On many occasions Christopher Hitchens made a particularly valid point that bears deep consideration — especially for Christians. Most people of faith have now come to accept the verifiable fact of evolution, by “natural selection”, as first proposed by Charles Darwin and (independently) by Alfred Wallace.
Our own species, Homo sapiens, finally evolved around 100,000 years ago — through a series of pre-human species (by natural selection), and back 6 million years to our common ancestor with today’s other primates. Genetic testing can verify our linage directly to the earliest humans which came out of Africa.
Here’s one conundrum. If Christians who believe implicitly in the bible — and defiantly claim that; “God created Man in His own image”, why do we have so many vestigial organs?
The second conundrum is this: Based on the (approximate) 100,000 years of our history on Earth, we spent 97,000 of those years completely oblivious of a “Christian” God.
Suddenly, out of the blue, an illiterate tribesman from a remote and obscure stretch of Middle Eastern desert, “hears the voice of God”. Moses (we’re told) is then presented with 2 tables containing 10 brief instructions.
The overwhelming question is: why does an omniscient and omnipotent God sit on His hands for 97,000 years while “His” people lived in such primitive circumstances, struggling for survival? Imagine their fear of every unexplained “natural” event”; earthquakes, lightening, eclipses of the sun and moon. With absolutely no knowledge of science, what would they make of it all? Why is it so surprising that our early ancestors found answers in the supernatural?
Incredibly, the Moses myth of 3,000 years ago is still with us today. Two clay tables with 10 instructions — the first 4 illustrating that God is very jealous and has an ego problem. This entire scenario, in light of today’s science, our level of education, and our ability to think critically, stretched credibility to breaking point. As Christopher Hitchens concluded; “If God was so bright, why didn’t he speak to the Chinese who could already read and write?”. Better still, if He was omnipotent, why didn’t He use His powers to communicate “directly” with the entire population on Earth?
Plain Reason: Promoting science, reason, logic and critical thinking