I know someone well, who thinks that animals eat each other because Adam and Eve ate a bad apple that God had told them not to eat. All the “bad stuff” in the world, including the physical adaptations that make animals look like they look, and make them brilliantly adapted to their particular environmental niche, came into the world from there on in because of the alleged sin.

There are more “sophisticated” versions of this explanation. But basically that’s the belief that some people, and my friend, have.

People can, in theory, believe what they like of course. We have always felt that we can and that we do. But when it comes to deciding how to live, it is very unhelpful to rely on explanations that are either unknowable or unreasonable.

To live well, we need good explanations, based on what actually IS. Things that can be seen to be true, or explained to be true, not simply said to be true.

And to my friend, this statement of mine is simply another “belief”, no different from their own.

The truth is we all should be Free To Decide these matters for ourselves.

I do wonder how free we really are though.