Do apes have souls?

Continuing on with previous article, religion is once again the subject; I have one more that I had written a while ago which will posted at some random occasion. After that it will back some reviews on films and video games.

This piece probably relates back to another debate had between atheism and religion. What seems to be prevailing idea of most atheists is that people of religion believe in fairy tales and think science some sort of evil lie meant to turn them away from God. On the contrary, the Catholic Church is well known in history as the founder of many universities, many priests and monks have made great strides in botany and astronomy, as well doing the complex calculations to develop our current calendar system. While there are Christians the do reject science outright, it’s not a prevailing amongst Christians.

The theory of evolution has been subject of contention between the religious community and scientific communities. As I explain in the following paragraphs, theology and the theory of evolution can coexist quite well.

I recent years, with new scientific discoveries, Charles Drawin's Theory of Evolution has picked up steam. It has sparked a debate between those who believe in this theory and religion, specifically with Christians; Evolution vs. Genesis aka Creationism. The debate has been over which one is true and explains the creation of humanity. It has been debated whether or not it should be taught in schools, and fanatics on either side, activists, religious leaders, teachers, parents, and students have argued whether or not it should be taught; but that is not what we are here to discuss. As I mentioned before I am Roman Catholic, and thus I believe God created everything (hate me or not, call be an idiot, I really don't care, you are more of an idiot for continuing that bigotry). As a Catholic not only am I taught God is creator, but I also to think and interpret the Bible, not look at liberally. The stories in the Bible are ancient, and thus the people who wrote the testaments to explain certain things. So, I present to you my interpretation of the Bible, how evolution and religion can coexist and how, if looked at a different way, evolution is mentioned within the Bible.

In the beginning God created everything, he sparked the Big Bang setting the Universe into motion, guiding the atoms that would form the building blocks of galaxies, planets, suns, the phenomena of the cosmos, and life. God guided these elements to form the universe as we know it, including our world Earth. According some religious theorist the Earth was created 6,000 years ago; and according to the Bible the Earth was created in seven days, but the question no one ever seems to ask is, how long is a “God day”? The answer is: no one knows, it could be millennia long, but I can assure you that it is probably longer than 24 hours. So with his creation, God was pleased, and then decided to populate it with life.

God would them direct the atoms to form living creatures, microscopic at first, coming out the rock and ash of the planet. Over time he guided it and molded it so that it would form into the various of life that would populate his new world. The one species that he specifically guided was humanity, so that it would fit with his image. He took the most evolved human and placed him in the Garden of Eden and then we have the story of Adam and Eve. Perhaps after their exile, there genetic material was spread to other, less evolved humans creating what we are today.

Another way to look at the genesis story is not explain the origins of humanity, but of it's greatest creation, Civilization (and no not the game, though it is awesome). The Garden of Eden is said to be located in the Fertile Crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in the Middle East. This region is the home of the first civilizations. Perhaps God kicked us out of the first civilization and we forced to create our own, building the great civilizations of Babylon, Egypt, Greece, China, Rome, Japan, Britain, France, and America. God may have not created us in his image physically, but mentally, our ability to think and create.

So, can Religion and Evolution coexist? Yes.

A Religious Understanding

This is another older piece I wrote a while back (I’m trying to go through some of my backlog that has yet to be posted). To put this essay into context, in the past I have had debates with friends of mine on “Facebook”, who are atheists, on the subject of religion, they can get daily heated. I’m Roman Catholic, and while I will never profess myself to be overtly religious, I do believe in the teachings, but have a different opinion than most Christians.

This particular essay came from one of those debates, and it goes into how I see my own religious beliefs. Surprisingly, my atheists friends had no negative opinion on this, and now I leave it up to the rest of you to form your opinions.

Thanks, and enjoy! :

I won't deny that Christians have not been violent, history has shown Christians use their religion as an excuse for violence, persecution, and war. The Crusades, for example, were at their heart a trade dispute. They have been as violent as members of religions. I also admit that I have not read the Bible all the way through, I have read passages, but even with that I think I can get a clear picture of what it is trying to tell me.

The Christian Bible is divided into two sections, "The Old Testament" (aka Torah), and the other is "The New Testament". First section is the history of the Jewish from the beginning of the world to the time of the Romans. The Second part is the history and teachings of Jesus Christ and his apostles. Again I have not read all of this, however from what I can tell is that a lot of it is allegory, and metaphors and not to be taken literally at face value. God doesn't want someone to cut off his arm, but remove that which causes the problem. 

While the Bible is an integral part of Christianity, if not at the heart of the religion, it's more than the book that, in my opinion, that defines the religion. It is how people act upon the words written in the book. The problem is a lot of people use it as way to persecute others and commit terrible acts, but the same could be said about any other religion. So in some way, yes on the surface, Christianity is no different than other religions, there are good and bad people who shape our image of the religion. Unfortunately, a lot of times the bad is what makes a louder bang. In a lot of ways you could compare religions to the loyalty to operating systems, on the surface Mac OS and Windows are not two different from one another, but when you ask someone why they chose Mac or PC, there are down to the smallest part, features the people like over the other one and many times they grew with one particular OS in their household, same with religion.

The one thing that I am not the most familiar with is the history of the early Jews and how they came to worship the one God. Maybe it did form out of previous polytheistic religion or it was some great revelation. All I know is that I believe in God, but that doesn't stop of me from wanting to uncover all the mysteries and accepting science, I am probably one of the few Christians who accept evolution. I happen to think science is a means of figuring out how God did it. I think God is a great writer weaving together a great story and we are the characters and we don't know how it is going to end or how it began, we are figuring it out a long the way. I guess that is one way of thinking about it.

"Red Tails": A Review

Here is an old one from my Tumblr account of the same name (linked below). This directly quoted, so it might sound a little dated, however, if you do plan to watch this film, take a minute and read the following review. Thanks, and enjoy!

A Review of "Red Tails" :

About a month or so ago I went to see the new George Lucas production “Red Tails”, a film about the Tuskegee Airmen, a squadron of black airmen during World War II. While the film was historically accurate, it is hard to explain whether the movie itself is good or bad. While “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” felt it had so much thrown at the audience, “Red Tails” had to little. The movie is enjoyable, historically accurate, and the battle scenes are amazing; but it was lacking in the way in the way it was directed “on the ground” and especially failed in the laughable dialogue.

While Lucas has made a cool World War II film, he really should have gone over how the characters speak and act and especially look at their dialogue before filming. I think the best example of this is the main villain of the film. The villain, know as “Pretty Boy” is the first major character of the film to make an appearance, he is the leader of nearly every German fighter squadron the main characters run into. Easily this character could have been played by a card-board cut out with a voice box. He only has about five or six lines in the entire movie and only barks out orders or says how much hates the Red Tails and is shocked that they are black. There is no development to this character, no personality, no back story, and his only emotion is “Angry German Face.” Though he is probably one of the most amusing characters in the entire film.

The white American bomber pilots fared a little bit better than the German pilot, but not by much. While they did have more lines and something of a personality, their lines are about as corny as some fifties TV shows (not that I really wish to rip on those shows as they’re still better than anything on TV today), or that guy who blows himself up in the original “Night of the Living Dead” (”Golly Mr. Cooper!”).  But they’re lines include “I’m sure glad the Red Tails were here”, I think you picture the voice that went with that. But again, these characters could have again been easily played by a Card Board cut out.

The Black pilots of the Red Tails were probably the most well developed, but suffered from another problem, over use of stereotypes. While not every one of those characters suffered from this problem, that ones that did played it up ten times. Though you have to keep characters in a historical film accurate with the times that they are in, you don’t need to make blatant; such as the constant and almost comical references “Black Jesus.” I think of these characters, the most well developed were the Squadron Commander, who was in Washington D.C. fighting to keep his squadron from being disbanded due to the racism of the time, the flight leader who had to face down a drinking problem and emotional issues, and Lightening, the pilot who kills “Pretty Boy” and has relationship with one of the women in the near by Italian city.

Overall the while the movie had a good story and action sequences, it really lacked in character development and personality. It is definitely worth seeing, though by now it should be coming out soon on DVD and Blue Ray. This movie where you might just want to shut your brain off and enjoy it, it’s still better than watching “Star Wars : Episode 2.”

Up next: A discussion on how Evolution and Christianity can coexist and some more movie reviews as well as an analysis of Table Top vs Video Game RPGs.

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mentalrambler