I believe that other animals evolve. It's obvious that they do. I mean, caterpillars currently evolve into butterflies. I am sure that beetles can fly, so could they not have survived the storm? If not, then God probably created the minor animals later. After all, He is God. You could be right though. On the other hand, people might have been shorter at one time. That does not necessarily prove they came from primates. The primates have longer front legs than front legs. This enables them to climb trees more easily. Humans have longer back legs than front legs. This is so we can walk on our feet and use our hands for work.
That's not "evolution", that's metamorphosis, which is COMPLETELY different in every conceivable way. Metamorphosis is the process in which a larvae turns into an adult. Evolution is the slow mutation of animals over time into different animals. Over the course of millions of years, trillions of mutations occurred, and small handful turned out to be beneficial enough to be passed on to future generations, which over time lead to the development of new species, species specialized for their environments. This is NOT something that can be observed in a lab with most life, but it HAS been observed in bacteria. This theory of evolution is also supported by a vast fossil record which showcases the older forms of a variety of animals including humans, as well as DNA.
I don't know what you mean by "people being shorter at one time doesn't mean they were descended from apes", but that was never an argument. If you want to see why we are descended from primates...why we ARE primates, you need only look at your hands, then look at the hands of a chimpanzee, and note the similarities. It has its differences, but for all those differences, it is remarkably similar to a human hand.
Humans (which are PRIMATES by the way) evolved their bipedal locomotion to survive in the tall grasses of the savannah, which was encroaching on our ancestor's forest habitat when they first began to evolve this mutation. Our noses evolved the way they did in order to keep dust out of our nostrils so we can breath properly. We evolved to have free hands so that we could create and handle tools with ease, carry food back to the group, carry our helpless babies, fight animals with weapons, and create new inventions. We evolved to find sex pleasurable not so that it can be denied to us, and not even because it encourages us to reproduce, but because it can strengthen the bonds between individuals in a group, something that is very important for creatures like us who cannot survive very well alone. This behavior, by the way, is something that has also been seen in bonobos, one of our closest living relatives. We evolved huge brains so that we could solve problems and create ways of not only overcoming our own shortcomings, but to exploit the world around us in a way no other animal can. With these large brains, we developed morals to help us better survive in a group. We began asking questions that had no answers, and so we invented beings and myths to give us those answers. "Gods".
Barry is correct about one of the reasons Christianity is "dying" (though it REALLY ISN'T), but another reason why is because I can even type the above, and because there is a vocal number of people within the Christian community who refuse to believe it, and instead point towards dubious theories with no scientific backing, and point to stories with even LESS scientific backing and evidence as "historical truths". This is why I find the idea of a Judeo-Christian god as such a hard pill to swallow.
Finally, not all beetles can fly, and even more beetles don't have the strength to survive a storm for 40 days and 40 nights with no land to land on. Thankfully, beetles never had to survive it, because most of the Torah (or as you know it, the Old Testament) is not meant to be taken word for word "literally" as a historical document. It is meant to inform Jewish belief and faith, not be a history book. So simply put, the Great Flood never happened, at least not on a global scale (there isn't even enough water on the planet for that to happen).
Of course you could just say "God made more water" and "God made beetles after the flood" (even though we have beetle fossils with their old color still on them dating back 47 million years, long before humans ever existed, let lone Noah and the Great Flood
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/09/beetle-fossil-colors/ ), but then again, you could also say "God was the cause of the big bang, which created the universe that changed and evolved over billions of years under His subtle influence, which eventually gave rise to this solar system, this planet, and eventually life, which then evolved over hundreds of millions of years, and eventually lead to modern day animals including humans, which this God then interacted with". I fail to see why the Great Flood NEEDS to be a thing that happened, and why Christianity cannot co-exist with scientific theory. Though I personally belief the human Gods are myths created to fill voids in our understanding, I do believe that there is the possibility of some higher being that we lack the ability, perspective, or technology to comprehend.
The main reason why Christianity has lost some of its sway with people is because its become less relevant as a way to understand the world around us. There are still plenty of scientists out there who believe in these scientific theories but are also religious. If religion has any value beyond being a literal history of the world (which it does), Christianity will survive just fine. I know Judaism is going to do just swell in this more scientific world, because we don't believe things like the Flood actually happened. We leave the Torah up to the interpretation of the individual, and use it as a moral guide.
Now then, with that off my chest, I do agree with Barry's sentiments. I will just leave you with this: if you really want to know the scientific theories of why humans are the way they are, check out the works of Desmond Morris. They are a little dated by scientific standards, but are still filled with wonderful insight into how the human animal came to be.
