February 15, 2004
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I recently subscribed to a really thought provoking blog- o_tempora_o_mores. He’s got some great religious discussions going on over there.
Anyway, his mention of evolution got me to thinking about physical and spiritual evolution. I find it absurd that there are people who still can’t even accept the possibility of physical evolution. Some areas won’t even allow it to be taught in their schools yet and penalize teachers that show common sense and break their absurd rules.
I mean, how do they think fossils found their way into the rock layers? Odd mineral formations? Divine joke? Intentional hoax? Alien practical joke? Oops, forgot, aliens don’t exist either. The world and all the expansive universe is empty of any intelligent life aside from humanity. It was all made for us. All the empty space in the macrocosm and all the empty space in the microcosm between our ears… well the ego is mostly hot air right?
I know it’s a little hard to imagine our farthest ancestors only had a cell to to their names, but is it so hard to imagine our closer ancestors as furry apes with clubs? Heck, there are still people walking around who look they just fell out of a tree -with grammar to suit. At our basest, we’re just killer apes with occasional good fashion sense.
If people cannot accept the idea of physical evolution, there’s little hope that they’ll accept reincarnation (spiritual evolution) any time soon. But on the other hand, even those who have embraced the idea of physical evolution tend to dismiss the idea of reincarnation -as if accepting a scientific explanation for life excludes the idea of a soul or its development. Individuality and intelligence are a quirk of evolution. In fact, intelligence is explained as a kind of insanity according to some scientists. Well, I’ve never denied I’m nuts. But I’m pretty certain I’m not alone! lol
The way I see it, there are two types of progress -physical and spiritual. Both take a long time before you get anywhere, but it’s not the journey that’s important, it’s the destination. But evolution affects reincarnation and vice versa. Things change, the change allows for greater diversity, greater diversity allows for more experience, and more experience contributes to a greater depth of spiritual growth, growth in spirit promotes physical change as souls are reborn. It’s the much touted, often misunderstood, “circle of life.”
I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see whether experience wins out over dogma, religious or scientific.
Comments (8)
I definitely agree with you there. There has to be something more to us than the thought that some supreme being just waved his/her hand and “poof”, the human race was created just as we see today.
It bothers me that so many people are so close-minded as to not explore any other avenues of thought or belief once they hit upon the one that’s right for them. Knowledge is your best defense against ignorance. The only way we can achieve that is by keeping an open mind to the fact that what we know may not actually be what actually is.
Science and spiritual can work side by side. I believe in evolution. Pure and simple. We didn’t just flash into being as we are. But what about this? I’ve often tossed this question around in my head. What if (insert the name of whatever divine creator you believe in here) created the basic building blocks (i.e; the single-celled organisms we originated from) and allow us to evolve and grow from there?
So many people look at their Divine Creator (whoever that may be) as a parent-figure. The above scenario makes more sense to me for a parent figure diety if you have to believe in Divine Creation.
It’s just a thought I’ve tossed around.
Well of course, that’s the most obvious tie in, isn’t it? If science and religion could just get together on that point, it’d work out fine. Even if science chose to call the “divine spark” lightning, and religion chose to call the lightning a “divine spark.” Does it really make a difference what tools the Divine chose to use in causing life in the primordial ooze if life exists? We should just be glad to be here with lots of fun and interesting things to do. In other words, we should just play nice with the toys our parents gave us.
Well, if you look at the course of human history, scientific advance eventually wins over religious dogma. For example, it took 400 years for the Catholic Church to formally admit that Galileo was right, but they still got off their holy asses and did it. We now no longer believe that women are inferior, the sun goes around the earth, the stars interfere with fate, lighting and storms are forms of divine intervention, etc. A hundred years from now, hopefully people will embrace evolution.
Let he who have art and science let him have religion also… but he who have either let him have religion. -goethe
Very intelligent…
I was just having this discussion with someone at work. We do get into some really meaty subjects. Empirically there is way too much evidence to support evolution- Yet, people don’t see it? That one always gets me.
It’s kind of like the people today who still insist the world is flat and pictures taken of earth from space are optical illusion–in spite of all the scientific proof there is to refute them.
In many instances, the divine creationists/flat earthers/what have you often act like everyone with an opposing view just made these facts up so we could refute them. It’s sad. It would be a pretty expensive hoax if that were the case…which it’s not (of course).
Another excellent blog, harmony!
Where do all the fossils come from? Oh, well, harmony0stars, how can you be so blind, it’s all a part of global anti-religion conspiracy! *lol*
Seriously though…Reincarnation is hardly acceptable to most people. Just look at it: people won’t accept the evolution and there’s so much hard evidence, how can you expect them to accept the spiritual variant of it that you cannot possibly prove. And even if you could, it’s easier to do it once and live forever than try and correct your mistakes over and over and over again, and eventually don’t even exist anymore.