What to Do with All this Science

Posted by Melvin Bray on March 29th, 2008 filed in Useful Perhaps

A co-contributor to the Reinventing the Adventist Wheel blog, Andy Hansen, posted what I find to be a most beautiful and incisive poem in response to a recently published article about evolution on Adventist Today, entitled “Debate: Can You Be an Adventist and an Evolutionist?” Two schools of thought square off in the article: Cliff Goldstein, editor of the Adult Bible Study Guide for the SDA Church (pictured below) presents the traditional Adventist view, and Erv Taylor, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of California, Riverside, presents a progressive view.

What was great about Andy’s way in was that it reminded me of all I was taught growing up…

Cliff and Erv,

Religion is a lot more complicated than it used to be when I was growing up
The earth was 6000 years old then and that was that
Dinosaur remains were just collections of mixed up animal bones
The geologic column wasn’t discussed and no one at church or school or
In my neighborhood asked questions about who Cain married
And how Noah got all those animals in the ark not counting insects
Shells on mountaintops were evidence of a worldwide flood
That covered everything including Mr. Everest

But now there’s Plate Tectonics and geophysics
And we know dinosaurs were real and maybe a comet crash
Or volcanic ash or a shift in the earth’s crust did them in
And then there’s the vegetation in the stomachs of mammoths
Quick-frozen in the Arctic that’s so fresh it’s edible
It’s hard to believe that a pair of platypuses got to Australia from Ararat
And it sure looks like things died long before Adam sinned

Finish the poem at RTAW>>>


One Response to “What to Do with All this Science”

  1. Aerin Says:
    April 11th, 2008 at 11:10 pm

    Hey there! I wish I’d found this post sooner – I had someone asking about creationism and evolution, and it’s hard to know how to help her understand when her background is so different from mine.

    I’m making plans to come back and catch up on your political posts – gosh don’t you love election years!?

    Best to the fam – Aerin

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