This is an excerpt from one of my sociology reflections. I was talking about how I think it's very important to teach biological evolution in school. This was a footnote I wrote:

My ego, if I had one , would definitely not be negatively affected by the fact of evolution. My self-esteem, however, is positively affected. In fact, I find it more empowering. How bland is it if a guy named God, who left no room for improvement, brought you into existence in just one day, exactly as you are? How disparaging is it to know that everything you've ever achieved, learned, and understood wasn't because of your own doing, but because of God. But more importantly, does that make any sense whatsoever? Getting back to my point of empowerment, evolution makes you see far back into the past where proto-humans climbed down from trees, walked upright through the African savannahs, and studied the world with nothing more than their five senses. It's compelling to know that Homo Erectus learned how to make fire and stone tools on their own, without divine intervention. And now, millions of years later, the same genes that made them make us, only we build computers and skyscrapers instead. Indeed we've come a long way from these primitive beings and nothing can be more profound. But why would people be so averse to evolution? Well because it no doubt equates us to chimps and bonobos, and for some reason many people can't accept that. The human ego is far too strong and wants to be atop everything else. The "ignorant masses" shout, "the universe was made for us," or, "how can a human come from an ape?" completely leaving out the millions of years of infinitesimal variations on which natural selection can act on. But creationists do not believe in millions of years and thus can never be persuaded. I, on the other hand, feel enlightened knowing that I'm part of this long stream of carbon-based life forms, where all life forms on earth, and perhaps in space, are my cousins. Expanding even more, the heavy elements that constitute organic life on Earth and the physical Earth itself (oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, etc...) did not always exist. They were all synthesized under the immense pressure and temperature in the heart of stars that died billions of years ago. Once these stars' lives came to an end, they exploded in massive supernovae, spreading their "enriched guts" all over the galaxy, to later condense into second-generation planets and stars comprised with the newly ubiquitous heavy elements. Thus not only do you live in the universe, you are the universe. Truly beautiful it is to be one with the cosmos.