As we move forward, we go into an idea of extreme
controversy. Over the last several decades, the battle of
evolution verses creationism has plagued the relationship
between religion and science as a two-sided unwavering
argument, in which both parties very well may be wrong (I do
anticipate just about everyone to taking offense to that last
line). This theory of genesis, as I have come to call it, asserts
that several religious texts and traditions have suggested what
is now known as the theory of evolution, and that evolution
and creationism combined can show quite similar attributes
when looked at from a deeper level. Put more simply, religious
texts somewhat show elements of evolution within
the creationist theory. Before I may get into this hybrid
creation-evolution theory though, I will explain both the
theory of evolution and the theory of creation, so that
everyone has a clear understanding.
The theory of evolution, based on natural selection, is
quite simple. It states that animals evolved through millions of
years due to genetic mutations that helped them in nature, and
therefore were passed on to their offspring. For instance, a
fish with larger fins could swim away from predators faster,
therefore the fish with larger fins didn’t get eaten and lived on
to reproduce, which led to more fish with larger fins at which
time the process repeats
itself. There are numerous
evidences for this theory
including microevolution,
which shows that some
diseases have mutated or evolved to become immune
to some antibiotics, and
other evidences such as similar bone structures in
animals. For example- our
hand, a fishes fin, a birds wing, and an alligators front foot
have similar if not identical bone structures, possibly meaning
common ancestors. Evidences for this theory go on and on,
but the basics of the theory of evolution should be clear.
Creationism on the other hand, mostly provides
counter-evidence against evolution asking questions such as,
how did life, even single celled organisms just happen to
appear or develop without a creator? It also questions the
complexity of evolution such as, how did fish change the way
the move and the way they breath to become land animalsespecially
when no land animals have gills or fish tails?
(Much like the creation and destruction of energy we talked
about earlier, where did this conscience come from?) Then of
course, the strongest argument for creationism comes from the
believers and the religious texts. The three most widespread
and accepted religions in the world have the same story for
creation, so that billions of Muslims, billions of Christians,
and billions of Jews all agree on their origins on this earthwhich
obviously includes a creator.
It strikes me as odd that intelligent conscience life
could spawn from nothing, or could mutate to become so complex without outside aid. Yet it also strikes me as odd that
many creationists refuse to accept scientific evidence of even
small mutations and change over time. The problem, I believe,
is that so many creationists take the religious texts so literal
and word for word, when it is widely known that religious
texts are often written in parables and metaphors so they are more easily understood and comprehended. It is widely
known that one must look much deeper into the texts to find
the meaning of all history. I believe that when broken down,
religious texts actually show the first claim of a creationist
evolution and through reading and thinking, can prove such a
concept. In fact, it has been said that the first theory of natural
selection was from a very religious man of Abrahamic belief.
A Muslim named Al-Jahiz wrote a book called Kitab alHayawan
(The Book of Animals) that talked somewhat about
natural selection in the 800s AD.
The initial piece of evidence is the serpent, Satan. In the
religious texts, God (known as Allah or Yahweh to some)
punished the serpent in the Garden of Eden by making all
serpents from that day forward crawl on their bellies. Serpents
have also been used as an evidence for evolution in that all
current serpents have undeveloped legs under their skin that
show they once had legs and later, according to that theory,
mutated out of them. Thousands of years before Darwin,
people did not have the scientific skill to know these under
legs were there or what they were. This is the only direct
evidence of change occurring to living organisms in the
religious texts, but there is evidence of a separate timeline by
which different organisms came into existence (meaning
Darwin4 s timeline may have been wrong).
Religious texts claim that God created organisms in the
following order: plants, water organisms, birds (or winged
animals of the air as it is written), land animals, then finally
humans. Scientists generally agree with the water organisms,
land animals, and lastly humans potion of the timeline in the
theory of evolution, but the other two are where the
differences arise. Think for a moment though, about how such
a process could work. Photosynthesizing organisms (plants)
develop to a point where they can survive while floating or submerged in water, and then the submerged organisms could
develop to where they could absorb or eat other organisms, all
while not having to breathe the toxins present in the earth’s
atmosphere at this time like other animals would. This is the
point where religious texts become more probable in scientific
terms, because fish developing into birds is more likely than
animals developing into birds. I say that because fish are not
only more likely to jump higher into the air than land animals,
but fishes fins more closely resemble wings than land animals
arms do, and fishes scales more closely resemble birds
feathers than land animals skin does. One can only
hypothesize though.
I can already anticipate the counter argument for this
theory as being “why would the religious texts not say that
there was a change or evolution within these organisms?”
from which I will now continue my theory. First is the fact
that people in ancient times would have a hard time accepting
or understanding such a concept, so it would be more likely to
be hidden or coded into the texts for later generations to
understand. Then of course is the fact that often, biblical texts
speak in metaphors, codes, and parables to get a point across. We know for instance that science shows the world was not
created in seven “days,” but perhaps these were not literal
days. We know days, nights, weeks, and years were not
separated until the forth scriptural “day,” so we again see this
metaphorism and possibility for scientific authentication.
The final question in this theory is, if God created this
world, why would he or she change it? That answer comes in
two forms. First back to the serpent example from before,
which is a direct example of God changing an organism. The
second bit of evidence is in the form of Jesus, a prophet of the
Muslims and regarded as the messiah to the Christians. In the
religious texts Jesus is a carpenter, which symbolizes work
never finished. A table built as a table will work its purpose,
but a carpenter can always make it stronger, better, and more
fitting to its environment. So as the world changed, so must its organisms- an amazing feat of perfect imperfection, for a
perfect being.
Therefore, through the Abrahamic religious texts we see
that organisms were changed, the order in which they were
brought into existence goes along with scientific probability
better, the time period in “days” was most likely not literal
days, and like carpentry, anything can be changed to be better or better suited for its environment. This is the theory of
genesis. The theory that either early religious scholars were
the first to theorize evolution, or evolution was supematurally
guided. Darwin himself recognized the inconsistency of
chimpanzee’s non-development of tools, religion, and art- raising a virtual enigma of how this great intelligence was
developed by human beings. Abrahamic faiths seem to
unknowingly bridge Darwin’s gap. These Abrahamic faiths all
talk about the knowledge of good and evil in human
existence, suggesting a divine evolution of human thought and
actions.
***
Jesus of Nazareth
The final piece in this chronicle is the story of a man. A
man that has caused peace and has been the subject of wars. A
man revered by different peoples around the world. For ages,
people have bowed to or fought against the idea of this man,
yet he remains a key piece of religion and culture as a remarkable being. This man is Jesus of Nazareth. Again, I will
leave everything up to your interpretation, giving only
different facts and points of view on this man’s impact upon
us. I will start with the views of those that reject him outright,
then go to those who revere him for different reasons.
In doing the research for this section I studied
documentaries and books on atheism and some that are not
really atheist, but just simply anti-Jesus. Either way the
arguments are all the same when aiming to disprove this man.
Most are based off of loose interpretations of varying subjects
and attempts to connect unrelated dots, often trying to
compare Jesus to sun worship. For instance, the comparison
of Jesus of Nazareth to different deities throughout time. Not
only did these deities exist outside the range and generations
of those that followed Jesus, but they also only have a couple
of minor similarities- most actually faked. Many atheist try to
compare Jesus’ life to that of Krishna, Horns, Mithra, and
Dionysus by saying that they were bom of virgins, cmcified,
and resurrected, but this is simply not tme. All of them have
birth stories such as being born from a rock or almond seed,
and all of them have death stories, such as killed by an arrow
or eaten alive. None of them died as atonement, were bom of
virgins, nor were they resurrected. The comparisons are mostly just falsified from loose interpretations.
There are also claims that the nativity story was taken
from other religions. The fact is that there are things attributed
to Jesus that were skewed or guessed by people generations
after Jesus existed, often to fit their own convenience. We
have no knowledge of whether or not Jesus was bom on
December 25th
, and it is even likely that this is several months
off. We also do not know that three kings (or wise men) came
and visited him, only that someone visited him with three
gifts- an occurrence that actually happened a length of time
after his birth (in fact it could be anywhere from two Wise
Men to fifty). The date in December and the story of the how
many visitors came were added after all of the disciples and
apostles were dead, all of which kills the star alignment theory
on Jesus promoted by atheists.
Additional theories touted by atheist groups that
Christianity is based off of sun worship, are the comparisons
between “son” and “sun” and the supposed lack of outside
historical records concerning Jesus. Atheists cite the
similarities between the fact that Jesus was God’s “son” and
the Egyptians worshiped the “sun.” This is nothing more than
a coincidence in the English language. In Greek and Aramaic
these similarities to not exist, and trying to find a connection
between this is a waste of time. As for records, we turn to the
histories written by Flavius Josephus, who was born around
the time of Jesus’ death. Though Flavius Josephus was neither a Christian nor a Jew his written histories that mention Jesus
as an important figure show that Jesus was a widespread
figure influencing the area very shortly after his lifetime.
In short, claims of any comparison between Christianity
and sun worship are just false. What remains here is Jesus’
impact on other religions to show what this man truly meant.
We will examine him from many religions points of view
from around the world. We will begin with the most obvious
place to start, the Jews.
The Jews believed Jesus could not possibly be the
messiah because he did not conquer the Romans and did not
become king of the holy land. Yet they held a very worldly
perspective. While it is true that Jesus never raised an army,
never fought the Romans, and never took Judea out of Roman
hands, Jesus did do much more to complete the same
expectation. Constantine I, bom in 272 became the last
Emperor to rule from Rome after changing the capital to
Constantinople, but did something far greater in becoming the
first Roman Emperor to convert to Christianity. Then in 300,
Theodosius I took this conversion a step further and made
Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire. In
essence, the entire Roman Empire bowed before Jesus of
Nazareth. Therefore, while Jesus never fought the Romans in
battle, he still conquered the entire Empire, a much greater
feat the Jews could never have expected.
Many of the world’s other large religions accept Jesus
of Nazareth as a major figure in their religion as well,
including Christians, Muslims, and Baha’i. Christianity states
that Jesus was the manifestation of God on Earth to be the
savior of people’s sins and the Messiah the Jewish people had
been waiting for. This led to his cmcifixion, in which he
became a literal sacrifice, the last sacrifice for human sin.
Muslims accept Jesus as the Messiah of the Jewish people and
the last Jewish prophet before Muhammad. Muslim belief is that the cmcifixion was a betrayal by the Jews, and Jesus’
body was switched out with that of Judas on the cross. Finally,
Baha’i’s state that Jesus was in fact the son of God, but was
never resurrected after being cmcified on the cross. All three
religions, which make up a majority of the worlds religious
practitioners, accept Jesus of Nazareth in one way or another
as the Messiah and an important messenger of God’s word.
One of the most fascinating acceptances of Jesus in
other religions is that of Buddhism. Many Buddhist teachers,
including Zen master Gasan Joseki, have stated that they
believe Jesus of Nazareth was an enlightened being, known as a Bodhisattva. In 2001, the Dalai Lama himself, who is
revered as a reincarnation of a Bodhisattva himself, stated that
he too believed Jesus was an enlightened Bodhisattva. This
widespread belief in Buddhism (a religion completely
unrelated to the Abrahamic faiths) has even spawned a belief
noted by Indira Gandhi, that many Buddhists believe that in
the 15 unknown years of Jesus, he may have traveled to India
and encountered Buddhists. Either way the acceptance of
Jesus as a religious figure into this far eastern religion is
significant as it shows the truly remarkable impact of this man
upon the world, as the only figure worshiped in this
widespread of a manner around the world. This shows a
spiritual impact that many have felt from him.
ual impact that many have felt from him.
Therefore, as we have seen, the concept of Jesus having
Pagan roots based on sun worship and being mentioned only
by Christians beyond the 90’s AD is simply a fabrication of
loosely fitting or completely fabricated facts based on
inaccuracies of dates and languages. The Atheist arguments
using these concepts have simply chosen to overlook original
translations, the work of Flavius Josephus, and other essential
facts in order to promote their agenda. Jewish belief that Jesus
cannot be messiah because he did not conquer the Romans is
up to personal debate over whether or not the Romans
converting and following Jesus constitutes conquering or not.
In the end, when factoring in Buddhist, Christian, Muslim,
and Baha’i beliefs it becomes apparent that this man had a widespread physical and spiritual impact upon the world.
How we interpret that impact or choose to proceed with that
is completely up to us as individuals and as peoples of
different faiths. I'm sure the debate will continue for centuries, as we will know all the facts of this world, but it is up to us to
decide our personal beliefs on this remarkable man.
