DarrenConley.com

You know, every now and then I am struck anew with just how amazingly blessed Larissa and I are to be in this place, at this time, in our particular situation.  Consider the following:

1. While the rest of the world is in the middle of an economic recession, we're in one of the only countries in the world that has an economy that's still growing, albeit at a slower rate than it did last year. 
2. While many are worried about losing their jobs, or have lost their jobs already, Larissa and I are well established in very secure 3 year contracts at a school that is still bringing in new teachers every semester (with the programs still expanding next year!)
3. We're earning salaries that are three to four times more money than we'd be earning in a comparable position back in Canada, and (for my part) shouldering a workload that is less than my colleagues that I left behind.
4. Everything we earn is tax free, and there is no sales tax on anything in this country.
5. Our accommodations are large, comfortable, and completely paid for by our company, including utilities.
6. We get free travel to and from Canada once each year, with several months of paid vacation time.
7. While we do not own a car, everything we need is within walking distance of our apartment, and anything that isn't is easily accessible by taxis, which regularly drive down our street every 5 to 10 minutes, and which cost, on average, only $5.00 CAD per ride.  Transportation to and from work is provided, and I can read or sleep each way every day.
8. I have access to all of the latest technology for teaching, and have an office that is triple the size of my old workspace back home.  If there is any piece of new technology or software that I might like to use at work, I tell the college and they buy it.
9. The weather outside is always clear and sunny, although it can be very hot in the summer.  But checking the weather is never a high priority, no matter what time of year.
10. Qatar is considered one of the safest countries in the world, with crime rates far below major cities in North America.  At the same time, I can enjoy most of the major indulgences of home: McDonalds and other American restaurant chains, free TV channels that show American programming, and any DVD or video game that can be found in Canada or the USA.

The only major thing that can make life difficult here is censorship.  Censorship can be found in many places in Qatar.  For instance, while any swear word is acceptable, both on TV and in movies, any theatrical run of a film will have all sexual content (including overtly sexual dialogue) and all nudity cut from the film, often leaving out portions of the story which seriously affect your understanding of the plot.  Watchmen has a character (who is completely computer generated) who often displays male genitalia in the film, and any and all scenes where this is visible were butchered in the theatre, often with conversations ending mid-dialogue and jumping to another scene.

Censorship is also found when browsing the internet.  Sexually explicit websites are completely blocked, as well as any website that is critical of the Qatari government, or critical of Islam.  This blocking practice often extends to websites that show streaming video (if the website itself does not censor the video content), which I may want access to in order to see movie trailers or videos to show in the classroom.  Thankfully, you can still watch YouTube in Qatar, although if you were in Turkey or Kuwait, you would not have access to it at all.

On the other side of censorship is the need to self-censor.  If I myself were to put anything on the internet that was critical of Islam, the Qur'an, or the Qatari government, I might not only find my website blocked, but I may find myself deported out of the country.  The same thing goes for portraying my workplace in a bad light, since our college is sponsored by the government.  Beyond that, it's never safe for your job security to be speaking badly about your employer in public.  Not that I would ever do so.  I love CNAQ.  And if any of my superiors from the college are reading this right now, I think you're doing an excellent, excellent job!  

The frustration for me is that I cannot share some of my daily concerns and thoughts with the internet community, and my loyal readers from back home.  For instance, I have a lot of thoughts about my current reading of the Qur'an, but there is no way that I'm going to write about it on my site, because if you look at that list of 10 blessings above, it's not worth the risk of losing all that stuff.  Any thoughts I have can easily be shared in person when I come back to Canada in August, or via more private correspondence.

So while the censorship issues are frustrating at times, it is a small price to pay for the numerous benefits of being in this place, at this time, doing what we're doing.  I'll catch up on the "uncensored" versions of movies when I'm back in Canada, or when they come out here on DVD.  In the meantime, I'm going to continue to follow my policy of doing my job, keeping my criticism to myself, and enjoying the unique benefits that life in Qatar has to offer.

[Update!  I just listened to THIS SERMON by Bruxy at The Meeting House, which falls in line with much of what I've said in the last part of this post!  I promise you that I didn't steal from his sermon!  I wrote this post 10 days earlier!]

I spend a lot of time riding the college shuttle bus to and from work.  I'm on it for at least an hour each day, sometimes an hour and a half.  Sometimes I spend my bus time talking, and sometimes I spend it sleeping, but most often I spend it reading.  And since there are so many classic, influential books which I haven't read, I generally choose to read something that is relevant to society or culture at large.  That, or something that makes me laugh.

The latest notch on my reading belt (reading belt?!) is Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species".  The back of the book boasted that "next to the Bible, no work has been quite as influential, in virtually every aspect of human thought."  Seemed like this book might be an important one to check out.

Like most semi-educated people in the world, I was familiar with Darwin by name, and I knew that he was the dude who was famous for suggesting that life evolved on Earth, instead of being instantly created.  I also had a fairly decent understanding of how evolution is supposed to operate (random mutation, natural selection, survival of the fittest, etc.)  In fact, I would venture to say that I went into this book with a better understanding of evolution than the average Joe (for example, I understood that evolution does not state that humans evolved from monkeys, but rather that monkeys AND humans evolved from a common ancestor).  What I didn't have was the capacity to say "Yes, I've actually read Darwin's most famous work for myself."

So I started reading The Origin of Species.  I made it through the special introduction by Sir Julian Huxley, I made it through the Historical Sketch section (which was the preface to the original edition), and I made it through the Introduction, so that (27 pages in) I finally made it to the start of Chapter 1.  I turned through each page, anxious to find the section that plainly states something along the lines of "The Common Ancestry of Humans and Apes," or "The Distant Cousinship of Man and Chimpanzee," or even "Proof That Your Grandparents Were Much Much Hairier Than You Are (Possibly)."  And you know what?  I didn't find it.  I couldn't find the controversial section that got the religious world up in arms.  It was rather disappointing.

What did I find?  Allow me to give you a very, very short summary of what each chapter talked about:

Chapter 1: How animals inherit traits from their parents, the difficulty in defining what a "species" is, how animal breeders selectively breed animals to maximize traits that they want.

Chapter 2: More specific info about how species are difficult to classify, and principles about how the size and range of species are related to their variety.

Chapter 3: How ecosystems (a term not used by Darwin) function, and the ways that living things struggle to survive (against their environment and against each other).

Chapter 4: What natural selection is (how it's like breeding done by man, but it's done by nature instead).

Chapter 5: How use and disuse of body parts works with natural selection, how some parts vary more than others, how children often show characteristics of parents (or ancestors).

Chapter 6: Addressing difficulties with natural selection (including the absence of transitional varieties).

Chapter 7: Addressing more objections (purpose of structures in transition, different organs developed from the same source, etc.)

Chapter 8: Instincts, how they're passed on (or not) through natural selection, examples of complex instincts in animals.

Chapter 9: Info about crossing plants and animals in making hybrids and how it affects sterility.

Chapter 10:  Problems with the geological record (mostly about how fossils are only properly preserved under specific conditions)

Chapter 11: How succession of plants and animals best explains the geological record and dispersion of species across the planet.

Chapter 12: How plants and animals came to be distributed across the planet (across oceans, mountains and other barriers, etc).

Chapter 13:  More stuff about geographical distribution (fresh water animals, islands vs. mainland, etc).

Chapter 14: How classification of living things only makes sense when done genealogically, how organs change, development of animal embryos giving clues to previous stages in evolution.

Chapter 15: Summary of objections, how far natural selection can be extended, concluding remarks.

That's it.  In no section of this book does Darwin even discuss human beings, although you could infer points about humans when he talks about "mammals", if you like.  He does spend an awful lot of time talking about breeding pigeons and horses, and discussing (in almost embarrassing detail) the reproductive situations of plants. 

Nowhere does he say "God does not exist" or "God did not create life".  The closest he comes to touching on these issues is in the final chapter, in his concluding remarks.  Here are several quotes which the religious community may find worthy of comment:

"The similar framework of bones in the hand of a man, wing of a bat, fin of the porpoise, and leg of the horse… and innumerable other such facts, at once explain themselves on the theory of descent with slow and slight successive modifications."

This is one of the only examples (and possibly the only example) where man is actually mentioned in the book.  And it is not saying that man evolved from a monkey or a single-celled lifeform.  It is only saying that similarity in structure implies a common source.  Darwin also says:

"I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one… A [believer in God] has written to me that 'he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.'"

Darwin ends his book by saying "there is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."

Let me tell you where I stand, having finished reading this book.  It is a belief that has largely been unaffected by Darwin's writing, and if anything has been strengthened by it.  As a child, I believed in the literal Biblical story of creation.  As I started to accumulate facts about the history of the world, I accepted (as a teenager) that a six-day creation, along with a young Earth, was not the only possibility. 

As a Bible college student, I accepted that the Genesis account of creation was quite intentionally written to be understood as poetic allegory, and not as literal fact.  Why?  The biggest reason is the poetic construction of the narrative.  Consider this:

Day 1: God creates light and darkness – Day 4: God creates the sun and moon (for the day and night)

Day 2: God separates the waters above and below (sky and sea) – Day 5: God creates birds in the sky and fish in the sea.

Day 3: God creates plants on the land – Day 6: God creates animals on the land, along with humanity (at the very end).

There are perfect parallels between days 1-3 and days 4-6.  Notice also that animals exist in the sea before they exist on land, and that mankind is the final act of creation.  This is oddly parallel to the order of the evolution of life, according to those who fully subscribe to Darwin's theory.

As a student of linguistics, I spent some time studying human anatomy (especially the anatomy related to language reception and production), and even had the opportunity to explore the anatomy lab at McMaster University and examine actual human bodies.  I learned that humans display many structures in common with animals, and even possess structures which are no longer useful to us, but which are still fully functional in lower animals (Darwin speaks of these "rudimentary organs" in his book).  This led me to accept the possibility that humans were not created exactly as they are today, and may have evolved from lower life forms.

Before I explain my present view, let me ask: Does all of this mean that I do not believe in God or creation?  No.  I absolutely believe in God, for the same reason that I accept much of the tenets of evolution – because there's far too much evidence in favour of this belief.  Do I believe in a literal six-day creation?  Absolutely not, both on the basis of geological evidence, and the evidence of the structure of the Genesis narrative itself.

So how do I reconcile this situation?  Just what do I believe?  I believe that God created the Earth and allowed it to evolve over millions of years to the point where it could sustain life.  Then I believe that God created life, in either one or several forms, and allowed it to evolve into the complex system of inter-connected ecosystems that we see today.  And at some point in the evolution of life, God chose the form (a primate in the past) that was perfectly suited to handle the privilege (and burden) of carrying the human soul, and breathed His spirit into it to grant it consciousness, morality, creativity, and all of the other qualities which separate man from the rest of creation.

Now, allow me to deal with some possible objections to this view.

1. If God is all-powerful and could have made everything in the blink of an eye, or in 6 days, why didn't He?  Why take the long, circuitous route of millions of years of evolution?

There's a lot of things God could have done differently, but He didn't.  Efficiency is largely a human concern, since we're only on this Earth for a limited period of time (less than 100 years, for most of us).  When you're an eternal being, time isn't a concern.  God could have created humans with the ability to be born and mature to adulthood in several months or weeks (like many animals do), but He thought it best that we spend years and years relying on other people, and learning long and difficult lessons.  I believe that it's part of His personality to be patient, and to allow life (in all it's forms) to reach maturity at its own pace, and creating life (and humanity) through evolution is consistent with that personality trait.

2.  Do you really think that life started out as some blob that found a way to survive in a primordial soup and somehow marched onto dry land one day?

Not exactly.  I believe that life MUST have started out with God creating it, because it is a fundamental scientific law that life cannot arise from something that is non-living.  I also believe that the conditions for life on this planet are so specific, and the structure of life so complex, that without God designing the DNA structure or finding the perfect environmental balance (temperature, atmosphere composition, gravity level, energy/food sources, etc.) that life could never have survived on its own without guidance or direction.  The very fact that there ARE universal laws, and the complete and absolute hostility of any environment outside of the Earth for the sustaining of life are both good reasons to believe that God had a huge hand in the creation of life on earth.

3. Why couldn't it be that everything else evolved, but that man was still specially created by God?

I think this question comes from the need to feel that we are specially separated from the rest of creation, and we are, but not because we did not evolve.  There is too much evidence showing that we share (often redundant) anatomical structures with animals.  We are separated from creation in that God chose us to be like Him – with a soul.  Just as God chose Abraham out of the rest of humanity to build a nation out of, and to reveal Himself in a greater way to; just as God chose Mary out of every other young, morally upright woman living in that specific time to be the mother of Jesus; and just as God chose to let humanity evolve to the point where we have the capacity to wipe out all life on the planet, presumably to let us see how we can handle the responsibility.

4. If you really believe that life evolved, why do you need God in the picture at all? 

Because, like I said, there is too much evidence that He exists.  The more that scientific research unravels the complexities of the universe (trying to take a "simple" look at Quantum mechanics, the structure of ecosystems, or the organization of the genetic code will demonstrate its complexity very quickly) reveals ordered structure, the existence of immutable laws, and complex inter-relations of lifeforms and systems that only God could conceive of, let alone create.  Not to mention the uniqueness of the human soul.  I have a friend (a pastor with a biology degree) who once told me "I could prove to you beyond the shadow of a doubt that evolution is true.  What it doesn't explain is the existence of the human soul."  We possess souls because God gifted the human race with something that was only His.  The complexity and diversity of the universe shows His complexity and diversity.  The age of the planet and nature of the development of life shows His patience.  

5. Isn't this just a compromise of your Christian beliefs?  Isn't this a "slippery slope" that leads to believing that the Bible isn't really true?

Absolutely not.  This is accepting the facts as they are offered and growing in an understanding of what is true.  If God, Christianity, or any other idea about the nature of reality is not true, it's not worth believing in.  I believe in God, Christ, and the workings of evolution because I believe there is overwhelming evidence of their truth.  I don't accept them as true and then try to twist the evidence (or lack thereof) to fit my views.  Anyone who asks you to close your eyes to the world, ignore obvious facts, or subject yourself to voluntary ignorance does not have truth (or your best interests) in mind.  The quest for truth is the ultimate goal of science, and should be a goal of any person of integrity.  Christianity (and every other religion or belief) will show itself true (or false) in the face of discovered facts.  What shows itself true should be embraced – what shows itself false must be discarded.  This is completely in line with Christian beliefs and principles (see 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22).

Wow, this is turning into a far longer post than I intended.  I wanted to dispel some misconceptions about Darwin's book, and I ended up trying to establish the truth of the nature of the universe.  Of course, the lines of thought raised in this post could lead to literally years of discussion, but in the interest of length (and reader attention) I'm going to wrap things up here.

In conclusion, check out "The Origin of Species" for yourself.  Just be prepared to find plenty of (arguably) boring scientific explanation and details about plant anatomy, and very VERY little in the way of controversial, sensational conjecture.  Oh, and in case any of you are wondering, my current bus-reading book is an English translation of the Qur'an.  Let's see if that leads to any controversial blog posts!

I am not a tennis player.  It's not that I don't like the sport, or that I don't have the opportunity to play tennis – I just have never gotten around to it.  The closest I've come is the occasional game of ping-pong, or playing it on my Wii when I'm REALLY bored.  

What I have done lately is participate in a boot camp program 3 times per week at the campus where I teach.  It's usually about 25 teachers and other staff members who commit to an hour of hardcore working-out on Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday nights from 4:30 to 5:30pm.  There are three instructors who are well equipped to whip us into shape (one is a certified trainer, one is a phys-ed teacher, and one is a very experienced athlete).  The camp lasted for about 3 months, and recently ended in mid-April.

Sometime in the first week of April, after a particularly strenuous boot camp, I noticed that I had some soreness in my right elbow.  Of course I wrote this off as the normal muscle soreness that one sometimes experiences after pushing their body a little too hard.  But as the days (and weeks) wore on, the soreness persisted, and actually started to grow worse, despite boot camp being finished.

So this past Saturday I decided to pay a visit to a local (and well-reputed) health clinic to have my arm checked out.  It took the doctor about 15 seconds to determine that I had Tennis Elbow.  Somehow I had developed a tennis-related injury without the benefit of having enjoyed the process of learning and playing tennis. 

My first thought was "well, at least it's not something too serious like cancer or arthritis or degenerative flesh-eating disease."  My second thought was "shouldn't I be getting sports-related injuries after having played actual sports?  Does this mean that I won't be able to work out any more?"  And my third thought, later in the day, was "perhaps this is a good opportunity to develop ambidexterity."

I've always wanted to be ambidextrous.  It's not that I think that it would give me any specific advantage in life or employment – it's more for the sake of symmetry, and possibly impressing people at parties.  It irks me a little that I should have one arm or hand (I'm right-handed) that is strong and skilled enough to write and accomplish most of life's tasks, while having a second arm, seemingly equal in shape and health, that is far less skilled.  I've tried to write with my left hand several times – my writing looks like that of a monkey on painkillers scribbling on a pad while playing bumper-cars.

In order to facilitate the healing of my right elbow, I've started to do most of my lifting or carrying with my left arm, but I started thinking – what other things could I do with my left arm or hand in order to increase its strength and dexterity?  I didn't get very far in my thinking before I could foresee some potential problems.

First, there's using a mouse on the computer.  I've always used my right hand for this, and while I've tried to use my left, it often renders the task I'm trying to accomplish impossible.  Suddenly, your index finger is being used for right-clicking and spinning the mouse wheel, while the middle finger is being used for the typical left-click.  Try it yourself – doesn't the mouse suddenly feel like you're wielding a tool of unnatural disutility?  This led me to wonder if they make left-hand mouses, or if left-handed people use their right hands for clicking, or use software to switch the buttons, or what.  Any lefties out there who want to let me know?

Another issue that came up is toilet paper use.  I noticed this morning during my wiping session that I automatically (and quite skillfully, if I do say so myself) use my right hand for dragging the toilet tissue across my butt.  But could I even attempt this with my left hand?  This would mean not only leaning to the other side, which would feel strange, but also taking the risk that my lack of left-handed dexterity could lead to a misjudgment in wiping pressure or vector alignment, and cause my fecal matter to end up where it shouldn't be (like on my hand, or smeared inconveniently on a larger area of my anus) rather than being skillfully removed as it usually is each morning.  I don't know if ambidexterity is worth the risk of a poo-related mishap at the start of my day.

After my morning poo, I typically eat my breakfast consisting of a couple bowls of Frosties, and being a right-handed individual, I hold my spoon in my right hand as I bring each delicious vitamin-and-sugar coated flake of dried corn-mash from the bowl to my mouth.  But what if I tried my left hand?  Would I be able to truly enjoy my breakfast if I attempted to navigate my cereal bowl with a less-skilled hand at the helm?  Would my breakfast table end up a mess of spilled milk and carelessly dropped cereal matter?  And breakfast is the easiest meal to eat, generally speaking.  What about supper?  I already eat most of my meals semi-naked to avoid staining my clothes with Larissa's wonderful cooking.  Eating supper with my left hand could lead to epic disaster.  I would probably make less of a mess if I just tipped my plate onto the floor at the start of the meal.  Is the skillful use of both hands worth both the required cleanup and the disappointment at having watched such delicious meals be wasted in a hand-training exercise?

Thus far, I have not seen fit to take the risks needed to accommodate the development of ambidexterity.  However, I'm not completely giving up.  If I'm using the computer for something that is not very important (and let's be honest here, computers are used 85% of the time for goofing off), or if I have a dump that feels relatively residue-free, or if I'm eating a meal that has been poorly prepared while wearing clothes that I don't really care about, I'll try out the left hand and see what happens.  After all, if life can see fit to give me tennis elbow without having actually played tennis, perhaps it can cut me some slack in learning to be ambidextrous.