31.  Is the scientific theory of evolution a deception?

Summary:

•	The scientific theory of evolution explains how species gradually change over many generations to adapt to their environment to survive.  Evolution works because individuals with advantageous physical traits are more likely to survive long enough to have offspring (children) and therefore pass along those traits.  Modern science treats this theory as factual.  

•	Charles Darwin was not the first man to propose evolution; centuries earlier, Muslim scholars such as Ibn Khaldun and al-Jahiz, and likewise ancient Greek and Chinese philosophers, described aspects of it.  None of them were atheists.  Darwin called his beliefs agnostic, not atheistic; in his writings, Darwin referred to God and “the Creator” with respect.

•	Religious objections to evolution tend to come from people who insist on a strictly literal reading of the Holy Bible’s Book of Genesis.  But Genesis contains two different Creation stories (Genesis 1:1-2:3 and Genesis 2:4-25) which, when blended together, contradict each other.  A literal reading of this combination leads to impossible conclusions, such as Adam naming every species on Earth within a single 24-hour day.

•	The word day in the Creation story can be understood symbolically, just as the Bible uses the word heart symbolically rather than literally.  Both the Bible and the Quran teach that one of God’s “days” can equal thousands or tens of thousands of human years.

•	Humans have selectively bred plants and animals for thousands of years, creating corn, domestic dogs, cattle, and more.  Breeding is a practical form of evolution; even people who reject the theory of evolution accept the slow, observable change that is breeding.

•	Since the theory of evolution equates humans with animals, some religious opponents of the theory assert that humans have souls but animals do not.  However, the Bible never states that animals do not have souls.  The story of Balaam’s donkey (Numbers 22:21-39) even makes the donkey the hero of the story, suggesting that animals can think, feel, and do matter spiritually.

•	Insisting on a rigid, literal interpretation of Genesis often pushes young people towards atheism when they learn the scientific evidence.  When literalism is presented as the only acceptable form of faith, then discovering its contradictions can cause people to lose their entire belief system.

•	The scientific story of Earth’s creation—from a young, molten planet struck by comets, to the first life forms, to the rise of humans—offers spiritual lessons.  Those lessons include: humility about our smallness; accepting that God is often hidden; and appreciating the spiritual freedom that God’s hiddenness makes possible.

Planet Earth hosts many, many varieties of plants and animals.  The scientific theory of evolution, also called the theory of natural selection, explains how those varieties of species emerged and are still increasing.  Today, several major sciences, including biology, treat this theory as factual.

Not everyone accepts the theory, however.  Religious objections to the theory of evolution come mainly from people who demand a literal interpretation of the Holy Bible, which begins with a narrative of how God created the world and human beings.  They say the theory of evolution contradicts the Bible, omits God, encourages atheism, and portrays humans as no better than animals. 

Perhaps they believe that opposing the theory of evolution is a form of religious devotion.  However, their accusations are not always accurate or fair. 

The theory of evolution is often attributed to an Englishman named Charles Darwin because he developed it more thoroughly than anyone else.  In 1859, Darwin published a version of the theory in a book he titled On the Origin of Species.  It is now considered one of the most important books in the history of science.  What we now call evolution, Darwin called “descent with modification.”  Over many generations of offspring (what Darwin called “descent”), the physical form of a species will slowly change (“modification”) to better adapt to the local or regional environment the species lives in.  Another term used by Darwin to describe evolution is natural selection.

At about the same time as Darwin, another Englishman, named Alfred Russel Wallace, developed another version of the theory of evolution, although very similar.  Darwin noticed that different species compete to survive, and therefore some species can be violent and sometimes cruel, especially when hunting.  Wallace noticed this same fact, but he also noticed that evolution can encourage cooperation.  For example, some animals go hunting in teams.  Or, when a member of a herd notices that a predator is nearby, that member will sound an alarm, causing the entire herd to flee for safety.

Darwin and Wallace wrote in the nineteenth century.  Earlier, in the fourteenth century, aspects of the theory were proposed by an Arab scholar named Ibn Khaldun, a devout Muslim and one of the most brilliant men of his time.  In the year 1377, Ibn Khaldun proposed that every species gradually changes over many generations, improving over time.  His theory even proposed that humans evolved from apes, which is true.  Earlier, in the ninth century, a Muslim scholar named al-Jahiz also wrote about aspects of evolution.  In ancient times, centuries before the birth of Jesus, aspects of evolution were described by a few Greek philosophers including Anaximander, who proposed that humans evolved from fish, which is true.  The ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou also described aspects of the theory.  Zhuang Zhou, also called Zhuangzi, is remembered today as one of the most important teachers of Daoism.

Darwin, Wallace, Ibn Khaldun, al-Jahiz, Anaximander, and Zhuang Zhou were not atheists.  They proposed that evolution is a method used by the Divine to create the incredible variety of species on Earth, a variety that continues to expand today.  They never argued that their theories about evolution should be used to promote atheism.  Darwin in his famous book sometimes refers to God and to “the Creator”—and always with respect. 

Nevertheless, many religious critics of the theory have complained, accurately, that many atheists have used the theory of evolution to attack religion.  Darwin never became an atheist, but he did abandon traditional Christianity.  Darwin had studied the Bible in his youth and he once expected to become a clergyman.  Instead, he became a scientist and traveled the world, studying animals, especially birds.  Darwin created his theory based on what he observed in nature—and what he observed included violence and sometimes cruelty by species hunting and killing for food.  And Darwin wondered why God would allow such cruelty, especially as the natural behavior of a species.

Another reason why Darwin abandoned traditional Christianity is because, in his time, many Christian clergymen preached that unless a person believes in Jesus Christ, that person after death would be punished in Hell with eternal torment.  If that were true, explained Darwin in a letter, then the inmates of Hell would include his father, his brother, and almost all of his best friends.  Darwin refused to believe in a religion whose Deity behaved so cruelly.  But Darwin did not abandon his faith entirely.  In his last years, Darwin wrote, “In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.”  Darwin explained that his beliefs were those of an agnostic.

According to the theory of evolution, every species living in a natural environment must compete for food and other natural resources because those resources are limited.  Every species needs resources for their survival and must avoid predators, or risk getting eaten.  So, every species has physical characteristics called traits.  Animals, for example, may have legs, wings, fur, scales, teeth, or claws.  Some animals have better vision or faster legs.  Animals with traits that improve their survival have an advantage over animals without those traits.  Plants also compete: in a forest, some trees may grow taller because each tree is trying to collect more sunlight among the other trees.  In the dense jungles of Southeast Asia, where competition between plants can be intense, new bamboo trees grow extremely fast: almost a meter (about 35 inches) every 24 hours, racing to reach more sunlight.

Individuals also have traits, such as body shape and coloring, inherited from parents and earlier generations.  Inherited traits useful for survival can give an individual an advantage over other individuals of the same species but lacking those traits.  Individuals with traits that favor survival are more likely to live long enough to have offspring.  Individuals with traits poorly adapted to their environment are less likely to survive and therefore less likely to reproduce.  Eventually, they die out.

Within a particular environment, when an individual is born with a trait useful for survival and, later, that individual produces offspring having that same trait, that trait is called an adaptation.  (That trait is adapted to the environment.)  Gradually, over many generations, adaptations can alter how a species looks and behaves, including what it eats, how it grows, and where it can live.  Imagine, for example, a population of giraffes with necks of various lengths.  Giraffes like to eat fresh leaves growing on trees.  Giraffes with longer necks can reach the leaves on tall trees, but giraffes with shorter necks cannot.  The environment favors giraffes with longer necks, and so those particular giraffes are more likely to survive and have offspring, resulting in future generations of giraffes with mostly longer necks.

Nevertheless, evolution is not the result of any single individual.  Among each generation of births, the population and its traits change only gradually.  That population might not be the entire species but, instead, is limited to a particular region that has a particular environment.  For example, all cats have a common ancestor.  That ancestor, or ancestors, probably emerged somewhere on the Eurasian continent millions of years ago.  Over many, many generations, the ancestors of cats gradually migrated in search of food and spread across Eurasia into Africa and also into the Americas.  (They did not reach Australia. The first cats to reach Australia were brought by humans on ships.)  Each location had a different environment, in some places very different, and so the ancestors of cats gradually evolved into different species of cats: tigers, lions, leopards, cheetahs, jaguars, cougars, and also many species of small cats.

Sometimes evolution produces some strange results.  Penguins and ostriches are both species of birds but they cannot fly, although their distant ancestors could fly.  The ancestors of penguins migrated to Antarctica, a continent that is extremely cold and desolate.  On Antarctica, penguins have no natural predators and so they never needed to escape by flying away.  Antarctica also lacks much food except for fish along the coast, and so penguins evolved into excellent swimmers to catch fish.  Their wings evolved into flippers.  Ostriches live on the plains of eastern Africa.  Ostriches still have predators, but instead of flying away, ostriches run away: they can run at speeds of more than 40 miles or 65 kilometers per hour.  Ostriches have evolved into the largest birds on Earth, a size that helps their speed (because their legs can take long strides) and also intimidates predators who would prefer to hunt smaller, easier prey.  Too heavy to fly, ostriches use their short wings for balance while running. 

Threats to survival also influence how various species reproduce.  Some of the most vulnerable animals, including fish, lay large numbers of eggs because only a small percentage of those offspring will survive long enough to reproduce.  Among plants, a tree may produce more seeds than other trees. 

Natural selection is sometimes summarized as “survival of the fittest” because those species with traits that best fit their environment become the species most likely to survive and pass along their traits into the next generation.  Those traits are not always physical weapons, such as claws or teeth.  The most important trait that humans possess is our brain-power.  Most animals have brains and can think, but humans have more brain-power than any other species on Earth.  Some traits are not body parts but encourage particular behaviors.  For example, many species, including humans, have instincts that encourage hunting—and yet many species, including humans, also have instincts that encourage cooperation.  Among these species, their need to hunt and to cooperate results in herds and tribes, which are like extended families living together.  Humans, because of our brain-power and other instincts, have become the dominant species on Earth because we can hunt more effectively and can cooperate in larger numbers than any other species.  Some animals use tools, such as sticks or rocks, but only humans have invented technologies much more useful than sticks and rocks.

That is a very simple description of the theory of evolution.  Religious opponents say the theory contradicts the Holy Bible.  They point to the first few pages of the Bible where the Book of Genesis contains the Biblical story of Creation. 

Careful readers of Genesis will notice, however, that Genesis contains not one but two Biblical stories of Creation.  The first story begins with Genesis 1:1, which states, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  In this story, God spends six days creating the world.  On the first day, God begins to create Earth as something formless and empty.  The story implies that the world is flat, not a planet orbiting the Sun.  God says, “Let there be light,” and light appears—but not light from the Sun.  God did not yet create the Sun.  The light that God commanded into existence does not have a source.  God names the light “day” and names the darkness “night.”  And because the Sun does not yet exist, the length of a “day” is not established.  On the second day, God creates water and land.  On the third day, God creates plants.  God has already created water and light to nourish the plants, but still no Sun.  Not until the fourth day does God create the Sun, along with the Moon and the stars.  God already created “day” and “night” two days earlier, but only now does God create dawn and dusk.  The story says God created the Sun to govern the day and created the Moon to govern the night.  On the fifth day, God creates fish and birds.  On the sixth day, God creates the other animals. 

Then, still on the sixth day, God creates human beings:

After creating the heavens and Earth in six days, God rested on the seventh day.  That is the first Biblical story of Creation (Genesis 1:1 to 2:3). 

The second Biblical story of Creation begins with Genesis 2:4, which states: “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.”  There is no description of how God created Earth or the heavens, only a statement that God did so.  The second story also implies that Earth is flat, not a planet. 

The second story continues: “Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.  Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”  (Genesis 2:5-7.)

The second story has no schedule: no explanation of what God created on the first day, on the second day, on the third day, and so forth.  The second story never mentions any days at all (Genesis 2:4 to 2:25).

Traditionally, most readers of Genesis have assumed that the two stories of Creation are the same story and therefore blend the two stories together.  But blending the two stories causes some problems.

In the first story, God creates humans on the sixth day.  The number of people God created is not revealed, but presumably God created more than Adam and Eve (whose names are not mentioned in the first story) because creating only one man and only one woman would mean that their children would have to interbreed to beget future generations.  That means the children would have to commit incest.  (Later, Genesis 14-26 implies the existence of other people and some intermarriage—people created by God, presumably—but their existence is never fully explained.)

In the second story, God creates all the animals that fly or roam the land.  Then God creates the first man, Adam.  God introduces Adam to every animal species and commands Adam to think of a name for each species.  That means every species of land animal on Earth and every species of bird on Earth—Adam must think of a name for each.  Then God decides that Adam needs a mate, so God causes Adam to fall asleep while God creates Eve, the first woman. 

These events—all of them—must happen on the sixth day.  The second story does not actually say all of these events happened on the sixth day, but all of them must happen on the sixth day if the two stories are blended together.  God creates a vast variety of animals, God creates Adam, Adam meets and names every species, and God creates Eve.  All must happen on the sixth day, because God rests on the seventh day.

Adam is only a man, the first man, and so the idea is not credible that Adam could do everything that Genesis 2:19-20 says that Adam did, all within a single day of 24 hours, because Genesis 1:26-31 says that God created humans on the sixth day.  A day of 24 hours consists of 86,400 seconds.  If the world had exactly one million species of animals (although Earth has many more than that) and if Adam did nothing for 24 hours except think of names for every species, then Adam would need to name more than eleven species every single second.  Name at least eleven species, every second, for 24 hours.  That feat is impossible for any man.  In Genesis, the second story of Creation never claims that Adam accomplished this feat within a single day, and the first story never claims this either.  We the readers mistakenly assume this impossible feat when we blend the two stories together and impose a deadline of six days in which each day lasts only 24 hours.

God could easily create the entire Universe, including Earth, in less than a moment.  Why did God spend six days to create the planet?  The first story in Genesis never explains why.  Perhaps Genesis refers to days, not moments, because “days” would convey to ancient readers a sense that creating Earth and its inhabitants took time—still a miracle, but it took time.  Creating the planet actually took billions of years, but ancient readers might not comprehend a story that referred to billions of years. 

Elsewhere in the Bible, Deuteronomy 6:5 states: “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”  This is one of the Bible’s most important commandments, but a literalist interpretation of it would weaken the commandment.  It refers to your heart—but your heart is actually a pump in your chest, pumping blood.  Your heart is not your brain and not your mind.  Most readers do understand that the Bible uses the word heart in a symbolic way, representing your emotions, passions, and spiritual commitment. 

If the word heart can have a symbolic meaning in the Bible, then the word day can have a symbolic meaning.  To us, a “day” from the perspective of God could equal thousands, millions, or billions of our years.

In Islam, the Holy Quran likewise says that God created the world in six days (Surahs 7:54, 50:38 and 57:4).  One day for God can be an epoch for humans.  Surah 22:47 of the Quran says that a day with God is like 1,000 years for a human, and Surah 70:4 equates a day for God with 50,000 years for a human.  Therefore, the Arabic word yawm— يوم —means a day, but the word also means a period of time, perhaps as long as an era, an epoch, or an eon.

A literalist interpretation of the Biblical story of Creation tries to squeeze God (or squeezes a limited interpretation of God) into a story (actually two stories) written for people who lived thousands of years ago before their descendants discovered that Earth is a planet orbiting the Sun.  We disrespect those ancient people when we assume they should have known better.  And we disrespect ourselves when we assume that our knowledge of Earth and the Universe is no better than their knowledge.

If God created every species in six days and none of those species evolved, if none of them changed, then is it immoral when we humans change any species that God created?  Humans for thousands of years have subjected numerous species of plants and animals to breeding and modification, changing the original species.  For example, corn is not natural.  Corn was invented in ancient Mexico more than 7,000 years ago when humans modified a wild grass called teosinte.  Animals modified by humans include cows, pigs, horses, dogs, and cats.  Religious opponents of the theory of evolution may claim that natural selection does not exist, but unnatural selection directed by humans has definitely existed throughout human history.  Does this mean that humans may direct and practice evolution—but God may not?  At least natural selection occurs under the direction of God.  When humans modify plants and animals using unnatural selection (breeding), is that a perversion of the pure species created by God?  Religious opponents of the theory of evolution should ponder this question if they want their arguments to be consistent. 

Another religious argument made against the theory of evolution is that, supposedly, animals do not have souls.  According to this argument, if humans have souls but animals do not, then animals could never evolve into humans.  According to Genesis, the methods used by God to create humans differed from how God created all other living beings.  But nowhere in the Bible does it say that animals do not have souls.  God created every living being on Earth, including animals who give us love and companionship.  To assume that God would not create souls within animals is to assume that God does not fully love all living beings. 

Elsewhere in the Holy Bible (in the Book of Numbers 22:21-32) is a story of a man named Balaam.  Balaam wants to travel to a distant location by riding his donkey.  Balaam has also disobeyed God, however, and so God sends an angel with a sword to block Balaam’s route.  Balaam does not see the angel standing in his way—but his donkey does.  On three occasions the donkey tries to avoid the angel.  This behavior upsets Balaam because he assumes his donkey is being disobedient.  So, on all three occasions, Balaam beats the donkey.  Then a miracle happens: God gives the donkey the power of human speech.  The donkey asks Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?”  Balaam, not yet realizing that a miracle has occurred, replies that the donkey is making him look foolish.  The donkey then asks, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day?  Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”  Balaam replies no—perhaps now feeling embarrassed that his donkey has a reasonable complaint.  Then the armed angel appears to Balaam.  The angel warns Balaam about being reckless because Balaam disobeyed God.  The angel explains that the donkey saw the angel three times, and that is why the donkey turned away three times.  If the donkey had not turned away, says the armed angel, the angel would have killed Balaam—but spared the donkey. 

An average donkey, like many other animals, can think, show devotion, and feel happiness, excitement, fear, and pain.  And Balaam’s donkey had a reasonable complaint.  But according to some people who say they interpret the Bible literally, an animal like Balaam’s donkey supposedly does not have a soul.  Yet, the hero in this Bible story is the donkey, not Balaam.

If you know a particular animal whom you love and consider a friend, such as a pet or a companion, would you not want that animal to have a soul?  The deep love you feel for that animal is surpassed by the love that God feels for that animal and also feels for you.  God is Love.  That is why all living beings have souls.  A living being without a soul is not complete.

Religious opponents of the theory of evolution perceive it as a threat to their beliefs because the theory is based on physical evidence and logic.  It is more plausible than a literalist interpretation of the (combined) Genesis story of Creation that lasts only six days (144 hours).  Religious opponents of the theory want God to be obvious, because God is obvious in the Biblical story.  Despite what they want, however, God today is often hidden, especially during times of anguish or strife.  “Truly you are a God who has been hiding Himself,” says the Bible’s Book of Isaiah 45:15.  Since they cannot make God obvious, they want to make mentions of God obvious—by insisting on a literalist interpretation of the Bible.

They may believe they are fighting atheism, but religious opponents of the theory of evolution are actually encouraging atheism.  Whenever a debate emphasizes logic, scientific reasoning, and physical evidence, the theory of evolution easily wins against a literalist interpretation of the Biblical story of Creation.  The literalist interpretation has survived because its believers associate it with their religious faith.  But they are a minority: today, the religious faiths of many other Jews and Christians are thriving without a belief that the Biblical story of Creation must be true literally instead of symbolically.  People who believe in the literalist interpretation tend to teach their children to believe it.  Someday, however, the children start to doubt it.  Gradually, they discover that most people outside of their religious community treat the Biblical story of Creation as only symbolic and that most scientists ignore the story entirely.  Gradually, the children realize that the literalist interpretation ignores facts and contradicts logic.  Someday, they may no longer believe it—but if it is absolutely fundamental to the religious beliefs they were taught, they can lose their entire faith.  And then atheism looks sensible to them.  If their parents and religious communities did not stubbornly insist that the literalist interpretation must be literally true and that evolution must be wrong, then they might find a set of religious beliefs that fulfills their spiritual needs without insulting their common sense or punishing their respect for facts. 

Religious scriptures exist to encourage us to ponder moral questions, not to make us ignorant of material facts. 

The scientific explanation of how life on Earth began and later evolved is an explanation that is still being developed.  This is because scientists are still discovering more clues and more information and sometimes replacing old ideas.  Nevertheless, even a short version of the story of Creation, as discovered by scientific investigation, offers us some spiritual lessons.

More than four and a half billion years ago, the planet Earth was formed from gas, dust, and rock, all orbiting the Sun.  Gradually, the gravity of that material pulled it together into larger and larger clumps until it became the young planet.  (Earlier—more than nine billion years earlier—much of the Universe came into existence through an event sometimes called the Big Bang.  But that is another story.)  The name of the Sun is Sol, which is why everything that orbits the Sun is called, collectively, the Solar system.  Earth and the smaller planets of the Solar system are made of mostly rock, unlike the larger planets including Jupiter and Saturn, which are made of mostly gas.  Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter is the Asteroid Belt, containing millions of asteroids (rocks) orbiting the Sun.  Gravity from Jupiter tugs at the Asteroid Belt, and sometimes this causes asteroids to crash into each other, breaking them into smaller rocks and knocking some of them out of orbit.  Most asteroids that hit Earth come from the Asteroid Belt; those which reach Earth are called meteors.  Meteors travel so fast that their speeding friction against Earth’s atmosphere burns them up, usually into dust.  Only rarely is a meteor big enough to survive that intense burning and still reach Earth’s surface.  Long before Earth developed a substantial atmosphere, however, meteors pounded the young planet for hundreds of millions of years.  As a result, Earth was covered by an ocean of magma: a layer of molten rock hundreds of miles deep, heated by the crashing meteors. 

The meteors from space included comets covered in ice.  Once they reached Earth, the ice immediately melted, becoming vaporized water.  Later, hot gases from volcanoes on Earth created Earth’s first atmosphere, but with almost no oxygen.  Eventually, Earth’s ocean of magma cooled into a solid surface, a crust.  Gradually, liquid water accumulated on that crust.  Today, oceans of water cover nearly 70 percent of Earth’s surface.  Most of Earth’s volcanoes are hidden under its oceans, but pressures deep inside the planet are still heating the planet’s interior. 

Meteors and volcanoes can be scary things, but without them—and without the Asteroid Belt and Jupiter’s gravity, and without water brought by crashing comets—life on Earth might not exist today.

(You might wonder how comets could bring to the young Earth so much water.  Earth has less water than you might expect.  If you could collect all of Earth’s oceans, lakes, and rivers into a giant ball of water, the width of that giant ball would be only about 860 miles or 1,385 kilometers.  The ball’s height would be the same as its width, but the width could fit within the distance between today’s cities of London and Rome, or between Berlin and Moscow, or between Cairo and Baghdad, or between Beijing and Tokyo, or between Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro.  You could fit three such balls in the distance between Los Angeles and New York.  The ball would be less than 40 percent of the size of Earth’s Moon.  Although oceans of water cover most of the planet, those oceans are only a relatively thin layer on a planet of mostly rock.)

Within the Solar system, Earth is the only planet with liquid water on the surface.  Earth is also the only planet with active plate tectonics—which means the surface of the planet is divided into plates so immense that they are carrying the planet’s continents, moving around at an incredibly slow pace measured in millions of years.  In some places the plates (and the continents) are moving apart, while elsewhere they are colliding.  Those collisions sometimes cause earthquakes.  When one plate gradually slides under another, that very slowly creates mountains and volcanoes.  This entire process, called continental drift, causes the continents to assemble into a super-continent every 600 million years or so; later, the plates slowly split apart, again, as they continue to drift. 

You can see some evidence of continental drift by looking at a map of the Atlantic Ocean.  The eastern coast of South America curves in a way that nearly matches the western coast of Africa.  They could fit together almost like puzzle pieces.  That is because the continents of South America and Africa were joined together about 250 million years ago.  Today, halfway between South America and Africa is an extremely long ridge under the Atlantic Ocean, called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.  That ridge stretches across almost half of the planet’s surface, from north to south, because that is where the enormous plates are pulling apart, creating the ridge.  On the western side of the ridge are the North American and South American plates; on the eastern side are the Eurasian and African plates.

One of the smallest plates is the subcontinent of India: it is slowly crashing into the Eurasian continent and actually sliding underneath Eurasia, pushing up that portion.  That slow collusion has created the tallest mountains on the planet, the Himalayas. 

Plate tectonics create earthquakes, but plate tectonics also create a wide variety of geographies and natural habitats.  Without the volcanic activity that causes plate tectonics, life on Earth might not exist.

Scientists are not certain how biological life on Earth began, but one theory is that extremely tiny organisms, each one only a single cell (you would need a microscope to see it), may have originated by feeding on the energy from underwater volcanoes that are constantly releasing heat into the local water.  Scientists, using physical clues and other evidence, estimate that those earliest forms of life appeared about three or four billion years ago. 

Scientists estimate that the distant ancestors of plants appeared about two and a half billion years ago.  Those ancestors used sunlight for food, a process called photosynthesis, and they emitted oxygen.  Today, plants still depend on photosynthesis and they still emit oxygen.  About a fifth of Earth’s atmosphere now consists of oxygen, produced by plants. 

About 580 million years ago, life consisting of multiple cells appeared on Earth, including creatures with spines (vertebrates) such as insects and early reptiles.  Those early reptiles evolved into dinosaurs.  For about 165 million years, dinosaurs dominated the planet.  Unfortunately for them, about 66 million years ago a huge meteor reached Earth’s surface—and that massive crash was like millions of nuclear bombs exploding all at once.  Vast fires filled the sky with smoke, soot, and ash, blocking out light and warmth from the Sun.  Without sunlight, most plant life on Earth died, and soon afterwards almost all of the dinosaurs died.  Mass extinction. 

That mass extinction was unusual but not unique.  Mass extinctions of life on Earth have occurred several times.  Perhaps as many as 99 percent of all species that have ever existed on Earth are now extinct.  You may feel sorry for them, but if they had survived, including the dinosaurs, humans today might not exist.  That is because when the dinosaurs no longer dominated the planet, mammals then became common on Earth.  And those mammals include humans. 

Humans are part of a family of various species called humanoids.  According to the theory of evolution, humanoids evolved from various species of primates such as apes.  Although the family of primate species is much older, humanoids appeared on Earth maybe six million years ago, perhaps earlier, perhaps later.  Humans like us, called homo sapiens, did not emerge until about 300,000 years ago, maybe somewhat earlier.  That may seem like a long time, but 300,000 years is a remarkably short time in comparison to the age of the planet.  Nevertheless, those early humans were born with the right combination of traits that helped our species to become the dominant species among humanoids and, later, the dominant species among all species on Earth.

About 13,000 years ago, maybe earlier, humans invented something extraordinary that transformed their societies: humans invented farming.  Farming produced enough food that people could settle into villages, towns, and eventually cities, and the result is what we call civilization.  Civilization is not a natural environment, it is a human-made environment.  Civilization has many benefits; but as an artificial environment, it has caused us different problems which the very slow process of evolution has not had enough time to adapt our species to.  Those problems of civilization include numerous psychological problems.  But that is another story.

In the history of the planet, we are now living during a special time.  During about 85 percent of Earth’s past, the planet was extraordinarily hot.  During the other 15 percent of its past, Earth was cooler.  Despite the warm summers we experience, we are now living during one of Earth’s cooler times.  Yet, there were also times when Earth’s average temperature was below freezing and too cold for most life.  Human life thrives only within a narrow range of temperatures: not too hot and not too cold.  If Earth were located a little closer to the Sun, the planet’s oceans would boil.  If Earth were located a little farther away, its oceans would freeze.  We as a species are either remarkably lucky or remarkably blessed.  In the future, if we somehow avoid destroying the planet with selfish behavior, Earth will probably remain habitable for us for at least hundreds of thousands of years, maybe millions of years.  That is enough time for humankind to build new communities throughout the Solar system and perhaps spread to other stars.  But to gain that future, we must develop the wisdom of compassion and respect for all living things, and we must develop that wisdom into a habit.

This story of Creation that scientific investigation has revealed offers us at least three spiritual lessons.

The first lesson is humility.  You are incredibly fortunate to exist, and you are incredibly small.  You are only one among billions of your fellow human beings, and only one among trillions of inhabitants of the planet Earth, which hosts millions of species.  Humankind is the dominant species on Earth, but this was not always so.  Your species is still fragile: human survival and dominance on this planet appears to be the result of our luck as much as our intelligence.  If some random variables had turned out differently, humankind might not exist at all.  As a person, you are the result of countless generations of ancestors.  Most of them lived lives that were much harder and much shorter than most human lifetimes are today.  From your perspective, the planet is enormous.  Most of it is covered with water, while its land consists of numerous varieties of deserts, plains, forests, jungles, and mountains.  Yet, Earth is one of the smaller planets in the Solar system, actually tiny in comparison to the larger planets.  All of them orbit the Sun, which is bigger than all of them combined.  Yet, the Sun is only an ordinary star among billions of stars in the galaxy, and this galaxy is only one of billions of galaxies in the Universe.  You are incredibly small.  So, when you contemplate the wonders of existence, allow yourself to feel some awe.

The second lesson is that God is often hidden.  In the Universe there are dangers, on Earth there are dangers, and within nature there is violence, unfairness, and cruelty.  The scientific explanation of how Earth and its inhabitants originated, including natural selection, offers a way to imagine how biological life could emerge without a Divine Designer, without the existence of God.  That is not proof that God does not exist, however.  God is non-material, which means that science cannot prove and cannot disprove the existence of God.  The scientific story of Creation also cannot prove or disprove the existence of God.  That mystery is remarkable, and we should ponder it.

The third lesson may explain that mystery.  When God is hidden from us, our spiritual freedom expands.  On Earth and in this Universe, we humans have the spiritual freedom to experience a limited lifetime and to discover how that experience affects our beliefs and actions.  We have the freedom to wonder about the Universe, about the mysteries of existence, and about the meaning of life.  The freedom to speculate about the Divine, and to imagine the Universe without the Divine.  The freedom to consider a world of physical things and a world of ideas.  To feel needs, to feel helpless, to be hungry, to be fed, to feed others.  To feel loneliness.  To feel part of a community.  To talk, to whisper, to shout, to sing, to play music, to dance.  To experience sexual desire and to experience lovemaking.  To know a lack of responsibility and the burden of responsibility.  To know conformity.  To know individuality.  To feel anger, disgust, contempt, empathy, compassion.  To feel fear, and to act bravely despite feeling fear.  To know violence, and to know peace.  To forgive and to be forgiven.  The freedom to make this list and to discover that this list can never be complete because human existence includes every human emotion, every thought, and every experience that every person has ever had.  Spiritual freedom is all of that and more.

Is the theory of evolution a deception?  The answer may depend on the purpose of the question.  In many physical sciences, including biology, the theory of evolution has become essential to explaining the vast variety of living species on Earth and how nature operates.  If the theory is a deception, nevertheless it explains the world well enough to make biological predictions that usually prove to be accurate.  Today, only a tiny minority of scientists deny the existence of natural selection, and only a minority of Christians and Jews still believe in a literal interpretation of the Biblical story of Creation.  A literalist interpretation of Genesis must ignore or deny the physical evidence that the world is round, that Earth rotates, that Earth orbits the Sun, and that modern sciences including biology have succeeded because the theory of evolution has become a central belief, regarded as fact.

At the same time, our perception of the Universe is only what we perceive.  How we perceive things can be deceived, or at least mistaken.  That vulnerability opens the possibility that the Universe itself could be a deception, perhaps a Divine deception designed to hide the existence of God to some extent and, therefore, to expand our spiritual freedom.  If the Universe is a deception, then the theory of evolution and its explanation of nature are part of that deception.  We cannot be absolutely certain of anything.  We can only hope that our perceptions, in combination with our knowledge and experience, are reasonably accurate.  Or at least accurate enough.

During the time of Charles Darwin, tensions existed between science and religion.  Darwin expected those tensions to continue, especially if a religious doctrine teaches a story of Creation that scientific investigation can easily disprove.  But Darwin criticized the behavior of both sides when they hurl insults at each other.  Darwin himself had been on both sides: once a very religious man, he later became a scientist and an agnostic.  He knew many good people on both sides.  He saw nothing good when the two sides treat each other as enemies.  If you use the theory of evolution to decide issues of morality, then you are using the theory in ways that its originators, including Darwin, never intended.