While religion and the belief in a supernatural god is still popular in the USA, we must keep striving for the truth or become a third world nation. DNA modifications, the mechanism of evolutionary changes, is a key technology for improving man’s life on earth. We need a population well educated in such useful topics if we are to remain a leader in the world. With 50% of the US population denying the validity of evolution, we have to worry about staying a leader in areas like DNA technology.

Religion is a comforting believe system. But, if you study man’s history you see how early man believed the sun and many other things were gods. As man evolved so did his gods. If you read Karen Armstrong’s book “The Great Transformation” you will learn now the Jewish faith came to believe in just one God. There was nothing supernatural about it - just good politics for the time. If you read one of the framers of our constitution book “The Age of Reason” you will get a good factual introduction as to why the Bible is not the inspired world of God. If you read the Bible itself you will also see that there is nothing written that was beyond the ability of man at that point in history. Yet you will find much that is wrong, like the age of the Earth and that the Sun orbits the Earth. You also find much that is immoral like: Exodus 21:15, 21:17, 31:14, Leviticus 20:13 , Genesis 3:16 17:14, Matthew 25:41, Deuteronomy 13:6. With nothing truly divine, how can the Bible be construed as the word of an omnipotent benevolent God?

So why do we believe? In part because it was told to us by authority figures we trust, and in part because it gives our lives hope and meaning. Some will say they have supernatural experiences that prove there is a God. Yet we only have natural senses like eyes, ears and noses that don’t detect the supernatural world as far as we can tell. Our brains are capable of great creativity, and delusions too. We tend to create a reality that our fragile egos can deal with, even if it means ignoring perfectly rationale facts. In reality there is not one credible speck of evidence by modern standards that there is a supernatural world. Yet many believe in every thing from astrology to Tarot cards. Why can’t we just say we don’t know everything? To say we can’t disprove there is a God is meaningless and adds nothing to the debate, because there is an infinite number of silly things we can’t disprove like the tooth fairly.

So what direction should the USA go? The comforting myths of our primitive ancestors? Or what the facts indicate? I believe as long as we promote a capitalistic dog eat dog society driven by material possessions people will need religion in the USA. Especially when the mantra of the 21st century is to shrink big goverments and get rid of our social safety nets. Who will help the poor and needy? All the great religions teach that enlightenment is achieved by helping those who need help. Until our society embraces this concept in our secular institutions religion will be needed to help those who need help. When are we going to get serious about governing this great country in a great manner, so we can get out of the dark ages?

Macro evolution is pure science fiction, Alice-In-Wonderland thinking.

For example, Lynn Caporale, Ph.D.,an evolutionist with impeccable credentials writes on page one of her book DARWIN IN THE GENOME: "There was a moment in time when the dust itself edged, in slow motion, over a boundary into life."

Any objective thinker will admit that such nonsense is not scientific, but pure fantasy. This kind of speculation harms good scientific study because it taints and devalues all "science."

Evolution is a religion and should be put to every test that Christianity (or any other religion) is put to when being taught (or restricted) in public schools of the United States.

Dr. Fillmer Hevener, Pastor

Guthrie Memorial Adventist Chapel

www.guthriememorial.org

My compliments to bsloane for a thoughtful reply to the way I corrected Deke. I have three reactions:

1. I think that most of your dispute with me is based upon the abbreviated nature of my reply to Deke. And brevity is a constraint of such posts

2. I fully agree with the bulk of your comments about "problem data", but you have merely expanded upon the last half of my statement. Consider, for instance, that the age of the earth appears vastly different depending on which geologic samples are chosen and which isotopes are examined. To my knowledge, the variation has not been adequately explained and little attention has been given to this particular problem. This is not to say that some future PhD candidate will not pick up the gauntlet - just that some problem data is, in fact, dismissed.

One place where I disagree with your comments (though perhaps this is semantic nitpicking) is your reference to "countless times" that "bedrock assumptions" have been overturned. I would say there have only a handful of time that *bedrock* assumptions have been challenged, but there have been many times when *significant* assumptions have been overturned. For instance, I don't think that any "bedrock assumptions" were challenged when the Big Bang Model was introduced, even if it was quite a significant change from then-conventional cosmology.

2. Your comments about the doubts of a theist seem to be the misunderstandings of an atheist. Planck and Einstein demonstrated two alternatives to your false dichotomy. (Or perhaps I misunderstand your point, in which case I wonder if your option "a" becomes so broadly inclusive as to become nearly meaningless as a category.)

Certainly your concluding comment about "Carl Sagan's differentiation between those who wish to believe and those who desire to understand" reflects ignorance of how modern science grew from the religious worldview of giants like Newton and Galileo whose desire to understand the physical realm grew from their understanding of its Creator. Gould's principle of nonoverlapping magisteria falls short, but it comes much closer to the mark than the strawman of irreconcilable conflict between science and religion.

It is here that my semantic nitpicking above becomes significant: If a materialist were to ever have the kind of "real deal" doubt about "bedrock assumptions" that you suggest a theist might have about "ordering forces", it would probably have little to do with the "problem data" which have been an engine for learning in the Sciences, and more to do with the range of phenomena that appear to lie beyond the scope of materialism (beauty, logic, ethics, etc). "[I]t would make no sense ... if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure" (attributed to Einstein).

Furthermore, even if such a one were to "abandon [materialism] altogether", that would no more require a rejection of "the framework of science" than the lack of such anti-religion impeded scientists such as for Michael Faraday: He was one of the most brilliant scientists of the 19th century, perhaps "the best experimentalist in the history of science" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday). Yet Faraday also preached: "...we ought to value the privilege of knowing God's truth far beyond anything we can have in this world. The more we see the perfection of God's law fulfilled in Christ, the more we ought to thank God for His unspeakable gift." (London, July 7, 1861)