Flintstone Science

I’m not a scientist and I am not trained in that field to debate the issue like I wish I could but I do try and keep up with the topic as possible.  As a Christian I am amazed to continue hearing some believers argue that the earth is 6000 years old and to approach science with such hostility.  Granted their are folks of science who hate religion (Dawkins and company) but most people of science I know aren’t at war with the church and many, many go to church!

The Creation Museum in Kentucky draws huge crowds and shows humans and dinosaurs living together.  Above you see people with dinosaurs and below you see one with a saddle and I guess a happy customer illustrating the riding of such beasts.  Reminds me of “Land of the Lost.”

I’m a huge fan of Dr. Francis Collins and push his book “The Language of God” as much as I can.  I recently heard Collins lecture and again was amazed at this scientist who believes in Jesus and has no problem with science and an old earth, etc.  He sees science as God’s language (and by the way he was a leader in the human genome project).

Why does it have to be one way or the other?  Why do some Christians reject much of science and think you can’t have both? Why do some believe that unless you take their interpretation of Genesis then the whole faith crashes?

The idea that the earth is 6000 years old simply does not work in today’s world.  Our youth who go to college and study an elementary course in biology, chemistry, and history will simply look in dismay at such talk.  We need to be able to talk rationally in the world and say that as believers science and history do not destroy our faith but affirm it.  God made the world and this we believe but God made the laws of nature and science and the more we learn about DNA, humanity, and history the more we see the foot prints of God.

So does all this matter?  Some believers say we should just not worry about it.  I say it matters because our faith must make sense in a real world.  Years ago I attended a creationist event and the speaker said the earth was six thousand years old and that dinosaurs lived with humans and were even in the ark.  I was amazed to hear such talk. I grew up in a very conservative church but never had a problem with what I learned at school.  I simply saw it was God at work.

Now this does move on to another issue at hand, “How do we read the Bible?”  I believe this is at the heart of the battle.  Folks who hold to a young earth simply think that they hold to a literal view of Bible reading that must hold to such a theory.  They simply see no other way.  So next blog I’ll deal with how we read the Bible and why that matters.

Blessings,
Derik