EVOLUTION IS A MYTH, OR: RETROGRADE STUPID

 

We are passing through an age of rapidly enlarging concepts, and our cosmic philosophy must accelerate in evolution in order to keep pace with the expansion of the intellectual arena of human thought.  Our society is not a divine institution; it is a phenomenon of progressive evolution; and advancing civilization is always delayed when its leaders— and its peoples— are slow in making those changes in our social organization which are essential to keeping pace with the scientific developments of the age.
—The Urantia Book

 

Christine O’Donnell has been unceremoniously returned, once again, to pursue a life of living off donations for her next attempt at holding public office.  But her retrograde brand of stupid was not sent packing along with her;  it is, instead, headed to Congress— festering in the not-quite fully-functioning human brains of over thirty newly elected Tea Partiers.

O’Donnell and other Tea Partiers represent a substantial faction of Republican, fundamentalist, Bible-believing Americans who believe evolution is a myth— a theory (yes, like gravity)—  fabricated by heretical, secular scientists to assist them in foisting their godless philosophy upon our impressionable youth, imprisoned against their malleable wills in our nation’s mandatory education system.

No surprise then that the Tea Partiers also want the evil Department of Education abolished.  No teaching of evolution as scientific fact, and no public education, are only a couple of the views that several Tea Party candidates refused to discuss during their campaigns, by publicly running away from Q & A with reporters.  There are many others:  Prayer in schools, the ten commandments displayed in public spaces, no gay marriage, no abortions, even in cases of rape or incest— and no federal funding of stem cell research. We can expect the Tea Party reformers to hoist these retrogressive conservative petards in the next Congress, in their angry efforts to “take America back”— maybe all the way back to 900 BCE.

Conditions of living alter so rapidly that institutional modifications
must be greatly accelerated, and religion must accordingly quicken
its adaptation to [the] new and ever-changing social order.
—The Urantia Book

Nearly all of these issues— one way or another— flow from a fundamental Christian belief in the supposedly infallible dogma and doctrines derived from the interpretations of various men from the Christian Bible.  A recent poll showed a whopping 68% of Republicans do not believe the “theory” of evolution is true, and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from other, more primitive forms of life. The five main reasons why many of these people say they do not believe in “evolution” are: Belief in the Bible; Belief in Jesus Christ; Belief in God; Belief in religion or faith;  Belief that there is not enough evidence.

Of course, anyone can believe in God or Jesus without having to believe the Bible, or specifically, in the creation story written in Genesis.  And a surprisingly large number— 38-40%—  do believe in some form of “Theistic Evolution”— in other words, that evolution is a divine technique of creation.

As well they should.  Because the rigid, unyielding, eternally true fact is this:  It is the Christian Creation Story that is the Myth;  not Evolution.

But you atheists— don’t break out the bubbly just yet.

The ancient belief in man’s “creation out of clay” can be traced from the Philippine Islands around the world to Africa.  And many different groups accepted the story of man’s clay origin by some form of special creation in the place of their earlier beliefs in progressive creation— evolution.

 

“The fact of evolution is not a modern discovery;
the ancients understood the slow and
evolutionary character of human progress.”

 
The Urantia Book remarks that early mankind tended toward the belief in the gradual ascent of the human race.  It also points out that the fact of evolution is not a modern discovery; that the ancients understood the slow and evolutionary character of human progress.  The early Greeks had clear ideas of this despite their proximity to Mesopotamia.

Christian teachers have perpetuated the belief in the fiat creation of the human race, and all this eventually led directly to the formation of the hypothesis of a one-time golden age of utopian bliss, and the theory of the fall of man;  which, they reasoned, accounted for the non-utopian condition of society they found themselves in.  But these outlooks on life, and man’s easily lost place in the universe were at best discouraging, since they were predicated upon a belief in retrogression— rather than progression— as well as implying a vengeful Deity who had vented his wrath upon the human race in retribution for the errors of certain other individuals, (Satan, you Jerk) who shall remain nameless for the sake of brevity.

The Old Testament account of creation¹ dates from long after the time of Moses;  he never taught the Hebrews such a distorted story.  Moses was wise enough not to attempt to go back beyond the time of Adam, and since he was the supreme teacher of the Hebrews, his stories about Adam became intimately associated with those of creation.

But it’s very clear that pre-Adamic civilization not only existed,  but was also recognized by earlier traditions, shown by the fact that later editors, intending to eradicate all reference to human affairs before Adam‘s time, overlooked the telltale reference to Cain‘s emigration to the “land of Nod,” where he took himself a wife.  And religious fundamentalists can do nothing but squirm inside when they attempt to explain this flesh and blood woman living in a community contemporary with Adam and Eve, and their offspring, Cain and Abel.  But.  The story of the real Adam and Eve is yet another important account in the history of human evolution that you can read about right now, or wait until we get around to telling it here.

The early Hebrews had no written language in general usage for a long time after they reached Palestine. They learned the use of an alphabet from their Philistine neighbors, who were political refugees from the higher civilization of Crete.  Thus they did little writing until about 900 B.C.,  and having no written language until such a late date, there were several different stories of creation in circulation;  but after their Babylonian captivity they were more accepting of a modified Mesopotamian version.

As Jewish tradition eventually became crystallized about Moses, and because he had endeavored to trace the lineage of Abraham back to Adam, the Jews assumed that Adam must have been the first of all mankind.  Yahweh was the creator, Adam was the first man, therefore God must have made the world just prior to making Adam.  And then the tradition of Adam‘s six days* got woven into the story, with the result that almost a thousand years after Moses‘ sojourn on earth, the tradition of creation in six days was finally written out and subsequently credited to him.

By the time the Jewish priests returned to Jerusalem, they had already finished their narrative of the beginning of things.  Soon, they claimed that this narrative was a recently discovered story of creation written by Moses himself.  But understand:  the contemporary Hebrews of around 500 B.C. did not consider these writings to be divine revelations;  they looked upon them much as scientifically-balanced religionists today tend to regard mythological narratives;  oh, say, like the Creation story in Genesis.

So this spurious document, reputed to be the teachings of the matchless Moses, was eventually brought to the attention of Ptolemy, the Greek king of Egypt.  Ptolemy had it translated into Greek by a commission of seventy scholars— for his brand spanking new library at Alexandria.  And that’s how this account found its place among those writings which subsequently became a part of the later collections of the “sacred scriptures” of the Hebrew and Christian religions.

As a progressive, sentient, self-conscious, minded personality, you should at least learn the following truth about our actual evolutionary history.

The evolution of primitive man occurred during the third ice age.  Slightly to the west of India, on land now under water, and among the offspring of Asiatic migrants of the older North American lemur types, the dawn mammals suddenly appeared. (Uh no, not out of thin air, but as a sudden evolutionary mutation.)  These small animals walked mostly on their hind legs, and they possessed large brains in proportion to their size and in comparison with the brains of other animals.  In the seventieth generation of this order of life a new and higher group of animals suddenly differentiated.  These new mid-mammals— almost twice the size and height of their ancestors and possessing proportionately increased brain power— had only well established themselves when the Primates, the third vital mutation, suddenly appeared.

A mutation within the stock of the progressing Primates suddenly produced two primitive human beings, the actual ancestors of mankind.  This event occurred at about the time of the beginning of the third glacial advance; thus it may be seen that our early ancestors were born and bred in a difficult, stimulating, and invigorating environment.  And the sole survivors of these Urantia aborigines, the Eskimos, even now prefer to dwell in frigid northern climes.

At this same time, a retrograde development within the mid-mammal stock gave origin to the simian ancestry;  and from that day to this the human branch has gone forward by progressive evolution, while the simian tribes have remained stationary or have actually retrogressed.

And that, dear Christine, is why no more monkeys have evolved.  They’re retrogressive.  And most unfortunately, many human beings still “bear the mark of the beast,” as Paul put it.  But it is a particularly virulent strain of our regressive animal nature which has caused the modern monkey mind of hundreds of thousands of creatures to continue to refuse to recognize the truth of our evolutionary past;  no matter how obvious and ridiculous it is to do so before the growing and progressive onslaught of scientific discovery and cosmological clarity.

And they will continue to do so, because evolutionary religion makes no provision for change or revision; unlike science, it does not provide for its own progressive correction. Evolved church religion commands respect because its followers believe it is “The Truth”; in other words, “the faith once delivered to the saints” must, at least in theory, be both final and infallible.  The churches resists development because real progress is certain to modify or destroy the church itself; therefore must revision always be forced upon it.

Such faith in retrogressive dogma is also a glaring philosophic assault upon both the unity and the free-willness of God— who has seen fit to routinely change caterpillars into butterflies— by presuming him incapable of using his own amazing techniques of evolution to change a lowly hominid into a self-aware, potentially eternal human being.

Religion must not become organically involved in the secular work of social reconstruction and economic reorganization. But it must actively keep pace with all these advances in civilization by making clear-cut and vigorous restatements of its moral mandates and spiritual precepts, its progressive philosophy of human living and transcendent survival. The spirit of religion is eternal, but the form of its expression must be restated every time the dictionary of human language is revised.
—The Urantia Book

The Creation Story will continue to be debunked by Science.  But if science is to do so effectively enough to enlighten the whole of humanity, it must arm itself with a great number of new facts— facts that have been lost or were previously unknown— but have been supplied by the fifth epochal revelation, The Urantia Book.  Here’s what I mean:

About one million years ago the immediate ancestors of mankind made their appearance by three successive and sudden mutations stemming from early stock of the lemur type of placental mammal.  From the year A.D. 1934 back to the birth of the first two human beings is just 993,419 years. These two remarkable creatures were true human beings. They possessed perfect human thumbs, as had many of their ancestors, while they had just as perfect feet as the present-day human races. They were walkers and runners. . .

We are passing through an age of rapidly enlarging concepts, and our cosmic philosophy must accelerate in evolution in order to keep pace with the expansion of the intellectual arena of human thought.  Our society is not a divine institution; it is a phenomenon of progressive evolution; and advancing civilization is always delayed when its leaders— and its peoples— are slow in making those changes in our social organization which are essential to keeping pace with the scientific developments of the age.

One half of our nation, even the world, is grasping eagerly for the light of truth and the facts of scientific discovery, while the other half languishes in the arms of ancient superstition, fear, and thinly disguised magic.

Organic evolution is a fact;  purposive or progressive evolution is a truth which makes consistent the otherwise contradictory phenomena of the ever-ascending achievements of evolution. But one of the great hindrances to the progress of society is the conflict between the interests and welfare of the larger, more socialized human groups and of the smaller, contrary-minded, asocial associations of mankind, not to mention antisocially-minded single individuals.

No national civilizations long endure unless their educational methods and religious ideals inspire a high type of intelligent patriotism and national devotion.  The emergence of the Tea Party, fundamentalist religion, Glenn Beck and other regressive propagandists, make it pretty clear ours has not.  Thus we are confronted with a profound dilemma:  One half of our nation, even the world, is grasping eagerly for the light of truth and the facts of scientific discovery, while the other half languishes in the arms of ancient superstition, fear, and thinly disguised magic.  Without this sort of intelligent patriotism and cultural solidarity, all nations tend to disintegrate as a result of provincial jealousies and local self-interests.  And it comes down to this: the maintenance of world-wide civilization is dependent on us human beings learning how to live together in peace and fraternity.

Evolution is a cosmic technique of growth.  Love thus grows;  it cannot be created, manufactured, or purchased;  it must grow.   Social growth cannot be secured by legislation, and moral growth will never come by improved administration.  Science is teaching us to speak the language of mathematics and train our thoughts along lines of exacting precision.  And science also stabilizes philosophy through the elimination of error, while it purifies religion by the destruction of superstition.

But it is religion that must actively keep pace with the advances in civilization by making clear-cut and vigorous restatements of its moral mandates and spiritual precepts, its progressive philosophy of human living and transcendent survival.

The spirit of religion is eternal, but the form of its expression must be restated every time the dictionary of human language is revised.  And that dictionary is crying out for profound evolutionary change right now.

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¹  See Section 8, The Legend Of Creation

* The story of the creation of Urantia in six days was based on the tradition that Adam and Eve had spent just six days in their initial survey of the Garden.  This circumstance lent almost sacred sanction to the time period of the week.  Adam’s spending six days inspecting the Garden and formulating preliminary plans for organization was not prearranged;  it was worked out from day to day.  The choosing of the seventh day for worship was wholly incidental.

Creation Story in Genesis.