Pastor Ben Hudson, in writing in the Faith and Reason columnn (Opinion ODT 9.8.24), claims that Christianity fosters rational reasoning.
He goes on to stress that "the Bible’s view of things avoids the ruthless disenchantment of atheism in which there is (sic) just molecules in motion and no meaning".
On February 28, 1953, Francis Crick and James Watson walked the few paces from the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge to the Eagle pub to announce that they had discovered the double-helix structure of DNA. Fame and Nobel prizes soon followed, for this breakthrough has transformed our understanding of human evolution.
Each molecule of DNA is a double helix, and DNA mutates at a known rate.
Combined with archaeological research, this shows that we and chimpanzees share about 98.8% of our DNA. The 1.2% divergence places our last common ancestor about 7 million years ago.
Fieldwork in East and North Africa has found fossilised skull bones that lie at the critical point where our evolutionary pathways diverged. There followed seminal linked changes in behaviour and physical form that are all published and available for reasoned scrutiny: first, upright walking, then, 3.3 million years ago, the first stone tools.
This expanded the diet to include scavenged meat that underwrote the development of a larger brain. At 2.2 million years ago, a recognisable human ancestor migrated out of Africa to occupy much of southern Eurasia.
There was a surge in brain size again by 300,000 years ago, heralding the first anatomically modern humans and another episode of expansion from Africa that reached Australia, for example, about 50,000 years ago.
By then, humans had mastered language, creative art, music and caring for the sick and injured. They buried their dead in cemeteries with offerings that indicate reflective cognition.
If anyone were to suggest that humans and chimpanzees had a common ancestor about 7 million years ago to an American audience today, 48% of respondents would disagree and no cogent argument would be able to convince them otherwise, for they have an ingrained faith that humans were created by their god within the past 10,000 years.
This should not surprise; there is hardly any branch of humanity that does not have its own origin myth. Muslims believe that Allah created man from mud moulded into shape. For Hindus, the god Brahma appeared on a lotus flower that grew from the navel of the supreme deity Visnu.
Brahma then created the earth, sky, the heavens, and the first man and woman. Australian Aborigines have it that the Rainbow Serpent came to earth to create water and life.
The Kwakiutl in Washington State believe that a raven dropped pebbles into the waters below to create islands, and it was from wood and clay that the first men and women were created. In China, the giant Pangu created the earth and the sky with his great axe.
The Christian myth describes how "God" created Adam from dust, and the first woman from Adam’s rib. Since those texts then list Adam’s descendants, it was possible for Archbishop Ussher and other divines to estimate in 1650 that God’s creation took place at 9am on October 23, 4004BC.
To explain the inexplicable in the absence of scientific inquiry, humans have created "gods". There are hundreds of them, including Christianity with its devoted adherents, sects and appalling record of inhumanity: recall the Inquisition, burnings at the stake, the 30 Years War, Inca genocide and the Crusades to list a few.
And for a fine example of rationality, we should reflect on the Christian creed, solemnly and ritually repeated, which asserts that their particular god is the creator of heaven and earth.
This deity apparently then fathered a son, born of a virgin, who was executed, but who after three days in hell, arose from the grave and went up to heaven to sit beside his father.
The creation of the Christian god myth occurred in the last .00028% of time since the common ancestor with our chimpanzee cousins roamed the African savannah.
The evolution of Homo sapiens is a remarkable and fascinating issue that should be familiar to all.
It is indeed true that, in the words of Pastor Ben Hudson, "To believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, is to see the world differently".
Very differently.
• Charles Higham is an Emeritus Professor Archaeology, University of Otago.
