, the massive elephants and towering giraffes, the ant and the lizard, the fruits and the vegetables and their complementary relationship with our dietary needs, herds of all kinds of wild and domesticated cattle, the nutrition in the milk, the chemistry of honey, the utility of sand and clay, the seasons, the stars in the sky, and the billions of galaxies in their respective brilliance, the atoms, the neutrons, the quasars and the gamma rays, the colossal oceans and the perilous volcanoes, the heart that beats without priming or without taking a break and a host of other things all together also pronounce the existence of an intelligent, clever and a purpose driven and principle fixated Creator who is beyond all these in every way!
Rahul: Purpose driven? What purpose did he have in death and sickness? What purpose does he have in suffering? Even if there was a God who created all these things, he surely messed it up.
Me: Even we have reasons for the smallest of things that we do. We justify the reasons for it, when confronted.
Rahul: Like?
Me: Like this top most button on your shirt. Why have you not put on that button?
Rahul: Ok, I get you.
Me: If we have logic and reasons behind the smallest of things that we do, how much more greater reason would God have in creating such a vast, mind-boggling and amazing universe.
Rahul: But why then there is suffering and pain, hatred and malice, sickness and death?
Me: Isn’t much of the suffering, pain, hatred, malice and sickness man’s own doing. Weren’t things much better earlier?
Rahul: Well, maybe, but what about death? Why did God make something that will die?
Me: (I pointed at the table we were leaning on) How long do you think will this table last?
Rahul: It is made of steel pipes. So if looked after properly, I mean maintained well, it should last a few decades at the least.
Me: Can it last for a hundred years or even more?
Rahul: It can. It has to be maintained that well.
Me: How long will we who make such things last? How long do you think the person who made this table will live?
Rahul: A few decades. But what is the link between these?
Me: See Rahul, if we who live a few decades can make things that outlast us and exist for hundreds of years, do you think an eternal God will make something that will last only a few decades. See, what I am saying is that, God made everything to last eternally, but it involved love and love involves freedom of choice and choice is what eventually invited death into the scene.
Rahul: That’s your way of looking at it.
Me: There has got to be someway: this way, that way, my way, your way or some other way. The reality is that all these things exist and all these things confront us daily. There has got to be one explanation. There cannot be a dozen different explanations. Truth is unique. It all happened only one way.
Rahul: This narrow mindedness is what I cannot agree with.
Me: The Needles on the clock or any indicator for that matter are narrow headed. They cannot be broad headed. Narrowness alone can give a definite direction. I am not ashamed that I am narrow-minded in this regard. I would rather say that I have removed all other choices and narrowed down my decision to this.
Rahul: I should confess that your arguments are compelling…
(right then my friend calls on my cel and we fix up the time and the place for the meeting)
Rahul: Can I join you guys when you meet up wherever you do?
Me: I don’t think that would be an issue.
Rahul: Thanks a lot. But I still cannot comprehend why God started all this?
Me: Let my friend come in. We will carry on from where I stopped. Do you want to order something? I need to finish some errands before we can sit down for the evening. Do you mind joining me for it?
Rahul: Please go ahead. I shall meet up with you wherever you tell me to.
Me: Its here itself. Come back here sharp at eight in the evening.
It was a long day. And it had not got over still. I knew that it would be hard to take on both Rahul and my friend together. At least I had a small break before that grilling session. Till then I had time to pray. Soul Café, I am coming back in sometime.