I Might Fail This Dumb Course On Principle - Blog Posts

Evolution.

I'm supposed to be studying this Evolution course for my exam tomorrow morning, but the textbook made me so angry that I had to write about it. 

That absolute gem of a quote is from a section called "Evidence for Evolution". In fact, a fairly substantial number of the pages in this book are devoted to this evidence. The writers devote quite a bit of time and energy trying to tell me why I should believe this theory. 

NEWSFLASH: I'm doing a biology degree. I'm taking this stupid course. I believe that evolution is a valid theory. I know that genetic mutations cause changes in the phenotype and some of these changes allow organisms to adapt better to their environment and therefore these traits are passed on the successive generations. Blah blah blah. Yes, Darwin, your theory makes sense. A+! Gold star for you! I KNOW this. You don't need to convince me. You don't need to convince anybody. I'm religious. I'm not stupid. 

And that leads me to my next point. Judging from my flurry of angry tweets, few things in life push my buttons like someone simultaneously insulting my beliefs AND my intelligence. 

I don't understand why the writer felt the need to insert this snarky comment. Do they assume that because I believe in a supernatural being that I am not smart enough to be doing a biology degree? Do they assume that religious people will never read this book? Or do they not realize that what they're saying is offensive? Do they not care because anyone who might be offended is of lesser intelligence and therefore not worth concern? These are the only plausible explanations coming to mind. 

I mean, if they are trying to convert me to their way of thinking, they're being COLOSSAL hypocrites about it. Cause the way to change my mind is to mock me, patronize me and insult me. Yep, keep it up. That'll work. This pushy, self-righteous "evangelical" style is the exact type of thing Christians get ridiculed for. (another thing we get ridiculed for). 

Okay, here's what REALLY gets me: the sheer ARROGANCE of it all. So the author employs suspension of disbelief and hypothetically suggests that this supernatural might be "credited with arbitrariness, whimsy, or a devious intent to to make organisms look as if they have evolved." 

FIRST OF ALL you are talking about the supernatural, divine, all-powerful creator of the whole entire universe and you're assuming He tries to fit Himself into your patterns? You, who would not be breathing if not by His grace which gives you breath. You, whose puny mind cannot possibly fathom the vastness of His being. You, who were not even a thought when He wove the fabric of the cosmos. You, who are but a vapour, a speck of dust, when compared to Him. Yep, waaaayyyy back at the freaking beginning of time itself, when creating the animals, God thought, "better make them fit this evolution theory those scientists dudes are gonna come up with in the 1800s". That is EXACTLY what happened. Of course you're the centre of the universe, you clever, clever boy! The sun actually does revolve around the earth! HOLY SHIT GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS. 

SECOND OF ALL God is a God of order. Nah, scratch that. God is order. Absence of God is chaos. So yeah, absolutely, God's amazing animal kingdom follows a pattern. Yes, life itself has a hierarchal organization to it. But what you fail to realize is that this pattern that you can see is like looking through a microscope. It is a minute part of a pattern that spans the entire universe. It is possibly the tiniest part of an enormous machine that God designed, with working parts on the scale of galaxies. The "tree of life" is the equivalent of a screw in the machine of all of space and time. Scientists discover patterns in nature all the time. And they're surprised. Like it's this big discovery that the world follows mathematics. Because if the universe has no cause or purpose there is absolutely no reason for it to have order. But is does because the intelligent creator designed it as such. 

So no, He didn't try to make it look like they evolved. The pattern is Him, and you're just seeing a little piece of it. 

I think that a lot of people make this mistake: when they imagine God, they imagine Him as less intelligent than them.