Rare Find

I am amazed to read on CNN.com this morning (http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/02/scientists-find-signs-of-ancient-man-made-fire/?hpt=hp_bn13) that scientists have discovered a cave in Africa where it appears that humanoids used fire and possibly cooked food a million years ago. Wow. The article goes on to say that there is evidence that humans have controlled fire for the past 400,000 years. This rattles me to the core.


I order my beef rare. I do not care if it is a fillet or a hamburger; I prefer the taste and texture of rare beef to beef that is cooked well. My argument when dinner companions become aghast has been that for the 2 to 4 million years we have evidence that humans have been on the planet, it appears that mastery of fire has only been around for about 40,000 years. Therefore, we obviously survived for millions of years on rare meat and raw veggies. The ability to cook food arrives late in our history.

But now, it appears my core argument is wrong. Even if we mastered cooking as far back as 400,000 years, much less a million years, I need to rethink. That would mean that for only about ½ of our existence did we survive on rare meat and raw veggies. Not nearly so impressive an argument.

I am however, even more upset that many of the readers of this article posted comments that implied that they believe the planet and life here is only 6,000 years old so all of this is some kind of liberal scientific conspiracy. Really? This belief comes from a literal translation of the Bible, counting generations from Adam and Eve to today. I am so dumbfounded by these statements I am not sure where to begin. But, begin I shall:

I am a believer. I believe in things unseen. I believe there are some things that are unknowable and beyond our understanding that must be taken on faith. I believe that our God-given gift of rational thought is just that, a God-given gift rarely bestowed on other life forms to the degree we have it. Therefore, using my rational mind is for me a form of worship of the God that does in fact exist.

The Bible was not written by God. It was written by man. It was not written to be a literal scientific text book, a mathematical textbook, an auto mechanics book, or an astrological text book. It was written to describe in mostly metaphorical and allegorical terms ways in which God interacts with humans and humans interact with each other. I would no more turn to the Bible when my computer crashes or my car breaks down than I would turn to the Bible to determine the age of a bone using carbon-dating. Why in the world would I do that? Surely, God must laugh every time someone does that. For those who seem to insist on doing so, I wonder if they have sworn off all the scientific advances made in the last 2,000 years that are not in the Bible? Do they have cell phones? Do they take medicine? Do they have X-rays? Do they drive cars? Do they own firearms? Good Lord, who are these people?

If I am rattled by good science in terms of how I order my steak, then I am pleased that I remain a rational person informed by rational minds. If I choose to ignore the evidence and hang on to false beliefs, then I am insulting the God who gave us the precious gift of our minds.

I will still order my steak rare despite the rare find in Africa. I will still pray for those who are burdened with such cognitive dissonance as believing they live on a 6,000 year old planet and that humans co-existed with dinosaurs. If we all believed that, we too would deserve to become extinct.