The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo (1475-1564) in the Sistine Credit: Wikipedia/Creative Commons
Evolutionists sometimes discuss the function of the appendix. What is the purpose of that small thing in our body, and why did it evolve? A similar topic is; why do we have religion, the worship of God? Religion is like a spiritual appendix, we can’t explain why it evolved, but it seems to be in everyone.
Recently, a writer for the BBC commented on the development, or evolution of religion, among humans.
- RELATED: Do humans have a religion instinct?
If we start with the belief that the universe started from energy, with a “Big Bang” explosion, and then life emerged through some natural accident, the most advanced species today is a large ape, us. If you believe, you will see. We can picture apes in a tree with a sense that something in the world is bigger than them. After millions of years of evolution, that vague sense of something could become a god that we worship. If people are the result of evolution, so is God.
In the article, this evolution of religious thought is explained:
“Say you’re out in the savannah and you hear a bush rustle. What do you think? “Oh, it’s just the wind. I’m perfectly fine to stay right where I am.” Or, “It’s a predator, time to run!”
Well, from an evolutionary perspective, the second option makes the most sense. If you take the precaution of fleeing and the rustling ends up being nothing more than the wind, then you haven’t really lost anything. But if you decide to ignore the sound and a predator really is about to pounce, then you’re going to get eaten.”
So primitive ideas grew into complicated ideas about God and religion, but it’s all made up. Rustling in the grass evolved to become God, our creator and heavenly father.
If you believe something, you will see it everywhere. Believe in God, and you will see evidence that God is acting in the world; believe in evolution, and you will see the results of evolution everywhere. A believer might be offended by the idea that God evolved, but an evolutionist will easily believe that the divine being is a complicated idea, a concept that we developed, or evolved, from something simpler. The “truth” depends on our starting point; we are all believers in something.
Get on bus number five, and I know where it will take you. Every choice has a logical conclusion.
The academic discussion is dense, but it ends with “we just don’t know.” Religion and the worship of God is common to all human beings, and evolutionists can’t explain why. This is a strange missing link.
- RELATED: How did evolution give us religion?
There is another way. Did God evolve, or were we created? Choose and then believe. In the Bible, Joshua spoke to the people of Israel “Choose this day whom you will serve … But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15) There is a logical conclusion to that choice.
In the ancient book of Ecclesiastes, we are told that God is bigger than our understanding. We just don’t know; we can only choose.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (3:11)
I saw every work of God, and that a man is unable to comprehend the work that is done under the sun. Despite his efforts to search it out, he cannot find its meaning; even if the wise man claims to know, he is unable to comprehend. (8:17)
As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the bones are formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. (11:5)
OpentheWord.org 
So much of the explanations for ‘primitive’ belief or the origins of religion seems to assume that the urge to uderstand the world is the driving force in all the stories generated in oral tradition or religious texts, etc. That misses the possibility that statements about the world may well be motivated by other considerations. Is a God of thunder a misunderstanding of Thunder, or is he an attempt to endow moral concepts with the power of thunder.
LikeLike
Thank you for your comment, and I apologize for taking so long to answer. I was working out of town.
Notice that you can only speculate about what “may well be.” With God, we are all believers, and we choose what we will believe.
Also, anthropologists have never found a ‘primitive’ religion. Our worship of anything divine is always complex, which contradicts the Darwinian model.
LikeLike
Actually, I was answering speculation by pointing out possibilities youdidn’t account for. And no, the complexity of religious belief doesn’t contradict “the primitive model.”
LikeLike
Thanks again for the comment. My point is that this debate is inconclusive for everyone, at this time. All we can do is believe, for or against, informed or not. It’s an interesting topic with no end in sight,, except what we choose to believe.
LikeLike
[Revelation 21:6] “Lord Jesus Christ is the ALPHA and the OMEGA, the CAUSE of the CREATIONAL BEGINNING, the CAUSATION OF CREATION, the SUPREME and UPMOST PURPOSE FOR ALL CREATIONS
Our Creator God is known by what He has Revealed about His Self to those becoming worthy, His Saints!
The Face of God
It was impossible for man to physically or spiritually ever know His Creator unless God wanted to reveal Himself to man!
God revealed that He is without a beginning, or an end, he is Eternal, Un created, Invariable, Unchanging, Simple, Body-less, Invisible, Infinite, unlimited, Incomprehensible, Indifferent to the mind, Righteous Fair, Creator of all known and unknown life, everywhere present , omnipotent”.….
In Paradise
God did not want Adam and Eve or any of His angels to OBEY HIM because they ~fear of Him~ or because He was to be known as a cloud of thundering light and fire to them ….He wanted all of His creations to obey Him …because they love Him! This is why He was known to them as a person…He was known to them as a man!
[Genesis 3:8] “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the afternoon; and both Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God in the midst of the trees of the garden”
After Adams and Eve’s exile.
He followed Adam and Eve to their exile ….He assumed a human nature so man could know Him personally
The Face of God
What is Holy?
Being Holy is not a moral or an ethical term it is a ~ontological transformation~ divinely begotten when becoming ~part man part~ god beginning with Baptism testifying to the awesome presence of God in the body. (1 Corinthians 3 :16) Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God”? This union with God (part man part god) ) is also described as becoming a new creation or becoming also known as becoming a new Adam part man part god!
Lord Jesus is God/Logos He is Creator God! [Revelation 21:6] “Lord Jesus Christ is the ALPHA and the OMEGA, the CAUSE of the CREATIONAL BEGINNING, the CAUSATION OF CREATION, the SUPREME and UPMOST PURPOSE FOR ALL CREATIONS
The vision of Divine Light (God)
This is what Lord Jesus told St. Symeon when He became worthy to His presence in His Divine Light.
“It is me, God, Who became man for you; and behold that I have made you, as you see, and shall make you god”. http://www.monachos.net/content/patristics/studies-fathers/67
GOD IS LIGHT AND THE SAINTS IN THE HOLY SPIRIT BECOME LIGHT
[Acts: 6-15] ” 15 And all that sat in the He face council, looking stedfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.
The Image and Likeness of God
What Is the Orthodox Church? – Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
God bless
https://wordpress.com/posts/jameswiliamsblog.wordpress.com
LikeLike