Devo – Jocko Homo. I love that line: “God made man, but the monkeys applied the glue.”

As a young man I accepted evolution AND held onto creationism. it was contradictory, but it worked – until my third year of college.

I grew up in the creationist-friendly Southern Baptist Church, but I loved science. Evolution was a common theme in the science fiction I read, but I could entertain a premise without believing it.

The Cinematic Orchestra – Evolution

I was very good at compartmentalizing. When you’re a Baptist you have to be. I also had common sense. I knew the world wasn’t 8,000 years old or created in six days. I knew there was no way the Noah’s Ark story could be literally true.

But I found loopholes. Maybe creationism was kind of true. A day for God might last a million years, who knew what six days meant to Him. Perhaps Adam and Eve were hairy, but human. My uncle was pretty hairy. Mostly I didn’t worry about it. I was too busy being a young man.

Then I took a college course that changed everything. It was called Human Geography and it was fascinating. I love learning about other lands and cultures. National Geographic helped raise me. I had no idea the course would also shake me to my foundations.

I learned about the Rift Valley of Africa, where the creatures that became us almost certainly originated. I learned about the extremely numerous fossils of pre-human cousins.

Fundamentalist conspiracy theories about “the missing Taung Baby exhibit” weren’t going to cut it. There were a LOT of fossils and they added up.

There was Homo habilis, which made tools, though not with much finesse. There was Homo erectus, much better toolmakers who migrated into Europe and Asia. This was in the late ’80s. I know other species of human have been discovered since.

What I learned shook me up, but it also excited me. The science fiction fan in me wished for a time machine, so I could get a look at some of these creatures.

I wanted to see the waterfall at the Strait of Gibraltar, filling up the Mediterranean basin after a previous Ice Age (It may have been closer to a flood as it turns out). I wanted to see Australopithecus robustus, which I imagined as an upright silverback gorilla that could really take a punch to the jaw. My imagination was on fire.

We learned about Johanson’s argument with fellow paleontologist Richard Leaky over the age of a layer in the rock, which in turn impacted the age of some important fossils. It was striking, because they were quibbling over millions of years, not thousands.

I enjoyed the hell out that class, but it got under my skin. It nagged at me. My version of Baptist doctrine had been a given, part of reality. Suddenly the ground was no longer quite solid.

Budos Band – Origin of Man

How much of what I thought I knew was actually true? I tried to talk about it with my friends at the Baptist Student Union, but they weren’t interested.

“You should read some creation science” didn’t really feel like an answer. My compromise couldn’t last. I wasn’t really interested in what preachers had to say since I’d already been burned over the stupid Rapture thing.

Over time I came to terms with evolution. A lot of things made sense that didn’t before. No point trying to deny it. There was still plenty of mystery in the world.

I didn’t become an atheist. That came later (and I’ve modified that stance). But I had to change. I couldn ‘t call myself a fundamentalist anymore. If I was to remain a Christian, I would have to at least take parts of the Bible with a grain of salt.

I figured it contained a lot of truth, but in a book that old, a lot had to be lost in translation. I still value the Bible, btw, just differently. What makes it important isn’t literal truth, but the wisdom it contains.