God FAQ’s – How God Created Man: #1 Myth vs. Belief & Setting Scene

Before proceeding on the FAQ series, we need to establish some definitions.  The word, “belief” has been hijacked by science to refer to theories that have been tested sufficiently to accept them temporarily until the next theory comes along.  Before serious science arrived in the 17^th century, belief used to mean loyalty, like to a political party (see:Karen Armstrong).  So in the FAQ’s, we will accept this new scientific notion of belief.  But, in fair return, we are going to alter our notion of the word “myth.” In science, the pecking order is hypothesis-theory and then law.  I am going to place “myth” at the beginning to this order.

The myth of the creation of man by God cannot be tested because it only happened once, and, furthermore, the there are no animal models for it.  So this creation myth that happened not 6,000 – but 6 million years ago – is a proposition of something whose reality stands or falls on its ability to parsimoniously and simply explain all the major characteristics of our hominid Family – the really big things that happened in the course of our creation, including all the miraculous abilities we have acquired – those that place us in a category much more removed from the chimpanzees whence we sprang than, lets say, a toad is from a chimp.  So this is the deal: we will accept that belief in the creation of man by God needs evolutionary evidence, but, in return the evidence for this creation myth, out of necessity, needs to be “retrofitted” from what has occurred, because it was unique, and, therefore, can’t be scientifically tested.

The first thing that needs to be understood is that our evolutionary creation occurred in a completely opposite environment than the one that Darwin observed.  Darwin had just read Thomas Malthus on the dangers of population explosion when he set out on his voyage on the ship, Beagle, and immersed himself in the teeming jungles of South America.  Understandably he came up with a theory that natural selection took place mainly within species that were all producing more offspring than the environment could accommodate.  So it was understandable for him to think that a necessary condition for natural selection was that there must be constant competition between too many offspring for too few resources.

BUT, this is completely different from the situation in which the creation of hominids took place.  After having had their heyday for millions of years, APES WERE DYING OFF DUE TO DETERIORATING CLIMATES in Africa.  Far from too many offspring competing for limited resources, their problem was a DECLINING BIRTHRATE.  The only two apes around 6 million years ago in Africa where the same two that are still hanging on as refugee species today (the bonobos having split off from chimps 2 million years ago.) So, 6 million years ago, Apes where a dying breed, and then, exploding out from this –  all of a sudden –  in the next 3 ½ million years – BOOM – God creates a whole new breed that blossoms into over a dozen new species (and surely many more to be found.)  How did God do it? Stay tuned to find out how it happened.

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Tags: Charles Darwin, God, Thomas Malthus