Re: evolution archive list

Biochmborg@aol.com
Mon, 31 May 1999 13:40:18 EDT

In a message dated 5/31/99 9:38:14 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
susan-brassfield@ou.edu writes:

>
> >Bertvan:
> >This is my understanding of neo Darwinism. I've recently heard some
quite
> >respectable biologists no longer believe "macro evolution is simply a lot
> >of microevolution". It is the part I find implausible. You never said
> >whether you think this makes me a "creationist"
>
> it depends on whether or not you believe that a god--specifically the
> biblical god--created everything out of nothing all at once and species
have
> been utterly static since then. If you believe that, then you are a
> creationist. There are some on this list who believe that the biblical god
> used evolution to create. They are not creationists.
>

I beg to differ. At its most basic, "creationist" simply means someone who
believes that God (or a god) created the universe. In that respect I am a
creationist, even though I also accept the validity of evolution as a
scientific fact. Since I believe that God invented evolution as His tool for
creating and diversifying life, I tend to call myself an evolutionary
creationist. There are also young-earth creationists, old-earth creationists
and progressive creationists; we all differ on the details, but we agree on
the one thing that is common to all of us, namely that God created the
universe. You are defining creationist too narrowly, in a way that seeks to
exclude mainstream Christians, and I do not believe that is right. Our
debate is with anti-evolutionists, not creationists or Christians per se.
That most aniti-evolutionists are Christian creationists does not mean that
most Christian creationists are anti-evolutionists.

Kevin L. O'Brien