Yes, this title is true, and no, I’m not being sarcastic… or am I? No, I’m not being sarcastic and that last question was just me being a jerk. My claiming I believe in the Adam and Eve story as described in the Bible is not me being a jerk; it’s actually an honest statement about an important belief I have. The truth is I don’t believe in evolution insofar that some cells regenerated as copies of themselves while others continually mutated with some randomly stopping their mutation in order to give us different species and then magically a mutation brought the caveman and cavewoman, which eventually mutated further and led to who we are today as people. That doesn’t seem farfetched at all (written with as much sarcasm as I can muster). Personally, based on the people I see around me, I think there’s more regressing than progressing as a species. This is especially evident driving in the first snow fall of the year; wow, people are dumb. Now before you lash out at me: (common response to a non evolutionist) “How dare you doubt the thing I was taught to believe in school by a semi-competent teacher!”, please know that I believe we “evolve” and adapt to our environment; that’s a no brainer because you see that happening around us. I’ll believe in evolution when Xmen type people become a real phenomenon. Simple organisms mutating to form extremely complex organisms like humans? I don’t buy it. Like a modern weirdo I believe in the whole Noah’s Ark story… not the Russell Crowe version, but the one in the Bible (a story that actually requires the belief that a species adapts and evolves for their environments). No, I wasn’t home schooled. No I’m not uneducated; I just don’t blindly follow what school tried to teach me as truth. And no, I wasn’t dropped on my head… according to my mom… although what mom would admit that? If you’re like most people, you’re likely thinking: “This guy’s an idiot!” Well sir or ma’am, name calling isn’t very evolved, and you’re not helping your cause. So how can I believe this? Because I want to. That’s it. I don’t need any other proof because, ultimately, why do we believe anything? We want to. Did my mom not drop me on my head like she says? I want to believe it. When someone gives me a compliment, I believe they’re being honest or not because on some level I want to believe it. As far as the beginning of the world was I there? No, so I choose to believe the Bible, a historical document that’s lasted thousands of years and changed more lives and benefited more cultures than anything else. As far as evolution goes, does anyone know a credible witness at the beginning of the world? No. According to evolution, there weren’t any, so it’s all just a guessing game. Meanwhile all the native stories I’ve heard about like the Aztecs and Mayans have a similar concept where a god or gods gave life to humanity after forming them from the earth whether from some type of plant like corn or rice, or from mud like in the Bible. It’s also worth noting most native tribes have stories of a giant flood and have no hint of the evolution belief. But I’m sure the native tribes all just got together and made up a story: (natives) “So when people take your lands make sure your creation stories are similar or we’ll just look ridiculous.” And as far as language goes, I’m sure it didn’t take a God to create it and an event like the Tower of Babel to spark the start of different languages as we know them today. (Sorry, I’m in a sarcastic mood). I’m sure humans are so brilliant they created all the languages on their own, but then they’re so dumb that they couldn’t figure out how to keep an oral history with a semblance of accuracy or even drawings of how they evolved; that’s just plain too hard. Creating language that people understand, however, is a breeze.
But Chad, evolution has all that evidence? Yes, evidence; you mean the same stuff that has alllllwayyyyys led to the right criminal being charged and no one ever being wrongfully imprisoned? But, you’re right; that’s different because this is evidence based on scientists who also never make a mistake like with miracle products such as asbestos and mercury we later find out are silently killing us. Crazy enough, it wasn’t until the fifties before doctors realized the importance of washing their hands between patients because it was killing a ton of babies. After that basic knowledge was found I’m sure they’ve never made any other mistakes. Evidence and studies that give us this evidence has always proven to be read 100% accurately 100% of the time because people never read into things, have biases, or get persuaded by money. And the so called evidence for a young earth described in the Bible, and there is a lot of scientific evidence, can’t be true or real evidence because it’s contrary to what the evolutionists want to believe; anything contrary should just be ignored like when we believed the world was flat and yet we had a horizon. People in general never debate “truth” like whether we should vaccinate our children or not, or whether the flu shot is something we should bother with… sorry, I’m getting a little too sarcastic. But Chad smart people believe in evolution. Yes, and I’m sure smart people have nevvvveeerrr disagreed on anything, or changed their minds. Smart people are always 100% on board of the same things, and never disagree… although “smart” people can’t even agree on who’s actually “smart” and what “smart” even means. Is it IQ (intellectual quotient), EQ (emotional quotient), SQ (social quotient)… GQ (once geeky now pretending to be cool quotient)? After all, Stephen Hawking is very smart, and is never wrong because he’s actually a perfect being… minus his affair… and changing his mind on one of his early theories. Similarly, Steve Jobs was brilliant in some ways; he helped start both Apple and Pixar; that’s impressive. But despite this brilliance, he apparently had terrible social skills and hygiene habits, which is super dumb in business, and in his brilliance he refused normal cancer treatments, which could’ve saved him. Instead, he claimed he had his own way of curing it… which he later found didn’t help. No matter how smart someone is, they’re not perfectly smart, which means just because a smart person believes something doesn’t mean it’s true.
On a personal level, I don’t believe in evolution because I did a funeral last month and it’s easier for me to say God didn’t create the world to have suffering and death, but they were brought into it with sin. If you go with evolution like a lot of Christians do now, God must have wanted us to suffer, which sounds far from loving. Besides, as a Christian, how do I say I believe in everything in the Bible minus this one story. What gives me the right to pick and choose what’s real? People saying this Genesis story is a metaphor have to ignore the very detailed (and boring) genealogies that are included throughout Genesis, the Book where the Adam and Eve story is found, and a genealogy is given right after the Adam and Eve family story. How can it be a metaphor if there are so many specific details recording the history of humanity?
Please know my goal this week isn’t to change your mind about how the world was created; your belief doesn’t stop me from choosing what I believe. My point this week is simple: We believe what we want to believe, which means we need to be careful what we believe from things like ‘I’m stupid’, ‘I’m not good enough’, ‘I deserve to have an affair’ or even believing in something like evolution just to fit in… and yes, that was a slight dig. What’s the point in having different beliefs if we can’t tease each other?
May this year be one that has you considering what it is you want to believe.
Rev Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, Learning to love dumb people