I love quotes that bring up something I had never thought before. I love the simplicity of this one. A constant refrain you hear from opinionated creationists who are uneducated about the theory of evolution is something along the lines of “I ain’t descended from no chimpanzee!” I hadn’t thought about it before but really, how much more embarrassing is it to say “I’m descended from dirt!” Dirt (more commonly translated as dust), as you know, is what we are said to have been made from in the biblical book of Genesis.
Of course the truth is that in evolutionary theory we are not descended from chimps. We are descended from a common ancestor. The chimp ancestors went in one direction from that common ancestor and humans ancestors went in another direction. But whether a creationist likes the idea of it or not, our DNA proves we are the closest of relatives. Human and chimps have anywhere from 95% to 98.8% DNA in common, depending on what statistic you choose to believe. But the point, no matter the exact percentage, is that we are much more likely to have been descended from a common ancestor of the chimp than a common ancestor of dirt.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by T. H. Huxley, 1825-1895, English biologist
Monday Question: Do you know why, in the biblical story of Genesis, Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden?
Answer: Genesis 2:22 – And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden…
So, it wasn’t because they ate from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. There was punishment for that, but it did not include getting kicked out of the garden. They were kicked out so they would not be equal to the Gods (notice it’s plural when it says ‘become like one of us’), by becoming immortal through eating of the tree of life.