The Search For Truth

Wellsy, in the comments of my most recent evolution/creation post:

The argument is important, at least in my humble opinion, because it's a battle for truth. And truth is good.

On the contrary, my whole point is that it isn't important.

Wellsy astutely argues that evolution (which is really just the summation of natural selection, thank you for the clarification) has given us understanding of important medical processes, like bacterial antibiotic resistance. In arguing this, he makes my point. The point of that research was not to understand evolution, it was to understand how to make antibiotics work again. Evolution is a tool used to explain the truth, but if I said "God makes bacteria become resistant, to keep us striving for greater medicine and a better world" would I technically be wrong? Can you prove that the random mutations of 0.002% of bacteria that cause their resistance to a drug is actually random and not driven by a Holy mechanism? This is part of the Flying Spaghetti Monster argument...if you can not prove a thing does not exist, then you must accept the possibility that it does.

The point I was trying to make is that Dawkins, and friends, would probably be a lot more effective proponents of evolution if they spent more time finding new antibiotics and treatments for bacterial infections than if they tried to argue that religion is fraud.

Many rational people age 18-29, in fact, over 40% of them, believe like Wellsy:

I personally see no mutual exclusivity between these viewpoints: God created the world, why can't He create evolution?

This is important to note because an effective (though maligned) manipulator knows that if he can control the youth, he is raising a generation that will soon be the working class and if they believe as he does, they will follow him. Dawkins, given this definition, is fighting a losing battle. Although a large percentage of Americans age 18-29 are pushing away from Christianity, they are not giving up God. Many "like Jesus and his teachings, but not his followers." Many profess a strong belief in God, but cannot choose a specific religion that appeals to them.

Therein lies the problem with Christianity as well, the message of Christianity is not to exclude people whose belief systems do not ally with their own. The simple message of Christianity is to first of all love God, one God, and to do so with all your heart and mind and strength. Second, love your neighbor as yourself, because if you cannot love your neighbor you cannot love God. "Christians" who castigate scientists and doubters sound fundamentally hypocritical, and provide an awful example of behavior. The 18-29 demographic notices, and is reacting negatively.
If Christians dropped the strong language, and instead concentrated ever harder on helping those that need help, they'd find their message was not lost to the evolutionists, instead, they'd attract followers to Jesus like never before.

Anyway, my point is that we need to stop worrying about the first chapter of human history, and which text is the correct version, and instead concentrate on a goal shared by scientists and theologians alike: improving the human condition.

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