My Evolution

Lately, I’ve been researching evolution. It started in a strange place, watching fish and insects on TikTok and wondering what I was actually looking at.

The more I looked into it, the more questions it raised.

At the same time, I’ve been wrestling with my faith, especially the idea of the resurrection and what it means to actually believe it.

Right now, the most honest thing I can say is that I’m agnostic. Not closed off, just trying to understand.

Science has given me a framework for how things work. Plate tectonics shows that continents move inches every year. Over millions of years, that adds up. So the idea that the Earth is only a few thousand years old doesn’t hold up for me.

From everything we can measure, the Earth is about 4.54 billion years old. That’s not just a casual theory; it’s based on consistent evidence.

And honestly, that number is hard to comprehend.

But even with all of that, there are still questions science doesn’t fully answer, like how life began, or why anything exists at all.

So now I’m sitting in this space between understanding how things work and wondering what it all means.

When I look at religion, it seems like different frameworks people use to interpret reality. Christianity claims to be the truth. But so do other religions.

And if multiple systems all claim certainty, it makes me question whether they are describing reality itself or interpreting it.

If that’s the case, then the question becomes: which framework, if any, do I choose?

Right now, I find myself drawn to Judaism, the history, the language, and the continuity. There’s something grounded about it.

What stands out to me is how it views human nature.

Some theologies, like original sin or certain Calvinist models, explain the world by assuming human depravity. And I get why people can be destructive, selfish, even cruel.

But I don’t see humanity as fundamentally depraved. If that were true, the world would be far more chaotic than it is. Most people aren’t out to destroy each other. They’re inconsistent, conflicted, and often driven by competing forces.

Judaism captures that tension with two ideas: Yetzer HaTov and Yetzer HaRa.

Yetzer HaTov is the good inclination. the part of us that exercises restraint, thinks long-term, cares about others, and aligns with values.

Yetzer HaRa is the so-called “evil” inclination, but it’s not evil in a supernatural sense. It’s impulse, desire, appetite, ego, and survival drive. The same forces that build families, businesses, and civilizations can also lead to excess and destruction when unchecked.

So instead of seeing humanity as broken at its core, this framework sees us as divided, capable of both alignment and misalignment.

And that feels closer to what I actually observe.

Because when I look around, I don’t see people as inherently evil.

I see people as human.

I also like the idea of Teshuva, which means return.

And the meaning of sin, Chet, which means missing the mark.

So when we chet, we miss the mark. And then we return to what aligns us.

For me, that alignment is Jesus.

Not just the label “Jesus,” but what he represents, the pattern. Truth, restraint, sacrifice, not folding under pressure, not playing the game even when it costs you.

Am I still wrestling with Jesus?

Yes.

I want to believe. I want certainty. But I don’t understand the resurrection, and I don’t fully understand his life.

And I don’t believe in penal substitution, the idea that Jesus died as a sacrifice to pay for sin.

That framework doesn’t make sense to me.

Jesus didn’t die for our sins as some kind of transaction. He died because of our sins, because of human systems, power, fear, and control.

He challenged people, and they killed him for it.

That feels more real than the idea that God needed blood to forgive.

To be honest, I don’t really understand the sacrificial system at all.

The last time I missed the mark, I didn’t go sacrifice an animal. I didn’t need to.

I recognized it. I felt it. I adjusted.

So the idea that Jesus had to be sacrificed for me… doesn’t fully land.

Right now, I’m not rejecting everything.

I’m just trying to figure out what’s actually true.