Having lived in the Bible belt for 10 years, the debate about what is taught in public schools always includes the debate about science vs. creation or both. Being raised in the Midwest and living there again now, this doesn't seem to be such a big issue. So why is it that there's this need, in places where Christianity tends to be more conservative, to keep going over and over this issue?
I believe that it's an issue of knowing absolutes. When you take the Bible as a literal document and one that can be used to support history, you need everything within the Bible to be validated. It has to be black and white to make the Bible make sense in those terms. There's a strong desire within all of humankind to understand how we got here and why things happen in our lives. The Bible talks about many of these basic human questions, yet there's still a problem. The Bible was never meant to be a history or science book.
So going back to the creation story, oops I mean stories (Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 contain two very different accounts of creation), we can see that the Bible records creation in two different ways. There are no scientific formulas or real numbers given. There's no statement about how a day is defined, or time for that matter. Yet there's movements within Christianity to justify that the earth is only 6,000 years old based on creation being formed in 6 days - that are on God's time. We have fossil records that indicate the creation, destruction and change of living beings - humans being one of them. So what to do in a society that seems very focused on dualities - living in this either/or.
I would like to argue for the both/and approach. I would like to say that a person can be just as faithful to religion by believing that there is true in the recorded stories of faith and also believe that there is a science to the world that we are still learning and will probably never fully understand. I believe that you can be a good scientist, searching for formulas and the observable changes and also believe that there's a Higher Power that put things into motion. To understand and believe in 1 side does not mean that the other is invalid. You can be the both/and and we can know the both/and and it be okay. To truly learn to listen to the other is not a bad thing and doesn't have to be scary. I hope that religion and science can learn to respect and listen to each other. Both might be better for it in the end.
I believe that it's an issue of knowing absolutes. When you take the Bible as a literal document and one that can be used to support history, you need everything within the Bible to be validated. It has to be black and white to make the Bible make sense in those terms. There's a strong desire within all of humankind to understand how we got here and why things happen in our lives. The Bible talks about many of these basic human questions, yet there's still a problem. The Bible was never meant to be a history or science book.
So going back to the creation story, oops I mean stories (Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 contain two very different accounts of creation), we can see that the Bible records creation in two different ways. There are no scientific formulas or real numbers given. There's no statement about how a day is defined, or time for that matter. Yet there's movements within Christianity to justify that the earth is only 6,000 years old based on creation being formed in 6 days - that are on God's time. We have fossil records that indicate the creation, destruction and change of living beings - humans being one of them. So what to do in a society that seems very focused on dualities - living in this either/or.
I would like to argue for the both/and approach. I would like to say that a person can be just as faithful to religion by believing that there is true in the recorded stories of faith and also believe that there is a science to the world that we are still learning and will probably never fully understand. I believe that you can be a good scientist, searching for formulas and the observable changes and also believe that there's a Higher Power that put things into motion. To understand and believe in 1 side does not mean that the other is invalid. You can be the both/and and we can know the both/and and it be okay. To truly learn to listen to the other is not a bad thing and doesn't have to be scary. I hope that religion and science can learn to respect and listen to each other. Both might be better for it in the end.
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