4 Thoughts About the Faith / Science Dialouge

First, the religious discussions (here, and in the broader cultural context) have been hijacked by a group who, while claiming to represent "authentic" Christianity, actually represent a narrow and narrow-minded subset of Christian faith and practice. As has been noted before, the church (in space and time) has had a variety of approaches to Genesis 1 - and it is neither accurate nor honest to dismiss them in favor of one group's vociferous insistence that they alone know the truth. Geisler's "either/or" logic is an attempt to capture the entire "biblical" faith perspective for literalism. Though it is fine for literalists to think they are right, the plain truth is that folks we will meet in heaven, folks who have defended and helped define what we know as historic Christianity, helped define the very contents of the Bible, the historic creeds (and even the "founding fathers" of fundamentalism) held beliefs that differ from this modern group of literalists.

Second. There is overwhelming evidence that the earth is old and that that the we evolved from a common ancestor. These facts have to be taken into account when we interpret scripture, in the same way that we use what we know about the world when we read (for example) Isaiah 55:12:

You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.

We recognize that this is poetic, because we know trees do not have hands. Likewise, we know that Genesis 1 does not refer to 6, 24 hour days, because we have learned that the earth is billions of years old, and was not created in the order listed. An alien might think, reading Isaiah, that trees "obviously" had hands, and could clap. Only knowledge about life on earth could set it straight. Likewise, our knowledge about the age of the earth lets us know that Genesis is meant as poetry, not science (not false – Isaiah 55 is true, just not literal, as is Genesis 1).

Third. What is driving the "teach the controversy" movement is an a prior commitment to what is and is not "literal" in the bible. The fear seems to be that if some parts of the bible are not taken literally, then no part will be. This is not true, as demonstrated by the fact that Christians have survived the demise of the divine rights of kings to rule, and the notion that the earth was at the center of the universe. Both were thought to be undoubtedly true, based on a literal reading of the Bible, but somehow Christians have survived the switch in thinking. Likewise, Christians can survive this change in thinking as well.

Fourth. It is of no value to your relationship with God to believe things that are not true. All the time people spend on defending the obvious falsehoods presented by young earth creationism would be much better spent dealing with the world the way it really is, and seeking to address genuine problems that we face (take your pick, justice, morality, human suffering, coming ecological catastrophes).