I think evolution is the correct explanation of “how He did it”, and that we came to be through the natural process of laws that He created. That we evolved from, as you inelligantly put it “swamp goo.”

BUT, I want to assure you, that in no way makes me, or any of the many other people I know that believe in evolution, in any way indifferent to others’ suffering. And this is true whether, in addition to beleiveing in evolution, they are Christian, some other faith, or even atheist.

In fact, I find it to be quite the opposite. The atheists I’ve spoken with, since they don’t believe suffering serves any larger purpose or meaning beyond this life, see it as purely evil and something to be both avoided for one’s self, and alleviated for others.

Contrariwise, I think there is a reason, albeit difficult to fathom, that God allows suffering, but that we still have a duty to relieve the suffering of others. I simply see no connection of this belief to beliefs about the mechanisms of creation.

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I would like everyone to try to realize that what you see in evidence thoroughly depends on your preconceived ideas, rather than your intelligence or worthiness.

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What about the fantastic diversity of life and its ubiquitous signs of design? At one time it was understandable to appeal to a divine designer to explain it all. No
longer. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace showed how the complexity of life could arise from the physical process of natural selection among replicators, and then Watson and Crick showed how replication itself could be understood in physical terms. Notwithstanding creationist propaganda, the evidence for evolution is overwhelming, including our
DNA, the fossil record, the distribution of life on earth, and our own anatomy and physiology (such as the goose bumps that try to fluff up long-vanished fur).

We now know that natural selection narrows down possibilities already written in DNA. According to Watson, Darwin also theorized that acquired traits were inherited by the progeny (pangensis) — but fortunately real science proved him wrong.

Also Watson and Crick discovered the how genetic information is passed from parent to progeny, but they sure didn’t prove how it got to be that way, All they proved was that genetic information is so amazingly structured that it boggles the imagination as to how it got that way. Crick figures it evolved through RNA which is a real stretch — an not a very sound scientific one at that.

Also, tracing back the DNA mutations keeps showing all human life originated not from multiple sources of evolving changes which is politically incorrect and rightly so, but through a single branch — which of course the Bible said all along — it just skipped the billions of years b.s.

But I guess we’re supposed to ignore all that and take Dr. Pinker at his word because he is really smart.

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A recurring theme in the essays is that science can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the supernatural and of God. That’s not what science does. People who claim either that scientific evidence either proves or disproves God are barking up the wrong tree.

It would be like a medical doctor claiming that a DNA test proves that Mozart was a great composer or like a philosopher claiming that deductive reasoning proves that pineapples are more delicious than grapes.

Science can answer how but not why. It will never be able to answer the question of why things exist, and for that reason it can never make faith in God obsolete.

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It’s not just that the traditional Judeo-Christian God endorsed genocide, slavery, rape, and the death penalty for trivial insults. It’s that morality cannot be grounded in divine decree, not even in principle. Why did God deem some acts moral and others immoral? If he had no reason but divine whim, why should we take his commandments seriously? If he did have reasons, then why not appeal to those reasons directly?

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It can not, therefore, make religion obsolete – unless one adopts the notion that the physical is all thee is. And science doesn’t adress the non-physicial so as to be of no use in whether one adopts that notion.

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