Friday, February 07, 2014

"So I do not think that Ken Ham–style creationists should get to rewrite biology textbooks..."


Michael Dougherty:
So I do not think that Ken Ham–style creationists should get to rewrite biology textbooks according to their very peculiar reading of Scripture. But I admire their bullheadedness. They have gotten lost in the woods while trying to protect the big truths of Christianity: that God created the world, that we are dependent on him, that we owe him everything, and that he loves us even though we are sinful. In the world most of us inhabit, day to day, the world of lovers, wriggling kids, disease, war, and death, the sureness of God's love is relevant in a way that the details of early hominid fossils never will be, glorious as they are. Have some perspective, people. 
In protecting thaebig truth of creation — that we are all made in God's image and all endowed with supreme dignity — fundamentalists zealously guard things that follow logically from that. Things like the commandment "Thou shall not murder." Anti-evolutionists often set themselves against "Darwinian theory" because they deplored social Darwinism, eugenics, and other evils that seemed to spring forth from minds overexcited by the latest theories of man's origin. 
If Ken Ham is getting rich telling things he knows to be false, he's a shameless fraud. But the bulk of creation's fundamentalists are deeply sincere. And, better than that, they are willing to be, in St. Paul's words "fools for Christ's sake." They do not live for the world's esteem. And so when the world next discovers a sophisticated ideology to get around "Thou shall not murder," I'd rather have one cussed fundie next to me than the whole army of eye-rolling Christians lining up to denounce him. (my emphasis)
Read the rest.  

3 comments:

Ryan said...

best article i've read on this debate.

M&M in Japan said...

OK, Ham is not my poster boy, but how is he"psuedoscience"? And why are young-earthers automatically grouped with fundies? Not getting it, Z.

Anonymous said...

It is odd to me that one could believe the God of the Universe could become a man, die, rise and now lives, yet not believe that God created the heavens and universe in 6 days. Can we pick and choose the miracles of the Bible that were literal miracles and those that were fictional? The more I learn about "science", the more I know we do not understand - sometimes we just have to let go and rest in faith that God is God and does what He pleases.