Creationism -- A Loss of Faith?
Mon., January 16, 03:27 PM
Molly Ivins’ column about creationism may have appeared earlier, but it was in my newspaper this weekend. (I’ve noticed that the syndicated features are often late, but it’s a – would you believe? – lower-priced newspaper.) Ms. Ivins comes to the very heart of the matter: by its very nature, creationism is not science, but faith.
Every argument I’ve ever heard against the theory of evolution goes back to “it speaks against the Bible.” Consider the play, “Inherit the Wind”; its characters argue against evolution via deep knowledge of the Bible.
The basis of the Bible, however, is faith, as opposed to something we can touch or see or hear. If you know me, you know I am not going to attack your religious beliefs. The Bible is a powerful teaching tool that explains the world in terms of what they understood at the time. We can all point to some part of the Bible that does not stand up to newer discoveries. Science, on the other hand, is not “writ in stone.” It is constantly re-examined, and each new discovery or development tests both the new knowledge and the old.
When a geologist or a paleontologist points to different strata in the earth’s surface or fossils dated by carbon-14 analysis, the creationism answer is “God placed them there like that during the creation of the world.” My take on that has always been, if God placed something on the earth and gave me the tools and understanding to figure out that it is 300,000,000 years old, who am I to question that? Particularly against a story written by men for their own purposes, whatever they might have been?
That’s my problem with creationism. I can no longer believe that the earth is only six thousand years old. If God left me clues that it is several million years old, I’ll take the clues. I do have faith that he’s not leading me on for no reason. Have the creationists lost their faith?
