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From: bentley81
Date: Tue Jul 24 14:19:56 EDT 2007 Subject: evilution

Responses
benjipark: I'll take door number 3 (7/24/07)
russ: Please take care (7/27/07)
NewRyan: God + Evolution (7/27/07)
eric: Hmm ya oc fish (7/27/07)
russ: Trying to soften what I said... (7/30/07)
Patricia: something good (7/30/07)
ryan: christians and honest scientific inquiry (8/1/07)
ryan: christians and honest scientific inquiry (8/1/07)
ryan: christians and honest scientific inquiry (8/1/07)
Responses (sorted by date)
ryan: christians and honest scientific inquiry (8/1/07)
ryan: christians and honest scientific inquiry (8/1/07)
ryan: christians and honest scientific inquiry (8/1/07)
Patricia: something good (7/30/07)
russ: Trying to soften what I said... (7/30/07)
eric: Hmm ya oc fish (7/27/07)
NewRyan: God + Evolution (7/27/07)
russ: Please take care (7/27/07)
benjipark: I'll take door number 3 (7/24/07)
Here's something I wrote about something I read today

The $27,000,000.00 Creation Museum was recently opened in Kentucky. This depresses me for a number of reasons.

1. Its foundation is ignorance. "Creation Science" is the easy way. It is the tempting way. It says here, you don't really need to pay attention in biology class. Just read this one chapter in the Bible and you will know all you need to know. A deeper study, however, of both the Biblical account of our origens and of the explanations offered by science leads to a much better understanding of the issue.

2. It is based on a lie. The fundemental reason for building a museum dedicated to Creation is a false dichotomy set up by certain members of the Christian community between creation and evolution. The idea that they are fundamentally incompatable was first posited by athiests in the late 19th century. It is a lie designed to do damage to the church. Creation and evolution are not incompatible. They can, in fact, work quite nicely together.

3. It is destructive. Religious debate is a very tempting thing. The idea that I can somehow convince you that this is true is alluring. It even works from time to time and can be a good thing. But it is often addictive and destructive. When our goal becomes to prove ourselves right rather than to discover truth, this type of debate destroys relationship and faith. And it is precisely this that a Creation museum encourages. "Here is how you can prove to others that they are wrong."

4. It is wasteful. When Jesus told the story of the sheep and the goats He didn't say "I thought I was once a monkey and you convinced me otherwise." He said "I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you cared for me, I was in prison, and you came to visit me." Think about how much $27 million could help advance one of these goal. It could be a serious endowment for longterm ministry projects around the country or world. Instead it goes to a fance museum. That doesn't even include the 5 million a year they hope to raise in ticket sales. (or for that matter the millions spent every year on phillip Johnson books)

5. It is exploitive. Taking $20 a person as an entrance fee to a second rate museum is just wrong.

It is really the fourth that gets to me the most. You can feel free to believe what you want to believe and argue about what you want to argue about. I don't think your salvation hinges on what you belive about creation/evolution. But I just don't understand how you could see this as the best use of 27 million dollars when there are so many people in the world, starving, naked, thirsty, without shelter, enslaved, refugeed, etc. It makes me sick to think that someone could be so blinded to the mission of the church. We are called, I think, to make this place better, and to help those in need...not to get into petty arguments.

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From: benjipark
Date: Tue Jul 24 14:56:43 EDT 2007 Subject: I'll take door number 3

I really agree, but it's point number 3 which really gets under my skin. If I claim Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, does it really matter "how" he started everything off? Does it matter "how" he makes gravity work? Does my belief of infant baptism or not change the fact the Christ died for me?

For anyone out there who wants to convince me of the "proper" way of thinking, I ask you, whose kingdom will it further?

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From: russ
Date: Fri Jul 27 12:02:43 EDT 2007 Subject: Please take care

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.

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From: NewRyan
Date: Fri Jul 27 12:31:44 EDT 2007 Subject: God + Evolution

"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." -Russ

The way I look at this is that in talking with someone who doesn't believe in God, I'm probably not going to make a whole lot of progress convincing them that evolution isn't true. But I do think that it is good to help someone wrestle with this question: "Why can't evolution happen AND God still be a Creator God who's very involved in His creation?" The two can co-exist.

There are two separate, but not contradictory issues involved her.

1) One is what science shows as seen in the fossil record and biology. Evolutionary theory certainly isn't watertight, but I do think we have to look at the evidence and see what makes sense.

2) Philosophic/Religious questions are what happen when we start conluding "if the world was made this way, then it means this about God and people." BOTH athiests and christians do this. They just come to different conclusions.

The underlying thing I really don't like is when Christians seem to be afraid of honest scientific inquiry. Like somehow if evolution is found to be credible then God can't exist or something. (Not that I see this at all in what you are saying Russ.) It's just that I think we should investigate scientific truth vigorously and look for how it did seem to happen. And then we should look to the Bible to figure out what it means- things that science, by definition, never could tell us.

-Ryan

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From: eric
Date: Fri Jul 27 12:53:59 EDT 2007 Subject: Hmm ya oc fish

"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." -Russ

Sadly, this is the myth that the Creation peeps want everyone to believe, but atheism's connection to evolution is iffy at best. And, oddly enough, strengthens or weakens depending on what science field you are an expert in.

Eric

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From: russ
Date: Mon Jul 30 11:54:29 EDT 2007 Subject: Trying to soften what I said...

I wanted to try to clarify my now-twice quoted point 3 (about the "agenda"). I'm not saying that evolution necessarily has its origins in atheism; simply that in the current culture it is a convenient weapon for those who want to discredit the idea of God.

I agree that we, as Christians, should be openly pursuing science. I agree that the "rift" between science and faith should not exist. But so long as it does in the minds of many inside and outside the church, you cannot eliminate the idea that *both* sides are likely to have biases that warp their view of the world.

At the same time, when Christians try to face and defeat their own biases, the rift raises its ugly head again. "If you are going to stop being a faith-based ignorant savage, then you must accept science in its current most fashionable form," the rift tells us. We can't imagine straddling the gap, so we must leap from one side to the other.

I was just trying to say, with my original post, that it is quite possible to reasonably, gently, have some healthy skepticism about evolutionary theory. It's even possible for that to be partially based in theological arguments. Such skepticism doesn't have to become ignorance, or confrontation.

Ick. This is such a hard thing to talk about in a calm, respectful way. We are seriously warped, I think, by the Rift.

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From: Patricia
Date: Mon Jul 30 17:03:50 EDT 2007 Subject: something good

I think that the Creation Museum is a good thing, because it gets people talking, and (hopefully) thinking about where they stand and why.

Now, being a mom of school-age children, I have had to wrestle with the theory of evolution and the biblical account of creation in a new way. I have limited influence on what my children are taught in school, short of homeschooling or paying for private education. What I can do, however, is holding strongly to the fact that the theory of evolution is just that: a THEORY. If I can teach my kids the meaning of fact, faith, and theory, I believe, I will prepare them well.

Trizia

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From: ryan
Date: Wed Aug 1 17:53:42 EDT 2007 Subject: christians and honest scientific inquiry

what is so odd to me is that somehow many christians seem to have given up on honest scientific inquiry. what is now modern scientific inquiry has its historical roots in people of profound faith. sir isaac newton, who devoted as much of his studies to Scripture as to science, said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done." when i was in school, the story of galileo versus the church was given as tacit evidence that the church (or religion or faith in general) was often blinded by its own demand to be `right' that it overlooks what is clearly true. it took the church an awful long time to admit that the earth really does revolve around the sun.

so i find myself asking, why can't the church just admit that it is wrong about things instead of standing aloof and demanding that everyone with a different view admit that they are wrong? why is the church constantly constructing its own idea of what is right (or, what God wants, what God is like, what God's universe is like) and holding to it despite all evidence to the contrary? if the church can't really be honest with itself, what can it inquire honestly about?

sometimes i wonder if the faith-side of the creation/evolution debate is half fueled by the church's inability to eat humble pie.

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From: ryan
Date: Wed Aug 1 17:53:52 EDT 2007 Subject: christians and honest scientific inquiry

what is so odd to me is that somehow many christians seem to have given up on honest scientific inquiry. what is now modern scientific inquiry has its historical roots in people of profound faith. sir isaac newton, who devoted as much of his studies to Scripture as to science, said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done." when i was in school, the story of galileo versus the church was given as tacit evidence that the church (or religion or faith in general) was often blinded by its own demand to be `right' that it overlooks what is clearly true. it took the church an awful long time to admit that the earth really does revolve around the sun.

so i find myself asking, why can't the church just admit that it is wrong about things instead of standing aloof and demanding that everyone with a different view admit that they are wrong? why is the church constantly constructing its own idea of what is right (or, what God wants, what God is like, what God's universe is like) and holding to it despite all evidence to the contrary? if the church can't really be honest with itself, what can it inquire honestly about?

sometimes i wonder if the faith-side of the creation/evolution debate is half fueled by the church's inability to eat humble pie.

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From: ryan
Date: Wed Aug 1 17:54:09 EDT 2007 Subject: christians and honest scientific inquiry

what is so odd to me is that somehow many christians seem to have given up on honest scientific inquiry. what is now modern scientific inquiry has its historical roots in people of profound faith. sir isaac newton, who devoted as much of his studies to Scripture as to science, said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done." when i was in school, the story of galileo versus the church was given as tacit evidence that the church (or religion or faith in general) was often blinded by its own demand to be `right' that it overlooks what is clearly true. it took the church an awful long time to admit that the earth really does revolve around the sun.

so i find myself asking, why can't the church just admit that it is wrong about things instead of standing aloof and demanding that everyone with a different view admit that they are wrong? why is the church constantly constructing its own idea of what is right (or, what God wants, what God is like, what God's universe is like) and holding to it despite all evidence to the contrary? if the church can't really be honest with itself, what can it inquire honestly about?

sometimes i wonder if the faith-side of the creation/evolution debate is half fueled by the church's inability to eat humble pie.

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