Believing In Both God And Evolution

You believe in evolution
In this modern Christian day
Though your God was the Creator
Evolution was His way
So you see no contradiction
And you tell me I am wrong
When I say that God and science
Really cannot get along

You believe in evolution
As a Christian, so you say,
And that blind, uncaring Nature
May be altered, if you pray
And the products of selection
Are selected by His hand
You believe in evolution
But you do not understand.

You believe in evolution
And that Eden was a myth
You could see a world without a God,
But still prefer one with
And you think that, maybe, sometimes,
There’s a chance God intervenes
You believe in evolution
But you don’t know what that means.

You believe in evolution
You believe it deep inside
But a sort of evolution
That depends upon a Guide
Are your two beliefs compatible?
You say they are, although,
Since that isn’t evolution
You’re describing… I’d say no.

Over on the HuffPo, MIT physicist Max Tegmark presents some data he and colleagues collected on the compatibility of religion and science, and some comments on the reaction to these data. Today’s article (the latter) focuses on Tegmark’s surprise at getting so much blowback from the atheist community. That’s not the point of my verse, though, and not what I want to talk about.

The problem is not that religious people believe their faith is compatible with their view of evolution (which is what Tegmark’s data clearly show). The problem is that the view of evolution that their faith is compatible with is not evolution by natural selection, but evolution by some sort of guided selection. Evolution that has God pulling the strings, or nudging variables toward a particular goal (oddly human in appearance and behavior), or intervening miraculously to save a life (does praying to get pregnant count as a reproductive strategy?) is not evolution by natural selection.

Change over time is not the defining feature of evolution; the blind and indifferent mechanism is. Tegmark’s data, interpreted as “there is no conflict”, are perhaps more accurately described as “not being aware of the conflict.” Because to the extent that their beliefs include a God that can (and occasionally does) act in the world, their beliefs are incompatible with science. I’ve said it before, it cannot be science when God intervenes.

I can believe my toaster and my bathtub are compatible, and behave accordingly. That doesn’t make it true.

Snake-Handlers? In 2013?

For goodness sakes
I need my snakes
Or God won’t know I love Him!
I have to show
Or He won’t know
There’s no one else above Him!

I know my sect
Is more correct
(As well as more exciting);
Among my clues,
We fill the pews
When rattlesnakes are biting!

Though some have died
At least they tried
To do as God commands
It may seem sick–
One serpent’s prick…
Their fate is in His hands

Middlesboro, KY–A pastor wants his snakes back. Middlesboro’s Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name has been in the news before, also for snake-handling. Today’s story is simply that a pastor had some $800 worth of venomous snakes confiscated in Tennessee, and wants them back… in the name of religious freedom and simple property ownership. The story from years ago was of death by snakebite. Actually, in searching for the case I knew was there, I found several others; it seems snake handlers have a tendency to get bitten and die.

The one that springs immediately to mind (I may have found that link, but it might be a different case), which my parents (who lived in the area at the time) told me about, was of a child custody battle between grandparents. Both parents were dead from snakebite, and the grandparents were fighting over the kids. One set of grandparents were snake-handlers, and argued that since the parents were snake-handlers as well, they were the obvious choice to raise the kids as the parents wanted. Honestly, I didn’t have the heart to look to see who won the battle. (They are not the only case of multiple generation snake-handling deaths in one family.)

Thinking of those kids, I am not even tempted to say “give the preacher his snakes back and let nature take its course”. I am glad this is only a fringe sect, but it is outrageous that such a deadly ritual is protected as religious free speech.

The Pope Is Stepping Down

So in his honor, a verse that speculates on what really goes on in the college of cardinals as they go about the business of selecting a new guy to wear the funny hat:

We struggle in vain to distinguish a Mass
From your typical Zombie behavior
As they guzzle down red by the bottle or glass
And delight in Filet of Our Savior.

Perhaps it’s a matter of what’s on the menu;
Your Catholic is more of a snacker,
But if you feel teeth on your shoulder, why, then you
Know zombies want more than a cracker.

When Jesus said “This is my blood that you drink,
And this is my body you eat”
Did something he knew of their tastes make him think
They were zombies, and lusting for meat?

Did the Catholic Church, from the time of Saint Peter,
Rejoice in the words that he said,
And at least once a week, become Zombie flesh-eater
And feast upon Jesus Undead?

I worry it’s some sort of slippery slope
Where they struggle ‘gainst gravity’s chains
And I wonder if Ratzinger got to be Pope
By eating the Cardinals’ brains.

Image by the wonderful Jessica Hagy.

My Favorite Sins

Putting off problems to worry ‘bout later
Spending my days as an internet hater
Gorging on chicken with crispy fried skins
These are a few of my favorite sins

Fighting temptation with no hope of winning
Glad that just thoughts, and not actions, are sinning
Not what I do, but what’s buried within
These are a few of my favorite sins

When I succumb and by lust I am driven
Simply confess; it will all be forgiven
Tell how I romped with those Latvian twins
Those were a few of my favorite sins

When I’m prideful
When I envy
When I’m feeling mad
I simply remember my favorite sins
And then I don’t feel so bad.

CNN’s Belief Blog has a fairly frustrating article, Americans reveal their 3 favorite sins.

“Temptations and America’s Favorite Sins,” a survey conducted by the Barna Group, a Christian research firm, concludes that the moral struggles that vex most Americans aren’t the salacious acts that drive the plotlines of reality television shows. Most Americans are too worn down or distracted to get snared by those vices, the survey concludes.

The top three sins seducing most Americans: procrastination, overeating and spending too much time on media.

“You would think it would be sex, drugs and rock and roll,” said Todd Hunter, pastor and author of “Our Favorite Sins,” whose book was consulted in conjunction with the survey.

The survey focused on “temptations”, and asked what people were tempted by–from chocolate to internet porn. (BTW, they conclude that “Temptation has gone virtual”… on the basis of (wait for it) their (wait…) online survey.

Annoying already, they then get to the bit that really irritates.

Many Americans who admit to being tempted aren’t putting up a big fight. The study said that 59% of Americans admit that they don’t do anything to avoid temptation and half can’t explain why they give into temptation.

Many Americans still can’t explain what sin is, Hunter said. Worrying, for example, is not considered one of the seven deadly sins (pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth). Yet survey respondents listed it as one of their top temptations.

“There’s no agreement on what sin is,” Hunter said. “It’s one of the aspects of the world we live in. It’s becoming more relativistic. It’s hard to talk about sin when everyone disagrees about what it is.”

The listed sins are all desires, and never actions. No wonder everyone disagrees; what you actually *do* doesn’t seem to be a problem! It’s just the stuff you are thinking. Acting on my anger (or lust, or greed…) isn’t the sin; the anger itself is.

Since I have already sinned by feeling greed, I might as well act on it and rob someone. Especially since I can ask for (and receive) forgiveness afterward.

It’s exactly backward. I shouldn’t care about your motives, just your actions. Your motives don’t hurt someone; your actions do.

“These Are Tough Days”

When the file release they had fought
Caught them doing things nobody ought
They said “These are tough days”
Cos in so many ways
It’s a terrible thing… getting caught.

At Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral downtown, Msgr. Kevin Kostelnik asked parishioners Sunday “to pray fervently” for the victims of the clergy child abuse scandal and lamented that “these are tough days.”

Like other church leaders, Kostelnik read a Jan. 31 letter from Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez about tens of thousands of pages of previously secret personnel files posted on the church’s website last week of 122 priests accused of molesting children. Some of the files lay out in Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Curry’s own words how the church hierarchy plotted to keep law enforcement from learning that children had been molested at the hands of priests.

Yeah, these are tough days for the church.

Science Can’t Explain It!

The science of biology has things it can’t explain
Though it’s “Science has the answers!” as the boast.
You can search the latest journals, but you’ll find you search in vain
For the transubstantiation of the host!

The biologists won’t touch it; it’s a truth they’ll never find—
They refuse to even look for their solution
It shows that there are answers of a different, better kind…
And it clearly puts the lie to evolution. [Read more…]

Greece And The Mortality Of Gods

Wait, Greece is saying it’s a crime to insult religion? But… but the whole country is a shining example of the fleeting existence of gods, and the evolutionary change of religious culture, as images of Zeus Apollonius are repurposed as Jesus, as the Parthenon becomes a church, becomes an ammo dump, becomes a ruin, becomes a symbol of the rebirth of a city, becomes a protest site…

Greece is all the proof you need, that the gods are mortal too.


Once there was a temple here
With marble columns gleaming white
Once the gods themselves looked down
Upon these altars with delight.
Olympus climbs into the clouds
And mortals look up from below—
The hidden summit must have gods,
We do not just believe—we know.

But gods, it seems, are mortal too
And gods must die, as must we all
And temples, without gods, decay;
Abandoned columns soon will fall.
The people leave; the waters rise;
What was a marble floor, now grass;
The sunken statuary gaze,
And dumbly watch millennia pass.

Once the gods were worshipped here
Today the rulers here, the frogs
Control the fate of damsel-flies;
Athena’s columns for their logs.
The gods, it seems, cannot stop time
And Zeus himself must lose his crown
The land gives way to fish and frogs…
And turtles all the way down.

(All images by Cuttlefish, from Dion, in the shadow of Mt. Olympus.)

Not Really Christian

Now, I know he reads the bible, and I know he goes to church
He denounces sinful nature from his high and mighty perch
He says gays and their supporters will be going straight to hell
But he isn’t really Christian—I can tell.

He’s a stern and forceful father, with a father’s iron hand
He controls his wife and children; they all bend to his command
He’s abusive, to be honest; it’s behavior I despise
So it isn’t really Christian, in my eyes

He’s consistent with the scriptures, or at least that’s what he claims
And his loving congregation all support him in his aims
Though he says he follows Jesus, he and I, we disagree
So he isn’t really Christian, not to me

There are lots of true believers, but what really makes me mad
Is, they credit Christianity for things I think are bad
It’s a beautiful religion, but their actions really stink
So it isn’t really Christian, don’t you think?

I have always been a Christian, and I’ve tried to do what’s right
And I know that what is good and true is Christian in God’s sight
What is evil, though, is Man’s alone, eternally his shame
Cos it really can’t be Christians are to blame
What is evil, though, is Man’s alone, eternally his shame
You could never really sin in Jesus’ name.

This verse could have been inspired by any number of comments, but was in fact inspired by a comment (at this story) that doesn’t really deserve to be snarked at. I did, though (there, not in this post), and I’m a bit sorry I did. The commenter did not mean to excuse Christianity for the evils it does–near as I can tell, he or she is absolutely in the right, and used the phrase “they’re not [Christians] in my book” as a way of decrying the actions of some bigoted Christians. So, T. G., whoever you are, I did not mean to accuse you of letting Christianity off the hook.

The phrase, though, does serve as teflon for Christianity. Good behavior is seen as Christian, and Christians (even clergy) behaving badly are “not Christians in my book”.

Christianity is a puddingstone of diverse sects that sometimes seem to share as many similar beliefs as dictionary atheists do. Do Christians support same sex marriage? Several churches near here certainly do. Others do not. Do Christians speak in tongues? In high school, I had Christian friends who did; now, in a different decade and different area of the country, my Christian students are astonished that such a concept exists. Do Christians handle venomous snakes to show their faith? Where my parents lived, several churches did (and people died on a regular basis… of lack of faith, apparently); I think I’m safe in calling this a minority practice. Knowing only that someone is “a Christian” actually tells you very little about the particulars of their faith.

You may fight against discrimination and bigotry because you are inspired by your Christian beliefs, but that does not stop others from engaging in discrimination and bigotry because they believe the bible, and their Christian faith, demands it. And they are every bit as much entitled to use the label “Christian”.

God Is Not An Endangered Species

There’s freedom of religion, which we all acknowledge, but—
While true freedom seems a rare thing… of religion, there’s a glut.

The New York Times today has an Op-Ed piece by Frank Bruni that is well worth reading, entitled “The God Glut”.

We have God on our dollars, God in our pledge of allegiance, God in our Congress. Last year, the House took the time to vote, 396 to 9, in favor of a resolution affirming “In God We Trust” as our national motto. How utterly needless, unless I missed some insurrectionist initiative to have that motto changed to “Buck Up, Beelzebub” or “Surrender Dorothy.”

We have God in our public schools, a few of which cling to creationism, and we have major presidential candidates — Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum — who use God in general and Christianity in particular as cornerstones of their campaigns. God’s initial absence from the Democratic Party platform last summer stirred more outrage among Americans than the slaughter in Syria will ever provoke.

God’s wishes are cited in efforts to deny abortions to raped women and civil marriages to same-sex couples. In our country God doesn’t merely have a place at the table. He or She is the host of the prayer-heavy dinner party.

That’s just a meaty bit out of the middle; the whole essay is powerful. None of it will come as any surprise to long time FtB readers–perhaps the surprise is that it is in the New York Times.

Well worth reading; well worth sharing.