Everybody has the Same Great-Grandparents

DNA turns up some interesting stuff. Recently it has informed us that every single person on the earth had a common ancestor, very recently.

"All humans alive today share a surprisingly recent common ancestor, perhaps even within the last 5,000 years, even for people born on different continents" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve). This from the evolutionists. They go on to say there was a geneological line leading to this common ancestor that we all have in common too, going back to our first parents, who they theorize lived 50,000-75,000 years ago.

In a nutshell, scientifically speaking, a very long time ago there were these first parents of humanity. They had children and earth's population increased rapidly. Then suddenly a disaster struck 5,000 years ago (scientists theorize a giant meteor or volcano) and only one family survived, the ancestors of all people alive today.

If you ask this wild-eyed Christian, it sounds suspiciously like the story of Noah and the Flood, the disaster the Bible claims happened 5,000 year ago. All right, I know I'm a little wild-eyed and frothy at the mouth. Still.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF THIS SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY

Darwin and scientists after him generally guessed that humans evolved in different branches all over the earth. Thus, Darwin assumed that Caucasians had evolved on a branch before other races like Africans and Australian Aborigines. In fact, he guessed that one day Caucasians would exterminate the more primitive races as Caucasians continued to evolve.

"At some future period … the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races...The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope … the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."

--Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 2nd ed., A.L. Burt Co., New York, p. 178, 1874

This idea that some humans are genetically superior to others supported racism in the 20th century, including some of Hitler's rationalizations for German racial supremecy.

But this DNA discovery turns that idea on its ear. It means we are closely related (relatively speaking) to every other human on earth. Not to sound like a hippie, but we are all one family. There are no branches of various 'homo sapien' species.

I sometimes feel shy of strangers. But this discovery tells me (as the Bible has always taught) that all of us humans are close family. When I look at a Chinese person, squatting strangely on the street, spitting, his Asian face staring back at me, the realization has been sinking in that he is my brother, that she is my sister. None of us are any closer to monkeys than anyone else, as scientists tried to suggest for a while. We are closely related. We are family.

"From one he created all the nations throughout the whole earth....For in [God] we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, "We are his offspring."

--Paul of Tarsus, (circa 40 C.E.), Acts 17:26