Divine intervention, intelligent design or evolution

"Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all."
~ Aristotle, a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great

Humans, by the very nature of their being, are born seekers: Be it wealth or waste; enlightenment and erudition; redemption or retribution; glory and gain; knowledge, love, reason; we are in constant search, with or without reason. Knowingly and unknowingly, mindfully and mindlessly, we are on an endless quest for all things known and unknown. This seeking is of two fold: to demonstrate human competence and to reduce human ignorance.

Yet, more than our ignorance, the greatest enemy of our quest for knowledge has been the illusion of knowledge that has afflicted the human race - thereby converting the mind of man to his current disposition: to remain bent double, having lost the art of manliness.

The typical course of the illusion of knowledge is an over confidence that, in most cases, leads us to think that we are more skilled, willed, and knowledgeable than we actually are, which leads us to underestimate our personality and priorities; that in itself, inevitably leading us on to the path of peril.

Man has become week and meek in character in comparison to the original man of ancient times who was fearless in the face of all adversity wrought by nature, or fellow men; and that quality of fortitude has led man thus far.

Having come thus far, progressing from civilisation to progressive civilisation - both being relative in time and space - what future path is man to take if he is to go beyond the present. To know that, we must first look at how man came into being: the origin of the human race, all of life, and for that matter the universe itself.

Is all of it, the result of divine intervention, intelligent design, or evolution? Christian Science says that, God or a super intelligent entity called God, created this universe and everything including all life in it in six days.

Beliefs

Many other religions that involve and deal with the concept of God have similar beliefs though they do not specify the number of days for the creative process. Thus, simply put, divine intervention is when God intervenes in the affairs of our world, our lives, and all else that he created. Whenever we pray to God, we are asking Him to, divinely intervene.

To what purpose has he created us? All that matters for now is that from time to time God performs miracles: "an event in the external world brought about by the immediate agency or simple volition of God" according to Baker's Dictionary of the Bible.

The intent and purpose of such miracles, according to Faucet's Dictionary of the Bible is to "authenticate the divine commission of a religious teacher and the truth of his message."

Believers believe that we, and everything around us, are the result of divine intervention.

Intelligent design is the theory that life and the universe cannot have arisen by chance, and was designed and created by some intelligent entity;that certain features of the universe and of living things is best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection as espoused in the theory of evolution.

It is a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, presented by its advocates as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins" rather than "a religious-based idea." It puts forth a number of arguments in support of the existence of a designer, into which we will not delve as it is beyond the purpose of the current effort.

Argument

Suffice it is to state that "intelligent design" was developed by a group of American creationists who revised their argument in the creation-evolution controversy to circumvent court rulings which barred the teaching of "Creation Science" in public schools in America on the grounds of breaching the separation of Church and State.

Evolution is change over time. Under this broad definition, evolution can refer to a variety of changes that occur over time: the uplifting of mountains, the erosion of riverbeds, or the creation of new species.

Biological evolution, on the other hand, is a more specific type of evolution. The term refers to changes over time that occur in living organisms; a gradual development of something, especially from a simple to a more complex form. It is, in fact, descent with modification.

Biological evolution occurs at different scales. It focuses on the progression of species or an entire group of organisms believed to have evolved from a common ancestor to descendants over the course of numerous generations.

Evolutionists believe that all life on earth, every living organism, descended from a last universal common ancestor (LUCA) about 3.8 billion years ago; and evolved into various forms of which man is but one. It was in the 1960s that LUCA first came to note; when the genetic code was, found to be universal.

Thereafter, emerging picture is substantially complicated by, new insights into the evolutionary history of life.

There are a lot of uncertainties when we go this far back in evolutionary time and perhaps all we can be certain for now is that, at a point in Earth's history, probably around 3.8 billion years ago, cells emerged with stored recipes for making all life.

Thus, as with the creation theory, many questions still await answers.

Given the three theories of how man came into being, and not knowing if more possibilities are possible or likely in the future as science and knowledge advance; I leave it to the reader to draw his or her own conclusions on the issue of how man came about to be.

What matters for us now is not how we came about, but what we become and make of our existence in the time left to us.

It is a fact that, as far as our present knowledge permits; in some future date stretching into infinity; our world, our galaxy, this very universe of ours will all vanish into nothingness: the same nothingness from which it came into existence - be it by divine intervention, intelligent design, or evolution. Ultimately, you, me, this world of ours; along with all things in it; will in about 4.5 billion years, an infinity in time in comparison to human life span, turn into nothing unless man masters the secrets of the cosmos to make life elsewhere.

Infinity

Even if we did and, I having no doubt we will; much later into infinity of infinities in time, this entire cosmos, this universe, too will vanish into the darkness, the nothingness from which it came about, to perhaps be reborn; or recreated, this time around by man, who by then would have become god like.

Birth and death of all things, whether created, evolved, or man-made, seem the only ever-present reality.

Thus, as a race, humans are fated to conceivably live as long as this universe lasts; or even outlast it by creating his own universe.

However, man must, in order to make it pleasant for all to live, follow certain norms and ethics, which are necessary to sustain life even if eventually it is bound to vanish and be but an illusion.

Humans, as of now, being the most intelligent of all life forms; must take the lead in setting down ethics that honour our intelligence.

Questions

The greatness of the human race can only be, judged by the way we conduct ourselves: are we a people that value values; do we possess principles that are based on equality and justice.

These are questions each of us need to answer, irrespective of whether we are the result of divine intervention, intelligent design, or evolution.

However, the irony of life, like in all life, is that there are always two types of people in this world - the positive and the negative: good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.

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