Natural Selection and the Nature of God

...  r.e. faussette ©2000 all rights reserved

 

.Where I Am      In 1998 I discovered that Kevin MacDonald, an evolutionary psychologist, had written a trilogy on the anti-Semitic cycle identifying Judaism as an evolutionary strategy. I immediately sent him an essay I had written titled Natural Selection and the Nature of God. He read the essay and replied that I was right in my conclusions but that he didn't relate to my theological perspective. I've received a similar response introducing Christians to evolutionary theory. They claim to be unable to relate to a scientific perspective. One well educated Catholic went so far as to tell me, "evolution is materialistic and therefore incompatible with Christianity."       So I find myself between two worlds, at the dawn of a new millenium, watching  Christians abandon their chuches because science has undermined metaphysics, unaware of the profound validation of Christianity that can be realized through a Darwinian interpretation of Biblical symbols.

How I came this Way       Social life evidently improves when one has a sufficient understanding of  human behavior. I developed the habit of searching for the finest behaviors and the most effective disciplines for internalizing those behaviors in a necessary effort to make my behavioral investments and expectations consistent with reality.      Although I often allowed myself to be distracted by the routine of everyday life, something always brought me back to focus on the mechanics of human behavior and I went to university, not as a teenager burdened by the expectations of my parents, but as an adult anxious to validate conclusions from evidence amassed through years of reading and social observation.      I struggled to imagine the behavioral ideal, and  sought  to impose it on my world. The more I knew about human behavior and the more I observed painful lives passing through my own, the greater became the impetus for advancing my own idealist agenda and I increasingly intervened in the social dysfunction I observed around me. I got involved in extended family dynamics and the greater community, participating in a range of social activities, and more often than not, found myself advancing a positive and productive social agenda.      Although I have a technical grasp of social processes, I am not and may never be socially fluid, and the passion I bring to bear on the problems of those I love often creates awkward and sometimes amusing encounters. When I want to address an unproductive behavior,  I might pick up a book and read from it to my often offended "patient" who balks at the clinical examination of social sins. I will often go to lengths to explain a social problem and the behaviors to avoid it, but I've found that the reception for such information is frequently and perhaps appropriately cold, whether the recipient of the information is an individual, a family or an organization.       When errors are exposed, even by an astute observer with the best of intentions, one becomes vulnerable, and the source of the exposure objectionable. It is an important lesson I learn and relearn that one necessarily risks being objectionable in the act of being honest, fair and effective.

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Man's Former State Of Consciousness

Man's Current State Of Consciousness

Science

Religion

Religion

Science

Before the rapid evolution of the brain	Before the "fall"	After the "fall"	After 3 million years of selection for larger brains
Instinct Limited Behavioral repertoire Small brain	Eyes closed God's will No shame No self-consciousness In God's presence	Eyes open  Not God's will Shame Self-consciousness Hiding from God	.Learned behavior Expanded Behavioral repertoire Large brain