What Matters Most………………..Commentary by Jim High
Evolution is the explanation of life put forward by Charles Darwin back in 1859 with the publication of his worldview shattering book, On the Origin of Species. And the world has quite literally not been the same since. The Scopes Trials in 1925 in Dayton, TN, sought to settle the issue of teaching Evolution rather than the account of creation found the Bible, but the debate rages on today, first in the form of Creation Science and now under the banner of Intelligent Design.
There is no debate among scientists about Evolution. It is a fact that we are the human animal that evolved from the great apes of Africa over millions of years. And going back billions of years, we are also kin to the cabbages, since all life both plant and animal had a common source in the early oceans of planet Earth.
Except for religion and the Bible, there would be no debate and the fact is that every study shows that Darwin’s conclusions are true. We must remember how slowly people admit that the Bible is wrong. Copernicus discovered and Galileo championed that the Earth was not the center of the Universe over 400 years ago, but it wasn’t until recently in 1992 that the Roman Catholic Church admitted that they had been correct, so strong is religious orthodoxy.
Evolution can no longer be considered “just a theory” as some would like to label it. In fact, both Creationism and Intelligent Design are the theories, religious theories. The unknown is life itself. We know it evolved in the oceans of planet Earth and that over about four billions years has, so far, resulted in us, the self conscious, self-aware, thinking animal. I say “so far”, because although we can’t see it happening evolution has not stopped. It never stops. And now we also have to factor in cultural evolution, since man has developed a culture and can now affect his own evolution in multiple ways.
We don’t yet actually know what life is, or how it starts. We don’t know if life exists everywhere in the Universe, but we suspect that it does, and we are looking for it. We also don’t know what started up the whole Universe. The so called Big Bang is a theory based on the movement we see in the Universe as if it exploded into existence from nothing some 13.5 billion years ago. I’m not yet sold on that idea, maybe the Universe just is, maybe it really is infinite, although that is another idea that makes no sense to me. But then our Earth, Sun and whole solar system would not make much sense to an ant, if the ant had some way to see it and understand what it was seeing.
Ancient mankind attributed his existence to a God that he created and placed above him in the sky. But that feeling we all have from time to time of being connected to some higher power, to each other, to nature, to the beauty of a sunset, to your pet, or even your house plants is actually a real feeling because we are in fact connected to all those things. We humans are a part of the Life Force of the Universe itself. When you come to realize that the same power that created the stars also created you and me, and that in fact, we are made of stardust, well that is an understanding that is greater than what is written any Holy book supposedly written by a God.
There are many things yet to be discovered about life itself. For example, we can clone it, but not make it, we can grow body parts, but not from scratch. And let me add “yet,” because we'll probably be able to do all these things in the future. And there are connections that we “yet” don't understand. For example, I strongly think that our "thoughts become things" and the Law of Attraction is a real law of the Universe.
What Matters Most………this life we live today and everyday is so very important, because it is the only life we are ever going to know about. If the Life Force of the Universe, that little bit of “stardust" that is me, blends back into the overall Life Force of the Universe when I die, and turns up again here on Earth or somewhere else, it won't be as Jim High. Right now is Jim High's time to be, and I am trying to make it all that it can be.
© 2011 #14 Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467
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