by Jimmy G

Created on: March 20, 2010   Last Updated: March 23, 2010

To say that 2 or more things coexist with one another is to assume that they're both on the same level. Oil and water don't mix, but they coexist. They're both natural products. People of different religion can be said to coexist. Despite the differences in beliefs and practices, they live in harmony within a city such as Toronto. 

But what about God and the idea that living things evolved from previous living things now extinct? Well that depends on what you mean by those terms, especially the term 'God'. Let's first look at what science and scientists do.

In very general term, scientists study the behavior of things in nature. They follow the principle of verifiability that states that a statement is meaningful if it can be verified to be true or false. Scientists study what can be observed by the naked eye or what can be inferred from observations and experiments. If this were so, paleontologists study bones of extinct animals; and although they may find some similarities with the ones that are living, scientists cannot jump to the conclusion that there indeed was an evolution. Evolution is a theory. As such, it cannot be proven. But, unlike creationism, evolution theory has a stronger explanatory power. Unfortunately, it has been treated by many scientists and laymen alike as if it were a scientific fact that can be observed by the naked eye. If that were so, then there would not have been a debate between evolution and creationism (which is another theory).

What then is the use of a theory if it is not a scientific fact? A theory is used to make sense of the facts gathered and studied. However, to be true to the spiriti of science, scientists should be ready to let go of a theory when there are too many facts that will eventually contradict it. But, so far, there aren't that many facts that could damage the theory of evolution.

And, what of the term 'God'? As you are probably aware, there are many notions of God. The mystics' notion of God is so different from the ordinary man's notion of God that the ordinary man, except the mystic and highly developed spiritual person, wouldn't even be able to recognize it. This is so because the God for the mystics can't be talked about it. God has no name. But more suprisingly, God is not even a being. For a being to be a being, a being is limited and defined. And if anything can be defined, it can be given a name and possibly be studied. Mystics believe that we can only infer what God is, but not directly know

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