The Answerer

That means: ”Did God make the world and all that is in it...or did it all ‘just happen’ by ‘Evolution’ over millions of years?

Or “You say I Came From a Monkey!?”

Or “My Ancestors Were Monkeys?”

Or “Were my Ancestors gorillas in Africa?”

This editorial/opinion is entirely and solely the work and responsibility of Peter JB Harris. ie, ‘theanswerer’.

This writer has thought about this for many years.  I now write some thoughts about a creator-an intelligent, loving and creative thinking God, or ‘Evolution’ where everything just came about by chance to make humans and the huge variety of animals, plants and birds and the air we breathe. 

LIFE FROM ‘NO LIFE’ IN A SWAMP TO A LIVING CELL.  Millions of years ago, we are told in scientific books and by many teachers, that a very primitive life form became ‘alive’ because about twenty (20) or more proteins, chemicals and so on somehow came together and life began. That life has, since then, developed by millions of stages and additions or mutational changes, into us humans.

As a start, with several thousand years of scientific knowledge behind us, why cannot scientists create in their laboratories life from nothing, like it began in the beginning? New life in a test tube-please! They can’t.

I mean they have learnt huge amounts of new information about cells, DNA, genes, stem cells and in humans producing babies for sterile (unable to have babies) ladies. And ‘Yes’, lesbian women having babies without having sex with a male…but ‘They’ cannot create life from chemicals.

Also, our nearest ‘relative’ in the wild and earlier life forms is the monkey or gorilla. We are related to them! “Our DNA is 95% the same a monkeys.”  That maybe so but life is more than DNA and our brain 30% bigger.

As a beginning, and some evidence, I would like to see a chimpanzee, maybe look at a rock and think! Think what? “Maybe if I dig out a bit of that rock, smash it into little pieces then build a large fire, and smelt (separate) the orange stuff (copper), from it in the fire. Then I could borrow a hammer, flatten it out into a flat sheet and make a whistle or a cornet (bugle) later on to make music.”

Animals cannot and do not think such things! Why? They are not capable of imagining (thinking of things they would like to have in the future). They do not get ‘ideas’ nor do they make plans for the future. They are not made to and never have. All they CAN do, or make, is offspring (babies) and nests/homes to grow them in and find food. And they do not think of drugs, alcohol, aeroplanes, cars, cities and ‘Going to the moon!!

Neither can they speak or make music and sing songs. They do not have the brain as humans have- call it what you will and no vocal chords to speak any words…only singing/calls to attract a partner for breeding babies. The Australian Lyre bird CAN imitate sounds it hears beautifully. How or why- I know not, but it does not originate sounds.

MY FAVOURITE EXAMPLE: The northern hemisphere woodpecker is a truly amazing bird.  Did God plan and make it- or did it just happen to be that way?

This bird can fly up to a tree and take hold of it. No branches needed thank you. With eight forward facing claws and two facing backwards the bird simply grips the rough bark. It also has very stiff tail feathers and if needed these feathers help to hold (stabilise) the bird while it begins to make a nest hole (a nest) five (5) to ten (10) times bigger than itself in the trunk of the dead tree. “How?”

The woodpecker uses its beak like a carpenter’s chisel to chew away the wood. It pecks at 400 to 600 pecks per minute-and sounds a lot like a machine gun.

Brain damage? No Sir! Every time it strikes the tree the skull (brain case) moves back a tiny bit –and the skull has a unique (like no other) shock absorber around the beak.  There is no brain damage!

The SOUND it makes is heard by lady woodpeckers in the forest who may come and check out (have a look at)how the male nest builder is going. There may even be a ’Marriage’- if she likes his style of work- and I guess how he looks, then a family. The nest builder’s lungs are protected from breathing in sawdust by a filter that comes over the nose to keep out sawdust. Cool don’t you think? Created like that-or just modified over millions of years to be like no other bird?

A Question for you: Lake Eyre in South Australia fills up say, five (5) to ten (10) times in a century. The water takes three (3) months to get there after rain in Queensland. “How do waterbirds (pelicans and seagulls) know that it is full of water and food- so the fly there?” The lake is thousands of miles from the ocean! Sydney is 1,500 km away and Adelaide is 500 km away. How do they know?

Photosynthesis.

This truly borders on a miracle because without it there would be little food or trees or plants for us 7,800,000,000 humans to have food and many resources.(things like wood, food crops, flowers and yummy fruits to eat).

In the amazing work of photosynthesis the leaves of green trees and plants take up water, carbon dioxide and sunlight to make wheat, wood, corn, potatoes and apricots and strawberries and many other plant foods. AND...the leaves give out oxygen in the photosynthesis process. Without this ‘Work’ there would not be enough oxygen in the air for us all to live. “Cool Eh?”

Also in the ‘Largest Living Thing” on the earth (General Sherman –a sequoia tree in California) the needed water goes up one hundred metres (100 m.) to the leaves at the top of the tree!!  No pumps needed thanks!! Did God plan and create it all- or is it all a ‘happening’ that occurred all by itself? (and this tree is around 2,500 to 2,700 years old.

And about trees. Trees had to be there in the beginning...fully grown for the birds to find nectar in the flowers(a honey  like liquid) to feed on. Then seeds to feed birds that live on seeds…and wood (timber) to build houses, nests, shelter and some seeds to grow into new trees if some trees are cut down or die.

Think about what you think!

AND: “Just suppose our earth was 1% closer to the sun –how hot might it get?” One percent (1%) would put this planet 93,000 miles closer to the sun. WOULD THAT BE COMFORTABLE-JUST 1% CLOSER? In my city, Perth, when it gets to 40 degrees Celsius I am so glad we are not 1% closer to our Sun!   I think God got it ‘Just right’. Do you agree?