An Apology for Creationism

Hey everybody,

I posted awhile back about a book I am reading in college called World's Apart: The Unholy War Bewteen Religion and Science written by Karl Giberson. The first four chapters were great, but starting with chapter five, his anti-creationist views come out. It's actually really sad, becasue he was raised a creationist but rejected the views in college (how surprising...not!). Anyways, here is the assigned question I had to answer on the book. I have no idea how my views will be taken by my prof, but I had to be honest.

Anyways, enjoy and tell me what you think...Steve



Assignment:

Based on what you have read in the Worlds Apart answer the following question in at least 500 words:

Summarize the author's view of scientific creationism. Why does Giberson believe that creation science is bad science? How does Giberson reconcile modern scientific findings of the origin of life with the Genesis account? Does this challenge your worldview?

Response:

Giberson presents his view of scientific creationism in a rather unscientific way. His clear, level-headed writing seems to flee from him as enters into the fifth chapter of his book. No longer is he interested in honest facts alone, but instead he deems it necessary to jump on the back of a Christian organization. I found this rather interesting, specifically considering that he said that the organization consists of men who “attack...fellow Christians” (Giberson 114). As I read the four long chapters of five through nine in Giberson’s book, I began to wonder who was really beating their “ploughshares into swords”—scientific creationists or Giberson (118)?

Giberson believes that scientific creationism is bad science because he has come to believe that the Bible cannot be taken literally. Whether he believes that the Bible can be taken literally at any time in any place was not specified, but he was clear on the point of his view about the creation story in Genesis. “The writer [of Genesis] is...a deeply involved and inspired author,” he says, “who is communicating profound truths that are deeply meaningful to him” (157). Quite obviously these “truths” are not relevant in today’s world and have no bearing on modern science (something Giberson says a several times throughout chapters five through nine). To Mr. Giberson, these “truths” were important only to the author of Genesis, even though they are in the book that Christianity is built upon—making its contents demonstrably relevant to all believers through all of time.

His argument is further proved inconsistent when one considers his complaints against creationists in general and the Institute for Creation Research in particular, “Creationist experts...[are] all writing outside their field...this [is] the problem with scientific creationism” (175). Yet, looking at Mr. Giberson’s qualifications on the back of his book, we find that he holds a Ph.D. in physics and a B.A. in philosophy. Nowhere is theology mentioned. Thus, throughout most of chapter eight he is “writing outside of his field,” discussing such matters as what literary form the first chapters of Genesis should be interpreted in. By his very own writing he discredits his arguments. I found further reason to doubt his argument when I researched the scientists at ICR and found that not only are their degrees legitimate (and from such prestigious colleges as Princeton, University of Kansas, and Texas Tech, just to name a very few), but that they do write within their fields (“Research” n.p.). In fact, in my search of the ICR website (which lists dozens of creationist scientists), I did not find any papers that were written by an author outside of his field. Mr. Giberson’s arguments appear to be founded either on a small number of author’s works or entirely outdated (Worlds Apart was published more than a decade ago, in 1993).

Giberson is surprisingly unclear when it comes to reconciling his views of modern science with the origin of life accounted in the Bible. He preferred to discuss ways that the creation story can be interpreted than to state his exact views on the subject. Much of the four chapters we read this week is more of a discourse on why creationism cannot possibly be true than anything else. His arguments failed to change or even challenge my worldview because he lost my respect early on. His argument lacked force because he used such tactics as circular reasoning, attempted discrediting of his “opponent,” and faulty generalizations. There were also several instances when he made it appear that creationists were in opposition to a certain point, then turned around and acknowledged that they believed the same thing as he did. These things left me wondering how this book could even be considered a college textbook worthy of standing unchallenged (by other textbooks) in a class.

Works Cited:

Giberson, Karl. World’s Apart: The Unholy War Between Religion and Science. Kansas

City: Beacon Hill, 1993.

“Research.” ICR.org. Institute for Creation Research, 2006. 27 Nov. 2006

<http://www.icr.org/research/index/research_creationsci/> Path: Scientists in the

Physical Sciences; and Scientists in the Biological Sciences.

Thanksgiving Day!

Hey everyone! I posted some Thanksgiving pics on our family blog. Check it out at www.billerblog.blogspot.com!

This is a pic of my littlest bro, Zach. I know I posted it on the family blog, but I couldn't resist putting it on here too. Isn't he ADORABLE?! We all love our little soon-to-be 5 month old treasure! Stephen is the one holding him in this picture. Notice Stephen's new sweater. He's wanted one for ages, and he finally bought one. = )

Terah K.

Science vs. Religion: Does this mean War?

Here's an assignement I did last week in class. One of our textbooks is all about the "Unholy War Between Religion and Science" (which also happens to be its name). It is an interetsing book by a Karl Giberson. I thought some of you might enjoy reading my thoughts on this imprtant issue...Steve

Question: How do you view the current "war" between secular scientists and people of faith? How do faith and science influence one another? What assumptions, presuppositions and beliefs does each side bring to this conflict?

Response:

I think that Giberson got it right on when he said, “The issue boils down to one of authority. Who should decide what is true” (36). He was also correct in pointing out that it was the church who did this deciding for most of the Christian era; science has only gained the upper-hand in recent centuries (37). Christians stand today as gladiators fighting against the “bear” of materialism, the “lion” of abortion, and the “Roman soldier” of evolution, and we look up at the emerald-eyed emperor and call him science. Science is no Nero, and the world did not pick this fight between science and religion. The Church started this fight long ago, when it superstitiously refused to accept the findings of people who were blessed with a curious, scientific mind.

Science was created by God—it was He who put into place Newton’s famous Laws. The true scientist is only seeking to think God’s thoughts after, and this is the kind of science that Biblical Christians can embrace whole-heartedly. I always found it so amazing that, when one researches the life and sayings of a father of science (i.e. Galileo, Newton, etc) one usually finds that they were devout men of God. Their faith influenced their scientific work, and they often suffered persecutions that were similar to the persecutions administered on Christians throughout the centuries.

In my personal experience and from what I have studied of history, it seems to me that people are afraid of the truth. Truth sometimes hurts, and often shakes us from the comfortable position we had previously held. Why? Because the Father of Lies tries to do everything he can to veil, hide, or distort the awesome presence of God that is present all around us—and especially in nature.

Those who oppose science, or are antiscientific as Giberson calls them, deny that God is the creator of what science seeks out. They “claim that the motivation for science is not the noble and dispassionate pursuit of truth...but rather the undermining of religious belief” (Giberson 47). Secular scientists, on the other hand, often think of the Church as inferior to Science, which is often their “religion.” This supposed inferiority springs from the fact that parts of Christianity are not able to be analyzed by scientific thought (a train of thought which does not take into account the fact that no theory of the origin of matter can be analyzed either). However, there are also scientists and scholars, like those at the Institute for Creation Research, who believe that God made the universe and set its natural laws into play and use science as it is to be used, as a tool to discover God in His creation.

The Church needs to realize that science is never at odds with the Bible. Any “science” that is at odds with the Word of God is not a science at all and will be disproved sooner or later.


Works Cited:

Giberson, Karl. World’s Apart: The Unholy War Between Religion and Science. Kansas City: Beacon Hill, 1993.

Today's Happenings

Today a friend took my French Alpine/Nubian buck to an auction for me! (Thank you, Heather F.!) I'm so glad I could finally sell him. I really did enjoy having him, don't get me wrong. It was fun learning the ins and outs of training and containing a buck. But he has served his pupose- breeding my doe. He has developed a full grown buck tempermant. And he has sired my new buck, Harry. With only one doe right now, one buck is out of a job. = ) Here are some pics of me with Snowy this morning before I loaded him up.






When he's not dirty, he's beautiful! LOL! = ) Maybe, I'll post some pics of my far prettier goats, Tansy and Harry, another time.

~Terah K.

Spanking...The Way to Raise a Violent Child or a Successful One?

"According to a recent article in USA Today, there is one thing the nation's most successful CEOs have in common -- they received their share of spankings as children.
Although the article stated that "[m]ost CEOs believed spankings played little or no role in their success," the CEOs also acknowledged that the practice taught them valuable life lessons. David Haffner, chief executive officer of Leggett & Platt, said the spankings he received as a child made him 'disciplined, detailed and organized.' Joe Mogolia, with TD Ameritrade, said he learned from his parents that 'tough love is better than soft love'. "

Read the rest by clicking on the following link...
Crosswalk.com - Spanking: Godly Discipline or Outdated Cruelty?

Mariage, Puberty, and Society Today

Here's an interesting discussion going on in the newsgroup for one of the classes I am taking right now through the online program at Nazarene Bible College in Colorado Springs. The original post is from a classmate and my reply is below that. Enjoy...Steve

Original Post:

"Jewish men regularly married by eighteen, Romans by twenty-five, but Greeks often not until thirty. Girls of all three cultures, however, were usually wed soon after puberty, in their early to mid-teens." (Blomberg, 63).

I have often wondered, because I know this holds for many if not all other societies, if the western world does not place unreasonable expectations on their young people. I speak with particular reference to the "born again" church. We want our children to be well educated, preferably before they are married and ignore the very natural physical urges that previous societies did not have such a battle with.

Being engaged in scholarly pursuits does not remove the physical impulses from human beings. Marriages are no longer arranged and many of our church young people do not have the physical control necessary for the celibate life. We tell them not to date non Christians [and we should] but in many churches the females greatly outnumber the males. Then in Trinidad, where I live, the females are doing exceptionally better than the males in school. Some of the young women ask- Where are we to find suitable husbands? There are few single ministries. What should the twenty first century church do to meet these challenges in addition to pointing out what God's Word has to say about purity.

Donna

Reply:

Donna,

I think I am going to enjoy reading your stuff! : ) This is a great question--and a real problem. I was just reading in a Psychology class last semester about how the stretch of time between the first pangs of puberty and marriage has lengthened so considerably in the West in recent decades. No longer do girls marry at sixteen-eighteen; they go to college, start a career/ministry, and often wait until their mid-twenties to get married. The author I was reading also pointed out that many girls in today's Western society are physically ready for marriage at an earlier age than their great-grandmothers were; this fact, coupled with the other fact that many families are unstable (i.e. fatherless), have lead to an increase in pregnancies and poor relationship choices early in girls' lives.

In my Christian community, the problem is not so much a lack of desire to be married, but the absence of any suitable men. Thus, many of the young women I know that are not married are in that state because they cannot find a Christian man who will support them (and/or, sometimes, live up to their dreams).

Like you, I feel that there is a situation here that needs addressed. Abstinence is important, but for some girls (and guys) marriage is needed--and before college is over! It's like Paul says, "Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion" (1 Cor. 7:8, 9).

And elsewhere, "It is good for a man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband" (1 Cor. 7:1-3). These are immoral times, and God's servants need mates to help each other. Arranged marriages are out-dated (and unfeasible in independent, Western culture!), but I think churches should have teen singles counseling on the subject of marriage. Some kids can go to college just fine and stay pure, but many need to fill their need (and divine calling) of marriage before or during college. It depends on the individuals, and that is where counseling would probably be useful.

Dems won or Repubs lost?

Here's an interesting article I ran across on the Crosswalk.com website...Steve

'More About Republicans Losing Than Dems Winning'
Susan Jones
Senior Editor

(CNSNews.com) - While Democrats hailed their historic victory and promised to take America in a "New Direction," one conservative rejected the notion that Democrats had achieved a voter "mandate."

"I think a fairly good case can be made that the story of Election 2006 is more about poorly-led House Republicans losing than Democrats winning," said John Berthoud, president of the National Taxpayers Union.

Berthoud noted the long-time trend of the majority party losing congressional seats in Congress in the sixth year of a presidency. He also noted Republicans' considerable "baggage" going into the election -- the Foley, Ney and Abramoff scandals, to mention a few.

"Beyond these individual characters, the party often prostituted itself to corporate interests," Berthoud said, pointing to the Medicare reform bill and the energy and transportation bills.

"In the process of pleasing their corporate friends, the House Republicans lost their soul...and their base. The GOP went so overboard that they allowed the Democratic Party (complete captives of the teacher unions, trial lawyers, labor union bosses, etc.) to take the moral high ground on the issue of "being in the pocket of special interests." That takes some doing," he said.

Berthoud rejected the notion that the election had something to do with "liberalism triumphing over the ideals of limited government." He suggested that if more Republicans had stood up for a "reduction in government" while they had majority control of Congress, fewer of them might have lost the election.