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Did Darwin Kill God?, a documentary movie by Dr. Conor Cunningham, professor of the University of Nottingham, reflects my beliefs most fully. I think that God is a supernatural being that exists outside of time and space, its basis, and the driving force. Cunningham’s movie correlates with the classic definition of God and my personal beliefs about God as the creator of the universe and every being.
Initially, one of the main sources of knowledge about God in the Bible. Cunningham points out that chapters 1 and 2 contents directly contradict each other: the first chapter talks about the creation of the world in six days in strict order. The second chapter tells us that Adam and Eve were created before everything else. In my opinion, the texts of the Bible cannot be read literally and taken as the only source. However, the Bible contains clues and stories that allow one to look at the history of the world in a new way.
Richard Dawkins argues that all human achievements and beliefs are a form of natural selection and categorically denies the existence of an intelligent and conscious god (Cunningham, 2016, 00:56–01:30). But ultra-Darwinists do not answer the question of how one can assert what is true and what is not. Even if one assumes that all ideas and beliefs are the product of evolution, regardless of whether they are right, one cannot say for sure that evolution is true.
On the other hand, creationists do not question whether the information in the Bible is true, but take the Bible literally, while denying the existence of evolution. Some of them, for example, Terry Mortenson, believe that all descriptions in the Bible, including the universal flood and the creation of the world, should be taken literally, and the days of the world creation, described in the Bible, correspond to our modern perception of days (Cunningham, 2016, 33:44–35:30). Mortenson states that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. In my opinion, this teaching is also fundamentally wrong and contradicts archaeological research and science.
The interviews with Francis Collins, former director of the Human Genome Project, and Simon Morris, an evolutionary paleobiologist, are resonated with me the most. Collins argues that the modern understanding of the human gene is quickly becoming obsolete: the fact is that a person, as one of the most complex organisms on the planet, has fewer genes than a grain of rice, while we have no idea what the border of genes, as a package of DNA, is (Cunningham, 2016, 43:20–46:02). Morris’s interview attracted me by the universal need for music: animals, birds, whale songs (Cunningham, 2016, 55:32–57:06). The presence of music created by various species speaks of a kind of universal origin and evolution. The research of both scientists correlates with the course material, where we talk about the interaction of science and religion.
I believe that science and religion are more complementary than mutually exclusive concepts. Science answers the questions “How?” and only within the limits of knowledge available to humanity: Newtonian physics was supplemented by the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. At the same time, religion and God are answering the question, “why?” Different types of living things can have common features that cannot be explained by natural selection; at the same time, any species can evolve. Thus, despite the evolution of scientific research, we can only guess the true reason for the emergence and existence of the world.
God, in the classical sense, is the basis of existence and stands apart from other beings. Darwin’s theory of evolution is neither a confirmation of the existence of God, nor a refutation, but just an attempt by humanity to explain our origin and existence in the form and time in which we are now. Cunningham’s film makes me think about the role of God in our lives and the science we use to find information about ourselves and the universe.
References
Cunningham C. (2016). Did Darwin Kill God? [Video]. YouTube. Web.
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