Before I say anything, let me state that I am a Christian that believes that evolution is responsible for a great deal of life on this earth. I don't know whether it's 25% or 80% - genetics and a study of the genomes will answer that for us over the next few decades. But imo the evidence is very strong that evolution was a dominant force during much of earth's history. (Francis Collins, a Christian and head of the Human Genome Project, made me a "believer".)
That said, I would like to propose that evolution is actually a weak argument for anti-supernaturalism. There are many ways to approach this, but I'll start with two interesting ones imho. Let me begin by asking a couple of questions:
1. Why are you a Rock Star? Seriously, think of how your brain is stimulated by certain underlying rhythms, harmonies and melodies. How can evolution explain all those screaming girlie teens at the first Beatles' concerts? How can evolution explain how I am almost sent to heaven by a Bach organ concerto or listening to Linkin Park or marveling at the 6/4-based rhythms in some of the Mali music? It just doesn't make sense.
And, before you answer flippantly: consider that music is known for being highly mathematical. Mathematical-types often make good musicians and vice versa. If you have ever studied music theory, then you know what I am talking about. Again, why would music lift us to such ecstasy, change our mental chemistry if we're entirely the product of random processes?
2. Why are you a 3D, Surround Sound Super Studio? Think of the millions and millions of out of body experiences, lucid dreams, visions, near death experiences and other hyper-sensory experiences that have occurred since the dawn of mankind. These commonplace experiences are generally breathtakingly real and spectacular. Take the typical OOB experience for starters: the person feels and sees in total 3D, often leaving his immediate surroundings, flies through a wide variety of backdrops, communicates with other beings and many other experiences that make the video games of today seem like Ms. Pac Man.
Sure, you can induce some of this with hallucinogens, but I don't want really want to discuss how you barely survived the 60's, okay? But I do ask you to compare this to the technology that you experience in a movie theatre. The OOB experience makes a movie theatre look like a silly moving cartoon in a flipbook. Doesn't it strike you as a bit odd that Hollywood, with an army of technicians and engineers and budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars and a monstrous media structure behind it, cannot even come close to replicating an run-of-the-mill supernatural experience?
And now you can guess where I am headed: why would random processes over just a few million years create such sublime super-mathematical phenomenon? In fact, not only why, but how? How in just a few million years of hominid development could we have developed a brain with technology beyond any Cray, any research lab, any multi-media center?
Or could it be that a Super Intellect created life, then used evolution to progress life through the hominds per a Simon Conway-Morris scenario and then, indeed, created an Adam from one of the end products??
Considering the narrow bandwidths around so many of the physical constants and parameters of the universe and the solar system, isn't this a perfectly reasonable hypothesis? It beats the heck out of panspermia if you ask me!
That said, I would like to propose that evolution is actually a weak argument for anti-supernaturalism. There are many ways to approach this, but I'll start with two interesting ones imho. Let me begin by asking a couple of questions:
1. Why are you a Rock Star? Seriously, think of how your brain is stimulated by certain underlying rhythms, harmonies and melodies. How can evolution explain all those screaming girlie teens at the first Beatles' concerts? How can evolution explain how I am almost sent to heaven by a Bach organ concerto or listening to Linkin Park or marveling at the 6/4-based rhythms in some of the Mali music? It just doesn't make sense.
And, before you answer flippantly: consider that music is known for being highly mathematical. Mathematical-types often make good musicians and vice versa. If you have ever studied music theory, then you know what I am talking about. Again, why would music lift us to such ecstasy, change our mental chemistry if we're entirely the product of random processes?
2. Why are you a 3D, Surround Sound Super Studio? Think of the millions and millions of out of body experiences, lucid dreams, visions, near death experiences and other hyper-sensory experiences that have occurred since the dawn of mankind. These commonplace experiences are generally breathtakingly real and spectacular. Take the typical OOB experience for starters: the person feels and sees in total 3D, often leaving his immediate surroundings, flies through a wide variety of backdrops, communicates with other beings and many other experiences that make the video games of today seem like Ms. Pac Man.
Sure, you can induce some of this with hallucinogens, but I don't want really want to discuss how you barely survived the 60's, okay? But I do ask you to compare this to the technology that you experience in a movie theatre. The OOB experience makes a movie theatre look like a silly moving cartoon in a flipbook. Doesn't it strike you as a bit odd that Hollywood, with an army of technicians and engineers and budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars and a monstrous media structure behind it, cannot even come close to replicating an run-of-the-mill supernatural experience?
And now you can guess where I am headed: why would random processes over just a few million years create such sublime super-mathematical phenomenon? In fact, not only why, but how? How in just a few million years of hominid development could we have developed a brain with technology beyond any Cray, any research lab, any multi-media center?
Or could it be that a Super Intellect created life, then used evolution to progress life through the hominds per a Simon Conway-Morris scenario and then, indeed, created an Adam from one of the end products??
Considering the narrow bandwidths around so many of the physical constants and parameters of the universe and the solar system, isn't this a perfectly reasonable hypothesis? It beats the heck out of panspermia if you ask me!
