Evolution & Identity (part 1)

I've been trying to write this post of more than a week but have failed several times. I was trying to link it to the evolution thread and the Proselytizers thread. However, as time passes and the emotional arder fades it is becoming harder and harder to reconnect to the emotional color of the moment.

Though evolution is well esablished scientific theory, which is more like what we call a fact than what what is known in common parlance as a theory, many people still reject it. Often times this rejection is rooted in some sort of notion of identity. When our brains develop to the point where they have the complexity to have the kind of self awareness that recognizes self and distinguishes self from other, very shortly there after we begin building our identity. This process of constructing an identity can be observed in children. Three major questions of identity are: Who am I, Where did I come from and Where do I fit into the world. Traditionally, these question of identity have been answered by religion. The answers to those three questions are some of the "truths" that are considered divinely revealed. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the answers run along the lines of: "You are the child of God", "From Adam & Eve", and the "plan of God is as follows...". I think that one of the appeals of religion is that it provides answers to these questions quickly and without much thought. People can quickly have their need for answers satisfied by people anxious to bring them into the fold.

Evolution as a concept, strikes deeply at these pat answers of identity. It forces people to completely reunderstand themselves. They are forced to give up a big portion of their identity, who they think that they are, and accept a different concept. This is a huge step and far beyond what most people are able to deal with in adulthood. Having been there and having done that, I consider it one of my greatest accomplishments of my adult life. It was a lonely painful process. However, looking back I feel as though this was a transformation much like a catepillar turning into a moth. My personal metaphore for this process was borrowed from the place that I lived at the time, Santa Cruz.

In Santa Cruz their is often marine fog and it is grey overcast. Under this fog, you can see for miles but you have a ceiling that blocks out the light from the sun and often the stars. However, I would fly out of the airport near Santa Cruz, climb into the fog (which is a disorienting experience that I had to train hard to be able to handle well effectively), and then I would pop out of the top of the marine layer and there around me would be glorious sun. It would be a beautiful clear day and my vision was unlimited by the clouds. At night I could see all the way to the stars. That is the way I feel now. Now that I've popped out of the layer of clouds, I can see farther than I ever imagined and things that were once hidden from me, obscured by the clouds, are now open to me.