I actually lived in the communist USSR for 7 months (1 in 89, and 6 in 91 just before the coup). I was there to study astronomy while I was a teenager. I witnessed things I am still not ready to talk about.

I know that an idea can be co-opted and given inappropriate and harmful meaning.

It is important not to confuse the political acts of scientists or the political acts of Christians with either the facts of science or the teachings of the Bible. Atrocities have been done in the name of both God and science.

Evolution does not require the absense of a creator. This is a strange myth I do not understand. In chaos theory, what decides what bonds and what flies apart? In setting up the universe, where did the initial conditions originate? In a probabilistic universe, who weights the dice to say one outcome is favored over another?

There is room for God in the modern scientific paradigm. There is space for rooms dedicated to science in a life built on a Christian foundation.

I do not argue that humans are capable of twisting anything – anything – for gain or for pain. It is important to separate the scientific theories and biblical teachings from the dogmas of churches, nations, and individuals.

Pamela

Your views on the origin and strength of the creationist movement here in the United States are interesting speculation, but incorrect.

The publicity surrounding the Creation Museum and the Young Earth Creationist museum are largely the result of the efforts of a handful of leaders within that movement, acting individually, but securing the financial support from a very small minority of the American population.

Estimates of the percentage of the American population that support creationism are in the 18% range (see the 2004 academic study by Duncan and Geist). Within that 18%, my guess is the majority subscribe to the scientifically more palatable Old Earth Creationist view.

The ridiculous “Young Earth Creationist” view is taught at only three very small, and one mid-sized Christian colleges in the United States.

Your willingness to ascribe the perceived “growth” of the Young Earth Creationist movement to the United States Government’s Department of Homeland Security is a comment more on your own desire to view the world according to your own preconceived notions, based on no facts.

Feel free to contact us at http://www.christianfaithandreason.com and we will be happy to publish any response you may have.

You are quite right in stating that Science doesn’t ask, “What do you believe?” Science asks, “What does the evidence indicate?”.
On the other hand, religion *is* based on belief, and this is something that many people appear to overlook. In the great majority of religions, their followers rely on writings which are not only very ancient, but have been re-edited and re-translated over many centuries. Remember, for example, that the bible was not written in English! However what is of real importance is that apart from very few specific instances, there is no direct proof of the incidents that are described in religious texts, and following a religion is basically a question of whether a person chooses to believe in its teachings.

This is the fundamental point – religion is down to each person’s belief. In my view, everyone should be free to believe in whatever they want, especially if, as I have said, the statements involved cannot be proved one way or the other – it’s just a personal choice. However, the practice of that belief should not be allowed to have any detrimental affect on anyone else.

That means that no-one should be able to say “My religion is right and yours is wrong!” This is absolutely fundamental, and if only that simple statement was accepted across the world, then we would all be able to get on with each other a lot better! However, the idea of accepting people’s beliefs does not give grace to people to pick and choose from the scientific evidence, and reject, as Sam Brownback says, “aspects of these theories that undermine this truth”. Science must be accepted as a whole; one can’t only accept the results that fit in with a particular theory. What would Mr Brownback’s response be to someone who said that they were only willing to believe certain parts of the bible and not others?

My ex-sister-in-law was very disturbed when we visited the Natural History Museum in London, because she didn’t want her sons to be confused by seeing the exhibits on the dinosaurs. In her view they were all fakes, because the Earth was only a few thousand years old, so dinosaurs couldn’t have existed millions of years ago. I asked her who made the bones and how were they buried deep in the rocks all the way around the world. I said that if they were put there by God, why would he do so. She had no answer.

Science is a manifestation of mankind’s desire to understand more about ourselves and the universe in which we live. We cannot draw lines here and there, saying “these areas should not be investigated”. Remember that in many instances, discoveries have been made not because someone was aiming for a specific outcome, but because a result led to application in a completely different area.

Some people say that we should not go to Mars. I would ask in that case if we should not have crossed the Atlantic! As Mike Griffin, the Administrator of NASA, has pointed out, the voyages of exploration and discovery that were carried out by our sea-faring ancestors were more dangerous and more expensive when compared to our space missions. Ultimately, if we should not explore, it could be said that instead of looking across the surface of Mars, we should just be watching the planet from around our cave-side fires! For if we should not explore, where does one draw the line? At the physical edge of the land where it meets the sea? At the extent that can be travelled in a day? At the limit of the horizon? Or just outside the cave-dwelling? It is by exploration, in understanding as well as in physical travel, that we have reached our present position, and it is part of that exploration that we refer to as science.

We cannot draw limits on the gathering of knowledge either. We are continually striving to learn more. Remember that the most ancient civilisations studied the stars. Nowadays we have more powerful tools to do so.

And what has science given us? A human lifetime is traditionally reckoned as “three score years and ten”, but for many millions, that was an unattainable goal, mainly due to disease. For centuriesSam Brownback was born in 1956, so he will be 70 in 2026. Tom Tancredo will be 70 in 2015 and Mike Huckabee in 2025. Each of them and stands a good chance of reaching that milestone, mainly due to advances in science. Would they really prefer to reject certain aspects of science, like the ones that gave us penicillin or eradicated polio? In the case of Mike Huckabee, he definitely has science to thank if he reaches 70, for he was diagnosed with diabetes in 2003 and told he would not live more than ten years if he did not lose weight. Without the scientific knowledge of the medical profession, his future would be very different.

If we are going to talk about theory and fact, then it should be said that it is creationism that is a theory. The geological and fossil records are fact – they are evidence that constitutes proof to the vast majority of our historical evolution as a planet and a species. However intelligent design is a theory, and one that cannot be tested by experiment. It has no evidence either, for one cannot simply say that humans are very complex and so cannot have evolved but must have been created. One may wish to believe such a statement, and then we are back to my original comments. Whatever the evidence – or lack of it, people may still choose to believe, but where their views are based on a belief and not on proof, they cannot say “I am right!”.

Wish I could agree. I want science to succeed, but I don’t expect scientists to get a clue.

First, I have run computer networks for colleges, and scientists are the most political group of whining prima donas I have ever encountered. Their is always a scientist on both sides of any piece of evidence you can point a stick at. And if you point out any unconvenient fact, their first attack is always personal, not factual.

Second, the idea that scientists don’t have an agenda before the facts is nonsense. I remember Jane Goodall telling us how wonderful Ape society was, until the 2nd researcher pointed out the infanticide, rapes and murders. It’s a common scientist fantasy to correct or “save” the greater society from it’s errors, without seeing their own errors. I suspect that human global warming is at the same level.

Third, scientists would never parachute into a foreign aboriginal society and begin bad mouthing their culture, leadership and traditions. It’s very common here, why is that? You would think science has an ego problem.

I’m not a scientist and I am from South Africa, you know where the lions and the elephants still roam the streets.
Could you please explain:
Why did not all the apes evolved into humans?
Why isn’t there a more evolved specie than the human?
Were there species that evolved in the past 2000 years?
Why is there not new specie every day? (Yesterday, today and tomorrow will be the end of another 13 billion years)

Adriaan

One thing that I’ve always been taught is that God does not lie. God also created us as intelligent creatures, creatures capable of exploring the world around us and using our intelligence to make sense of it.

That said, it seems silly in light of those postulates that what we’ve discovered in our exploration of our universe that God fakes things like age of rocks, fossils, the distances between stars and galaxies, etc.

I believe in evolution because that’s what our observations have shown us. I see nothing in the Bible that disproves evolution. Genesis says that God created the heavens and the earth and the stars and the animals and that each animal should bear young in the likeness of the parent. However, at no point does it say HOW God did this. If you look at a table you don’t think it sprang into being just because you didn’t see how it was made. It’s very easy to examine the table and determine how it was made. I think the same thing goes for the Bible’s description of creation.

There’s another aspect that I see here. All of science is interrelated. Anthropology, paleontology, astronomy, quantum mechanics, chemistry, etc. all have connections. You can’t have stars without atoms and the interactions between them. You can’t have paleontology without supernovae. It all fits together and those theories that don’t fit the observed phenomena have to be thrown out or changed so that they do. You can’t have the wonders of computers, plumbing, television, etc. without accepting the other aspects of science that have been established. It works as a whole or it doesn’t work at all.

Another aspect is that every time religion tries to explain scientific observations it turns out those explanations are wrong. No matter how much the church pressured Galileo to decry the evidence of sunspots and other phenomena, sunspots didn’t go away. Religion tried to tell people not to use lightning rods because it turned away the wrath of God. Soon the only buildings that were getting hit by lightning were churches belonging to people who supposedly did not deserve the wrath of God.

Finally, I’d like to bring up something that kind of puts these fundamentalists in their place. In Matthew 13, verses 10 through 14, Christ is asked why he speaks in parables. The answer He gives says basically that the parables are a way of hiding the truth from those who are not ready to see it, but those who are ready for the message can peer beyond the surface of the story and see what is truly being said. It seems to me that the book of Genesis falls squarely in that category.

The true religions do not limit the knowledge that man can know, but rather help man understand his place among all this wonder that is the universe. Man can think and explore. Religion should not stop man from doing those things. To do otherwise would be to put limits on what man can do. It seems to me that God does not want to limit the greatness that man can achieve.