Like most kids, I did my time at Sunday school. Getting picked up in the church Kombi, singing, clapping, drinking Oros and eating Marie biscuits. I even played sheep number three in the nativity play. A really hot costume in the Durban summer. And of course I learnt the story of how God made the world.
Then I got to big school, and like the way they tell you about Santa, they told me the whole Garden of Eden story was for kids. A primitive fairytale from the Stone Age that had no place in modern society. They said we’ll tell you the truth — the story of evolution.
The problem is their story sounded as bonkers as the Sunday school story. It required as much faith as the church one. Now before you start citing Darwin, Wallace, Mendel and all those other dudes on Wikipedia, please hear me out.
The evolutionist may not be into God but he does worship at the altar of Lady Luck. For him, the creation of our entire planet is one big lucky coincidence. Starting with this strange chemical mix called the primordial soup. Like any good soup, it had a bunch of things in it. And as luck would have it, when these random elements banged into each other, they formed life. No big deal, they just formed life. Which was followed by a series of genetic mishaps that all could have gone horribly wrong but instead went totally right. And we’re not talking about one or two happy coincidences, we’re talking billions. Essentially, in evolutionist’s opinion, we are pond scum that has bumbled its way through billions of DNA mutations until it became a person. None of which it planned for, it all just happened by sheer luck. Now I’m not a gambling man, but I do know for all this to happen you would probably need some sort of miracle. But since the evolutionist doesn’t believe in God, we have to put it down to luck. If Rocky Balboa was the million-to-one shot, then we are the gazillion-billion-to-one shot.
With all this said, it is hard to find comfort in the creationist’s story. Remember this is the guy who made me dress up in a sheep costume in the middle of a hot Durban summer. So he’s already shooting from behind the eight ball. His theory involves this big guy in the sky who was really big into gardening. So much so, that he built one for this chap Adam and this chick Eve. But he was also a bit of a practical joker so he built a booby trap from a snake and an apple. And since that day, we have all worn clothes …
Alrighty then. So whose story do we believe?
Try and think about this like someone who hasn’t heard either story before. Maybe you’re an alien fresh off the spaceship. New to our planet. An intergalactic third party without prejudice or any connection to either side. Or maybe you’ve just come out of a coma with a completely blank mind.
Do you go for the lucky pond-scum theory or the Big Guy in the Sky?
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