Creationism and the Courts

I totally agree with Dorothy's assessment of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board which denied a Creationist group permission to offer a master's degree in science education. I wish these people would get over themselves, but since that won't happen probably until the Creationist's own kids get tired of this silliness, the courts must weigh in.

So here is why I don't get particularly excited over the issue (other than to get disgusted with yet another group trying to push their self-created ideas on everyone else):

1. Something "out there" put in motion that which allows our existence. Very likely we didn't spring out of nowhere.

2. Over the millenia, much has come into being and gone out of being and massive changes have taken place on this planet and in the growth and variety of living things. Only someone in rigid deep denial could dispute this, and there is no point in arguing with these people since their brain has probably solidified their thinking so that they cannot absorb new ideas anymore. All we can do is keep them in check through the courts.

3. We need to think of our entire planet as a living organism and respect it and nurture it as such.

4. The way our world works is that we eat each other. Maybe that is why the Creationists fall apart psychologically. They don't want to be eaten. Rent the movies "Walking with Monsters" and "Walking with Dinosaurs" put out by the BBC to see how this works. Your kids have seen them. You might want to take a look too.

5. "Life" itself is neither kind nor cruel. It is what it is. We humans are born into a situation where we need to learn to take care of ourselves, and this means taking care of those around us as well for we are completely interdependent.

6. There is now a school of thought that believes that we could very well be the only life in the universe. See the message below: "Ordinary, or Are We?" If this is true, and if we come to believe it, will we then finally change our short-term self-destructive thinking? (There is this thought in the back of my mind, buried deep I hope, that if Pakistan and India and Israel and Iran all send nuclear bombs at one another at the same time, the impact on our planet might be so profound that it tilts and changes its rotation around to sun to the point where all life is extinguished, except maybe the cockroaches which seem to be indestructible.) Nuclear non-proliferation doesn't seem to be working, so we'd better begin working toward zero-tolerance even for ourselves and our allies.

7. Apparently Muslim scholars are getting serious about what the Koran is really about just as Christian and Jewish scholars have done for years and are still doing regarding their own "sacred" scriptures and writings. I suspect that we will find that we are closer together in our thinking than the fundamentalists of any religion could ever believe. Hail the day! May it come sooner rather than later. . . or, especially, may it not come too late.

So, as Marting Luther once said: HERE I STAND.

A. I believe that there is a Creator who created me and all that is around me.

B. I believe that evolution is the method that is used to build the Creation slowly, step by step and that it is not yet finished.

C. The Creator has planted in me a sense of presence that I cannot deny. No matter what happens as I try to work out my own life and how I live it, I can find strength through the Spirit that lives within me. I may fall, and I may fail, and I may do wrong, but the Spirit will help me to endure and to get up and try again.

D. There is a purpose to our existence. It is multi-fold and complex. Part of it is compassion, justice, and the recognition that we mean something in the grand scheme of things.

E. I believe that another plane of life exists after this one. Energy doesn't simply cease. It transforms into something else. Read "Journey of Souls" by Michael Newton for the best description of what we know about what happens to us on the other side. What we know is limited but hopeful.

F. God/Allah/G_d, or whatever we choose to call our Creator for the sake of discussion among us is so far beyond our understanding that it is truly unknowable. Any descriptions or definitions diminish it.

G. My job is to find for myself what the Creator wants of me, and to go forward wherever the Spirit leads me. This I will strive to do until my life on earth is ended.

In my Father's house are many dwelling places. I go to prepare a place for you.