Why does evolutionary science seem to be

No, it's the fundamentalists insisting that the bible is inerrant and vilifying anyone who believes differently that is destroying Christianity.

I have no idea who John Hagge is, but no I don't think Christians are deliberately trying to destroy Christianity, that's absurd.I'm saying that the fundamentalist insistence on biblical inerrancy, the doctrine that the bible is absolutely correct in everything it says, is killing Christianity. More and more people are going to college, and most of them are not choosing to study at Bob Jones University. As people become more educated, they learn that the Biblical account of creation is impossible. It doesn't happen overnight. It happens when the sheer weight of the knowledge one acquires forces one to accept that this place wasn't created in 7 days, that all the different languages of the world didn't suddenly spring into being at a place called Babel, that the stars are not hanging in a firmament, that a bat is not a bird, that there was never a flood that covered the entire earth to a depth of some number of cubits above the highest mountain peak; I could go on but I feel sure you get the point.

I don't believe there are many scientists waisting their time trying to disprove religion. This whole debate was brought about by religion, not science. Science exists independent of religion, and science will continue to make new discoveries that Christians will, for some reason I cannot understand, find offensive.I gather that you really haven't done much research on where the evo/creo debate comes from. It started because some Christians saw evolution as a threat and set out to combat it. In doing so, they came up with what is generally called the doctrine of biblical inerrancy (or infallibility). They insist that this doctrine must be defended by anyone who wants to be considered a true Christian.In other words, they've built a house of worship on quicksand. The BI doctrine is absolutely untenable, and any person with even a modest education in science knows it. However, some Christians consider this doctrine so important that they have invented what they call "creation science", which isn't science at all, to defend it. I suppose "creation science" could be called a field of study, but this sort of study has nothing in common with science. It's raison d'tre is to defend the inerrancy of certain texts, the youngest of which are nearly 2000 years old. "Creation science" does not exist to expand human knowledge. In fact, it seeks to stop the expansion of human knowledge.Until mainstream Christianity abandons this BI nonsense it will continue to drive thinking people away from the churches.[This message has been edited by berberry, 02-04-2004]

Looks like I've been corrected. Maybe I shouldn't have used the word 'mainstream'; 'fundamentalist' would have perhaps worked better. However, I think the mainstream is shifting toward the BI doctrine, at least here in the Deep South. The shift is related to the changing attitudes on homosexual rights.I'm a life-long Episcopalian. I quit going to church when our former, fairly liberal priest left to run a church school out-of-state and was replaced by a more conservative couple of co-priests (a married couple) from Texas. These new priests showed their colors when Bishop Robinson - the gay bishop - was consecrated.The congregation has begun to move away from its Episcopal affiliation, and the BI doctrine is now being preached from the pulpit. I am heartened that quite a number of other congregants have also quit going to this church, particularly the elderly members (a fact that surprised me a little bit).In any case, after re-reading my post I realize that there was another detail I left out in my second paragraph: the higher criticism. Although I don't fully understand why some Christians see evolution as a threat, I can understand why fundamentalists of the late 19th / early 20th century were opposed to the higher criticism. It probably did seem like an attack on scripture, especially to people who didn't understand it.