Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Clergy aim to mend science-religion rift
(By Lois K. Solomon, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, February 9, 2008)

Can religion and evolution co-exist without anger, yelling and threats of going to hell?

More than 800 congregations will say "yes" this weekend, when pastors and rabbis in nine countries are expected to offer sermons and discussion groups on the potential for peace between the warring camps.

The Rev. Roger Richardson, of Church of the Palms in Delray Beach, will explore the compatibility of science and Christianity as part of his sermon on Sunday. Adult education classes at the church have been getting ready for the weekend by discussing Charles Darwin and his religious beliefs.

"I have always been concerned that people of faith are portrayed as opposed to science and marching to get the creationism narrative taught in schools," Richardson said. "I would rather have the faith story told by people of faith."

Evolution Weekend, created by Michael Zimmerman, a dean at Butler University in Indiana, is timed to celebrate the Feb. 12 birthday of Charles Darwin, who in 1838 brainstormed the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Two years ago, Zimmerman decided he was tired of fighting with fundamentalist Christians about teaching evolution in the schools. He began to seek out clergy who believe in compatibility.

His idea, known as the Clergy Letter Project, began with 467 churches in 2006 and has grown to 800 this year.

"There are loud voices that say you have to choose between religion and science," Zimmerman said. "We needed a counterbalancing voice."

Zimmerman and Clergy Letter religious leaders believe the two camps do not have to be at odds. They say they want to mend the rift by encouraging discussion and finding common beliefs.

On his Web site, www.evolutionweekend.org, Zimmerman provides sample sermons and the names of hundreds of scientists who can talk about the relationship of religion and evolution.

The Rev. Hub Nelson, of St. Stephen Lutheran Church in Pompano Beach, believes Christians should not take the stories of biblical creation literally.

"If the Bible were to be our science book, there would be only one account," Nelson said.

The Rev. Nancy McCarthy, of St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Deerfield Beach, agreed. She said Christians should not treat the Bible as scientific fact.

"The creation stories in Genesis are ways of conveying greater truths about human beings," McCarthy said. "I want my congregation to be open to new findings. We do our church a disservice when we don't teach up-to-date science and evolution in the schools."

Most Americans don't agree that evolution is scientific fact. According to a Harris poll taken in November, 42 percent believe in evolution, about the same amount (39 percent) that believes in creationism. The poll showed that 82 percent of Americans believe in God.

John West, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank that supports intelligent design, sees Evolution Weekend as a public relations strategy for evolution proponents to find support in churches.

"They are enlisting religion to get their views accepted," said West, author of Darwin Day in America, which explores the impact of social Darwinism on politics. "They suppress dissenting views among scientists. Their ultimate goal is to keep their one-sided dominance."

Still, Evolution Weekend appears to be expanding among different denominations and philosophies. Jewish congregations, Presbyterians, Methodists, Mennonites, Unitarian Universalists, theology schools and campus ministries have agreed to talk about evolution this weekend.

"The point of the story is that God did it, not the manner," said Rabbi Anthony Fratello, of Temple Shaarei Shalom west of Boynton Beach, who wrote an article for the Reform Jewish congregation's bulletin about evolution. "Too many people look at science as either/or. It doesn't have to be that way."

The Rev. Roger Richardson, of Church of the Palms in Delray Beach, will explore the compatibility of science and Christianity

as part of his sermon on Sunday. Adult education classes at the church have been getting ready for the weekend by discussing Charles Darwin and his religious beliefs.

who in 1838 brainstormed the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Two years ago, Zimmerman decided he was tired of fighting with fundamentalist Christians about teaching evolution in the schools. He began to seek out clergy who believe in compatibility.

The Rev. Hub Nelson, of St. Stephen Lutheran Church in Pompano Beach, believes Christians should not take the stories of biblical creation literally.

"Too many people look at science as either/or. It doesn't have to be that way."

Feb 12 2009

You missed out the AD. It should be 2009AD shouldn't it?

His idea, known as the Clergy Letter Project, began with 467 churches in 2006 and has grown to 800 this year.

We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests.

To reject this truth or to treat it as one theory among others is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God's good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our creator.

Creationism vs. evolution: a battle familiar to Americans flares in Europe
(By Gregory Katz, ASSOCIATED PRESS, February 9, 2008)

After the Sunday service in Westminster Chapel, where worshippers were exhorted to wage "the culture war" in the World War II spirit of Sir Winston Churchill, cabbie James McLean delivered his verdict on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

"Evolution is a lie, and it's being taught in schools as fact, and it's leading our kids in the wrong direction," said McLean, chatting outside the chapel. "But now people like Ken Ham are tearing evolution to pieces."

Ken Ham is the founder of Answers in Genesis, a Kentucky-based organization that is part of an ambitious effort to bring creationist theory to Britain and the rest of Europe. McLean is one of a growing number of evangelicals embracing that message - that the true history of the Earth is told in the Bible, not Darwin's "The Origin of Species."

Europeans have long viewed the conflict between evolutionists and creationists as primarily an American phenomenon, but it has recently jumped the Atlantic Ocean with skirmishes in Italy, Germany, Poland and, notably, Britain, where Darwin was born and where he published his 1859 classic.

Darwin's defenders are fighting back. In October, the 47-nation Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog, condemned all attempts to bring creationism into Europe's schools. Bible-based theories and "religious dogma" threaten to undercut sound educational practices, it charged.

Schools are increasingly a focal point in this battle for hearts and minds. A British branch of Answers in Genesis, which shares a Web site with its American counterpart, has managed to introduce its creationist point of view into science classes at a number of state-supported schools in Britain, said Monty White, the group's chief executive.

"We do go into the schools about 10 to 20 times a year and we do get the students to question what they're being taught about evolution," said White, who founded the British branch seven years ago. "And we leave them a box of books for the library."

Creationism is still a marginal issue here compared with its impact on cultural and political debate in the United States. But the budding fervor is part of a growing embrace of evangelical worship throughout much of Europe. Evangelicals say their ranks are swelling as attendance at traditional churches declines because of revulsion with the hedonism and materialism of modern society.

"People are looking for spirituality," White said in an interview at his office in Leicester, 90 miles north of London. "I think they are fed up with not finding true happiness. They find having a bigger car doesn't make them happy. They get drunk and the next morning they have a hangover. They take drugs but the drugs wear off. But what they find with Christianity is lasting."

Other British organizations have joined the crusade. A group called Truth in Science has sent thousands of unsolicited DVDs to every high school in Britain arguing that mankind is the result of "intelligent design," not Darwinian evolution.

In addition, the AH Trust, a charity, has announced plans to raise money for construction of a Christian theme park in northwest England with a 5,000-seat television studio that would be used for the production of Christian-oriented films. And several TV stations are devoted full-time to Christian themes.

All this activity has lifted spirits at the Westminster Chapel, a 165-year-old evangelical church that is not affiliated with nearby Westminster Abbey, where Darwin is buried.

In the chapel, Rev. Greg Haslam tells the 150 believers that they are in a conflict with secularism that can only be won if they heed Churchill's exhortation and never, ever give up.

"The first thing you have to do is realize we are in a war, and identify the enemy, and learn how to defeat the enemy," he said.

There is a sense inside the chapel that Christian evangelicals are successfully resisting a trend toward a completely secular Britain.

"People have walked away from God; it's not fashionable," said congregant Chris Mullins, a civil servant. "But the evangelical church does seem to be growing and I'm very encouraged by that. In what is a very secular society, there are people returning to God."

School curricula generally hold that Darwin's theory has been backed up by so many scientific discoveries that it can now be regarded as fact. But Mullins believes creationism also deserves a hearing in the classroom.

"Looking at the evidence, creationism at the least seems a theory worthy of examination," he said. "Personally I think it is true and I think the truth will win out eventually. It's a question of how long it takes."

Terry Sanderson, president of Britain's National Secular Society, a prominent group founded in 1866 to limit the influence of religious leaders, fears the groups advocating a literal interpretation of the Bible are making headway.

"Creationism is creeping into the schools," he said. "There is a constant pressure to get these ideas into the schools."

The trend goes beyond evangelical Christianity. Sanderson said the British government is taking over funding of about 100 Islamic schools even though they teach the Quranic version of creationism. He said the government fear imposing evolution theory on the curriculum lest it be branded as anti-Islamic.

The Council of Europe spoke up last fall after Harun Yahya, a prominent Muslim creationist in Turkey, tried to place his lavishly produced 600-page book, "The Atlas of Creation," in public schools in France, Switzerland, Belgium and Spain.

"These trends are very dangerous," said Anne Brasseur, author of the Council of Europe report, in an interview.

Brasseur said recent skirmishes in Italy and Germany illustrate the creationists' tactics. She said Italian schools were ordered to stop teaching evolution when Silvio Berlusconi was prime minister, although the edict seems to have had little impact in practice. In Germany, she said, a state education minister briefly allowed creationism to be taught in biology class.

The rupture between theology and evolution in Europe is relatively recent. For many years people who held evangelical views also endorsed mainstream scientific theory, said Simon Barrow, co-director of Ekklesia, a British-based, Christian-oriented research group. He said the split was imported from the United States in the last decade.

"There is a lot of American influence, and there are a lot of moral and political and financial resources flowing from the United States to here," he said. "Now you have more extreme religious groups trying to get a foothold."

In some cases, the schools have become the battlegrounds. Richard Dawkins, the Oxford university biologist and author of last year's international best-seller "The God Delusion, "frequently lectures students about the marvels of evolution only to find that the students' views have already been shaped by the creationist lobby.

"I think it's so sad that children should be fobbed off with these second-rate myths," he said.

"The theory of evolution is one of the most powerful pieces of scientific thinking ever produced and the evidence for it is overwhelming. I think creationism is pernicious because if you don't know much it sounds kind of plausible and it's easy to come into schools and subvert children."

White, the director of the British Answers in Genesis, is well aware that the group's school program is contentious. The group has removed information about it from its Web site to avoid antagonizing people.

The group operates a warehouse with $150,000 worth of DVDs, books and comics promoting creationism, but he says he only sends speakers and materials into schools that invite Answers in Genesis to make a presentation.

White, 63, said he was raised as an atheist, and after earning a doctorate in chemistry, embraced evangelical Christianity in 1964.

He says that when he is asked to speak to science classes, he challenges the accuracy of radioactive dating which shows the world to be thousands of millions of years old and says that the Bible is a more accurate description of how mankind began. He personally believes the Earth is between 6,000 and 12,000 years old.

"Usually I find the discussion goes on science, science, and science and then when the lesson is finished one or two students say, 'Can we talk about other things?' and I sit down with them and usually they want to talk about Christianity," he said. "They want to know, why do you believe in God? Why do you believe in the Bible? How can you be sure it's the word of God?"

Dawkins feels the effect. He said he is discouraged when he visits schools and gets questions from students who have obviously been influenced by material from Answers in Genesis. "I continually get the same rather stupid points straight from their pamphlets," he said.

White is getting ready for a visit by Ken Ham, who will preach at Westminster Chapel this spring. Meanwhile he is pleased that small groups of creation science advocates now meet regularly in Oxford, Edinburgh, Northampton and other British cities.

"The creation movement is certainly growing," he said. "There are more groups than there were five years ago. There are more people like me going out speaking about it, and there's more interest. You have these little groups forming all over the place."

In some cases, the schools have become the battlegrounds. Richard Dawkins, the Oxford university biologist and author of last year's international best-seller "The God Delusion, "frequently lectures students about the marvels of evolution only to find that the students' views have already been shaped by the creationist lobby.

They are wasting their time wande. We don't bite at that sort of stuff as easily as you lot seem to do.

They are wasting their time wande. We don't bite at that sort of stuff as easily as you lot seem to do.

Quote:

In some cases, the schools have become the battlegrounds. Richard Dawkins, the Oxford university biologist and author of last year's international best-seller "The God Delusion, "frequently lectures students about the marvels of evolution only to find that the students' views have already been shaped by the creationist lobby.

That's only one explanation. Another one is that we can't stand the sight of the silly bugger. Talk's cheap.

It also speaks to my wish that the schools proactively stop warring with Creationism/ID and allow it to peacefully co-exist with science while not teaching it as science. To proactively not discredit something is not the same thing as advocacy for it.

The schools have no business and are blatantly in the wrong when they attempt to destroy a child's religious faith or push any form of relgious belief including Atheism