The Bible vs. science (USA Today)

[Tock]

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/...s_sc.html#more

The Bible vs. science
Some creationists have decided to pick a fight that is neither necessary nor wise. Let science be science, and let religion be religion. The two need not be reconciled. After all, shouldn’t faith be enough?

By Tom Krattenmaker

Chiseled a mile deep and 10 miles wide through limestone and sandstone, the Grand Canyon cuts an awesome divide into the earth for 277 miles. But it may be nothing compared with the chasm that separates the two camps in the public shouting match going on over the primacy of science or religion.

How appropriate, then, that the Grand Canyon — its age, to be precise — has become a big issue in the ongoing argument about creationism and the role it will play in our understanding of the world.

Frustrated by the National Park Service's insistence that the visitors center continue to sell a book with a creationist account of the canyon's formation, a public employees group is accusing the service of invalidating science and promoting fundamentalist religion.

It's not as though the two sides are splitting hairs: Most scientists estimate the canyon's age at about 6 million years. Young-Earth creationists, who believe in the literal account of the world's creation laid out in the Bible's book of Genesis, contend it's closer to 4,500 years.

The protesting group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an alliance of scientists, land managers, environmental advocates and others, calls it distressing that the park service is not sticking to pure, mainstream geology in the information it dispenses at the Grand Canyon.

The stakes seem even higher to some on the creationist side. If their rhetoric is any indication, nothing short of the existence of God hinges on their "proving" that the canyon was not the result of gradual geologic processes, but of Noah's flood.

'A Different View'

Tom Vail is the author of the creationist book at issue. The book, Grand Canyon: A Different View, riles the science-minded, Vail claims, because "if we're right, if the Grand Canyon is the result of a global flood and the Bible is true, then there's a God. And if there's a God, then there's a God that they might be [answerable] to."

Vail's point, however, begs a question that he and like-minded creationists might not want asked. If they're objectively wrong about the genesis of the Grand Canyon and other geologic matters — you'll be hard-pressed to find a mainstream scientist who says they aren't — must they concede that God does not exist?

That, of course, is a rhetorical question. No amount of scientific evidence will convince an ardent creationist of the validity of human evolution or that the Earth is billions of years old.

Nevertheless, the question frames a problem with the stance of the anti-science creationists that threatens not only their version of the world's origins, but also the credibility of their religion itself. Because by attempting to marshal empirical evidence in support of their beliefs, they enter the debate on the scientists' terms — terms that cannot possibly work in favor of a literal reading of the Bible. By playing in this arena, haven't the creationists already lost the argument?

As the evangelical writer and religion professor Randall Balmer points out, confronting the public with objective evidence of the Bible's literal truth is misguided at its core. Writing about intelligent design (a counter to evolution that sees an unidentified "designer" behind the world's creation), Balmer says, "Paradoxically, when the Religious Right asserts intelligent design is science, it implies that faith in God is inadequate, that it needs the imprimatur of the scientific method."

This unwise raising of the stakes is vividly demonstrated by the soon-to-open Creation Museum in Florence, Ky., which is assembling a collection of dinosaur models, fossils, minerals and other material to "demonstrate that the Scriptural accounts of the Creation, Noah's flood, and other major events of biblical history can be trusted," as organizers describe the project in a news release.

One exhibit, according to news reports, will feature two animatronic children near a pool of water with a pair of small dinosaurs lurking behind.

In comments published last fall by the Baptist Press news service, a consultant to the Creation Museum implies that the very foundation of Christian belief will crumble if believers don't disprove the scientific consensus that humans evolved into existence tens of thousands of years ago. The consultant is one Kurt Wise, a Harvard-educated Ph.D. and director of the Center for Theology and Science at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Says Wise: "If humans really date back that far, and Adam lived far enough in the past to be their ancestor, then the genealogical record of Genesis 5 is wrong, and thus the Bible and its author, God, are wrong."

'Trust your God'

To most people, it sounds like Wise is going "all in" with a losing hand. Do religious believers really want the truth of their faith wagered on an attempt to prove that countless scientists have somehow botched their reading of the fossil record?

But here's the rub: Wise acknowledges that nothing can convince him that Earth is older than five or six thousand years. Why? Because the Bible is his ultimate authority. "The most important thing," he says, "is that you ought to be able to trust your God and the claims the Bible makes."

Given their rock-solid religious convictions, creationists such as Wise ultimately are not interested in science, in setting aside preconceptions and following trails of observable evidence to logical, testable conclusions.

Why, then, are they bothering with fossils and geology and quasi-scientific exhibitions that purport to prove that the Bible "can be trusted," as the organizers of the Creation Museum phrase it? No doubt, concern for the public credibility of their faith has a lot to do with it. They appear to have accepted that we live in a rational age, one that will not abide propositions that lack objective evidence to back them.

How ironic, then, that by dabbling in science to promote their beliefs, anti-science creationists are more likely eroding the very credibility they aim to bolster.

Granted, the new museum in Kentucky, like the creationist book at the Grand Canyon, may shore up the already-believers. But if winning new converts to Christianity is the aim, the strategy can only backfire.

How many Americans are ready to accept the proposition that science has made a colossal error interpreting the fossil and geological record and — more radical still — that the validity of Christianity depends on proving it? If anything, a stance like this repels those wavering between faith and disbelief and gives skeptics one more reason to reject religion.

A suggestion to creationists: Let science be science, and let religion prevail in the vast areas where science has little or nothing to offer. It's not as though science has an answer for everything of consequence. The purpose and meaning of life, the existence of good and evil and love and hate, the nature of a human soul and what becomes of it at death, the existence and will of the divine — these are questions that belong to ethics, philosophy and, of course, religion.

No, religion shouldn't be picking this particular fight with mainstream science. Can't the Bible literalists concede matters of empirical evidence and rational inquiry to science and devote themselves to the questions of ultimate meaning — the mighty questions that rightly occupy religion? Their religion doesn't need any scientific proof. Why should their own faith?

Tom Krattenmaker, who lives in Portland, Ore., specializes in religion in public life and is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors. He is working on a book about the Christianization of professional sports.

------------------------------------------------
For the records
By Tom Krattenmaker

When it comes to conflicts between the scientific/rational mindset and the beliefs of Bible literalists, there's no book quite like Genesis. From the origins of the world and humankind to the cause of the snake's ground-hugging posture, the two worldviews are light years apart. Here are some assertions in Genesisthat clash with the scientific conception of reality:


God created the world in six days (and rested on the seventh). By tracing the genealogies laid out in Genesis, young-Earth creations conclude that this divine act occurred about 6,000 years ago. Mainstream science, by contrast, holds that Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old and that the surface we recognize as "the world" is not the product of a sudden divine act, but of eons of gradual change.
During this flurry of creation, after producing the creatures of the air, water and land, God created the first man. Seeing that Adam had "no suitable helper," he created the first woman, Eve, from Adam's rib. According to mainstream science, anatomically modern humans first appeared on the scene at least 130,000 years ago, having evolved from more primitive forms.
Speaking of those genealogies, people in Genesis had very, very long lives. Adam lived 930 years; Seth, 912 years; Enosh, 905 years; and so on. The longest documented human life in history (that of a Frenchwoman named Jeanne Calment) is 122 years. Science's understanding of aging is incomplete, and it cannot definitely prove that significantly longer life spans were not possible long ago. Nevertheless, the great age achieved by Adam, Enosh and others in Genesis obliterates the credulity of all but the most ardent fundamentalists.
As punishment for tempting Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, God cursed the serpent and consigned it to crawl on its belly and "eat dust" for all its days — to become a snake, in other words. Science holds that snakes, like all creatures, evolved into their present form in response to environmental challenges and opportunities. As such, their peculiar shape and posture are not a curse, but a gradually acquired asset that lets them burrow and fit through spaces too small for most animals.
Before God's intervention at the Tower of Babel, Genesis asserts, all humans spoke one tongue. As punishment for human presumption, God confused their language such that they could no longer understand one another — turned one language into many, essentially, thus beginning the development of the thousands of languages known today. You probably won't find many university scientists who will vouch for this version of events, but there is no scientific consensus on how human languages evolved, nor the degree to which they share a common root or roots.

[juicedOUTbrain]

Creationists are out of control these days...There is a valid question as to where the first cell or life came from, but to deny natural selection, or geological evolution is just plain stupid...we can see evolution occuring today with viruses, and at a micro level is some birds and animals in enviorments experiencing rapid climate changes...Any kid at the beach can see how erosion can shape land...and anyone whos ever syphoned gas knows water can flow uphill using coherance, pressure and speed (which is a key argument in the grand canyon theory)...

Im in no position to say wether the bible is BS or not, but i can say with confidence that its not a literal presentation of how things were done...Scientists and creationists are both similar in that they look for answers, the difference is creationists like things simple and have been trained from a young age not to use analyitical thought...

Ive watched videos on google of the creationists account of the forming of the grand canyon...It is abslutely ridiculous...Without any degree in geology or hydrodynamics, I can easily explain the contradictions that they point to as evidence for the grand canyons instant creation... any logical person could...

there are however some arguments that creationists make that are pretty gripping...One thing they point to is complex mechanisms in certain mammals...natural selection says that an organism evolves very slowly and only keeps the attributes that benefit them...Creationists point to complex mechanisms in mammals that are composed of many vital parts working together...

Thier argument is that if things evolve slowly and only keep positive attributes than how could a complex mechanism form, citing that unless the mechanism came to be all at once, none of the smaller parts of it would have been useful enough to remain and further evolve ...Its an interesting theory and it has some flaws but it is definitly a valid point...One example the creationists often use is the human eyeball...the eye is made up of many parts, each one integral to the eyes fuctioning...How could the eye evolve slowly if the retina by itself had no use and disappeared? Or how could the eye form without the piece of the brain to interperate the light? My explaination is that a very simple version of the mechanism formed first... like a nerve that sent a pulse when it encountered bright light...over time organisms that had this were better suited to survive in an enviornment where bright light could kill the organism...over time, and through changes in the enviorment the mechanism became more sensitive, gained more uses and slowly grew more complex...I dont know if that made sense, but its hard to explain a theory like that in a few lines...

Another question I have for these brilliant creationists is if complexity cant come from nothing, than where did "god" come from? lol ask any creationist that question and watch them squirm, i do it every chance i get, hehe...

Im not bashing religion or spirituality, just creationists who fail to put ANY analyitical thought into thier baseless theories...

[Tock]

Another question I have for these brilliant creationists is if complexity cant come from nothing, than where did "god" come from? lol ask any creationist that question and watch them squirm, i do it every chance i get, hehe...

Another reasonable question would be, "Is God an atheist?"

Could the god that created this universe, worship, in turn, another god that created him? And again, could that god worship yet another god that created him? If so, then why not bypass the god that created us, and just worship the god that created the god that created the god that created us.

Of course, this could go on indefinitely . . . but sooner or later, there could be a god that has no reason to suppose that there is any other god greater than him. But would he be correct? How could he know for certain?
Funny, but the same logic applies to humans. Lots of people have no reason to suppose gods exist. Nevertheless, some of those people, without proof or evidence of gods, have "faith" they exist. Others are skeptical. The rest tell us God speaks to them -- some of them preach on TV, others end up in mental hospitals.


Where did God come from, indeed. Who knows?

[juicedOUTbrain]

The rest tell us God speaks to them -- some of them preach on TV, others end up in mental hospitals...

...Where did God come from, indeed. Who knows?

As for people that claim god speaks to them...I've watched preachers speak, such as Joel Olsten, and they convince people that thier conscious is god speaking to them...and not the result of millions of years of evolution. Religious people are just gullable by nature i guess....Not speaking specifically, some theologians have a complex belief that they can back up, but most just blindly believe what they are told...They call it "faith"...

Who knows? I believe thier is a god in a very broad sense of the word...I would call the physical force that creates life god...but to suppose theres a white man with a beard sitting in the sky with a magnifying glass, watching your every move...just ridiculous, IMO...

I for one, dont need a god to tell me whats right and wrong...i guess some people do...

[jamikehat]

interesting post. I live in the south and some of these people border on religious fanaticism...and yes I am putting them in the same category as some terrorists. BTW I hope this doesn't offend anybody, but if one more person hands me a jesus pamphlet or one of those fake 20$ bills with bible quotes on it as a tip I cannot be held responsible for my actions. If you love jesus GREAT! I am happy for you and I am jealous that you can actually live your life that ignorant and happy way with God folllowing your footsteps in the sand. But I don't. I don't push my opinions on people(even though they are right) and you shouldn't either...It really drives me insane having this discussion with educated christians...it's amazing what you can defend using the word "faith"

just my two cents