Diaries, evolution and rude people

“Dear diary. Today I met a wonderful girl…”

I am well past the age where I feel the need to commit such wonderful and intimate experiences as a crush on a girl or the first kiss to paper. Moreover I am (and probably has always been) too cynical to believe in the therapeutic value of writing down my life’s greatest events. However, I do keep what could be loosely called a diary. For the past 10 years I have never left my house without a notebook and a pen. I do not harbor hidden fantasies about becoming famous at some point in my life (or even after my death), nor do I believe at any given time my diaries will be worth anything to anyone. I simply like to keep track of certain events and anecdotes. Sometimes I go months between writing anything down. Sometimes I get cases of what my mother refers to as “verbal diarrhea” and fill page after page with pseudo-intellectual ramblings.

Most of the entries refer to people I’ve met; in order to qualify for being written in my notebook the new acquaintance has to be a) an extremely interesting person, b) an extremely annoying person, c) an extremely scary person, d) and extremely stupid person, or e) all of the above.

This weekend my wife had to work on both Saturday and Sunday. Having so much free time to myself I decided to look through piles of notes and photographs that I’ve made over the years and organize them in some fashion that would be at least somewhat useful to me. While flipping through the pages of a notebook from 2003 I came across a short blurb regarding a person who qualified for becoming a subject for my wonderful penmanship by the virtue of being extremely arrogant.

As I recall (and my recollection is supported by several paragraphs in a notebook) I was sitting at the Coffee Tree coffeehouse in Squirrel Hill, peacefully reading a book by Richard Dawkins. The book was titled The Blind Watchmaker. A middle-aged gentleman moseyed over and asked if he could share a table with me. Seeing that the Coffee Tree is a rather popular place and that table space is somewhat hard to come by, I graciously nodded and went back to reading my book. For a few minutes the gentleman sipped his coffee; then he turned to me and asked me what the book was about.

I explained that the book was about the argument on the subject of Evolution vs. Intelligent Design and that the title is a pun on the famous William Paley’s analogy that if a pocket watch is found on a field, it is most reasonable to assume that someone dropped it and that it was made by a watchmaker and not by natural forces and therefore complex structures, such as living things, must be the work of God. I also explained that Richard Dawkins uses examples from biology and genetics to prove and to extrapolate on the theory of evolution.

When I uttered the word “evolution” the gentleman’s expression quickly changed from friendly curiosity to one of frustration and anger. He told me, and I quote: “People who write and publish this garbage should be publicly punished. They stand for everything that’s evil in this world. God created our planet, God created you and me. Whoever doubts that will burn in hell forever. And that includes you, young man!”

Even though I consider myself an agnostic, to quote a friend of mine “I am absolutely sure that I don’t know”. I have always tried hard to be respectful of other people’s religious views and beliefs. However, this guy’s angry outburst brought out my “rude asshole” personality and I replied with what I though was a witty repartee: “Do you think that God put fossils in the ground just to fuck with your head?”

My response was definitely rude, and if the man with whom I had this conversation ever reads my blog, I would like to apologize. However, the question of Evolution vs. Intelligent Design is still far from closed to me. I have unbounded fascination with why people chose to believe that humans were created by a higher power regardless of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary? So, to answer my own question I decided to do my own survey/documentary.

I will not be able to start working on this immediately as I need to finish a couple of projects that I am currently working before I undertaking anything new. When I have more free time, I would like to procure a camcorder and interview a number of people of different faiths, upbringings and educational backgrounds. I would like to talk to priests, rabbis, ministers, scientists and just random people. At some point I will add a section to my website where everyone who wishes will be able to leave their opinions on the subject. Hey, maybe I’ll even make a movie out of it.

Meanwhile, if you have an opinion on the subject and would like to write a few lines, please feel free to do so.