Theobiologian

God, Go There!

2011-02-06T22:28:00.002-07:00

Where there's hate, God isn't.
Where there's hate, God, go there!

Love, Laughter, Sadness & Tears

2011-01-29T13:44:00.001-07:00

"Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart, don't know how to laugh either."
~Golda Meir

A few days ago, a new (or at least, resurrected) Facebook meme appeared on "walls" across the country; find a random Flickr picture, a random Wikipedia article, and a random QuotationsPage quote and use these to create your very own CD cover. The third picture on the Flickr page is your cover picture, the Wikipedia article title your band, and the last few words of the last quote are your album name. I had fun, and made a couple (yeah, I cheated. But only a little. It was more fun that way!)

There are some pretty fun pictures out there, and the entire exercise was somewhat addicting. But what has this to do with the post title - or with Science, or Religion?

The quote at the top of the page was right above the Terry Pratchet quote on the second cover. It got me thinking.

In the last half a year, I've heard, in large part thanks to Facebook and our constant contact with one another's lives, of so many sad stories that friends and family have experienced. Miscarriages and the loss of young babies have topped the list, but there have been other deaths, sicknesses, the ends of marriages, and other difficult relational problems. At the same time, I've heard about so many healthy new babies, recovery from illness or injury, engagements, marriages.

"Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart, don't know how to laugh either."

We can't have one without the other. We can't really love, or be loved, without knowing of the risk for loss. What would a relationship be if there was never a risk of death of a loved one, or betrayal? How much would their "love" mean to us if they had no choice but to love? Or no choice but to serve, or to stay faithful - if we each had no choice but to do the right thing, to put someone else first, to be a trustworthy friend or spouse? If life and health were guaranteed, what would they mean to us? I think, precious little.

Hand in hand with this goes the "problem of sin". Several years ago I took an online Philosophy of Religion class at a NY public college. I remember several occasions when the idea of sin as a problem for the existence of a "good" god came up. The argument was always "how can God be good and perfect if he is also all-knowing, yet allows sin to happen?" It was once compared with a baby sitter who left a child alone in a room with something dangerous. Wasn't it babysitter who was at fault when the child got hurt? Aside from this being an imperfect analogy, the conclusion would be faulty even if we made a better one.

What would our obedience mean to God if he proved his existence? The "babelfish" argument comes to mind.
What would our "love" for him mean if we had no choice? What good is "obedience" if we can't disobey? "Service" is mere slavery if it is not voluntary. "Sacrifice" can't exist without a desire to give something up.

The potential for us to sin, to turn against God, is necessary. Without it, we're robots. Machinery programed to do what someone else wants us to do. Beyond that, this same element of choice is necessary for human life and relationships to have any meaning at all.

If you can't weep, you can't laugh. If hate and heartbreak don't exist, neither does love.

The End

2010-09-20T23:15:00.002-06:00

I have quoted this line before, but still love it. I quote it again having now read everything leading up to it. I [finally] finished reading Origin of Species - a long, difficult read (with a bit of an abuse of punctuation and the run-on sentence - I counted in one line no fewer than 13 commas!), but well worth it.

I have wanted for a long time to have a better understanding of evolutionary theory, and reading the beginning - Darwin's theory of Natural Selection - gave me a much better understanding of it than I even expected. So many of the "it couldn't be that way because of __________" arguments against evolution are answered here, in this book, written 150 years ago - that so few opponents ever pick up! Would people still question the holes in the fossil record if they had read Darwin's answer to that problem, already written for us to see? Would people understand the significance of similarity in embryos, or homologous bone structure if they read Darwin's writing on it? When you get into it, it is truly fascinating.

My brother-in-law James (who finished Origin far ahead of me!) quoted parts of the last chapter that are well worth reading, even if you don't have time for the whole book. As James says, there isn't much of a summary you can give that would do this work justice. I am astounded at just how much Darwin understood, even without our modern understanding of genetics. I am also amazed by just how much Darwin knew about creation and the lengths he went to to learn even more (digging through bird poop on multiple occasions and more!).

Beyond that, reading the Origin of Species makes one wonder how our society today has re-interpreted "Darwinism" to be godless. Darwin himself refers more than just once to the "Creator" in his writing. Details of his life indicate he struggled with his own religious beliefs as he was told by the church that they did not align with his theory. His writing echoes his struggle - containing a quote from "a celebrated author and divine" who saw religion and evolution as compatible. I wonder how many Christians and non-Christians alike are turned off from science (the study of Creation!), Christianity, or both as a result of being unable to harmonize God's word given in Scripture and in Nature?

Darwin looked to the future, to the young naturalists of his day, hoping they might be able to move beyond the "it's always been this way" attitude of the older generation and accept his theory. I hope something similar for the church today: that our young people might see evolution as the beautiful development of God's creation - all part of his plan - rather than as something to continue using as a wedge between the Church and the world - "for thus only can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be removed" - and no longer be a stumbling block for so many.

Variation Under Nature

2010-06-06T21:15:00.015-06:00

"... as varieties, in order to become in any degree permanent, necessarily have to struggle with the other inhabitants of the country, the species which are already dominant will be the most likely to yield offspring, which, though in some slight degree modified, still inherit those advantages that enabled their parents to become dominant over their compatriots."

~ C.D.
Natural selection in a nutshell

From Scratch

2010-03-24T07:58:00.001-06:00

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

~ Carl Sagan

Grandeur

2010-03-07T22:16:00.004-07:00

Darwin's Creation

2010-03-06T15:01:00.002-07:00

I'm not sure how I missed hearing about this, but was asked about the new movie on Charles Darwin just yesterday, and had to look it up. Creation: the true story of Charles Darwin is based on the biography "Annie's Box" written by one of Darwin's great-great-grandchildren. I have not yet seen it, but the trailers and video clips show the film's purpose - portraying the struggle Darwin faced of reconciling his theory with his (and his wife's) faith. It certainly looks interesting, and likely shows a face of Darwin that far too many Christians have never seen nor considered. He was raised in a household of faith and considered a life as a priest before becoming the naturalist we all know him as. Given the positions held by the church at that time (and by many today), he saw his theory as writing God out of the story, like so many still do.

It seems a great irony to me that now, 150 years later, so many Christians who reject his science outright nevertheless embrace his theology wholeheartedly.

Cultural Selection?

2010-03-02T07:32:00.002-07:00

This is one of those discoveries that seems both intuitive and surprising at the same time. Perhaps because so many of us have thought for so long precisely what this NY Times article on human culture and evolution states, that it is "a shield that protects people from the full force of other selective pressures", it is surprising that culture is also such a strong influencer (not just inhibitor) of our evolution. All of us who love that tall glass of milk alongside a warm brownie can appreciate it. This article highlights several more of the less known ways culture can impact our evolution. It is fairly unsurprising (for as much as we humans, and our cultures, love to eat!) that many of them have to do with food.

When Teachers Mix Religion & Science

2010-01-20T21:46:00.002-07:00

This New York Times article on an Ohio science teacher makes me wonder about priorities. As a teacher, who also happens to be Christian, I have something in common with Mr. Freshwater. However, I also realize that I am hired not to share my faith, but to teach my students. I have to wonder why it is that so many think it is acceptable to push one's faith into one's job. Should faith be a constant part of your life as a Christian? Absolutely. But should we go to work each day trying to convince our coworkers, customers, bosses or students that they, too, should become Christians?

No, for a lot of reasons.

First, I think the best way to share my personal relationship with Christ is through my own personal relationships. Not just people I see each day, but those whom I know well and count as my friends. I hope that others might see a bit of Christ in me, too, but I know perfectly well how turned off I am about people with "in-your-face" views - on politics, religion, TV, sports, or anything at all. Why should others be any different if my beliefs are "in-their-face"? A caring, trusting relationship is the perfect place for discussions about faith.

Second, how does it look to the world when we are unwilling to follow laws, policies, and good old common courtesy? How does it look to have a teacher in the news for (once again) trying to undermine scientific beliefs with scripture from a public school science classroom - something that has been made quite clear is neither legal or acceptable. From the outside, this looks like a refusal to submit to authority and social norms. It looks not like someone exercising their freedom of religion, but like someone trying to undermine someone else's. From the outside, people wonder just what this person would think if HIS child were in a class where someone tried to push Islam on them - and why, then, he thinks it is ok.

To American Christians (and those worldwide) - let's go about this how Christ intended, instead of doing it our own way and ruining Christ's good name for those around us. "They'll know we are Christians by our love", not by how loud we proclaim it.

How the world sees us?

2010-01-05T19:51:00.003-07:00

How technical....?

2010-01-03T20:07:00.002-07:00

Today, my church started the "Bible in 90 days" challenge, and having never actually made it through the whole book, I decided I'll give it a try. We were encouraged to all read the same version, so all have a common starting point, so I pulled out my old (and rather beat up) NIV Quest Study Bible ('94 edition!) I got in middle school and opened up to Genesis 1. I don't remember seeing this before, but found the following blurb at the bottom of the first page:

How technical is this description of creation? (chs. 1-2)
While the "days" of creation could be either a figure of speech or literal 24-hour periods, this passage is nevertheless an orderly narration of what took place. It tells us that there is intelligence, meaning and purpose behind all existence. In other words, the word of God is seen in the method of creation as well as the source of creation (Psalm 33:6,9; Heb. 11:3). Yet human beings have been given the privilege to explore, through scientific investigation, how God may have engineered these events, and how long he took [emphasis added]. Most understand the six days of creation to represent long periods of time simply because 24-hour days were not created until the fourth day. Actually, the word day is used in chs. 1-2 in three distinct ways: (1) as approximately 12 hours of daylight (1:5); (2) as 24 hours (1:14) and (3) as a period of time involving, at the very minimum, the whole creative activity from day one to day seven (see 2:4, where the word that is translated when is the same word that is elsewhere translated day)....

While the "orderly narration" phrase could be interpreted in a couple ways, judging by what follows I think the writers had in mind an "organized" narration, not one "in order" of how it happened. Nice to see this in a pretty common young adult bible - especially one printed 16 years ago.

I like the line I've italicized - it is indeed a privilege to be able to study the wonderful works of nature, especially for the Christian who can fully appreciate their value as part of God's creation.

Human impact on Evolution

2009-12-04T10:29:00.002-07:00

My brother-in-law pointed me to this article on one species (soon to be 2!) whose evolution has been influenced by humans. This study looks at birds who have begun wintering in England, due to the prevalence of bird feeders providing food, and whose evolutionary path has altered because of it. Nifty!

Coming soon, as soon as I get the book back from the library - review of Denis Alexander's "Creation or Evolution: Do we have to choose?" I read it a month or so ago and meant to post, but never did. Excellent book!

Our "newest" ancestor

2009-10-01T22:31:00.002-06:00

Nope, we didn't come from apes!

New fossil predates Lucy and gives insight into human evolution. Nifty stuff!

Origin of Skepticism?

2009-09-22T13:09:00.001-06:00

I have just learned from a Facebook friend about a new "celebration" happening this year on the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species. Kirk Cameron, actor turned ultra-conservative evangelical, and a friend have gotten together and written a new introduction to Darwin's famous book. Their plan is to hand out the book on college campuses this fall. What makes this newsworthy is the introduction's content (and, more importantly, its intent). Cameron, who is quite clearly a creationist (read: anti-evolutionist in this case!), and his friend have rounded up all the dirt they could find on Darwin and Evolution and their "seedier" associations, and gotten them published as the 50-page intro to Origin. They include such things as Hitler's "undeniable connection" to evolution, Darwin's "racism" and "disdain for women", and assorted misleading ideas like the"hoaxes" of evolutionary theory and the "lack of intermediate fossils". One woman has put out her own rebuttal of Cameron's video introducing his new scheme. It's a bit ... crass, shall we say, for my tastes, yet she makes most of the points I had thought of watching his video. Mr. Cameron, THIS is how you look to non-believers. This is how you look to BELIEVERS who share your faith in Christ, but don't believe there is a contradiction between the processes of evolution and the awesome power of our God - who is powerful enough to have created them.

First off, Cameron attempts to link Darwin and evolution to such horrible things as Hitler, racism, etc. What if we were to do this for the Bible and Christianity? Yikes. Crusades, murders, torture, racism, oppression of women, the Holocaust. I don't think we want to go down this road! Ms. ZOMGitsCriss proposes writing an introduction to the Bible (it's public domain, too, you know!) detailing all it's associations. I rather think we would not like how it would make Christ look. Yet, we believe.

Cameron also mentions in his video a number of scientists who believe God created the universe. That's all well and good - but most of them are dead. At least give us some living ones! Also, what about all the CHRISTIANS who believe God created evolution in order to create the universe? There are plenty of us out there, but we get no mention.

I have to wonder if Cameron thought at all about the ramifications of his approach. In effect, he is telling people that Darwin and his theory are evil and incompatible with Christianity. I'm sure that's what he was going for, but again, it's not true. They are quite compatible. Like I said, there are lots of us who believe God created the process of evolution to create the earth and its inhabitants. What this says to many non-Christians is that you can EITHER believe evolution (and there is a lot of evidence for it, including in the fossil record), OR you can be a Christian. Not both. This strategy he has come up with, using Origin to tell people how "it's a lie", is telling people who likely already believe evolution that they have to leave it if they want to follow Christ. That's a lie! It is chasing people AWAY from Christ, not leading them to him! This approach does far more harm than good, all the while making Christians look foolish. Darwin himself started life in the Church. He even considered going into the priesthood. But the church chased him away - they told him his evolution was incompatible with their Church, and he believed them, and died an agnostic. The church is the reason Darwin died as a non-Christian! I wish these guys would think about how they are portraying the faith, and the effects it might have on those who read this "new and improved introduction".

I know many Christians think the earth has to be young for Genesis to be "true". But many of us do not - the parables didn't have to be "literal" to speak "truth". There is more than one option here. One person's views rarely express the ultimate truth, yet Cameron (and a great many others) make them out to be, chasing people away from Christ as a result. This kills me. I wonder, if we were not so elitist, not so rejecting of science and logic, how many more believers there might be?

A better introduction for the Origin would focus on the response of Darwin's church. If they had accepted his ideas, how might the world have been different?

What is our goal?

2009-08-30T21:18:00.001-06:00

The so-called Great Commission gives us, as Christians, our "homework", shall we say, from God.

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

A couple of recent events stick out in my mind, reminding me how utterly unimportant to fulfilling the Great Commission the "creation-evolution debate" is. Really, does it matter, ultimately, how God created the earth? Will it impact your faith? Your salvation? What if God seeded earth with creatures from some other planet - would it change a thing?

I rather think not.

On the other hand, consider the results of arguing the point.

This past year was the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, and the 150th anniversary of his publication of the Origin of Species. As a biology teacher, naturally I had to do SOMETHING to commemorate it. I started reading a few short bios of Darwin's life. (Yes, this is relevant, bear with me!) I knew before I started that Darwin started his life in the Church. However, I learned a bit more about him that was somewhat surprising - and very sad. Darwin initially intended, at the urging of his father, to enter the priesthood. That was before his travels on the Beagle. We all know the story - naturalist on the HMS Beagle, visited the Galapagos and saw the finches (and a whole lot more, but they're the ones who got famous), proposed the idea of Natural Selection, and became the black sheep of the Church.

The thing that hit me about Darwin's story, though, was that he started as a Christian! In the end, he gave up his faith, because he found too much evidence for natural selection. Not just that though - the Church told him that his ideas and the Bible were incompatible. It was not natural selection, evolution, studying nature that drove him from God, but the Church itself.

Around the same time this year, some friends shared with me about their granddaughter and her friend (I'll call them Alice and Bill, just to make this easier). Alice is a Christian; Bill is an atheist. Alice and Bill made a deal - he'd come visit her church if she came to an atheist's meeting with him. The meeting Alice ended up going to was a birthday party - the 200th birthday of one Charles Darwin.

Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ; atheists grasp on to Darwin, as the man who made God unnecessary for the creation (beginning, I suppose) of life. What if Christians didn't so forcefully reject Darwin, natural selection and evolution? Six days, ok, fine - but why the big deal about it?

The Christian church (the vocal part of it, anyway) has turned the HOW of creation into dogma, rather that the minor footnote it should be in our walks of faith. The result? We are driving people AWAY from the Church, and the Christ we are called to make disciples for. Is it really that important?

I'm fairly confident that if we asked Jesus whether it was more important to make disciples or to make 6-day-creationists.... the creationists are not the winning answer. It is time to drop the small stuff and come back to the main point - glorifying our God and Creator through spreading his message. The important one.

Radiometric Dating: The earth is old, or God has deception down to a science

2009-08-28T22:21:00.001-06:00

This is a fantastic article on radiometric dating by Dr. Roger Weins, published in the journal of the American Scientific Affiliation. Dr. Weins explains how a number of different radiometric and non-radiometric dating methods work, how they have been cross-calibrated, and addresses many young-earth critiques of dating that seems to suggest an old earth. A long, but good and educational read!

Why?

2009-08-26T11:29:00.000-06:00

First, I am a Christian. Second, I am a Biologist. I've been asked before, by someone certainly a bit uninformed, if that's possible, to be a Christian and a Biologist.

"Um, yes. Why wouldn't a Christian want to study God's creation?"

All around me, every day, I see the evidence of His work - the plants, animals, rocks, clouds, sun, moon and stars that He made. NOT to study it, not to learn about it, not to appreciate it and be intrigued by what it has to say about HIM - that, to me, is sin. Not to care for it, steward it, that is sin.

"But what about evolution?"

I remember several conversations I had in school that still stand out in my mind as defining in my ideas about creation. The oldest was with a neighbor, the father of one of my friends, and a Catholic. I don't recall why, but we got to discussing what would have caused the Big Bang. I remember him asking, "Why not God?"

That simple question, so long ago, opened a new line of thought. My home church was not one that dwelt on issues of "Creation vs. Evolution" (for which I am thankful!), so I had not ever thought much about it. I remember rearranging the continents to form Pangaea back in elementary school without questioning the age of the earth. But nevertheless, "Why not God?" helped me to think about it - about what I believed.

Later, in AP biology, I remember studying the earth's timeline and looking at what emerged when. Hmm, it sort of lines up with Genesis, more or less. And Genesis 1 is a bit poetic, anyway - like something written to make a point, not give details. Besides, "a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like a day." Well, then, why not a million? God wrote it, right? God-breathed and such? Old-earther, to be sure. But still, every bit of biology I studied, I became more and more convinced of a God behind it.

A few years later, I sat in Biology 101 at my Christian college. The first week of class was spent looking at several different views of creation. We didn't spend a whole lot of time on the "6-day" variety, though obviously many students came in with that perspective. Gap theory (bit wacky, if you ask me), Day-Age theory (what? you mean there are other people who agree with my high school musings?), and Theistic Evolution (I learned later there are more shades of theistic evolutionists than there are colors of crayons).

Four more years of college, two years working at that college with those professors (not a 6-day-er among them, by the way), and two years teaching high school biology and looking more at the evidence that exists that led to the Theory of Evolution - every new thing I learned pointed more and more to evolution as the process that created our earth and everything on it.

But God? Here I'll steal from a speaker I heard once (sorry, can't remember his name!). Which is more impressive: a God who "waved a magic wand" and everything poofed into existence, or one who created a universe and all the laws in it such that at a word, a beautiful, elaborate system would begin, that over billions of years would by itself produce the world we live in now and all the living things in it? I have to lean toward the latter.

Remember, we are called to wisdom. We are told that creation itself speaks to God's truths. Should we then set aside wisdom and reason when looking at God's creation? I think not. Creation is God's, and he has given us the ability to reason - to waste that would be to say to God we do not appreciate his gifts to us. All signs in nature point to an old earth, and many more to the evolution of species on earth. I choose not to believe in a God that deceives, planting evidence in His creation to lead us astray. That is not my God. I choose instead to honor my God by valuing his creation and studying it to learn more about him.

Is scripture not important? Certainly that is not my meaning. But all written text (even this, which you probably read in your own native language), MUST be interpreted. Think about the word "no". Think about the near-infinite number of meanings this one word might have, depending on tone of voice, context, and more. Remember the parables of the New Testament. Did the prodigal son really exist? Does it matter - does it change the meaning of the story - if it did not?

The same is true for Genesis 1. Read it - then read, say, Genesis 25. The latter is certainly narrative, but the former? It is possible, at least, that it is instead a story. It tells us clearly that God created, and valued his creation, and I believe that was it's intent. The HOW of the creation is not the focus of the story - nor is it the least bit theologically important.

Biologically, the HOW is fascinating and useful. It helps us understand the world we live in, the relationships between different living things (different parts of creation!), the ecology of different areas, the potential impacts of changes to an ecosystem, and so much more.

This blog has been rolling around in my mind (never being started for lack of a name... this current name is on trial!) for quite some time. My goal is to share articles, ideas, and arguments relating to science, evolution, and the interplay between science and religion. Comments are welcome, but please, thoughtful, respectful posts only. Questioning, intellectual discussions are the goal!