Is it possible that a person who tries to prove evolution is actually struggling with spiritual issues?
Personally, my involvement in "creation/evolution" has been, ever since 1981, a reaction against the crass and gross dishonesty of that monumental fraud, "creation science". It's not that I'm trying to "prove evolution", but rather I've been trying to get creationists to be honest and truthful, something that I had always been taught was an inherent part of Christianity, but which creationists hate with a burning passion.
Indeed, I joined this very forum wanting to pursue the question of how "true Christians" could justify "lying for the Lord" and why they express such hatred for and opposition to actually seeking the truth.
This is also expressed by Troy Britain, whom I met both on-line on CompuServe and a couple times in person; from his bio at
No webpage found at provided URL: http://home.att.net/~troybritain/articles/troy.htm:
quote:
... one day (cir. 1989) I was chatting with a new guy and somehow the subject of evolution came up.
As it turned out the "new guy" was a Christian fundamentalist and young earth creationist. Beliefs that my fairly liberal Christian upbringing hadn't exposed me to. He said things that flew in the face of everything I'd ever heard or read before. He was so certain and brought up so many things that I began to wonder if there might be something to what he was saying. I started to become concerned about how the scientists could be as messed up as he was saying they were. So I started looking into it, wondering if maybe there might be something to all this "creationism" stuff.
I looked into it all right! I started looking at creationist literature (as I recall Darwin's Enigma (1988) by the late Luther Sunderland was the first creationist book I ever owned, it was given to me by a pastor), and I also started looking the writings of scientists and at their responses to the claims of creationists. And the more I looked into it, the more pissed off I got. Claim after claim made by the creationists turned out to be distortions, half-truths and down right fabrications. Sometime this seemed to be due to innocent ignorance of how science works or of the facts. However, more often it seemed to be willful ignorance and occasionally even to be deliberate distortions of the truth.
I was incensed. I had been misled and people who espoused a devotion to "Truth" misled me. And there were people who were supposed to be of God. And not only had they mislead me, but they were continuing to mislead others.
From then on I was hooked on the subject. I became determined not to let the misinformed and/or dishonest claims of creationists to go unanswered. I began reading scientific literature voraciously. I became a regular at the public library, looking for everything I could on the subject of evolution and creationism.
I have reposted my own essay, "Why I Oppose Creation Science", at
No webpage found at provided URL: http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/warum.html.
You call yourself "ATruthSeeker". Are you really? You express difficulty understanding how the world could have developed into what see through natural processes. At the same time, "creation science" and its multitude of followers have created outright lies which it continues to spread virtually unabated and unrepentently. There could be some room for discussing your difficulties, but the facts of creationist lies and deception are unquestionable.
If you truly are a seeker of truth, then what say you about:
1. The role of truthfulness and honesty in Christianity?
2. The responsibilities of a Christian when he discovers that his fellow Christians are practicing lies and deception and the prescribed Christian response thereto?
{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world. (from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber,
No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)
Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.(Sherlock Holmes in
The Hound of the Baskervilles)
Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield,
Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)
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