Thoughts on Theologies and Evolution

     There seem to be three major theologies functioning in our world today: monotheism, pantheism and atheism. Once there were four, but polytheism, the belief in many individual gods, while extant to some small degree, lost its hold as a major theology at the end of the Greco/Roman period.

      Monotheism is the theology accepted by the largest number of western religions. The Biblical god is shaped like a human being and has human traits. This is the god of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths. Pantheism is the theology accepted by most "new-age" western religions and many eastern religions.

     The pantheist god is everything and everywhere at once. Everything is in the image of god.

     Atheism, the belief that god doesn't exist, is the theology accepted by secular humanists and argued for as the god of science, although, in reality, if god exists, god exists within the realm of science also. 

     The biblical fundamentalists believe that god created everything in seven days around seven thousand years ago and that man was specifically created in the image of god, (thereby giving god a singular image) and that god gave the universe to humans for their use. We have a great deal of circumstantial evidence that strongly suggests this is not true, but we have no observable facts or tests that disprove that position.

     The pantheists believe that god created the universe and life in god's image some thirteen or fourteen billion years ago. They believe that god is everything and is everywhere at once; the dandelion, the mountain of iron, even the automobile fashioned from that iron is god. One may choose not to believe it, but one can construct no science that disproves it. 

     The atheists believe that god doesn't exist - that life is the happy and accidental result of the confluence of a lightning bolt and a mud puddle. This too cannot be disproved. Anyone can accept any one of these faiths secure in the knowledge that none can prove them wrong. But with that knowledge comes the knowledge that they cannot prove it right; that they are accepting that position on faith alone.

     The question then becomes: what do we teach our children? At the moment we teach our children that life probably began with a lightning bolt and a mud puddle because we say evolution happens through random changes which accidentally help us to survive.

 

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