In the beginning, there was darkness. The ocean stood still and lifeless, covering the crust of the Earth with its heavy waters. Deep under the currents of our Precambrian world, volcanic vents ignited the ingredients that would create the first micro-organisms. They were as small as could be, just single-cell prokaryotes living peacefully inside the vents. But something about their genetic material was able to serve as a vessel for the most basic form of a soul as well. Their bodies were for us, the oldest of souls, the first to be introduced to Earth. Our motives were simple: to survive, seek energy, and reproduce through cellular mitosis. Each mitosis created a new soul in a new cell, and supplied new bodies for older souls that wanted to return to our beautiful planet. If there weren't any souls left to be reborn, a new one was created from its unique genetic blueprint.
It was a long time before these cells found a way to group themselves together and form larger organisms. At some point in the Precambrian- roughly a billion years ago- the strongest of us found a way to latch onto the cells that had divided from us. They tried to drift away, but we grabbed ahold of them by using a new material called collagen, saying, "Hold on there, partner, we've got work to do." And so, two cells bonded together, and then four, and then tens and thousands, until the first multicellular eukaryotes began living on the ocean floor. At that point we were still Protozoa, but we'd revolutionized the idea of trans-cellular interaction, and were able to build ourselves into bigger and better beings.
A hundred million years later we became large enough to act as one body. The oldest of us possessed these large bodies in order to familiarize all of life with the macrocosmic world. We were only immobile sponges at this point, but soon we figured out how to arrange ourselves in geometrical proportions with great efficiency. These geometries were fractal and orderly, because fractals allow for the greatest amount of construction in an organism by using the least amount of genetic code.
Eons passed and the Earth cooled down. At times it would cool so much that it was nothing but ice. Even the oceans were covered by it. Geologists call this the “Snowball Earth”, and it has happened at least twice. Yet underneath the ice, life found a way to survive. Certain bacteria found ways to warm itself; thus, if it weren’t for these survivors we’d never even be here. After the ice melted away, roughly 550 million years ago, an explosion of life burst from the seams, in what has been deemed the Cambrian Explosion by Paleontologists.
It was during this time in the Earth’s history that we grew into bodies with multiple organs. First, we were just blobs of organic material, and once we got larger we became asymmetrical sponges, like the ones seen today. Some of these sponges evolved into charnia, a fractal-like organism that looks more like a plant in today’s world. At first, we were only able to move at an alarmingly slow rate. The motivation to mobilize our bodies came from a hunger for the food that lay on the ocean floor around us. After this our bodies elongated and we were able to move quicker. We took on worm-like figures and developed brains, kidneys, and hearts. From this, we evolved into comb jellyfish, fishes and tetrapods, including the ichthyostega- the first known tetrapod. One of these swimming tetrapods, the tiktaalik, became the first animal to walk on land when it trudged out of the water and squirmed its way ashore. Presumably, we’d developed these muscular legs in order to escape from predators roaming in the shallow waters.
Then came the golden age of reptiles. Dinosaurs evolved from land-dwelling amphibians that had risen from the ocean, and it’s likely that the first mammals branched off from them as well. As dinosaurs dominated the world, mammals got smaller and smaller in order to hide from them- all the way to the dimensions of mice. The last common ancestors of mice and humans was 100 million years ago, 45 million years before a mass extinction that wiped the dinosaurs out.
Dinosaurs evolved into birds when they could no longer sustain themselves in an atmosphere unsuitable for beings their size. Long after this extinction, primates arose in equatorial regions. First, they resembled modern day shrews, and then grew larger, into lemurs. Then came the apes and chimpanzees. How we developed into humans from chimps is debatable, but most scientists agree that the advantages of having legs, hands, and a large brain played crucial parts. What most likely happened was that a group of isolated chimps had access to a field that consisted of both prey and predators. Their main source of food came from this field; they had to be quick if they wanted to avoid getting eaten. Thus, our legs grew longer and we were able to run faster. Eventually they grew longer than our arms and we were able to walk upright, making us become the first hominids. The advantage of becoming bipedal was that it freed up our hands to become more dexterous and make tools. This made it easier for us to hunt and eat. It also allowed our jaws to slacken, which meant that our skulls could enlarge for brain development. Once we learned how to use basic tools and create our own fire, these advantages helped our brains grow exponentially.
Then came all the wonderful races of man, which were all isolated before interbreeding took center stage in the Age of Civilization. If we hadn’t mixed with other races, it’s likely that each race would have evolved into different species. Now that we’re mixing more, we’ve prevented such diversification and our species is more defined.
The strongest evidence for evolution isn’t in the fossils we’ve recovered, but in Recapitulation Theory. According to this, when we look at a developing fetus we can see the entire story of its genetic journey through the geological record. This is why the shape of every mammal in a fetus looks the same until its genetic code alters it. Our fetuses look like those of mice and primates until extra genes are added to make us human. This is why we only use about 10% of our actual genetic material. The 90% of genes we don’t use are instructions for creating all the other species we descended from. We know this because of the discovery of switch genes. Genes can switch on and off, making particular beings take on resemblances to species they were before their own. Deformities and mental retardation are caused by genes that stopped developing and stayed the same as whichever ancestor they resembled.
The cells of such deformed creatures seem to hold a hint of nostalgia for what they'd created long ago. A cell is a living, breathing being. It uses oxygen to function and contains energy to perform its duty. Each cell is like a member of a team, performing special functions required to carry out the plan of a body. They seem to have “minds” of their own, without having a central nervous system. Inexplicably, they move by their own choosing, according to whatever code their DNA provided for them. As they move through a body, they “smell” and “taste” certain chemicals and enzymes that they could benefit from. Certain cells “communicate” with others to work in tandem; others fight infection and disease to keep a body alive. Cells don’t process sensory information the way a brain does, but they do have sensors. In this manner they are primitive forms of minds and souls. From an evolutionary standpoint, you could say this metaphysical attribute means that souls, like bodies, evolved from primordial bacteria as well.
Physically, our bodies are made of trillions of our ancestors, each working to help us in the fight for survival. Yet the souls of cells are young, possessed by minds that have just been introduced to the chain of life. They have a long way to go before they reach the advanced stage of human-hood. Are they aware that they serve a larger purpose? Might it be possible that we ourselves make up a constituent body that we aren’t aware of, a cosmic continuum in which one mind directs all the organisms it consists of into separate functions? If this is the case, then we would be part of a cosmic fractal in which Intelligent Design plays a critical role, albeit an unconscious one. In this respect, Intelligent Design doesn’t mean things are created at will, but by unconscious forces acting on tiny variations in complex systems. The idea possesses a sense of symmetry that both scientists and men of faith might come to agreement with.
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