Evolution Sunday

The Sunday before last was "Evolution Sunday." From this link:

On 12 February 2006 hundreds of Christian churches from all portions of the country and a host of denominations will come together to discuss the compatibility of religion and science. For far too long, strident voices, in the name of Christianity, have been claiming that people must choose between religion and modern science. More than 10,000 Christian clergy have already signed The Clergy Letter demonstrating that this is a false dichotomy. Now, on the 197th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, many of these leaders will bring this message to their congregations through sermons and/or discussion groups. Together, participating religious leaders will be making the statement that religion and science are not adversaries. And, together, they will be elevating the quality of the national debate on this topic.

I've got to agree that people shouldn't have to choose between religion and modern science. To pose the situation as an either/or is a false dichotomy. I certainly haven't fully resolved in my own mind the apparent contradictions between what the Bible says and what modern science says about the origins of the universe.

On the one hand, it doesn't seem reasonable to believe the universe in all its glory, that my child's body and all its wonder, is simply the result of random processes and natural selection, no matter how many billions of years that Mr. Random has been wreaking his randomness. To me, if you choose to believe in a God or if you choose to believe in 13 billion years of random processes, either way you're placing your faith in something you can't possibly fathom.

On the other hand, I don't think the scientific observations underlying modern science's view should be lightly dismissed.

The task of reconciling the two is not a trivial one.

The open letter associated with Evolution Sunday makes the statement "While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook." In a sense I agree with it. In a sense I don't. I "...don't read the Bible [as I] would a science textbook." It's not a science textbook and was not intended to be. I don't read everything in the Bible literally because, like any means of communication, it includes content that wasn't intended to be taken literally. However, in general I do read the Bible literally.