[SedVictaCatoni]

UNPOPULAR REASONABLE POSITION #1: Why not teach both? How long would it take to teach "creationism", anyway? An hour? Genesis isn't really all that long.

UNPOPULAR REASONABLE POSITION #2: Is it so absurd to think that evolution is God's mechanism for creating living creatures? We've discovered God's mechanism for creating stars, God's mechanism for creating crystals, God's mechanism for turning the oceans into rain, and God's mechanism for creating sunlight. All of these things have brought us wonder, and have brought us very little closer to understanding any of the important things which the Truth is about. What is so strange or hostile about yet another discovery?

[new cruelty]

Genesis isn't really all that long.

It's not the length... its the depth. : )

[Dimensio]

Why not teach both? How long would it take to teach "creationism", anyway? An hour? Genesis isn't really all that long.

Why should a religious story be taught outside of a religious studies class at all? Further, Genesis is not the only "creation" story out there.

[King Prout]

re: option#2
in other words, allow science to plumb the "how" and allow religion to address the "why"?
That's something I've been leaning towards, myself.

[SpinyNorman]

Is it so absurd to think that evolution is God's mechanism for creating living creatures? We've discovered God's mechanism for creating stars, God's mechanism for creating crystals, God's mechanism for turning the oceans into rain, and God's mechanism for creating sunlight. All of these things have brought us wonder, and have brought us very little closer to understanding any of the important things which the Truth is about. What is so strange or hostile about yet another discovery?

Precisely.

The biggest conflict between the creationists and the evolutionists seems (to me) to come from whether you believe that God has to micromanage the universe, or was simply infinite in His wisdom to just "let it run on its own" so to speak.

I was taught biology by a nun (St. Joseph brand) that taught the latter explanation. She realized that the Bible was written more than a thousand years ago using the beliefs and understandings of the people at the time. The wonder and understanding of the people at the time of the writing of the Bible produced text that was as accurate as they could make it. How literally one takes these writings should surely be put into the context of the time in which it was written. Surely, the same revelations and miracles, if done today, would produce a distinctly different Bible (also if written today). And it would probably be considered as archaic or metaphorical, if you will, a thousand years from today.

Therefore, I say there is no real conflict between the two conceptualizations, merely differences in timeframe. The real lessons of the Bible are morality and decency, not whether the Earth was created in 6 days or 6 billion years. They both describe the same event in different ways seen through different eyes. Someday, maybe soon, maybe never, we will have the true and most accurate story, but I, for one, am not going to waste my time worrying about it. The Earth is here, the dinosaurs aren't, and nothing we argue about here will change that.

There are bigger dragons to slay, and they be called Clintons and the Democrats. These are evils that can be dealt with in real time. Let's devote our energies to keeping that scourge out of power.