CAL THOMAS DESCRIBES EVOLUTION PERFECTLY

In a recent column (Spokesman Review, July 25, 2004, p. B6), Cal quotes the apostle Paul as to what to expect in the “end times”:

"There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of [their hypothetical] god – having a form of godliness but denying its power."

Thanks, Cal, for describing humankind as it has existed throughout time. Judging by Cal and Paul’s standards, the “end times” must be and always have been every day in every era of written history. I’ve come across similar kinds of denigration of humanity in every era of human history, in everyone’s national morality literature. Knowing this written record, I see exactly very little progress or regression from one age to another. So—when’s that piddling second coming coming again? Judging by the record, it should have arrived millenia ago.

Maybe Paul’s description of humankind has nothing to do with the mythological end times and comes from those who are never satisfied with their lot in life and who are always judging their fellow humans with the wrong measurement standard and, who, therefore, always see the bad rather than the good. For example, almost universally these days, people are against human slavery. An improvement over Bible morality, isn’t it? Or does Cal still believe in slavery? I could name many improvements in human morality in the now times, but don’t have space. Hey, should we go back to stoning?

Actually, Paul and Cal’s moral description of humanity is unsuitable for the human situation because the human animal was not born a moral creature. It has evolved to this point—an animal with consciousness. Evolution perfectly explains the human condition. What we see before us in every headline is evolution at work.

The human animal is one branching of the evolutionary tree. Humanity acts just as you’d expect animals to act which are concerned chiefly with winning out over their fellow animals, protecting their territories, and accumulating the goods which will guarantee their procreative success. Any honest intelligence must see clearly that evolution is the only suitable explanation for the current human condition. Evolutionary time must be our moral standard. The Bible idea is way out of date.

But we must give religions their place in our current view of history. Religions are the conscious animal’s first attempt at becoming human. Once the animal could think about his condition and his instinctual systems were no longer satisfactory, he tried, through language to codify his relationships. That’s where ideas of morality and justice come in. They’re a substitute for instinctual behavior which humanity is now afraid of. We’re in a transitional situation.

On the other hand, the trouble with religions are that they fall right into evolutionary patterns of survival, and they become just more fodder for fighting. Underneath religious people’s attempts to dominate the culture is the effort of weaker, more mental animals to try and give them a chance to accumulate women and have procreative success. That’s why they have all their rules about wives’ place in the family. It’s an attempt by religious males to accumulate and subjugate women for procreative reasons. I’ve sat with enough religious males to see that they are just as concerned with procreation as everyone else. I’ve watched them preen and posture and drag out their religious credentials with the sole purpose of impressing the believing females in their surroundings with their suitability for mating. Christian dating services are all about giving religious males a chance with the more susceptible religious females.

So, let’s begin to look at the human animal through sensible and unsentimental eyes and see us for what we really are—animals trying to become human. Only then can we quit fighting about morality and start making human decisions which will benefit the largest number of us as can be benefited. If we're lucky, maybe the Bible or Koran will no longer be heard of one million years from now. In evolutionary time, we’ll change, but not one of us can ever witness it. Evolution takes too long unless our genetic knowledge allows us to perfect ourselves—which is possible. The future of mankind is unknown and exciting. But....