The Horrors of Evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, August 08, 2008, 02:36 (5750 days ago) @ George Jelliss

If I, as an atheist, have difficulty with facing the reality, how much more difficult is it for religious believers? What sort of designer would deliberately instigate such a process? Surely only something demonic, or at best uncaring? Or do we have to put it down to "mysterious ways" beyond the ability of our poor brains to comprehend? - Evolution is a nasty business, George. I agree with you. But living animals have to eat to have an energy source. When there were just plants or bacteria they could absorb nutrients from the surrounding environment. To get to 'us' the animal-eating-animal was a stage that had to be tolerated, and we are still eating animals, unless we are vegans. Darwin was horrified by the process: 'I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designed the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice...ants making slaves and the yound cuckoo ejecting its foster brother'. Note that it is Darwin's description of God that creates the problem for him. How did Darwin know that God had those attributes? Religions told him so. But if one does not define those attributes of God, or any attributes, the problem goes away. The process of evolution is the process of evolution, and nothing more. In Judaism animals have a 'soul' called a nefesh. Humans have a different soul, called a neshama. Those souls are markedly different, as humans are from animals. Animals think nothing of how they eat to survive. But our human morals and eithical thoughts upset us as we feel sorry for the animals. I don't think God is demonic. Perhaps this is the only way we could be evolved. We know that it took 13.7 billion years to get here. Why did God take so long? Only if we think God is omnipotent does the question appear. To me it appears reasonable, as long as I don't swallow all the religious expectations about God, that God may well be limited in what He can do. There is nothing wrong with that concept of God.