A Heretic's Heart

I can also say that finding that peace within myself, the peace that allowed me to love Paige as I felt I wanted to, had me seeking to understand how those pulls were so powerful in me. I don't think that is an obsession, and in me, not even a passion—all of any passion I had was for Paige. In that, I did harbor a love of knowledge, and a thorough dislike of ignorance that should have been overcome ages ago. To that end, I did continue to learn, and as I learned more, my peace became greater and greater, as did my love of Paige, though I'm not sure I could ever love her more than I already do, she so filled my being.

That learning was aided by some very pregnant facts that I learned, and not only from finding errors in the bible—which are plentiful, I must say in all honesty—but some things that are irrefutable scientifically as well as historically, and even evolutionarily.

Modern research has found that whales must have at one time walked on land; they even still have vestiges of a pelvis which is now not necessary to them. Things like that amazed me, but even more, the fact that we were once in our deepest past, possibly able to be as many primates are now has been in very real evidence, and that in some newborn children.

Every now and then a child has been born with what we no longer need as we did in that deep past. Our coccyx was originally a part of a tail, and is a vestige of it that is no longer used as such, but on occasion, a child is born with the three 'caudal' vertebrae that are not fused as is now usual in newborns, but visibly extended.

There are now countless such findings being made by researchers. Anyone who has lived in parts of south Florida may have easily seen what are commonly called 'walking' catfish traveling over land to the next waterway. Speaking of fish, the precursor to land animals—an intermediate between fish and land living animals—has been found on Ellesmere Island near the Arctic.

While that precursor to land animals may look similar to a fish, it has a couple of features that are not generally found in fish, the big one, a neck, and much more. I found it hard not to accept what I was learning, the evidence being so great, and becoming even greater still.

As Ms. Connor said, evolution was one tremendous idea, but not the all-in-all by a long shot, but it was certainly a great part of our modern, and verified knowledge. That all conflicted with most of the bible's unprovable words, which I already had found to be contradicted by history too.

There was no doubt in my mind that many of those who were said to have begun the march towards Christianity really believed, and in that world, they desperately needed whatever hope they could cling to. In modern times, that many still needed something to cling to, was still true, but illiteracy should have disappeared, though why it didn't, I didn't know.

In our day and age, what we needed was more knowledge, and an awareness of what our world was like, and how we could make it better, not just more profitable monetarily for some. Clinging to a belief that was false, and could only promote those things that were born of old lies that were no longer needed only held us back from working to find more sensible, logical things. Unfortunately, greed got in the way too, and with religion, they still held sway.

Religious lies of all kinds were no panacea for all of our misery and prejudices. Only knowledge and the compassionate use of it would help. I didn't see that happening any time soon, if ever. All Paige and I could do was to love each other as we already did, and keep on learning. Perhaps someday we, or probably Paige, would find something that would be of help to put us on the road to being better at being the humans that we could be.

Until then, we'd do what we could to help others see that we were no threat to their own personal marriages. Since there was no way I would, or could, ever marry a man and bear a child from him, marrying Paige, who felt as I did, could in no wise threaten any who wished for family with children of their own blood.

To that end, after we were both over twenty-one, Paige and I were married, my family in attendance, and Ms. Connor too, along with Betty and her partner, Jo. Yes, both survived and their attackers were found—a jealous would be boy friend of Jo's—and they were in jail for many years to come.

After the ceremony, my mother hugged Paige and told her, "Now I have three daughters to enrich my days. Welcome, dear, and live a long and loving life."

Of course, they wept, but it was a good cry, a sweet cry.

Our college time continued, especially for Paige who earned her Masters degree, and then her doctorate. Me? I stopped at a Masters in Social Evolution.

Ms. Connor stayed our friend even after we left college Not long afterward, Betty and her partner, Jo, stopped by. We had a good visit, such that we all eventually became good friends and saw each other from time to time.

In the meantime, the love Paige and I shared continued to grow, surprising to Ms. Connor who said all love waned in time. Our didn't. I'd still look at Paige and my eyes would glaze over. Paige's eyes would often have that fiery look as if they were burning a bright and hot blue flame with her special brand of blue. Is there such a thing as fiery blue ice? If not, it's only in how I see Paige's eyes.

~End~

This story is copyright protected by the author, wistfall1. Use of this story in whole or in part is expressly prohibited without the written consent of the author, wistfall1.

Author's note: There are many wonderful books on genetics and evolution. A wide ranging one that is fabulous is "Human" (the science behind what makes us unique, by Dr. Michael S. Gazzaniga, Harper Collins, 2008); "Connectome" (how the brain's wiring makes us who we are, by Sebastian Seung, Professor of Computational Neuroscience at MIT, etc., Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012); "Your Inner Fish" (A journey into the 3.5 billion-year history of the human body and the discovery of "Tiktaalik", by Neil Shubin, Professor of anatomy at the University of Chicago, Pantheon Books, 2008); "Not A Chimp" (The hunt to find the genes that make us human, by Jeremy Taylor, a science documentary film producer and science writer extraordinaire, Oxford University Press, 2009); and "Why Evolution Is True" (by Professor Jerry A. Coyne, University of Chicago, Dept of Ecology and Evolution, Viking, 2009); and many more too numerous to itemize.

In Chapter 13, Mrs. Rogers quotes Jesus as saying Moses only permitted divorce because of the hardness of their hearts ["...but from the beginning it was not so."] This is found in the gospel according to Matthew, chapter 19, verse 8; the gospel according to Mark, chapter 10, verse 5-8 defines it further.