I wrote -
As I have stated before, I believe that meaningful discussions concerning
alternate Origin stories should be presented to all our children, and if it
can not be done in our public schools (or any other public forum), then,
perhaps by default, it must occur in our other "meeting houses," our houses
of worship.
George wrote-
Which "alternate Origin stories"? Should we teach in public schools
that Odin & his brothers made the world out of the body of the giant Ymir,
or the Egyptian story of the god who created the world by masturbating, as
possible alternatives to evolution? Or if we're limited to the church,
should we teach that God created the universe by defeating a primordial sea
monster, as in Ps.89:8-13 & Job.26:12-13?
____________________________________
Ah, but of course that is the problem with teaching creation only in the
churches...it would nearly prohibit the study of the diverse stories
provided in the literature/religions of the world and in antiquity. ;^)
But the real problem is that many want to teach evolution in the schools,
followed with appropriate data backing it up, rather than teaching
biological facts, and explaining why they suggest, or not, the natural
mechanisms proposed by Darwin, Gould, et al.
_________________________________________
[George}
Of course the teaching of creation in the church should be
distinctively Christian. I.e., it should speak about the world _as_
creation & talk about evolution in terms of the providential action of the
God who is revealed in Jesus Christ. But that means putting evolution in a
theological context, not trying to present some alternative to it as a
scientific theory.
[Norm]
The problem with presenting "evolution in a theological context" is that it
comes across to most casual observers as Deism. There is nothing wrong with
that , mind you...some of my favorite patriots were deists. Just "Not in my
church..."
I am surprised that everyone here seems to have forgotten (or never learned)
that throughout the period between the observation of the "red shift" in the
cosmos, and the confirmation of Gamow's predictions by the Bell Labs radio
engineers, it was the Humanists who had resisted, and, to some extent,
continue to resist, the Big Bang Theory the strongest, due to the
theological implications of a finite universe.
[George]
This is misleading. Sure, the desire to get rid of a suggestion of a
creation moment was one of the motives of the steady state theory, but there
were plenty of "humanists" who never bought into that - Gamow, e.g.
Moreover, the idea that big bang theory has "theological implications" about
creation is belied by the fact that somebody like Weinberg can be quite
comfortable with it. & on the other hand, the steady state theory could be
reconciled with belief in God as the ultimate ground of being of the
universe - the same kind of approach that would be necessary if the
Hartle-Hawking model turned out to be true.
[Me again]
Note that I capitalized "Humanists," as in the signers of the Humanist
Manifesto. I know not of Gamow's philosophical background, other than he
was one of my favorite writers in my teens, but I am sure he was not invited
to many Humanist functions after his ardent support of BBT.
[George] & having said that, the relevance of this to teaching about
evolution in the church is unclear.
[In my grand finale]
Ah, but that is the $64-question, yet it is mentioned extensively in the
(former) subject news accounts of Creationism in the UK:
(1) Some how, to convince one that Universe/Earth/Life is much older
than a few millennia is sufficient to turn one into a card-carrying
Evolutionist.
And I guess there is some (il)logic in that..."If I can't trust the
Bible/church about the age of the earth, then how can I trust them about the
origins of life?" And that spin seems to work, or at least the more secular
evolutionists seem to think so. But, in their heart-of-heart, they are
REALLY not comfortable with this Big Bang scenario. Thus the creeping
(galloping?) revisionism that we see in the physical science literature
which I have alluded to in a previous post. Also...
(2) Somehow accepting the evolution of the universe from "Chaos to Cosmos"
is supposed to be the doorway of acceptance of "from the Goo to you, by way
of the zoo."
But there is little comparison. The scenario of the early universe forming
stars and planets seem quite acceptable in the most elementary laws of
physics and ballistics. In space, amorphous matter will collapse into their
center of mass, and form better formed bodies. Nothing much going on under
the table there.
But the biological/chemical goings on necessary to create and sustain life
forms is much more complicated to be explained by chance interaction of
chemicals and organisms. To believe that evolutionists have all the
(legitimate) answers to real questions requires a whole new leap of faith.
Later,
Norm
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Apr 08 2002 - 12:26:04 EDT