Did God Create Man or Man Create God?
Did God Create Man or Man Create God?
by Aaron L. Kolom
Early man (or a farmer today or a soldier in a bunker), fearful of unknown powers and forces of nature (or of his fate), undoubtedly offered prayers in dread or hope. He sought understanding of his world and origins - concretizing his prayers into worship: a hierarchy of gods who inhabited the mountains or heavens - controlling thunder, lightning, sun, rain and earthly events.
With his well-being clearly at the mercy of forces beyond his control, or even his understanding, he fell naturally into a role of supplicant, praying to powers he embodied as supreme, the worship rationalized as appeals for special treatment through sacrifice - what would be considered desirable to humanized gods. Man thus, in the beginning, created his own gods.
Millenia passed, and along came the Hebrews and monotheism - a single God (the Creator) and Ten Commandments for morality and ethics, then derivative religions: Christianity, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism. etc. By most rulers of the world and their followers, a single, omnipotent, omniscient God was believed to be the Creator of the universe and of man. Although content with his theological beliefs, man's innate curiosity and intelligence caused his pursuit of knowledge, to understand his world. Aristotle, 350 years BC, was first to theorize a sun-centered universe, however seasonal calculations based upon circular planetary orbits were at odds with experienced reality; four centuries passed, and Ptolemy envisaged an Earth-centered solar system.
However, it wasn't until the 17th century that our sun-centered solar system was finally proven to be accurate and accepted by philosopher-scientists, when Kepler and Brache conceived of elliptical planetary orbits. The foundations of science in many fields were beginning to be established, the mysteries of our world being probed - however God was still considered to be the Creator of mankind. With education generally limited to church and royalty, until the 16th century the biblical story of creation was a mandatory view by all knowledgeable persons - often at peril of death.
But then came Copernicus, Galileo and Newton, whose scientific discoveries demoted "man" progressively, from the biblical center of the universe to a speck of life on a speck of a planet orbiting a minor sun, among billions of possible other star-suns and life-sustaining planets. Then along came Darwin with his creative and plausible theories, completely satisfying the desires of the secular elite. Firstly, an initial simple life form was created by lightning striking a pool of inanimate pre-biotic chemical "soup" on newly formed planet Earth. Then, by accidental but progressive mutations, evolution progressed over eons of time - simple life forms became more complex, vegetable and animal phyla - the Darwinian theories of "survival of the fittest" via "natural selection", and "Descent of Man".
The printing press, invented earlier, quickly spread such intellectual beliefs among the leaders of the world, becoming the conventional wisdom that rules until today. For the great majority of people and the clergy, God was still the Creator of mankind, however, to the elite, the leaders of society: teachers, scholars, Judges, etc., secular-atheism was well-rooted and grew - the solid belief that mankind was the creator of God. Darwin-Evolutionism had been pounced upon by the non-religious, delighted to proclaim that "Man" did not need "God" for either life's origin or for morality - that "Science" had now proven the Bible to be only "myth" - that animals were not "created by God and man in his image", but that all had evolved by accidental mutation over eons of time - and man from ape!
Scientific data on the age of the universe and of Earth began being accumulated - establishing multi-billions-of-years as their ages (versus the biblical six days). Easily grasped, that seemed to clinch the matter "scientifically" - to the most intelligent, most educated, the leaders of society - god had certainly been the creation of man.
In summary, the controversy over the Bible is as old as mankind's ability to observe, theorize and philosophize - whether it contains the "divine" words of "God", creator of the Universe - or whether it was written by inspired humans - conceiving an omnipotent power. The knowledgeable public's belief in God has thus both waxed and waned throughout history, becoming strongly negative during recent centuries. While a great majority of Americans today still believe in their religious teachings of God and Bible, the most literate and educated, the leaders in all branches of society (except theology) are solid in their conviction that Darwin-Evolutionism is proven fact - man created god.
Thus, present-day conventional wisdom is confidentially pro- Darwin-Evolutionism:
Ø The leaders of society and culture are dismissive of challenges to Darwinism - the conclusion of school boards and judicial authority, "Teaching an alternate theory, 'Design Intelligence' is merely an attempt to bring religion into the classroom."
Ø Teachers who dare defy the convention are "Expelled" (recent documentary film);
Ø Fear of such prevailing views caused even world-class scientists a century ago to do the scientifically unthinkable: Dr. Charles Walcott, Director of the Smithsonian Institute, on discovering 60,000 fossils in the Canadian Rockies, re-hid them (in basement lockers), as they did not support Darwin theory; Prof. Albert Einstein included a "fudge" factor in his Field equations to indicate a "constant-size" universe (an expanding universe - would mean contraction in the past - the beginning of creation would be similar to biblical Genesis.)
However, as Science marches ever forward, contrary voices are beginning to be heard:
Ø A group of world-famous scientists and philosophers gathered informally at a Pajaro Dunes Conference in California a decade ago, to summarize their criticisms of Darwinian belief. (Note: while Darwin's theories are disputed for the initial stage of creation, there is total acceptance for their application at the secondary stage: shapes of finch beaks in accordance with food sources; skin colors of bears and humans, corresponding to the degree of direct sunlight in ancestral countries of origin.)
Ø It is noteworthy that pro-Darwin scientists, while positive in their beliefs, report their honest thoughts as they conduct their research: "A self-catalyzing, self-replicating RNA molecule .. [is] unlikely to have risen spontaneously .. so where did it come from?"; "suggests life comes only from life."; "almost like a miracle"; etc. The pro-Darwin scientists, in essence, cannot prove what their advocates claim.
Ø Those scientists, however, who challenge the applicability of Darwinism for the initial stage of creation, do so across the spectrum of science and with mathematical calculations - which argue - with astronomic improbabilities - against random mutations being able to achieve the perfection and complexity of life forms - no matter how much evolutionary time is available. The alternate theory is therefore "Intelligent Design" (or a Creator).
Ø To this arcane debate between "life' scientists has been added the analyses of esoteric physics during recent years, cosmologists employing Einstein's Law of Relativity - that "time" is not a constant across the Universe (contrary to "Star Trek") but varies, dependent upon gravity and speed. They have calculated that the 13.7 billion years (Earth time) since the Big Bang originated our Universe - due to the incredibly immense gravity field and travel speeds - "Cosmic" time, was only about six days (pretty much as in the Bible, in both time and descriptive events).
Ø Although the dispute between Darwin-Evolutionism and Intelligent Design cannot be scientifically proved or disproved either way, the weight of logic and probability must eventually prevail - that man, by astronomic probabilities - cannot have been created by abstract, haphazard chance, thus - says probability logic - a "creator" had to have created man.
Source: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=1542525
