Dear Darwin Bedford:
I noticed that you are looking for concreteness in human
life. You seem to try to base your theory on only what is proven to be
true. This becomes a problem in your statement:
Language evolved
as a means of communication between humans. Words, the basic elements of language, were developed by our
ancestors and many of these words in one form or another are still in use today,
while new words are constantly entering our linguistic data base.
Evolution is not a proven fact. It
takes much faith to believe in evolution, with the fact that there are no
transitional phases found in the fossil records, among other things. In
fact there is no proof that the earth has been here 4.5 billion years, only
theory. DR Walt Brown, in the book In the Beginning: Compelling
Evidence for Creation and the Flood (www.creationscience.com),
states:
Children as young as seven months understand grammatical
rules.a
Furthermore, studies of 36 documented cases of
children raised without human contact (feral children) suggest that language is
learned only from other humans; humans do not automatically speak. If this is
so, the first humans must have been endowed with a language ability. There is no
evidence language evolved.b
Nonhumans communicate, but not with language. True
language requires both vocabulary and grammar. With great effort, human trainers
have taught some chimpanzees and gorillas to recognize a few hundred spoken
words, to point to up to 200 symbols, and to make limited hand signs. These
impressive feats are sometimes exaggerated by editing the animals’ successes
on film. (Some early demonstrations were flawed by the trainer’s hidden
promptings.c) Apes have not demonstrated these skills in the wild and do
not pass them on to others. When a trained animal dies, so does the trainer’s
investment. Also, trained apes have essentially no grammatical ability. Only
with grammar can a few words express many ideas. No known evidence shows that
language exists or evolves in nonhumans, but apparently all human groups have
language.d
If language evolved, the earliest languages should be
the simplest. On the contrary, language studies show that the more ancient the
language (for example: Latin, 200 B.C.; Greek, 800 B.C.; and Vedic Sanskrit,
1500 B.C.), the more complex it is with respect to syntax, case, gender, mood,
voice, tense, and verb form. The best evidence indicates that languages devolve;
that is, they become simpler instead of more complex.e
Most linguists reject the idea that simple languages
evolve into complex languages.f
(See Figure 137
on page 255.)
And further about speech:
Speech is uniquely
human.a
Humans have both a “prewired” brain capable of
learning and conveying abstract ideas, and the physical anatomy (mouth, throat,
tongue, larynx, etc.) to produce a wide range of sounds. Only a few animals can
approximate some human sounds. Because the human larynx is low in the neck, a
long air column lies above the vocal cords. This is important for making vowel
sounds. Apes cannot make clear vowel sounds, because they lack this long air
column. The back of the human tongue, extending deep into the neck, modulates
the air flow to help produce consonant sounds. Apes have flat, horizontal
tongues, incapable of making consonant sounds.b
Even if an ape could evolve all the physical equipment
for speech, that equipment would be useless without a “prewired” brain for
learning language skills, especially grammar and vocabulary.
The complex
quilting of the close you are wearing were crafted by a creator. You would
not expect such a complex form of size, color, quilting, and texture to be a
random act of nature. Mount Rushmore was carved by men, a very complex
work of art, but you would not expect to find it as a work of nature, without a
creator. In the same way, the smallest one celled organism is made up of
numerous complex structures, with the life it contains not duplicable by
man--would you expect for this to naturally occur in nature, or by the hand of a
creator?
The assumptions of Spiritual Reality Therapy actually requires
more faith than believing in a creator or God. By your own theory, would
this make having this much faith in something that is just myth a
pathology?
Grace
Robert R***