Fundamentalist position on evolution has changed, but atheist view has not, says Flint Journal letter writer

Theresa N. Roach By Theresa N. Roach The Flint Journal
on May 26, 2009 at 8:38 AM

Here's a Flint Journal letter to the editor for May 26, 2009:

Columnist Kathleen Parker said that if Francis Collins had been around during the Scopes trial, "We might never have argued at all about whether evolution should be taught in public schools." ["Evolving faith would help science," Opinion, May 11].

This shows a level of ignorance in someone who makes a living telling people what they should think about such things. The opposition to William Jennings Bryan was loaded with scientists with the same attitude as Collins, that belief in evolution and religion are compatible.

What Collins and Parker and the rest seem to miss is that neither atheists nor fundamentalists disagree with that position, but that's not what the battle is about. While Collins may be able to mop the floor with an atheist in a debate, the atheists aren't concerned about his way of "reconciling science and religion," because his way is to concede virtually the entire physical universe in every way to their view. It's easy to compare such religion to believing in Santa Claus and yawn at attempts to bring God into the picture only after accepting the atheist view of the universe and smudging the foundational chapters of the Bible.

What neither the atheists nor Collins and Parker are willing to acknowledge is that fundamentalists have "evolved" and include hundreds of people with advanced science degrees (that's just one of the young-Earth creationist organizations). Meanwhile, leading examples of the "scientific proof" for evolution available at the time of the Scopes trial have been cast aside. Accepting evolution because all living things are made with the same basic design and similar coding is not science, it's a philosophical error. Solid, demonstrable science is not only compatible with belief in God, it is consistent with the Bible, including Genesis.

David L. Bump
