Nature  Is Mean, Cruel and Undirected.

                                                       So What?
 
 
 

I guess this post addresses the age-old  problem of evil.   My real aim - to lay to rest  Christian suspicion of evolutionary theory as the devil's instrument to destroy our faith in God.
 

More conservative Christians are still attached to Genesis one as newspaper reporting of God's creative activity.  Creation - once perfectly done and over way back there in 4004 BC at 9:15 one sunny morning.  Or they jiggle the facts to turn "days" into geological epochs in which  our primordial forbears danced with dinosaurs.  Lots of luck! And, of course, along came Adam and Eve  and screwed it all up royally.   Thus, the evil in the world is man's fault - ok, it was woman.  Otherwise, the creator intended  nothing but peace, joy and  harmony among all his creatures (everyone was a vegetarian - small sacrifice).
 

Anyway, along comes Charles Darwin and suggests creation is not the "hands on"  project the ancient myth weavers believed. Actually, at the heart of creation stands  the reality of  mutation among the species.  Along with cruel, nature red in tooth and claw - natural selection.  And,  to the horror of some few Presbyterians and others still locked into a worldview which says all matter is strictly determined by God's or nature's ironclad laws, we have modern Darwinian theory lifting a page from the Quantum Theory of physics, and demonstrating the centrality of chance in both the origin and development of life.
 

So where's the place for God in the scheme of things?  Looks like nowhere.  Maybe God initiated the Big Bang?  Maybe not.  The good news is that the origin of life on earth and the subsequent diversification of life into seemingly infinite different forms  no longer needs of the God hypothesis as in days of yore.
 

This is good news for science.  Science does not need the local preacher's  advice re biological matters -  how works chance events among certain molecules to start the dance of life - RNA,
DNA etc.  Or to keep the music going with further chance and changes that are acted on by natural selection to give us the earth's rich bio-diversity.
 

Also, good news of religion.  Now, according to biologists Ken Miller,  we are beginning to understand, in detail,  how God really structured the world and gave rise to homo sapiens.  Ken believes it's the chance element so important to the origin of life that set the stage for the emergence of  humans.  Yes, true humans, blessed  with gift of freedom whereby love and faith become possible.  Humans that truly can be called, miracle it is, sons and daughters of the living God.  Not predetermined robots who Bill Gate's software has got saying "Gee, God I love you."  Push my buttons again, Lord and hea

      You are the best, the greatest and everlasting number one.

 
  You created a wonderful world, God.  Peace, joy and harmony everywhere.  Any bad stuff is our fault.  Better, the fault of those atheists, non-believers and other assorted Philistines, past and present.
 

  God I truly thank you for this predetermined world.  Every atom subject to your imperial, universal dominion.   Evil and pain is at an all-time low.  Sin is unheard of, whatever sin may be.  Human longevity is guaranteed, blessed be thy Name.  Sometimes, methinks it could be more exciting and fulfilling but the thought quickly passes and I'm rebooted to sing thy praises as ever.  Praise the Lord.

In fact,  nature is full of pain, death and loss.  So what?
 

The importance of chance in the origin of life  has got to be acknowledged.  If you want to know what going on in nature.  Or really appreciate human nature and how it relates to the Creator.
 

Amazing, no?   At the end of the day the most profound statement the local preacher can utter, in the face of life's evils and tragic losses is "That's the way the cookie crumbles" or  "It's sad alright, but that the way God's ball Bounces."  Or,  "God rolled the dice for you, and they came up snake eyes.  Too bad."
 

           Richard Dawkins states firmly that such cookie crumbling and ball bouncing
relects negatively on God.  Actually makes his existence  problematic.
Surely a real God would design his creation to moderate the evil level,
if he had any real Christian love and compassion for his creatures.
And he could surely, in view of his great power and super brain sharpen up
his design talents - the human eye being one prime example.  Maybe. Maybe
not.  The last time I talked to Yahweh he was basically pretty happy with
the scheme of things, apart from the friggin' human element.  Seeing as
he wants to give humans some room in which to operate, even let molecules
swing a bit an create life in the first place.  And since he wants maybe a bit of entertainments to break the monotony of eternity with the sweet
contingencies his quantum mechanics introduces to creation.  The clincher-
it became obvious at the moment God let Eve loose on creation, the furniture
was going to move here and there willy-nilly!
 

The other day someone accused me of   indulging in Pascal's Wager, logical fallacy it likely is.  But, I'm not arguing you should jump on the Christian band wagon because, no matter whether there is a God or not, you can't lose.  The true Christian band wagon, by definition involves true risk - intellectual and practical.  You can lose and big time.  No matter how the early Christian jerked around the sayings of the historical Jesus of Nazareth, they were onto something important when they kept reporting in their gospels Jesus taught them ""if you really want to find life, pick up your cross daily and follow me."  Of course, this runs counter to some televangelists and other pulpits jockies.  They promise you "follow the Lord Jesus and you and your bank account will surely runneth over with much comforting cash.  Your childen will forsake the way of anti-social behavior and walk henceforth in the paths of righteousness.   Three cars in the garage, a Piper and small  Cessna at the airport......
This kind of talk makes it difficult for certain Christians to accept the truths of Darwin.  Or any kind of reality for that matter.  Following Jesus is not a sure thing.  Just like the very nature of the universe itself , discipleship is very iffy.  A classical roll of the dice.