I, too, am sickened by the "Creation Museum," because it seems divisive, exploitive, and too "I know the truth"-ish.
But please take care. Don't jump to the conclusion that everybody who takes the Genesis account literally are foolish, because I'm one of them. I'm one of them primarily for theological grounds - Paul's description of Christ as the "new Adam" becomes very problematic if Adam wasn't literally the root ancestor of the entire human race. At least, we have to posit that any humans who were not descended from Adam were wiped out in the Flood (so the only humans that *remain* are Adamic); but if you don't take the Creation literally, then maybe the Flood didn't happen, and then the whole argument in Romans is figurative, and we have to go back and rebuild it from scratch.
So am I being foolish? Am I ignoring science? I don't think so. First, I would argue from what I call the "storytelling principle:" no author creates a world that has the appearance of newness. Every world in every story has a backstory that is entirely fictional, yet the world is designed to appear much older than it really is. Why should it be any different for the grandest of stories, the story of the Real World?
Second, while evolution is a plausible theory of origins, I've never run across compelling evidence that it is the *only* plausible scientific one. The old "missing link" argument still holds water, despite 100 years of trying to debunk it. What we have is a like a number line made up entirely of integers; we observe the similarities between the integers and then inductively jump to the conclusion that fractional numbers *must* exist. Perhaps they did, but we haven't found them yet. (Yes, I know that mutation-to the point of creation of new genes-has been observed in the lab. But we have never observed creation of new species. I think that it's very much an open question whether a species could actually mutate into another species and retain the ability to procreate throughout the process. Most mutations are lethal to the organism. At the very least, if we assume that it's possible, do we have a good feeling for how unlikely it is? My gut says that moving from monkey to man would take more time than the whole history of the universe, because so many mutations would be destructive dead-ends.)
Third, I cannot discount the agenda inherent in evolutionary theory. Regardless of what we think "ought" to be, evolutionary theory is strongly tied to atheism. When you want to remove the Diety, you must introduce the Deus Ex Machina to replace him. Evolution, and the Big Bang, are useful tools to provide a theory of origins that doesn't have to include a Creator, yet they just shift the old problems into a new space. You still have to explain the basic origins of the universe, and the best theories today are just as scientifically flawed and arbitrary as theism is. For instance, the background microwave radiation makes the Big Bang impossible, unless (as is the current fashion) you presume that just after the Big Bang, all of the laws of physics were different than they are today. How is that scientific? It's no less arbitrary than my theory that "God exists."
(I'm not trying to say that all people who believe in evolution are anti-God. I'm just saying that just about everybody who is anti-God is pro-evolution, and that tips the scales quite a bit.)
Now, I want to step back for a minute. I'm not saying that I'm convinced that we *must* take Genesis literally. I really think that it's not the point. But I also don't have a lot of confidence in current evolutionary theory. As a result, I tend to live in both worlds. When I think about human origins, I think back to the Garden, to Adam and the fall, and I take it very literally. When I look at a grand geological feature, I think about the millions of years of tectonic movement and erosion, and marvel at how God made it all happen.
It's sort of self-contradictory, but then again it's not. I go back to the storytelling principle: the world, which I bet was probably created (in a literal sense) 6000 years or so ago, was created in the middle of a story spanning millions of years. Again, I'm not saying that you have to think the same way as me, but please don't discount people who take Genesis literally. We're not all jerks. |