Creation? Apocalypse? They're All About Me.

A recent Gallup poll reiterated what is a reasonably well known phenomenon in American public thought: A significant plurality of Americans - 46% - believe that God created human beings in their current form.   It's a stat that's been hovering at around that mark for almost thirty years, or as long as the venerable polling company has been maintaining that data.  

It does represent something of a bump from the 2011 data, in which forty percent were creationist, thirty eight percent embraced theistic evolution, and sixteen percent saw no divine engagement in the process.  Both threads in the evolution-support camp have waned in the last year, which is probably interpreted as a good sign for the GOP in the upcoming election.

I don't say that to be snarky or partisan, either.  The sub-data indicates that self-identified Republicans are more likely to be creationist...some 58 percent of them.

Gallup interprets these results as being fundamentally static culturally.  But it remains a to-me-amazing reality that a near-majority of Americans view humankind in a way that is, as Gallup dryly puts it "...at odds with the preponderance of the scientific literature."  Which is a nice way of saying: they are completely oblivious to the reality of creation.

And yet, as I reflected on that this morning, I found it reminded me of another common phenomenon amongst human beings:  the assumption that we live in the "end-times."   A surprisingly large number of Jesus-folk work under the assumption that the end of all things is just about to come to pass.  The Rapture is just minutes away, coming real soon.   We're in that time just before the end, and we need to prepare, 'cause the signs are clear that Jesus is returning.  In recent polling, for instance, nearly 44% of Americans attribute natural disasters to the coming of the end times.  This number seems remarkably close to the 46% who are creationist.

Why this belief?

Folks assume this for the same reason they've always assumed this.  We generally exist in the small, tangible world of our day-to-day existence.  We see little beyond it.  We're too busy.  So if it's in the Bible, it must pertain to me.  And as my life is at the center of my universe, and all of existence came into being for this time in which I live, clearly, the end must be about to happen.

And therein may lie a commonality between how we view the end and the beginning.  We cannot imagine a beginning that is so radically different from our now.  We cannot imagine an end that goes so far past the end of our little flicker of days.

And we particularly do not want to imagine that this great, glorious span of created time and space does not have us at the apex.  How could it possibly continue and...um..."leave us behind?"

So to speak.

 

Vegetarian Mosquitoes and Other Theological Absurdities

In my battles against the tiny bloodsucking beasties in my backyard, I've followed that ancient adage: Know thy enemy.

My enemy, as I blogged yesterday, is the Aedes Albopictus. She, for the men are mellow flower children, exists for one purpose. She wants to get a snack for her children, and that snack involves my protein-rich vital bodily fluids. She's very, very well designed for that purpose.

Unlike the mosquitoes who were native to ol' Virginny, Ms. Tiger is a strong and nimble flyer. She does not emit a tell-tale whine as she swoops by my ear, because stealth means you don't get squashed. What is most astounding about mosquitoes is how elegantly they do what they do. Their penetrating proboscis is sharper than any doctor's needle, and is a complex array of razor-sharp microneedles around a central tube. It causes no pain, which, again, means Ms. Tiger doesn't become a bloody splotch on your palm.

But yesterday, as I was musing over my marvelous opponent, I found myself wondering about how Ken Ham explains all of this. Ken Ham is the director of the Creation Museum, the place where fundamentalist Christianity goes to reassure itself of its own sanity. You might ask, why is the mosquito a problem for Creationists? If you're just making the argument for complexity in design as evidence of a Creator, the mosquito is not necessarily a bad place to start. Yeah, it's annoying. But when you look at it deeply, it becomes marvelously annoying.

The problem for literal Creationists is that they argue that every creature in Eden was a vegetarian. They have to. It's right there in Genesis, clear as day. It ain't just animals, neither. It's everything that has life and breath.

As a vegetarian Christian, I enjoy this immensely, because it adds to my natural vegetarian smugness. Seriously, though, I do think it speaks to what it means to live together in peace, and to our ultimate purpose in Creation. The lion cannot lay down with the lamb if mint jelly is in that lamb's immediate future.

The Creation Museum folks make this case about pretty much every major carnivore. They all have to be originally intended as vegetarians. Lions? Bears? Those big teeth are actually designed used for...um...coconuts. Or opening bags of Doritos. Even Velociraptors, who they argue lived in peace with Adam and Eve, have those huge slashing claws so they can...um...dig for radishes, which then require razor sharp fangs to eat.

But the mosquito? They do try to make the argument that mosquitos were supposed to be vegetarian. According the Creationist narrative, God, as part of the curse of the Fall, made a few minor tweaks in existing creatures. But...err...that's pretty much a total change from what a mosquito exists to do.

It's proboscis exists to painlessly penetrate the living flesh of a target. A particularly persistent creationist would assert that this could also penetrate a banana. And you don't want that banana to feel anything. Problem is, the mosquito also injects an organic anticoagulant into it's prey. This substance serves one purpose: to prevent blood from clotting as it is consumed by the mosquito. Bananas and pomegranates do not clot. They just don't. That's a nontrivial part of mosquito design. It's their entire reproductive cycle.

Quite frankly, it's not coherently explicable even within the Creationist mindset. That ain't gonna stop 'em from trying. They live for vast, convoluted and ultimately unbiblical hypotheses in defense of their pointless and unnecessary literalism.

I confess to be amazed at the intricacy of a mosquito, and that amazement translates into a wonder at the vastness and complexity of God's creation. I am also give God thanks that as a sentient being, I can use what I know about the little buggers to take 'em down.

Intelligent Design?

Intelligent design "theory" is neither faith nor science, but a malformed hybrid mutant that betrays both.

That said, I believe in intelligent design. I believe that all of creation was fashioned by God's hands, and that with the eyes of faith we can see the subtle imprint of God's touch in the world around us.

But intelligent design is not a scientific theory. Theories are assertions that are tested against the proofs of empirical evidence. A theory is accepted as true--or proven false--based on whether a series of tests or evidences support it or poke it full of holes. That's the scientific method.

It is NOT the method of faith. A theory can be proven right, but it can also be proven wrong. Our faith in God as creator cannot be like that. It is unshakable. It is NOT a testable hypothesis. Faith, real faith, is not built upon the proofs of empirical evidence. It we have to argue faith from a series of mutually supportive logical proofs, then we do not have faith. As the Apostle Paul says, "Hope that is seen is not hope." As the Apostle Paul says, "We look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen." As the letter to the Hebrews says, "Our faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

What we know in faith to be true is not science, and it has no place pretending to be science.