Evolution & Creationism
On one side of the argument there are evolutionists and on the other we have creationists, however, it is often the underlying religious convictions that create the most tensions in a debate among the aforementioned opposing viewpoints. Evolutionists are notoriously atheist while creationists, regardless of the degree to which they believe biblical creation, notoriously believe in a higher power and an omnipotent, omniscient being. Among all the questions posed by the debate, one of questions focused on the least is, “can the two points-of-view even be compared and contrasted enough to be debated;” simply answered: yes. Evolution and creationism may be two completely different ideas of how we came to be us, but they are both human attempts at better understanding or explaining who we are, why we are here and were we are inevitably heading. It makes little to no sense to say that these opposite extremes cannot be argued.
The scientific theory of evolution, best explained by Charles Darwin in his publication, On the Origin of Species, illustrates the origins of species and how species better adapt to the world around them through natural selection which is continuously occurring on several levels ranging from communities to phenotypal variation. Despite its highly controversial claims in the way of religious doctrine, especially regarding the origin of mankind, it is the sole scientific theory on the origins of life accepted by the scientific community and has yet to be disproven, even in the case of the human species.
Creationism, as a generalized idea or belief, is the religious theory (not scientific theory) explaining where life came from and how we as humans came to be apart of it. Most famously, creationism is explained by the old testament of the Christian holy bible in the stories of genesis; first day, God said, “let there be light” and on the sixth he created man, and six straight days of work is pretty intense when you’re not getting paid overtime, so he took a nap on the seventh (note: genesis is less satirical). Creationism, unlike Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory, does not have a clear beginning; it can only be speculated why it started or came about and assumed that it developed in accord with the development of human reasoning and deeper thought. The general consensus, simplified to death, is that religion was just the human way of answering questions that we were now smart enough to ask, yet still did not have the means of answering; questions of such great importance cannot go unanswered for too long- religion filled that void.
Now, scientific theories and the Darwinian theory of human evolution can be argued against biblical creation and its stage name, Creationism. Even though the two opposing view points use different mediums of understanding, the bigger picture paints them as the collective endeavor humans have embraced in an attempt to better see purpose in the world around us as well as where that world arose from. Did God just turn on a light switch and begat us or did we evolve over billions of years from what must have been inorganic material? I suppose the only problem in debating can arise when using one medium to discredit the other; for instance, proving that God must have done something specific that the bible does not call attention to in order for life to rise from nothing with a test tube will prove itself impossible. Similarly, religion can’t satisfy the masses in saying Homo sapiens (not that the bible would ever refer to humans in such a way) share roughly 98% of their DNA with chimpanzees because God wants to test us. Proponents of evolutionary theory would say “a blank answer is counted wrong in every level of academia.”