Disclaimer
It’s extremely disheartening to think that in the 21st century, where man has accomplished amazing things, kids are not being adequately equipped in the public school system to understand even the fundamentals of cosmology, biology, or history. While the above hypothetical query is a vague generalization of ignorance and a strawman argument, it doesn’t stray too far from what some religious people believe. Therefore, I will attack it for what it is, and take from it what you will.
It’s extremely disheartening to think that in the 21st century, where man has accomplished amazing things, kids are not being adequately equipped in the public school system to understand even the fundamentals of cosmology, biology, or history. While the above hypothetical query is a vague generalization of ignorance and a strawman argument, it doesn’t stray too far from what some religious people believe. Therefore, I will attack it for what it is, and take from it what you will.
Okay, that’s about as straight as a corkscrew. I agree that what you said is absurd. No, I am not claiming (nor is anyone else, as far as I can tell) that we “came from nothing” or “turned into monkeys”.
What you’re really asking involves three different sciences: cosmology, abiogenesis, and evolution.
You Are What You Eat
First of all, we know evolution happened. It’s a provable fact that we can observe today (by studying microorganisms), and there’s a mountain of fossil evidence for common ancestry. Francis Collins, the head of the Human Genome Project that was completed in 2003 (and an evangelical Christian), said that even if there were no fossils, the DNA evidence *alone* is enough to confirm common decent.
First of all, we know evolution happened. It’s a provable fact that we can observe today (by studying microorganisms), and there’s a mountain of fossil evidence for common ancestry. Francis Collins, the head of the Human Genome Project that was completed in 2003 (and an evangelical Christian), said that even if there were no fossils, the DNA evidence *alone* is enough to confirm common decent.
So, we can trace the lineage of every living thing back to some sort of beginning (yes, you and a carrot are very, very, very, very, very, distant cousins). We know that life is here, and we know that it’s changed. Now the question becomes, where did life come from? That’s handled by abiogenesis. There are a number of scientific theories about how life could have evolved from nothing, and some of them have actually demonstrated the possibility of life from non-life. The Miller/Urey Experiment simulated hypothetical conditions present on the early Earth and showed that, given billions of years, organic life can grow out of inorganic material. There are a number of other theories about how life could have came from maybe another planet or at the bottom of the ocean…the point is, we don’t yet know exactly where or how, but we do know that it is scientifically possible for this to occur.
Now we have to go even farther back. We can trace back the history of the universe—using cosmology—to the formation of planets, galaxies, stars, etc. and eventually to the Big Bang, which isn’t a “something-from-nothing” proposition. We don’t know what happened before the Big Bang, we don’t know the state of the universe at the time before time. The laws of thermodynamics state that matter and energy are interchangeable, and that it cannot be created or destroyed.
I Don't Know
You may notice that I’m saying “we don’t know” a lot. That’s actually the wonderful thing about science: you don’t know, so you try to figure it out. You look for an answer. This is also where theistic belief asserts an answer and labels it “God”. Saying “God did it” is just an attempt to solve a mystery with another even greater mystery. It tells you nothing about how or why, and more importantly, it forces you to stop searching for a real answer. Asking “who cause the Big Bang” is a fallacious question, because it assumes a) that there had to be a “who”, and b) that it was “caused” by something, meaning it wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
You may notice that I’m saying “we don’t know” a lot. That’s actually the wonderful thing about science: you don’t know, so you try to figure it out. You look for an answer. This is also where theistic belief asserts an answer and labels it “God”. Saying “God did it” is just an attempt to solve a mystery with another even greater mystery. It tells you nothing about how or why, and more importantly, it forces you to stop searching for a real answer. Asking “who cause the Big Bang” is a fallacious question, because it assumes a) that there had to be a “who”, and b) that it was “caused” by something, meaning it wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
To argue against the popular alternative to all this provable, demonstrable, evidence is the theist, who simply states that he, too, doesn’t know how or why, but that “God did it” in his “mysterious ways”.
Reason To Believe
As I’ve shown, we have a plethora of evidence and reason to believe that everything occurred naturally. This is a big question, and I’d advise everyone to read and learn more about what we *really* known and what we’re trying to figure out. But there’s no significant justification or evidence that there was any kind of intelligent, transcendent “force” that caused life, the universe, and everything. Because of this lack of knowledge, I'm agnostic. Because of this lack of evidence, I will not believe.
Will you?
-STA
