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A group of six dozen paleontologists recently paid a trip to the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky to see what they presented.
“The real purpose of the museum visit is to give some of my colleagues an opportunity to sense how they’re being portrayed,” said Arnold Miller, a professor of paleontology at the University of Cincinnati, which is hosting the conference. “They’re being demonized, I feel, in this museum as people who are responsible for all the ills of society.”
[The Olympian – Scientists study foes’ ways at Creation Museum]
Obviously, there are two different worldviews at work here, and one trip to the museum wasn’t going to change the mind of these people who had built their livelihood on evolution. But it was the one comment that Ken Ham found in an early version of the AP story that is of interest:
Christine Janis, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University, said most of the arguments addressed at the museum she’s heard countless times before. What she found most troubling was the crowd. More than 750,000 people have visited in two years, and Janis is concerned the Creation Museum’s version of human history is the only one they’re getting.
“They’re out-breeding us, that’s for sure,” Janis said.
This remark drips with the disdain that these people have for people with a different worldview. It’s not enough to believe that they, alone, are the keepers of all knowledge, it’s now correct to look down on those that disagree with you as somehow less educated and set to doom civilization because they are “less evolved” or something.
And that’s one of the biggest problems atheism has—that it’s not just a belief system, but it’s one that’s militant and is out there to declare that every other belief system is wrong. And because you don’t know that you’re wrong, you’re pathetic.
There is no freedom except to be free from religion—because religion means accountability to Someone, it means rules that aren’t of our own making, and it means belief in something you cannot see or test.
Yet it was true freedom brought about by founders with a Christian worldview that made this country what is was, and hopefully its undoing will still take some time.
there are countless people who believe in a god, but also believe in evolution. Your argument seems to link support of evolution exclusively to atheism. not at all the case.
In recent years, even the Roman Catholic Church has been more open to the theory of evolution.
.-= Musicguy´s last blog ..Happy Darwin Day! =-.
BTW- just because 750K people went to the museum doesn’t mean they all believe what it holds. Four guys I went to college with stopped in on their travels late last year, more to gawk and laugh than anything else. Their pictures and captions would have given me tons of material if I were a stand up comedian.
While I’m sure my friends are a definitive minority amongst that 750K, numbers can be deceiving.
.-= Musicguy´s last blog ..Happy Darwin Day! =-.
You cannot believe in God and evolution, it’s just not possible. To believe in evolution you are denying God and divine creation. You openly reject God as a Creator, God as a person and ultimately God as a whole, the bible and Christian faith.
.-= Leticia´s last blog ..Laughing With =-.
so not true Leticia. your comment only has truth in regards to YOUR limited interpretation of the bible. You take “day” to literally mean a 24 hour period. There are many others who consider “day” to be millions or even billions of years. Look at Psalm 90 for a biblical reference along these lines: “For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.”
I can reconcile the two (belief in a god as well as evolution), as can millions of other christians, catholics, and agnostics. Are you actually implying that the Vatican has become atheistic or non-christian by softening it’s anti-evolution platform??
.-= Musicguy´s last blog ..Happy Darwin Day! =-.
@Musicguy: I think what Leticia is saying is that a belief in the God of the Bible while having a belief in evolution is logically inconsistent. The God of the Bible claims to be Creator– and He makes this claim throughout the Bible. To say that there are millions of years in the Genesis days means that there was death before sin– which totally messes with death being the consequence of sin. Break that, and having victory over sin meaning having victory over death makes even more of a mess.
As for Psalm 90, see Why Six Days. The translation of the word “day” is important, as is context.
Also, obviously not everyone that goes to the Museum is a believer in Genesis– these scientists were not– but when I was there it seemed that there were some skeptics, but the majority believed. It really is something to experience.
And quoting the Vatican as a good source on science? Didn’t they have trouble believing that the Earth revolved around the Sun? Wasn’t it Galileo that was killed because he taught something against the Catholic church?
Seems to me that the Vatican doesn’t really have a good track record when it comes to these sorts of things.
“To say that there are millions of years in the Genesis days means that there was death before sin– which totally messes with death being the consequence of sin.”
it took me awhile to follow that gem. i had no idea that animal death had anything to do with sin.
Don’t get me started on context and translation. Errors abound throughout the bible, but is seems that only you are allowed to point them out.
If i have to choose between dinos and man wandering the earth together 6000 years ago or the Vatican with it’s slow uptake, I’m going with the vatican. They at least aknowledged the fact that the earth is round and rotates upon an axis. Some on the fundamentalist side haven’t gotten there yet: http://www.fixedearth.com/
.-= Musicguy´s last blog ..Happy Darwin Day! =-.
@Musicguy: The link between death and sin is strong in the Bible– it’s throughout and fundamental. The whole “Through Adam came sin and through sin death.”
If you present some errors, I’m sure we can discuss them. In a series I just concluded I talked about a few “problems people thought they had.”
And just like fewer things in this country, you are free to make your own choices about things. The Vatican has a track record for being wrong when it comes to science. Whoever these “fixed earth” people are, they aren’t anyone that I’m affiliated with.
I agree with Leticia, a true Biblical outlook (whether you believe a day is literally 24 hours or thousands of years) means evolution and Creation don’t jive. The foundation of evolution is that everything started as simple and evolved to complex. Creation states that complexity was there from the beginning. It has nothing to do with time interpretation of how long a “day” actually was, it’s how everything came into being.
Great post, Min.
.-= Rachel´s last blog ..A-Z =-.