Posted on 01/25/2005 6:15:41 PM PST by gobucks
Ken Miller is an interesting guy. He is co-author of the nation's best-selling biology textbook. It was on his book, "Biology," that schools in Cobb County, Ga., slapped a sticker casting doubt on its discussion of evolution theory. And it was this sticker that a federal judge recently ordered removed because it endorsed religion. Miller, who testified against the label, gets a lot of hate mail these days.
But Miller is also a practicing Roman Catholic. "I attend Mass every Sunday morning," he said, "and I'm tired of being called an atheist."
A professor of biology at Brown University, Miller does not believe that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution contradicts the creation passages in the Bible. And he will argue the point till dawn.
"None of the six creative verses (in Genesis) describe an out-of-nothing, puff-of-smoke creation," he says. "All of them amount to a command by the creator for the earth, the soil and the water of this planet to bring forth life. And that's exactly what natural history tells us happened." (Miller has written a book on the subject: "Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution.")
Still, today's emotional conflicts over teaching this science in public schools leave the impression that Christianity and evolution cannot be reconciled. This is not so.
In 1996, Pope John II wrote a strong letter to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences supporting the scientific understanding of evolution. That's one reason why students in Catholic parochial schools get a more clearheaded education in evolution science than do children at many public schools racked by the evolution debate.
American parents who want Darwin's name erased from the textbooks might be surprised at the father of evolution's burial spot. Darwin was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, an Anglican church and England's national shrine.
Not every illustrious Englishman gains admission to an abbey burial site. Darwin died in 1882. Two years before, friends of George Eliot wanted the famous (female) writer laid to rest at the abbey. Eliot had lived immorally, according to the church fathers, and was denied a place. (She is buried at London's Highgate Cemetery, not far from Karl Marx.)
But Darwin had been an upright man. The clergy were proud both of Darwin's accomplishments and of their own comfort with modern science.
In 1882, during the memorial service for the great evolutionist, one church leader after the other rose to praise Charles Darwin. Canon Alfred Barry, for one, had recently delivered a sermon declaring that Darwin's theory was "by no means alien to the Christian religion."
Nowadays, Catholics and old-line Protestants have largely made peace with evolution theory. Most objections come from evangelicals and not all of them.
Francis S. Collins is head of the National Genome Project and a born-again Christian. He belongs to the American Scientific Affiliation a self-described fellowship of scientists "who share a common fidelity to the word of God and a commitment to integrity in the practice of science." Its Web address is www.asa3.org.
But back in Cobb County, the debate rages. The sticker taken off Miller's textbook read: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."
Why should Miller care that the Cobb County School Board having bought his book in great quantity pastes those words on the cover?
First off, he says, "It implies that facts are things we are certain of and theories are things that are shaky." In science, theory is a higher level of understanding than facts, he notes. "Theories don't grow up to become facts. Rather, theories explain facts."
Then, he questions why, of all the material in his book, only evolution is singled out for special consideration. Miller says that if he could write the sticker, it would say, "Everything in this book should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."
Clearly, many religious people regard evolution theory with sincere and heartfelt concern. But theirs is not a mainstream view even among practicing Christians. Most theologians these days will argue that the biology book and the Good Book are reading from the same page.
Providence Journal columnist Froma Harrop's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is fharrop@projo.com
Approximately 130,000 years ago.
God pronounces all of his creation "good" at the end of each day, yet we are told (by evolutionists) that millions of years of death, decay, and suffering have occurred previously.
Since animals don't have immortal souls, aren't rational, and aren't made in the image of God, there is no evil in animal death or suffering. That's why it is not a sin to eat meat.
By the way, you have to reject a lot more science than just evolution if you want to believe there was no animal death before sin. You're arguing against geology as well as the fosil record.
The Bible says that Adam was created to live forever until he sinned, and he was then cursed with death.
When evolution reached the point at which the mind of a pre-human homonid was sufficiently advanced, God infused an immortal soul into him, and thus Adam was created. God granted him the gift of immortality, which he squandered by sinning. Because of him, the gift of immortality was revoked from all his descendents.
Notice that none of the above can be scientifically falisifed. Of course, that means it can't be scientifically verified, so it's not a scientific belief. But that's okay, because there is more to life than science.
God gave us reason and a curious mind. We have used these to analyze the evidence and discover more about God's creation than was previously known.
Creationists would have us deny the use of our God-given reason and intelligence and close our eyes to God's creation.
pros·e·ly·tize
v. pros·e·ly·tized, pros·e·ly·tiz·ing, pros·e·ly·tiz·es
v. intr.
1. To induce someone to convert to one's own religious faith.
induce
in·duce
tr.v. in·duced, in·duc·ing, in·duc·es
1. To lead or move, as to a course of action, by influence or persuasion. See Synonyms at persuade.
God directly infused an immortal soul into the first fully-evolved homo sapiens sapiens.
To reject the 'evidence that exists right before their eyes' and 'deny the use of our God-given reason and intelligence' is to rely on superstition.
According to Websters...
superstition
1 a : a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation b : an irrational abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God resulting from superstition 2 : a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary
You have to subscribe to the theory of "Survival of the Fittest" to determine that regressions, but not progressions, would lead to more deaths. One could argue, for instance, that timidity and weakness leads to less risk-taking and could indeed result in "Survival of the most Cautious".
Would you feel better if I replaced 'proselytizing' in all of my statements with 'forced proselytizing' or 'aggressive proselytizing'?
That is, proselytizing that is not solicited, which is really what we've been talking about all along here.
There may be boundries, or at least slow places in the road, and there may also be fast places. Animal breeding suggests that some species have more obvious variation potential in their genomes. Dogs come in lots of shapes. Cats all look pretty much alike, except for size and fur. (I am tossing this out without checking, and I could be off-base)
Nothing in the bible conclusively rules out animal death before the fall. Plant death is clearly implied.
My apologies for not responding to your ping to this excellent post earlier. TaxRelief, you write well, and I agree whole heartedly with every word...
I agree it is 'correct' .... but you have to admit, the intent behind its correctness can be viewed, by some like me, is properly described as beyond correct.
Love your tag line.
If the definition of "evolution" is merely "change," then of course there's evolution.
But that's not how evolution is defined.
When people talk of evolution, they mean the progression of beings from "lower" to "higher," from "simple" to "complex," from those with a relatively small amount of genetic information (a single-cell organism) to those with a lot of genetic information (horses).
And that doesn't happen -- genetic information doesn't increase over generations.
Word games. The end product of science is theory, not fact. If I know that some of the light from a hydrogen atom has a wavelength of 121.567 nanometers, that's a fact. I could gather a whole host of such facts, and not be closer to understanding. If I know quantum mechanics, however, I can calculate every damn wavelength of light from every damn transition of every damn atom in the universe, and how much to expect of each, to as many decimal places as I please. That is more valuable, more important, greater, from a human perspective, THAN the wavelength of any spectral line.
We all know that the earth revolves around the sun, and not the other way around as was previously believed.
Do we? Here's what I know: a coordinate system comoving with the sun is a closer approximation to an inertial frame than a coordinate system comoving with the Earth. More than that, I cannot say.
I would say that any part of the Bible must be interpreted separately. Some may be literal, some figurative, all of it takes interpretation.
Examine the 4 Gospels, where they describe the day Jesus arose from the dead and Mary Magdalene and Mary Jesus' mother found the tomb. There are rather large discrepancies between the 4 different stories. Some have two angles, some one, another none. In some an earthquake happens, in others it's not mentioned.
How do you reconcile between these? And these are events that were witnessed in real time and written about soon thereafter. Not things that happened before humans existed, as Genesis, and were revealed only via prophet, a mere human capable of mistakes.
Let me add another question in Genesis. Where did the people in the land of Nod come from?
Genesis 4:
16: And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
17: And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.
I'm sure there are many different interpretations that answer this question. But what do you think?
The bottom line, this discussion has made you question your faith. It has made you critically look at the Bible and consider what you will accept from it.
Is that a good thing?
And further, you know that this same kind of discussion will be brought up in high school "science" classes when they're forced to bring up "Intelligent Design". Either the teacher, or certainly some atheist classmates, will bring up these questions and the faith of some of these young people will be severely challenged. Some, certainly, will decide then and there that God is a fairy tale, and will reject Him for life.
This would be a tragedy. And this is why it is very necessary for good Christians to accept that the sciences discovered in God's creation simply cannot conflict with the Bible. If the fossils and DNA point to Evolution, then God certainly created it.
For Christians to challenge science, is a pathway for their faith to be stripped from them. And forcing this Evolution fight into schools full of young people not firm in their faith is the height of stupidity.
That might be the layman's definition of evolution, but it is not correct. Evolution does not have a goal nor a direction. There is no requirement that amoeba turn to horses.
Adam lived 930 years. He and his wife surely had many children. By the time he died, there were many many many generations of children, grandchildren, etc. And they all had offspring, and lived a long time.
Adam's son Seth was born when Adam was 130 years old. Seth is the 3rd child mentioned in Scripture, but surely he wasn't the 3rd ever born to Adam and Eve. It follows that perhaps Cain wasn't the 2nd. By the time Cain was born, there may have been many generations of offspring, and therefore other cities and towns in the area....
great link, and thanks!
btw, the link is http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i3/miller.asp
(it had an extra http in it.)
OK, I accept that the endpoint of science is theory, not fact.
Now tell me why scientists get their panties bunched up when a school board says that the ToE is a theory, not a fact. They would seem to be in harmony with your hierarchy. Of course, you can say that their understanding of theory and fact does not accord with yours but that is like moving the goalposts when Philly nears the end-zone.
I'm not trying to be combative here. But I see a huge difference between unsolicited sharing of the gospel (e.g. door knocking) and aggressive, forced conversions (e.g. the Spanish Inquisition).
And I also see a difference between door knocking (in which a person is asked to accept a religious belief) and the way IDers want their beliefs taught in schools (in which a person is asked to consider a religious belief).
But I don't see a difference between door knocking and trying to convince students that, as far as evolution is concerned, the phrase scientific theory (as opposed to just the word theory) is equivalent to the phrase belief that all non-ignorant people will bet their life savings on.
All that being said... No, I don't think ID should be taught in schools. I had this whole long paragraph... but I'll just leave it at that.
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