Musings on Birth and Origins
I'm scrapping the Wikimapia Game. I appreciate that Sam-Wise actually bothered to post responses, but with no other responses, it's sort of pointless.
Normally, I post about the news, and there are new stories to post, but I'm going to just sort of ramble today. Yesterday, some friends from back home, who I met through a group I was tied to in college, became parents. They (she) posted pictures and brief updates on Facebook over the last few months, so I sort of knew on a sub-conscious level that it was coming, but I was still surprised to see both of their Facebook updates. I went back to look through the album she's been keeping online. There were the early ultrasounds. She took pictures over the course of the weeks of the pregnancy, from the point of being basically indistinguishable from a non-pregnant woman, to the point of having stretch marks and visible veins throughout her massively swollen belly. She was due four days ago, and delivered yesterday, and I think the last pictures were from Friday or Saturday.
And it's just absolutely astonishing. I'll get into that in a minute.
Of course, the whole thing makes me wonder whether or not I'll be a father at some point in my life. I've hemmed and hawed over whether or not I want to get married, but I've never really wavered on whether or not I want to be a father - whether I expect to be a father, sure, but not whether I want to be a father. For me, it's contingent upon marriage, which is the real sticking point. I'm twenty-seven, and I'm really no closer to being married than I was... Well, at any time in my life. I've probably dated about two women, in my entire life, who I could have conceivably married: Katherine, and April. I rarely communicate with April anymore, and it's all I can do to keep myself from wishing a bus-related end upon Katherine. When friends have kids - particularly friends who are younger than you - it sort of makes you take stock of where you stand. At least, that's what it does for me.
Beyond that, the whole concept of pregnancy astonishes me, and I'm going to use this opportunity to compare it to something that's very tangentally related: the Creation/Evolution debate. Let me explain. The whole concept of pregnancy and birth amazes me, and I don't understand it at all. It makes no sense to me, none at all. Other methods of procreation are similar as far as I perceive them, but none of them is quite as bewildering to me as live birth. I studied it in middle school, high school, and probably at some point in college. I understand the basics of the science - the bits that I should understand given my level and type of education - but that just doesn't take me all the way. Does it not astonish anyone else that, following conception, a human being starts out as one cell, then a cluster of cells, then (in most cases) forms in a perfectly patterned process? Does it not astonish anyone else that after months, this winds up being a tiny human person? Does it not astonish anyone else that this entire process happens within another human person? I think that most of us are so accustomed to this idea, which is one that we grow up with, that we don't stop to think about just how bizarre and amazing that is. A tiny cell, which is formed from the combination of two other cells that come from two entirely different people, spends the better part of a year inside a human person, and turns from a one-celled human person into a recognizable human person. When it's all ready, it violently emerges from that other human person that it was inside, and then it starts growing, to the point that within a matter of months, it's basically unrecognizable from what it was when it was born.
That's amazing. That's a miracle, in every possible sense of the word. And it also makes absolutely no sense to me. I can understand the science behind it, I can understand it from a completely factual and scientific and cognizant perspective, and yet, I can't fully comprehend it.
So, how does this tie into the Creation/Evolution debate? Well, let me first state that my own leaning on that issue is in the direction of Intelligent Design - which is to say, the Creation story found in the Book of Genesis is figurative, and describes in poetic or allegorical terms what happened in a very lengthy and precise way over a very long period of time. However, I'm not dogmatic about that. I've seen a handful of descriptions that indicate to me that the Young Earth/literal Creation explanation could have some merit. I've seen more evidence that Evolution is a viable theory, which would lead me to believe that God used Evolution as a mechanism, in a way similar to the way that God uses gravity, or time - two other forces that I can understand facts about, but can't fathom on a deeper level. My ultimate reaction, though, is to ask myself: "Who cares?"
There are certain groups of Christians who are obtusely dogmatic about a literal interpretation of Genesis. There are similar groups of atheists who are every bit as dogmatic, often at the cost of actual scientific rigor, and nearly always at the cost of any sort of civility, about their own beliefs. Don't get me wrong: there are non-religious folks who accept evolutionary theories on their actual scientific merits. However, the entire point of the obsession over Darwin in some circles is that it was in the 1800's, and has become today, a surrogate religion for those who wish to reject God, to one degree or another.
So, where am I going with this? I see human and universal origins in much the same way that I see pregnancy and birth. I can look at the supposed evidence for Evolution (which isn't as airtight as what many evolutionists would have you believe), and I can understand the processes and theories that science suggests were involved in the creation of the universe, the world, and life. Even if I can understand the evidence and the science behind it, that doesn't remove the sense of absolute breathtaking marvel. It's the same way with pregnancy: I find it to be an absolute marvel. It's amazing and astonishing and counter-intuitive, even if I can understand it for what it is.
That was probably sort of a rambling, blathery mess. I have things to do, so I'll close this up. Have a great day, folks.
Normally, I post about the news, and there are new stories to post, but I'm going to just sort of ramble today. Yesterday, some friends from back home, who I met through a group I was tied to in college, became parents. They (she) posted pictures and brief updates on Facebook over the last few months, so I sort of knew on a sub-conscious level that it was coming, but I was still surprised to see both of their Facebook updates. I went back to look through the album she's been keeping online. There were the early ultrasounds. She took pictures over the course of the weeks of the pregnancy, from the point of being basically indistinguishable from a non-pregnant woman, to the point of having stretch marks and visible veins throughout her massively swollen belly. She was due four days ago, and delivered yesterday, and I think the last pictures were from Friday or Saturday.
And it's just absolutely astonishing. I'll get into that in a minute.
Of course, the whole thing makes me wonder whether or not I'll be a father at some point in my life. I've hemmed and hawed over whether or not I want to get married, but I've never really wavered on whether or not I want to be a father - whether I expect to be a father, sure, but not whether I want to be a father. For me, it's contingent upon marriage, which is the real sticking point. I'm twenty-seven, and I'm really no closer to being married than I was... Well, at any time in my life. I've probably dated about two women, in my entire life, who I could have conceivably married: Katherine, and April. I rarely communicate with April anymore, and it's all I can do to keep myself from wishing a bus-related end upon Katherine. When friends have kids - particularly friends who are younger than you - it sort of makes you take stock of where you stand. At least, that's what it does for me.
Beyond that, the whole concept of pregnancy astonishes me, and I'm going to use this opportunity to compare it to something that's very tangentally related: the Creation/Evolution debate. Let me explain. The whole concept of pregnancy and birth amazes me, and I don't understand it at all. It makes no sense to me, none at all. Other methods of procreation are similar as far as I perceive them, but none of them is quite as bewildering to me as live birth. I studied it in middle school, high school, and probably at some point in college. I understand the basics of the science - the bits that I should understand given my level and type of education - but that just doesn't take me all the way. Does it not astonish anyone else that, following conception, a human being starts out as one cell, then a cluster of cells, then (in most cases) forms in a perfectly patterned process? Does it not astonish anyone else that after months, this winds up being a tiny human person? Does it not astonish anyone else that this entire process happens within another human person? I think that most of us are so accustomed to this idea, which is one that we grow up with, that we don't stop to think about just how bizarre and amazing that is. A tiny cell, which is formed from the combination of two other cells that come from two entirely different people, spends the better part of a year inside a human person, and turns from a one-celled human person into a recognizable human person. When it's all ready, it violently emerges from that other human person that it was inside, and then it starts growing, to the point that within a matter of months, it's basically unrecognizable from what it was when it was born.
That's amazing. That's a miracle, in every possible sense of the word. And it also makes absolutely no sense to me. I can understand the science behind it, I can understand it from a completely factual and scientific and cognizant perspective, and yet, I can't fully comprehend it.
So, how does this tie into the Creation/Evolution debate? Well, let me first state that my own leaning on that issue is in the direction of Intelligent Design - which is to say, the Creation story found in the Book of Genesis is figurative, and describes in poetic or allegorical terms what happened in a very lengthy and precise way over a very long period of time. However, I'm not dogmatic about that. I've seen a handful of descriptions that indicate to me that the Young Earth/literal Creation explanation could have some merit. I've seen more evidence that Evolution is a viable theory, which would lead me to believe that God used Evolution as a mechanism, in a way similar to the way that God uses gravity, or time - two other forces that I can understand facts about, but can't fathom on a deeper level. My ultimate reaction, though, is to ask myself: "Who cares?"
There are certain groups of Christians who are obtusely dogmatic about a literal interpretation of Genesis. There are similar groups of atheists who are every bit as dogmatic, often at the cost of actual scientific rigor, and nearly always at the cost of any sort of civility, about their own beliefs. Don't get me wrong: there are non-religious folks who accept evolutionary theories on their actual scientific merits. However, the entire point of the obsession over Darwin in some circles is that it was in the 1800's, and has become today, a surrogate religion for those who wish to reject God, to one degree or another.
So, where am I going with this? I see human and universal origins in much the same way that I see pregnancy and birth. I can look at the supposed evidence for Evolution (which isn't as airtight as what many evolutionists would have you believe), and I can understand the processes and theories that science suggests were involved in the creation of the universe, the world, and life. Even if I can understand the evidence and the science behind it, that doesn't remove the sense of absolute breathtaking marvel. It's the same way with pregnancy: I find it to be an absolute marvel. It's amazing and astonishing and counter-intuitive, even if I can understand it for what it is.
That was probably sort of a rambling, blathery mess. I have things to do, so I'll close this up. Have a great day, folks.
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