Part of the problem is, I think the extremists have occupied the stage. Those voices are the ones we hear. I think most people are actually kind of comfortable with the idea that science is a reliable way to learn about nature, but it’s not the whole story and there’s a place also for religion, for faith, for theology, for philosophy. But that harmony perspective does not get as much attention, nobody’s as interested in harmony as they are in conflict, I’m afraid ...
My study of genetics certainly tells me, incontrovertibly that Darwin was right about the nature of how living things have arrived on the scene, by descent from a common ancestor under the influence of natural selection over very long periods of time. Darwin was amazingly insightful given how limited the molecular information he had was; essentially it didn’t exist. And now with the digital code of the DNA, we have the best possible proof of Darwin’s theory that he could have imagined. So that certainly tells me something about the nature of living things. But it actually adds to my sense that this is an answer to a "how?" question and it leaves the "why?" question still hanging in the air. Other aspects of our universe I think also for me as for Einstein raised questions about the possibility of intelligence behind all of this.
Why is it that, for instance, that the constants that determines the behavior of matter and energy, like the gravitational constant, for instance, have precisely the value that they have to in order for there to be any complexity at all in the Universe. That is fairly breathtaking in its lack of probability of ever having happened. And it does make you think that a mind might have been involved in setting the stage. At the same time that does not imply necessarily that that mind is controlling the specific manipulations of things that are going on in the natural world. In fact, I would very much resist that idea. I think the laws of nature potentially could be the product of a mind. I think that’s a defensible perspective. But once those laws are in place, then I think nature goes on and science has the chance to be able to perceive how that works and what its consequences are.Regular readers of this blog may remember that I found Francis Collins' book, The Language of God, to be a very sincere, but ultimately uncompelling attempt by Collins to explain that though genetics and evolution do clearly explain the tools used to create Man, as implied above, God is the "why"...or rather the "why" is that God was compelled to create a Universe in which intelligent Man could arise.
Clearly, Collins is still pushing this theory. As a Believer and a Scientist, I hate to attack the arguments of others in the fold, but he really is too much. The problem here is that it is too easy to shoot down Collins' arguments, and so he does not strengthen the case for Belief by presenting weak arguments that atheists can easily defeat.
For example, what defense would Collins mount if I argued that humans, like the dinosaurs, like all the 99.5% of life on Earth wiped out in the Permian Exctinction, like the bonobos and gorillas and Neanderthals...what if just like all these pre-Modern creatures, humans were in fact but a stepping stone to an advanced species in the future? It seems awfully precocious to assume that we are the end product of a tool like Evolution, which is clearly continuing.
And how would Collins react if an asteroid crashed into Earth tomorrow and wiped out life as we know it...turning Earth into a molten fireball for thousands of years? In Collins' Universe, the very fundamental physics are set up in a way that God intended...to create intelligent life. But if that is the case, how could God let a massive impact event destroy His goal?
If increasingly complicated, intelligent life were God's purpose for evolution, and for the very nature of the Universe, then why is there antibiotic resistance? What sense does it make for God to create a place who's very purpose is to harbor intelligent life...and then also create bacteria...mindless, purposeless bacteria...who in a matter of weeks can evolve resistance to the very medications we intelligent creatures use to keep ourselves safe and alive? Shouldn't God be with us, and against the germs?!
Look, I believe in God. Very much so. But I cannot tolerate people who look for a "why" in the Universe, because there is not one. Why did God let my cousin be born with severe genetic defects and die a toddler? Why did God make me only 5'7"? Why is my daughter the way she is?
People (including Collins) argue that God does not interfere with humanity because to do so would endanger free will. Why then do they not extend that hands-off attitude to the rest of the Galaxy and Universe? Is it really so easy to believe that you are free to pick your nose, but its not just as likely that bacteria are free to infect your nose and kill you? Is it really so easy to believe you had the freedom of mind to think what you want, but so hard to believe that intergalactic dust is free to gravitate into conglomerations that eventually become planets?
The problem here, that Collins, and even really Dawkins in the larger sense, and many other theological arguers are making is that they are putting way too much emphasis on the relationship God has with Humanity. But truly I tell you, GOD DOESN'T CARE ABOUT HUMANITY. God cares about you. Michaelangelo perhaps gives us the perfect illustration in the Sistine ceiling. God is reaching out to Adam. God is not reaching out to Adam and Co. Not that I ever want people to think I take the Old Testament literally, but just look at the book of Genesis for meaning: God created Man. God did not create Men. Early biblical writers understood that the focus of God was not on the group, but rather on the individual. In my own limited exposure to the Bible, conversations with God seem almost singularly focused on 1. Individual relationships between you and God. 2. How humans should treat one another.
Now, on occasion Biblical God does step in and help (or smite) plural peoples. Like the intervention for the Jews against the Pharoah in Egypt. But in this case, and so many like it, Biblical God only steps in after humans have clearly shown themselves incapable of following God's Law.
For more examples, read the Parables of Jesus. Almost every single one focuses on the actions an individual should and must take either in regards to their treatment of others, to the way an individual should live in order to secure immortality, or to how an individual should treat their fellow humans. The Christian God is not interested in the Human Race! The Christian God is interested in individual humans.
Perhaps this is more significant than one initially surmises. Could the focus on the individual, with a somewhat pointed disregard for humanity as a group, be because our souls are what God loves, not our human bodies? Could it be that the rules laid out by God are simply the rules our souls should follow, regardless of what species evolution happened to end us up in?
And so we come back around to Collins. Perhaps he is right. Perhaps when God kicked off this whole crazy mess "in the beginning", God laid down all the physical laws, like the speed of light, the gravitational constant, the polarity of water molecules. But God also laid down the Rules for Souls, which God knew would one day be hosted in some kind of body. Could have been that the random chance asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs didn't strike Earth, and eventually Intelligent dinosaurs built churches and painted gray-bearded lizards on their Sistine ceiling. But what I think we, as children of God, must do is put our obsession with God+humanity behind us, and become instead more concerned with our individual relationships with God. Why should I worry about what God thinks of Us, when I should instead worry about what God thinks of Me?
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