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fur or Emotion

Goose bumps are quite wonderful. These funny little things that sprout out of our skin gives us a wonderful feeling. I get them every time I feel overwhelmed with true spirit, an event that stimulates me and makes me feel alive. Goose bumps are great indicators of being alive. For this, I could only think of these little things as emotionally related things. Sure when you get cold they sprout out, but more often they come out for me whenever I fell over joyed.

Now they are under attack.

I read in a recent Time magazine an article about intelligent design v.s. evolution, more specifically whether or not intelligent design should be allowed to be taught in classrooms. In it a psychologist who advocates evolution claims that goose bumps are the by-product of evolution. He says that they are still with us because back in the day we had fur all over our bodies, and when we would get cold the fur would stand up by means of what we now call goose bumps. They basically would fluff up our fur to try and keep us warm.

My question is simple; why do they stimulate our feelings? I mean feelings of joy and happiness. The goose bumps you get when you hear a fantastic jazz trumpeter playing only a couple rows away from you. The goose bumps you get when the preacher hits the right chord with you and your emotions and you get that tingle, in the form of goose bumps, of the overwhelming realization of what Jesus did and who He was and what He said. In fact, I get those just from reading the Word myself, as should everyone. And it certainly most is not from me feeling a draft. I couldn't believe that some guy would be toggling the air conditioning up and down in the sanctuary at timed events during the preachers sermon. You'd have to take a lot of time to convince me that when I read my bible in the hot summer sun out on a little road side park located on my local bike trial that all off a sudden an arctic breeze abruptly swept over me. In the middle of the summer. 90 plus degrees. And there is no way that I got cold during my high school's annual jazz band concert featuring Bobby Lewis playing the sweetest trumpet I've ever heard live. We were indoors and I was actually pretty warm at the time. Unless ole' man winter decided to pull a prank on me and send a chill throughout me just as Bobby was hitting the peak of his performance.

So please stop, science, with the tinkering of my emotions. Or at the very least toss a giant block of ice on me so that at all times I can feel that beautiful calmness that goose bumps produce. You really don't have to stretch evolution that far.

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