There’s no point in lying any more; we’re living in an age that is preoccupied with destruction, and it’s extremely evident. Nukes, televangelists (adios, Jerry Falwell), precisely aimed bird-poo bullets — we’re all against one another, unless my spidey-senses have failed me yet again. So let’s take a step back, past Iran-Contra, past Blackbeard, past the fall of the western Roman Empire, past the birth of Ann Coulter…

Let’s go back to the beginning of things. “Ah,” but you ask, wittily stroking your chin, “which beginning do you want?” — because life is full of those choose-your-own-adventures that we so often wish we could bypass by flipping back to before things went wrong, or ahead to when things are simply peachy. The beginning of the earth is but one of these adventures. There is not one creation; there are, in fact, three categories of creation that are bound to confuse and perplex unless clearly delineated. The first is a strictly religious interpretation. The second is exclusively scientific in nature (assuming that religion is to literature and scripture as science is to observation and experimentation; in essence, the reputedly “unchangeable record of life” against its sneaky ghost-authored sequel). The third path melds elements from the former two into something that speaks of a divine entity, in concept alone, but still uses the laws of science to explain this theory.

So this, my children, this is the beginning of the world.

What religion dictates

The Bible, in the course of all literature¹ , begins with Creation. Six days of work, one day of rest; sun, moon, stars, elephants, piggly-wigglies, and the “first” humans — Adam and Eve who are expelled from the Garden of Eden for crimes of curiosity. Six days? It takes millions of years for bits of carbon to turn into diamonds, but only six days to create everything that has ever existed?

Fortunately, creation “scientists” think on their feet. A new proposal, the Day-Age Theory claims that each “day” aforementioned in the Bible was significantly longer twenty-four hours. We’re talking thousands, millions, even billions of years — the age of the earth, as estimated by scientists. Isn’t that convenient? The Christian “science” website that the following is from adds little to the vagueness of this “evidence”, which the authors of this website claim overwrites the “fallible word of man”:

…each of the six days of creation could represent more than an actual day, as we know according to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, time is relative. A day to God could mean a thousand years to us. Again, this does nothing to explain the contradictions between God’s Word and the word of secular science. Billions of years cannot be added to any particular day, and still reconcile the word of God with the word of the science of today.

—All About Creation

So there are different possibilities present in the Bible, the manifestation of “God’s Word”, which they claim is unchanged? There are two inaccuracies present in these creationists’ primary arguments. First, to be a scientist — and for creationism to be regarded as a science, instead of religion, and taught in schools — one has to accept that science is always changing and evolving, building off prior theories to come closer to understanding. Second, which is more probable?: that God couldn’t find a better word than “day” to use in the Bible to represent incalculable amounts of time, or that the Bible actually intended to use the word “day” to represent extremely fast events — the divine connection — in a minute amount of time?

Creationism is typically an blind-faith argument based on a book’s ability to be completely accurate; it is only through research and experimentation — questioning the Bible — that any real information can actually be gathered. Then, of course, there is the age-old retort that “the Bible wasn’t meant to be taken literally.” The Bible is in, and of itself, a work of literature — how else is it meant to be taken but literally?

The glaring flaw I see in Creationism is a lack of evidence of its actual occurrence. What that calls for is the ability to track genealogies very far back (to see if Biblical family trees hold out), or to be able to match events in the Bible with events in the geological history of the earth. It’s a leap of faith, quite literally, that would be nearly impossible to prove.

Scientific suppositions

An essential part of the scientific method is the element of the unknown, and the necessity of a hypothesis to even come close to discovering anything at all. It is this portion of science that can never coexist with religion, and thus, sets it apart from creationism indefinitely. In order to establish a scientific position on creation, we need to establish laws to follow, so that we don’t get ahead of natural intention:

Law of Conservation of Matter

Matter can neither be created nor destroyed.

This essentially dictates that, regardless of where or in what form life exists, there is a definite unchanging quantity of matter that is constantly reorganized into different forms. Now, this could occur by several means. Said matter could be exploded from one state into another (The Big Bang), or perhaps warped by black holes, but let us assume that we have a blank slate and enormous amounts of paint that have to end up somewhere. This somewhere, fortunately for us, happens to be Earth.

Law of Conservation of Energy

Energy remains constant.

Essentially, if matter is always in the same quantities, energy must be as well.

One of the earliest scientists to put the Biblical idea of creation to the test was Francesco Redi. In a now famous experiment, Redi placed meat in two containers, one of which he left open, and another which remained closed. As the meat began to decay, flies flocked to the open jar and laid their eggs in the container. This container soon held many maggots; its companion container, the closed one, held none. With this, Redi was able to disprove spontaneous generation (and abiogenesis), essentially establishing that life had to come from other life, ruling out divine intervention. From this crucial realization, we can verify the truth of the term omne vivum ex ovo (all life came from pre-existing life — literally, all of life from an egg), which casts a spin on the traditional riddle “Which came first: the chicken or the egg?” in favor of the egg.

But where did that first life come from? Instead of creating an endless cycle of life, which we know to be false, we must turn to Darwin, who implied in his theories that there must have been an unliving thing — an ur-organism somewhere in the Earth’s past, long enough ago that life could have evolved from it. This is not to say that Darwin is alone in believing that unliving particles could turn into actual life. One of the earliest theories concerning the creation of life on earth was about a “primordial soup” — a mixture of hot gases, energy, and in the midst of these forces, random particles. When combined, the “soup” was gradually able to create life on Earth — a process that would take billions of years, and stands true to the geologic record. Conveniently for Darwin, evolution could also occur at this early phase as particles — according to the theory, early molecules would be heterotrophs, feeding off of other molecules or gaining energy via photosynthesis. The essential step for these molecules would be the conversion from mere particles into amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, and eventually life. This evolution of inorganic matter into organic matter is called biopoiesis.

Logically, a scientific beginning is more receptive to the theory of evolution. A creationist beginning requires the existence of God, and therein rests an enormous burden of proof. However, if the theory of biopoiesis is true, it only requires two things:

1. That the presence of small particles can be proven to have existed on Earth’s surface
2. That these particles are able to evolve, first (hopefully) into amino acids, and from there into living things, gradually

Naturally, the rock record does not extend nearly far enough to verify the first of these statements, and simulations must be used to visualize the conditions necessary for life. One of these experiments tested the primordial “soup” theory, and was able to successfully produce a mixture that contained amino acids. From there, only evolution is necessary, and I think the verity of the latter speaks for itself.

The third path

Of course, the theory of ur-organisms leaves a door open for religious scientists who want a way to integrate God into matters of creation. Because the Bible states that man is created in God’s image (even if that god is as given to sin — in matters of death and destruction — as his scions), certain creationists are unwilling to give up a religious view of science because it would eliminate that aspect of perfection with which it is significantly easier to identify. Evolution is claimed to be “random”, which eliminates the “purpose” of mankind. However, if organisms were purposeless, natural selection would eliminate them. Fins, wings, and other organs became vestigial via evolution because they steadily became more and more useless.There is no need to assume that evolution is in any way random, but it isn’t quite planned either. The certainty in evolution is that things will evolve, no matter what. However, this loophole is most often interpreted in favor of creationism, and its bastard child: Intelligent Design.

I have not hated anything more fiercely since its inception than Intelligent Design. It is a thinly veiled plot to offer a religious curriculum within schools under the name of science. Intelligent Design plays off of the theory of ur-organisms, and assumes that that one inorganic ancestor must have been God — in sneaky terms, an “intelligent designer — who not only managed to give mankind a purpose, but also created all of life with a purpose, something that science is thankfully without. The Bible Belt has rallied fervently in favor of Intelligent Design because it tries to offer the best of both worlds — scientific truth and Biblical assumptions — without offending those of us who long for a secular scientific education.

It, unfortunately, succeeds at neither, and both it and creationism leave me wondering why people let their respective religions decide what a society accepts or doesn’t accept.

Read 5 comments (Leave a comment?)

themak said:

The major problem with comparing the creation story with modern science is that those who would have originally read it would have no understanding of the conservation of matter theory. There’s also a fundamental difference between a literal truth and a spiritual one (simplest example would be a parable). Also the fact that literature and literal are sparingly homonymical doesn’t count as an argument. Also I beleive the experiment mentioned does not disprove spontaneous generation as he merely proved that flys don’t lay eggs where they cannot access, for him to disprove spontaneous generation in creation then he’d have to factor in divine intervention into his experiment. God’s creation of the universe is something that people won’t be able to understand and the closest simplification could be at odds with science.

You will never find an argument which conclusively prooves or disprooves the existance of God. That’s why Christianity is a faith.

Posted on May 17, 2007 2:45 PM; Permalink

Matt said:

The Hebrew word that is translated as ‘day’ in the beginning of Genesis is translated as ‘age’ in other parts of the old testament. So that’s another way of looking at it from the old earth creationist perspective.

Also you mentioned the conservation of matter/energy stating that something can not come from nothing. But science’s evidence points to there being nothing prior to the big bang.

Whether God created life on earth by speaking things into existence or via evolution isn’t a question that science is supposed to answer. God and evolution are not mutually exclusive, it’s sad how many people treat them as such on both sides of the debate.

Posted on May 17, 2007 2:48 PM; Permalink

Ranjani said:

Alex: But the spontaneous generation experiment proved that life could not be created without former life, thus putting a small hole in the creationism argument.

Matt: It is still entirely possible that one force could have put life on earth, and then evolution could have taken its course. That lends credence to the Intelligent Design argument. But where did that “life” come from?

I didn’t prove or disprove the Big Bang; I merely offered it as an example of what may have set the forces of life in motion

I’m not trying to prove or disprove God, merely show that there is fallibility in the current approach towards creation, which is claimed to be the art of God alone. In addition to that, there are so many stories of creation, even some that predate the Bible. Which is true?

That’s why I believe in evolution overall. It doesn’t differ in its method.

I need answers. I have a certain amount of faith for my religion, but it offers me comfort, not truth. To me, it doesn’t make sense that one god, a Christian god, has dominion of all people, Christian or not, over all life. That’s why I turn to science for my answers, and religion for my hope.

Not that I’m even that particularly religious, but hey, what can you do? I don’t think I can stand being subservient.

Posted on May 17, 2007 4:57 PM; Permalink

themak said:

The Spontanious Generation argument shows quite clearly that (although I regard the experiement as scientifically dubious): Life cannot start without: a) other life. b) divine intervention.

What is the creationist argument: divine intervention.

Also, you have to turn to both science and religion for both hope and answers. Religion is the knowledge that God inparted to us. Science is the knowledge that he’s left for us to find ourselves.

Posted on May 17, 2007 5:04 PM; Permalink

Ranjani said:

Alex: How is it scientifically dubious? What’s doubtful about it?

Until Redi’s experiment (and Pasteur’s after him), people assumed that creatures simply appeared, perhaps by divine will. What biogenesis established is the necessity for life to beget life, and that might even take out the necessity of a creator, which leaves us grasping for alternative forms of creation.

I’m not sure if religion offers quite as much knowledge as it offers wisdom. It definitely can’t answer all of my questions in the way that science can, which makes it automatically different.

Unless I’m asking the wrong questions :/

Posted on May 17, 2007 6:33 PM; Permalink