It's All Good

The Three Big Ideas Of Life
are
Creation. Evolution. Grace.



Being a solid evolutionist, with a long time scientific fascination and hunger for witnessing great breakthroughs (what a great time to be alive!), I never had a problem with believing the impenetrable, bizarre, mysterious fact of our Creation, always hoping for some answers.




We were created. No doubt. How can I know this? We exist, like everything else that is, like all that has ever been. How could this be? I don't really have that answer, but it is.


By the way, let's not mix this up. I'm not conceding Creationism - something different. Creationism was itself created of course, but in this case, we know who the creators (and perpetrators) are. The Creationism idea, over time, took one particular path (among many paths that potentially pop up) that eventually evolved into Intelligent Design, the great modern surviving beast. ID strategically goes to battle against great ideas like Evolution and Archeology and History and myriad other fields of science - all of these are great legendary ideas that humans also created that don't want to be bothered to have to fight such a stupid pipsqueak of an idea such as ID. But fight they must. Sigh.



Ironic. Both of these, the earlier and later generations of theories that waste time attacking established truth - and there's surely more to come - evolved, in the same way that Evolution predicts it could. Good and bad genes evolve - are created - and good and bad ideas survive and evolve, in many of the same ways as do our genes. There's always a good variety of genes and ideas circulating out there, but rest assured, the useless and destructive ones (like ID, or flu epidemics) will eventually get weeded out. And on and on we go. So long as we stay successful - surviving. If we don't ultimately (and timely too) prevail over the bad ideas that have evolved, then there could be a big stress imposed on society, and we may or may not (if we adapt) perish. Communism was successfully created, and it has mostly been successfully destroyed. Islamic jihadism has successfully been created, and we are so far unsuccessful in destroying it. I have faith we will. History is full of former good ideas. This is the way it works, whether it makes us upset or not. But, c'mon, have a heart.


So there's Creation. Sounds so holy, but there are no doubt things created, however you think about the mystery of Creation. And it's wonderful to think about.


Then there's Evolution. Genes, and memes, the genetic proteins and cultural ideas that pass down through the ages to form us and inform our society. Our species and our culture are always evolving. Always have. Always will, as long as we are successful.


Which brings me to . . . .


Grace. However you define it. Successful Life? Love? Bliss? Purpose to our lives? Is it already created for us? Or do we decide of our own free will? What is it to you? Heart? Love? Knowledge? Seated at the right hand of the Father? Nirvana? Contentment? Removal of desire? In this life? In the next? What is grace, what is best, for you? Is it what is best for us?

Great questions. Many of us have many different answers. Between Creation and Grace alone you have enough to build whole religions. Oh, wait.






It so happens that I think the subject of Grace is more important than either the subject of Creation or Evolution.



Certainly, we shouldn't forget about Evolution. By Evolution - a particularly important understanding for us to have due to the fact we are now so much our own creators - I mean the process by which humanity (and all life) is able to keep chuggin' along.



So, it boils down to the big three ideas of life:




Creation. The mystical source of it all. We just don't know. We have ideas, though. Many ideas.



Evolution. How it all works. We really have the basics pretty much dialed in. But it's so early in our era of knowledge, so we are still learning rapidly.



Grace. What we decide to do with it all.

Our awareness, our morals, our understanding, our customs, our history, our destiny, our lives. What do we do? Individually, and collectively over time, what should we do? Do we agree to work together toward some shared purpose? If so, should it be a broad enough purpose to permit us to realistically include everyone in an agreement? Or do we form factions, with cross-purposes? Sometimes, clearly, that it required. Should our purpose simply be our survival? Do we all have different ideas about how much control we can or should exert in achieving Grace? Good questions. Let's talk about it.

If fact, it's all good, and all are the possible subjects of big breakthroughs in our understanding, our morals, our history. Time would be well spent enjoying and studying and talking about all of the three big ideas of life.