Prehistoric Skeleton Sparks Evolution Debate Between Christians & Scientists
A prehistoric skeleton found in Kenya has sparked a new round of creation versus evolution debate between Christians and scientists.
by Michelle Vu, Christian Today Correspondent
Posted: Thursday, February 8, 2007, 17:13 (GMT)
A prehistoric skeleton found in Kenya has sparked a new round of creation versus evolution debate between Christians and scientists.
Kenyan evangelical leaders are demanding that Turkana boy - the most complete prehistoric human ever found - be place in a backroom with a sign cautioning that evolution is a theory during the upcoming exhibit at the famed National Museum of Kenya.
"I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it," says Bishop Boniface Adoyo, who is heading a campaign against evolution, according to The Associated Press. "These sorts of silly views are killing our faith."
Adoyo, who chairs the nine million-membered Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, is calling on his followers to boycott the exhibit.
Turkana Boy's well-known founder, Richard Leakey, is disturbed by efforts to hide the exhibit's fossils.
"The church is being ridiculous," said Leakey according to Guardian Unlimited. "Its leaders are out of step. Evolution theory is accepted across the world. This is scientific history and Kenya has the best of this evolutional history."
Meanwhile, in the United States, Christians are taking another approach to the evolution debate. Though still defending creation, many Christians are now using scientific evidence and language to defend biblical view of the beginning of mankind and the universe.
Answers in Genesis, the world's largest Christian apologetics ministry, will open its $27-million new museum designed to defend creation by examining fossils, animals, stars and natural science.
"The Bible, where it touches on science or any subject including same-sex marriage, race or abortion, is totally trustworthy," said Ken Ham, co-founder and president of Answers in Genesis, in a statement. "As a revelation of history from the beginning to the end of time, the Bible is the foundation that enables us to construct the big picture and have the right approach in geology, biology, physics and astronomy."
Visitors are escorted through exhibits of life-sized, realistic animatronic dinosaurs and humans, planetarium, a cave with real stalactites and stalagmites growing, archaeological digs, a time tunnel, and other features - all with the focus to prove the Bible can withstand scientific scrutiny.
"Today, science is pointing more powerfully to a creator than any other time," said award-winning Christian author Lee Strobel, in his documentary "The Case for a Creator." "The most logical and rational step is to put my faith in the Creator that science tells me exists."
Many Christian scientists have joined the intelligent design movement in the United States, challenging Darwin's evolution theory, arguing that science discoveries prove the existence of a higher power and creation.
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Added: Friday, February 9, 2007, 10:54 (GMT)
This conflict between the monotheistic belief that the universe is created by God and the scientific understanding that life has evolved is entirely unnecessary. We can have both without having to surrender either faith in God or a vision of life as all being 'one'. The real problem it seems to me, is
about who should have the final word when it comes to making pronouncements about 'life'. And this is a form of politics. The physical evidence certainly supports the view that more complex forms of life evolve from less complex forms but not necessarily through the process suggested by Darwin and in any event, this does not mean that the belief in God as Creator is false.
The Darwinian evolutionary model has outlived its usefulness, based as it is on the metaphor of survival of the fittest and a comparison with the manmade artificial selection process used to improve breeds of plants and animals. A new model is required which knits evolution together with a new understanding of how God brings the universe into existence through divine love. This demands an evolutionary Theology, which of course is not going to be easy to either fomulate or understand, but that doesn't mean it is not possible.
Certainly scientists who maintain that Belief in Divine Creation is falsely based are simply wrong because they are assuming that only science can 'prove' beliefs to be true or false. This is just desperate special pleading. Although secondary religious ideas/metaphors/myths like creation of the universe in seven days can apparently be challenged by science, it is immature and really misses the point of the myth. It betrays a deep ignorance of how religious language works. Equally taking religious myths and metaphors literally does not help the cause of the Gospel, it shows a lack of faith and a refusal to see the myths for what they are, an attempt to say the literally unsayable. Myths are like shells for profound insights about what life is really about and need to be respected as such. If they are taken literally they are simply being abused and of course get crushed under a weight they weren't designed to support.
Alan J. Williams, Cottingham, Hull. UK
Added: Thursday, February 8, 2007, 18:05 (GMT)
I am a black listed scientist who put my belief of God on my thesis, and have found NO support from Christian groups even though cancer research was suppressed so fraud could be committed. Evolution is the study of how bodies evolved not the SOUL. Christ was interested in saving our souls. Fundamentalist Christians when they denounce evolution and science have missed the boat about what God is about. Go to Genesis or whatever and you will see God made us Stewarts of this planet. Fundamentalists are misusing the Bible in their pursuit of greed. We have become bad stewarts by Global Warming and poisoning the planet; that is a sin. The wages of sin are death. Killer flus , bad air , starvation etc., God is not causing our disaster, we are. Bad science and bad fundamentalists have brought us to the brink, and only good science and honest truthful people will save us. God's law is the Golden Rule. Do not do that is hateful to you unto others. Evolution is real, but so is the SPIRIT of God . Please consider that.
e.a.greenhalgh, kitchener, canada
