Okay, the title is a bit misleading. It should actually be “taking the fact that I understand the theory of evolution, but other people can not -for granted.” But since I rather like the title, it will stay as it is.

Let me give you a brief history about my life in understanding evolution: I had fully understood the theory of evolution ever since it was taught to me in grade school; a private catholic grade school no less. I forgot how old I was when I learned it, but to me, it was just one of those things you were supposed to be taught, like math and social studies.

The diagram of the evolutionary tree was such a fancy of mine. I would spend hours just staring at it; marveling at it. I always thought that it was one of those things that kids were supposed to learn, understand, and appreciate as I did.

It was never an issue. And I did not have any difficulty grasping the concept at that age. The theory of evolution was further bolstered throughout the years by my addiction in watching programs from the History Channel and the Discovery Channel. Further learning in high school; another private Roman catholic school, on Mendel’s study in inheritance and Darwin’s finches totally clinched it.

As I mentioned, I went to catholic schools for most of my life. In high school, it was mandatory for all students to take a theology class, a.k.a. bible study. As you can imagine, learning about the bible and about science and evolution simultaneously often conflicted with my then religion.

I pointed out such things to my favorite religion teacher (who later became a priest, bless his heart) and after fumbling around for an answer, he would tell the class that the bible should not be taken literally. That it’s there to be used metaphorically so that we can learn to become better people from examples and live in holiness and blah, blah, and blah.

At the time, his answer satisfied me. But after becoming a bit more experienced in life and learning about the other wonderful things it had to offer me, I began to see a flaw in that logic. I come to realize that in the past and present there are people in power who pick and choose from the bible what they damn well please and then interpret it how ever they damn well please to suit their needs in controlling the populous.

It is the theory of incremental and cumulative changes in an organism to adapt to its environment that is so damning to the power of religion. And I asked myself, why can’t everyone else see this? Why don’t people ask the same questions? Why can’t everyone else understand the elegance of evolution? Are they really that stupid?

I mean, its such a simple concept, how can anyone not get it? How can any rational human in their right mind sincerely believe that the earth is only 5,000 years old and that humans were created in the likeness of some omnipotent and omniscience being when there is so much evidence proving otherwise?

Seriously?

But yet, some or rather, many people don’t get it. They can’t wrap their heads around it. They don’t want to “get it.” Why? Because it contradicts the “holy” bible. They are resistant to understanding it and accepting it as a truth because their entire foundation is based on a book that they were told to be the literal word of “god” and they daren’t shake that foundation. We are the lost sheep and Jesus is the shepard as the biblical propaganda leads us to believe, and the fear of being lost is, as most of us can attest, a poignantly terrible one.

But I suppose when the church was the state back in the day and 99.9% of the population was illiterate and easily impressionable, that such fear mongering by the church on sin and hell was the perfect vehicle of mass control made some kind of demented sense. But now? In the information age where thoughts, opinions, experiments, and experiences are so easily exchanged that people still think this way?

That, to me, is unfathomable. I’ve never really realized until now the sheer number of people in the world that are so ignorant and resistant to the theory of evolution.

Perhaps I just give people too much credit.