A False Controversy

We are being driven into a false conflict between faith and religion, simply because some people want to insist that the Bible is science. This is both harmful and wrong.

1. It is no more improbable that God made a universe where His will could be expressed thorough evolution and other natural causes than that he created a universe where all the hard parts have to be done through supernatural intervention (i.e. creationism).

2. Science no more promotes an ideology of materialism than does any other way of explaining how the world works – it is simply describing what is, and how what is works. No evidence for design has been found, and no observation of design in progress has ever been observed. This is not the case for various natural causes, which abound in every field, and can be observed whenever you bake a cake or drive your car (or for that matter, eat your breakfast or blink your eyes).

3. To insist that public school science class consider non-material causes introduces philosophy and religion into science class. Science is not improved in the process. A further danger is that there are many, many competing philosophies and religions – shall they take turns in science class? Shall they be voted in by the local religious majority at the time?

4. Scientists can study the idea of supernatural design anytime they want. There are hundreds, if not thousands of privately-funded research institutions. There has never been a barrier to such research, and in fact there have been Christian creationist research organizations founded. They simply have not been able to demonstrate the creationist hypothesis.

All this furor over creationism only serves to alienate many Christians from the discoveries of science, and create the false notion that you have to choose between thee Bible and the discoveries of science. It is time for more Christians to be willing to think, rather than just take the word of their youth leader, pastor or radio preacher.