I noticed Jazz Shaw’s post on Evolution linking to Steve Benen “look how dumb those Christians are” post, and Stacy McCain’s answer..
Forgetting the fact that Mr. Benen apparently wants to put a religious test on who can serve in congress and forgetting his seeming ignorance concerning Christianity’s history and science. I suggest he buy a copy of How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (my review here no wonder the left hates Western Civilization so much but I digress).
I’ve already made my point in this post about the Bible and science:
In our science we basically have educated guesses in pursuit of truth. As time and our knowledge expands our guesses become better and more informed but in the end a lot of it is still a guess, yet these guesses are a million times better than Moses would ever be able to make. If our science would be beyond Moses, how much more beyond him would be the actual methods of how God works explained on a scientific level?
It is my opinion that God gave Moses the answers that were truthful, but also in a way that he and his people, bronze age humans could understand and grasp. Like at the waters of Massah and Meribah he didn’t give him a thesis on Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms combined to create water, he didn’t give a geological explanation of how steams wear down soil and cause erosion, he provided the water.
It doesn’t matter for example if the entire world was flooded in Noah’s time, or if it was an individual continent, or just a country the size of Iraq or whatever. In the understanding of Noah it was the world, and in the understanding of Moses it was the world. It makes it no less the action of God nor do the lessons drawn from it change. It is no different than trying to explain to a 3 year old how something works, you tell him the truth but in a way that he can grasp it.
Now as I said Science is a question of our best educated guess, but many people try to use it as a club to attack Christianity in general and the Bible in particular as Stacy puts it:
Having spent quite some time studying the arguments over evolution, it has for many years struck me that while the scientific priesthood of neo-Darwinian orthodoxy in astrophysics, paleontology and anthropology often disagree vehemently over their own theories and interpretations, they are united by one major agreement: The Bible is wrong.
On that point, they are quite fanatical, and one need not debate fanatics. Merely demonstrate that they are fanatics — occasionally point out their more obvious errors, provoking their predictably intemperate responses — and you will discredit them in the eyes of reasonable people.
I think people often confuse “natural selection” and survival and the fittest, which is certainly scientifically sound and full blown evolution the creation of one species from another.
The second has several problems the biggest of which for me is the math.
Here is what you need for evolution of that nature to work:
- You need some kind of mutation.
- Said mutation needs to be a beneficial mutation so it doesn’t increase the likely hood of the creature caught by a predator.
- You need a mutation that doesn’t prevent breeding with a similar creature
- The result of that breed must carry said mutation so it has to be dominant trait
- Continual breeding has to take place so that dominant trait spreads until all members of the species without that dominant trait disappear.
- Repeat until an amoeba becomes Snooki from Jersey Shore.
Now think about the mathematical odds of each of those steps and imagine the development of a claw from a fin. Think of NOTHING else, just that single development. What would the mathematical odds of each step taking place? How many times would the dice have to fall a particular way for that to happen just for that step to take place? What are the odds of such a thing happening by chance and not just by chance, but over and over again for every species that is out there?
Is that possible, sure. I believe in God, with such a God something like this is very possible, what I find amazing is that those who are so vehement in denying the existence of God are willing to bet their reputations on a process that mathematically is so unlikely that they’d never bet real money on it.
I submit that if you believe in Evolution you almost HAVE to believe in God because the odds of such a process taking place without him are so slight as to be nil.
Or to put it another way. You can have God without evolution, but considering the odds involved I submit you can’t have evolution without God.
Now is it really important? Not really, It’s an interesting scientific discussion and like anything such scientific discussion you go where the evidence takes you. We keep researching, we find clues and make assumptions based on them, test them, and repeat. That’s fine. Religion of course doesn’t need to explain the nuts and bolts of how a universe is created, it’s primary job is to save souls. These goals aren’t mutually exclusive and we need to remember what science and religion’s purposes are:
Man didn’t need God to provide him a science text, man can write those texts himself. Man did need instruction on the salvation of his soul. God provided that and still provides it through Scripture, prayer, the Church and Tradition. We can take advantage of those things provided or not. It’s totally up to us.
I await to see Steve Benen’s piece attacking the scientific ignorance of Islam.
