{"id":2442,"date":"2009-08-09T12:32:26","date_gmt":"2009-08-09T20:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=2442"},"modified":"2009-08-09T12:34:47","modified_gmt":"2009-08-09T20:34:47","slug":"take-that-francis-collins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/take-that-francis-collins\/","title":{"rendered":"Take that, Francis Collins!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was listening with equal parts fascination and incredulity to Christian radio KBRT 740 am this morning while driving back from the pool.\u00a0 The topic on today\u2019s segment of \u201cDefending the Truth<\/a>\u201d: the self-delusion of \u201cprogressive creationists\u201d and \u201ctheistic evolutionists\u201d\u2014those unnamed iconoclasts who purport to believe in Christ while accepting evolution.\u00a0\u00a0 While the guest pastor reluctantly allowed as how evolution was not a \u201csalvation issue,\u201d there was nonetheless a fatal and irreversible slippery slope, he said, from the acceptance of evolution in lieu of the literal truth of Genesis to rejection of the entire Bible.\u00a0 Someone who is told: \u2018well, Eve was not literally created from Adam\u2019s rib,\u2019 or, \u2018Noah\u2019s Ark did not actually exist as described,\u2019 could then go on to question whether Jesus in fact walked on water or rose from the dead.\u00a0 A good point.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Host Bob Dutko asked his guest rhetorically: But aren\u2019t there lots of metaphors in the Bible?\u00a0 Why not read Genesis metaphorically, so that the six days of creation were units of God\u2019s time\u2014billions of years, say, per day?\u00a0 It is true, the pastor responded, that when we say that \u2018Jesus is a door,\u2019 we don\u2019t mean that he is made of a few boards and nails, or when we say that \u2018Jesus was bread from heaven,\u2019 we don\u2019t mean that he was flour and salt (though I thought sometimes we do kind of mean that).\u00a0 But when a unit of time in the Bible is preceded by a cardinal or ordinal number, that unit means exactly what it says, the pastor has determined through close Scriptural exegesis.\u00a0 A day in Genesis 1:1 is 24 hours, no more nor less.\u00a0 Besides, if we read the days of creation metaphorically as God\u2019s time, he said, while it might be nice to have our mandated day of rest on the Sabbath last one billion years, that would mean we would have to work six billion years to earn it, something we might be reluctant to do.\u00a0 Another good point.<\/p>\n

But I was disappointed that Dutko and his guest did not address the puzzle of animal existence after the Fall.\u00a0 I can at least follow the argument why a loving God has had to allow millions of seemingly innocent babies and children to be mowed down by cancer, brain defects, landslides, and earthquakes because Eve had the temerity to ignore his command.\u00a0 Rules are rules and punishment is punishment\u2014at least within the same species.\u00a0 But I don\u2019t understand why animals\u2014not in any way related to humans, according to Biblical believers–are also punished for Eve\u2019s original sin.\u00a0\u00a0 Why are baby gazelles gashed by lions and left to scream themselves to death on the savannah?\u00a0 According to apologist David Hart<\/a>, God created a world of \u201charmony and peace, free from suffering and death.\u201d\u00a0 It was only after Eve disobeyed that God\u2019s creation started \u201crunning red with blood.\u201d\u00a0 The ethical question of why fluffy seal pups must die gruesome deaths in the clutches of a polar bear because of a human failing is difficult enough.\u00a0 But the biology of the pre- and post-lapsarian worlds is also a conundrum.\u00a0 If nature became red in tooth and claw only after the Fall, presumably today\u2019s carnivores were all vegetarians in Eden.\u00a0 But when were their jaws, skulls, claws, teeth, digestive enzymes, and stomachs replaced from those required to break down cellulose to those required to kill and digest living flesh?\u00a0 Were peaceful grass-eaters retooled into fanged hunters immediately while Adam and Eve were packing up or did they gradually evolve the morphology of predation?\u00a0 I am not aware of any explanations of this change, but its mechanisms are not at all self-evident to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was listening with equal parts fascination and incredulity to Christian radio KBRT 740 am this morning while driving back from the pool.\u00a0 The topic on today\u2019s segment of \u201cDefending the Truth\u201d: the self-delusion of \u201cprogressive creationists\u201d and \u201ctheistic evolutionists\u201d\u2014those … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[121,300,301],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2442"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2445,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442\/revisions\/2445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}