I believe in evolution and think “intelligent design” is wrong and “creationism” should stay out of public schools.

There. I said it.

Seems to be a lot of buzz on the Internet lately about the direct conflict between science and religion. As a religious person and a believer in science, I think it’s really a whole lot of arguing for nothing.

Maybe it’s because both camps seem to be taking cheap shots. Atheists seem to like to package the entirety of religious thought into a big straw man they can knock down whenever they please. Hello people. Not all of us are raving lunatics who expect no proof other than the biblical.

Faithful Christians seem to characterize evolutionists as evil God-haters who are trying to undermine the Christian-Judeo roots of our nation. These horrible people are trying to justify animal like behaviors and have no souls.

I believe there are a number of things we need to take into account in order to reconcile Christianity and evolution. It really isn’t that hard, so let me take a stab at it.

First, Genesis is not a scientific text. It was inspired and delivered to an audience that spans six thousand years of readership. I think it was smart to leave it sparse on technical or scientific detail, since the working model for what we know changes quite a bit. If God had written it for a technical audience, it might have made sense for 20 years worth of readers at best.  Genesis is a story that is a teaching tool. It’s not meant for scientific fact.

Frankly, I don’t personally believe God designed the body of man or animal. I just don’t see it. I think it rather obvious that he didn’t design his own body. I assume he got it from parents, just like we get bodies from parents. Genesis is also full of the phrase “after his/its own kind” or “from its own seed”. I’d imagine that’s on purpose. Sounds a lot like evolution to me - things reproducing after their own kind. The temple language is even more clear in this regard.

To me, the majesty of creation (and by “creation” we realize that it means “organization”) is the brilliance of being able to compose a complete ecosystem that has worked for ages. A few tigers here, a few horses there. Add some grasses and algae here - need some more bugs there. Brilliant. I don’t think God created or designed the bodies of animals. I do believe he brought them here – maybe he even bred or co-located species for certain purposes – but I dont’ see much scriptural support for design.

There are things I don’t understand: one of them being this cro-magnon stooped over ape-like character we see so much. I don’t think we can discount the existence of these finds: but it’s no theological show-stopper for me. There are literally mountains of data in favor of some evolution-like technique happening to life forms for millions of years. It’s not our job to ignore it, it’s our job to incorporate it.

As such, I’m a firm believer that “creationism” and “intelligent design” are horrifically bad choices for classroom curriculum. First, it isn’t science because it deals with supernatural phenomenon. Stuff that can’t be tested. Secondly, you’re opening a legal nightmare by bringing religion into school. Everybody and their grandma will want their version of the story covered. Thirdly, who wants some public school teacher instructing their kids in religious tenets? Not me. I prefer that job myself.
There’s no reason we need this stuff in schools, and there’s no reason faithful Christians can’t accept the theory of evolution.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 3rd, 2008 at 11:05 pm and is filed under Metaphysics, Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.