issue #22
I have always been a student of science and have had my dose of theories on evolution, natural selection and stuff; and all that while, I have also been brought up in a deeply religious environment ( though my prayers to God were mostly limited to exam hours :-) ). So when it comes to believing in God, I am a bit ambivalent; in fact, I try not to think about the contradictions at all because that confuzzles my mind.
For it's difficult to believe in God (who created humans) and "also" believe in the evolution of man from the amoeba. Yet, children all over the world come back from school laden with scientific theories of creation and then pray to God, their creator, before going to bed; and no one comes forward to clarify this confusion. Further, both Creationism and Evolution have large loopholes, contradictions in them which doesn't help either.
For sometime now, some researchers have been proposing the theory of Intelligent Design(ID) as a middle ground between religious Creationism and scientific Evolution. They basically believe that evolution did have a part to play in the development of organisms but not everything can be explained by it; formation of complex structures like the eye, and man himself, have been possible due to deliberate external intervention by some intelligent force.
The problem with this theory is that there are several variants of it, and the ID community is split several ways, each often ridiculing the others, and all drawing flak from both Creationists and Evolutionists.
So did God create man on the 6th day? Or was it Evolution? Was it a mixture of both? Or some radically different explanation exists? Whatever it is, it's time we shed our passive acceptance of two ridiculously opposite theories and took a stand.
-sumandatta
(editor)
PS: Our comment-hungry author rhea has written up a wonderful story this time in shorts but has only posted half of it blackmailing us for comments before she posts the other half! The first part is so yummy, I have to relent to the blackmailing and pray to all the readers to put in some comments plzzz.... I really wanna know what happens next to the couple!
(editor)
PS: Our comment-hungry author rhea has written up a wonderful story this time in shorts but has only posted half of it blackmailing us for comments before she posts the other half! The first part is so yummy, I have to relent to the blackmailing and pray to all the readers to put in some comments plzzz.... I really wanna know what happens next to the couple!
in this week's issue:
shorts | rags2riches | poetry | challenge | bondspeak | images | critique
shorts | rags2riches | poetry | challenge | bondspeak | images | critique
6 Comments:
i had never heard of ID before. looked it up. nice theory. try this site:
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html
this one blasts ID:
http://skepdic.com/intelligentdesign.html
but u r right. we cant stay ambivalent abt it. either God or science. i remember we had both evolutionary biology and moral science in our school curricullum!
Well, I finally reconciled the idea when I realised that God's day didnt have to be restricted to 24 hours of earth time. I've always looked at Genesis as an allegory, a story to interest the listener and THEN explain the symbolism. Maybe the teachers who knew the deeper meanings vanished and we were left with only the stories. Anyway, what if six God days involve millions on millions of earth years, and the process of evolution is the way God chose to make man? This is of course, an allegory in itself, since I dont believe the power of creation exists in a sentient, intelligent being, but as a law. Life, to me is a law unto itself. It creates itself and dissolves itself according to rythms determined by individual karma at a personal level, and collective karma at a societal level.
maybe suraj, but then for every law there has 2 b a law-giver...and as for karma determining the future, well what of the time when it all started? how was the fate of the `first` man determined without any previous record of karma(personal or collective).
but then of course if u say 'but why should there hav 2 b a beginning?' well i hav 2 giv u tht....just coz we see evrythng as beginnings and ends, doesnt mean all things hav 2 b like tht.
where does a wheel begin and end, Suman? *Grinning* see Dhammachakka.
well suraj...lewis carroll has the answer:
`Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?' he asked.
`Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, `and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'
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