Today, many people accept the theory of evolution as fact, and while I believe in adaptation, or micro-evolution, I find the idea that we all evolved from single-celled organisms through a random, mindless process, extremely unlikely.
If you do a quick google search for “how did life first appear on earth”, here are some of the answers (I also encourage you to do the same search):
“Life on earth likely began between 3.8 and 4.0 billion years ago through abiogenesis—the natural process of organic matter transitioning from non-living chemicals to simple, self-replicating life…”
“Scientists believe the story of life begins with simple, raw chemicals like carbon dioxide, nitrogen, water, and methane. When exposed to energy sources like lightning strikes or volcanic heat, these simple gases can spontaneously link up to form essential organic compounds, such as amino acids…”
A link that pops up from UC Berkeley- https://evolution.berkeley.edu/from-soup-to-cells-the-origin-of-life/how-did-life-originate/
These are just a few snippets of thousands of websites you can visit where people talk about this topic. I am not claiming to be an expert on evolution, and I welcome those of you who are evolutionary scientists to comment on this post, but one keyword that always sticks out to me in every article I read is this word simple. When searching the definition of simple, the word simple generally means easy to understand or do, free from complication, and plain without extra decoration. It often describes something basic, clear, and straightforward… When I read this, I think about all the articles that mention simple organisms, simple chemicals, simple compounds, simple single celled organisms, etc… If you look up what the simplest form of life is you find that Prokaryotes are generally considered the simplest form of life and sometimes viruses, depending on if you classify viruses as a form of life or not. Regardless, when you search in google “how complex are prokaryotic cells”, you get the answer:
“Prokaryotic cells are structurally simple and lack internal membrane-bound organelles (like a nucleus, mitochondria, or Golgi apparatus). However, at the molecular level, they are highly complex—efficiently performing all essential life functions, such as energy production and protein synthesis, directly within their cytoplasm.”
Now this is where I begin to have a problem. All life has supposedly evolved from these “simple” organisms, but the deeper you dig into how these “simple” organisms work, the more complex you realize they are. This begs the question, how did the chemicals and molecules that make up these simple organism’s form? Then from there you can keep asking the same question until you eventually get to what is thought to be the smallest elementary particle the Quark. When you research quarks and their complexity, you find that they are staggeringly complex, and governed my mathematics in ways that we don’t completely understand. So, when we say that things just evolved from something simpler, we’ve got to understand that there really isn’t anything “simple” in this universe.
At first glance, it seems probable, and even logical that simple things compounding over long periods of time will eventually increase in complexity, and end up with creating something like an animal or human. After all, as humans we have went from living off the land in small tribes to living in bustling cities with electricity, grocery stores, the internet, etc… But when you really think about it, evolution is essentially claiming that highly complex particles arranged in such a way to create highly complex “simple” organisms, which then evolved into us as humans – an insanely complex configuration of complex “simple” organisms, which are made up of a complex arrangement of atoms which are made up of highly complex elementary particles. Evolution tries to explain the beginning of life through “simple” organisms or a primordial soup, but we have to ask ourselves…how did the organisms in the primordial soup evolve? To me, it seems that these organisms themselves would also have to evolve from something, considering how complex they actually are. If you agree with science that everything eventually goes back to some sort of singularity, aka the big bang, then all of these things we know have evolved from essentially nothing. Logically, this doesn’t make sense. Nothing is the absence of anything; therefore, no thing can be created from nothing. I think we need to ask ourselves, how is something created from nothing?
This is where as a Christian; I think God makes the most sense for our existence. I know some of you are going to immediately write me off at the mention of God, but I encourage you to at least take a look at the things I’m about to say, and if you disagree with my reasoning, please leave a comment so I, and others can talk things out, and let the readers of this article decide for themselves what they believe.
I know most people are probably thinking at this point… you just said that nothing can come from nothing, so where did God come from? This is a perfectly valid question, and one that I don’t think anyone can fully know or comprehend. My first response would be that in the bible it says in John “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” So what I gather when reading this is that God is immaterial, aka the Word. This would mean that before there was anything there was God. I am not claiming to understand all aspects of God and his nature, but let me see if I can write my thoughts down in a way that might help you understand why I believe this makes sense over evolution.
When observing the world we live in, how are things typically created? You might say, well there are a many ways things are created. For instance, new life is created through sexual reproduction, new products are created by humans, plants come into existence through seeds being buried in the ground, new species are created through mutations/evolution, essentially things are created and gradually get better over time through the natural process of evolution acting on the physical, material world. This sounds fine at first, but then you have to ask yourself why? If we are here by an mindless, unguided, random process, then why is there anything at all?
It seems to me that without a purpose, or an agent, the path that evolutionarily makes the most sense is for there to be absolutely nothing. No energy is needed for there to be nothing, nothing has to worry about dying when there is nothing, nothing is essentially the epitome of perfect equilibrium. Why, if evolution doesn’t have a mind of its own, does something just have to spontaneously exist? When there is nothing, there isn’t this idea of survival of the fittest, because there is nothing that needs to survive, so where did this idea of survival even become a good thing? It seems to me that if there is no God, it would be highly advantageous for me as a human to just go jump off a cliff and go back to a state of non-existent peace. I wouldn’t have to be stressed, or feel pain, or feel tired, lonely, guilty, sad, etc… People like to get angry at the idea of God, because they say. “If there is a God, then why is there this problem of pain and suffering? If I were God, I definitely wouldn’t create a world in which there was any heartache and suffering. Instead, my world would be an oasis of pleasure and love, with no pain, no heartache, no loss, just pure heaven.” In my future posts, I am for sure going to address these issues in greater detail, because they are valid and extremely important questions to answer. But for now, I would like to ask the question, if evolution/science is all there is to explain this universe and there is for sure no God, then why not just end it? Evolutionist say that our purpose here is simply to pass on our genes to the next generation….okay so what is so important about that? If there is no objective “good” or sense of morality, then what makes living, or in other terms, survival, a good thing? In other words, what caused the process of evolution and natural selection to determine that being alive is better than being dead?
It would seem to me that the natural thing to do when things get tough is just to give up. Why struggle, and fight this uphill battle that we call life, just to get to the top of the mountain and then die and go right back to where we were before? If our brain is just made up of atoms, and our mind/consciousness is only based on the material world, than what causes us to have desire, emotion, morals, will to live, etc..? If you zoom down to an atomic level when someone is feeling depressed, all you will see is a particular arrangement of atoms that construct this cohesive entity known as the human brain. If ultimately, that is all there is, and our minds aren’t rooted in the spiritual/immaterial world, then what is so bad about depression? What is makes living a good thing? Atoms don’t feel emotions, or pain, they simply rearrange themselves. So how is it that a large collection of atoms can somehow form together to create something like us, that is capable of feeling a sense of purpose, or sense of loss, or sense of community?
To me it all goes back to what John says “In the beginning was the Word…” It makes perfect sense from a creation standpoint. There seems to be something immaterial going on in our mind that allows us to create things. When you think to yourself, what happens inside your head? I think most people would agree that we think in words that we understand. In writing this article, I am talking to myself via words in my mind that I put together in a way that means something. It’s not obvious to me that this can be explained by materialism alone, but when I read the words of John “In the beginning was the Word” it starts to make sense. Everything we do in this world and everything we create in this world starts with the word. We think it in our minds first, and then it becomes a reality. For us to have kids, at least one person has to think with their mind that they want to have sex. For someone to build a house, they must first think to themselves “I want to build a house”. Again, conscious thought is in the form of words in our mind, so essentially nothing gets created without the word. Materials do not act on anything unless acted upon. A tree doesn’t turn into a stack of neatly chopped firewood unless someone thinks to themselves that they want wood for burning. Take this for an example: A scientist can analyze the chemical properties of a piece of paper. They can tell you exactly what its made of, how it reacts to its environment, how fast it burns, how its affected by gravity, what we could use it for, how many atoms it is made of, how exceedingly odd it is that it is cut to exactly 8.5” x 11”, how beautiful and precise the graphite strokes are that exist on the front, etc. But what the scientist can’t tell you by analyzing the physical and chemical properties of this piece of paper is that it’s a letter from his wife explaining to him how much he means to her, and how much she loves and appreciates all the hard work he is doing to provide for their family. See, because of this, meaning and creation doesn’t seem to be purely physical/material. Sure, we can tell you what a pot of coffee is made up of, but we can’t derive why and how it’s there. It’s there because in some mind, somewhere, someone wanted a cup of coffee. Things seem to be the way they are not strictly by a mindless evolutionary process, but by a process created with some purpose and meaning and mind behind it. And that is my point in all of this…why and how are we here? Well…it might just be that we were created because someone wants to have a loving, personal relationship with us.
What are your thoughts?
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