Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Catch and release
Creationists have not, in the past, been known for their commitment to wise stewardship over the Earth's resources. In the past, many have interpreted the biblical injunction to exercise dominion over the Earth to mean paving paradise in order to erect fast food restaurants and WalMart superstores.
Much of this was motivated by the notion that there's no need to preserve anything because it's going to be destroyed in the Apocalypse, anyhow. Born-again Christians, the thinking goes, won't need the Earth after they've been swept to heaven in the Rapture, anyway.
If the end is near, you might as well exploit this poor old planet to the max.
Recently, a group of evangelicals has indicated some concern about the ecological health of the planet. This is a welcome event.
While RSR is grateful that some evangelicals have now embraced wise stewardship of the planet's resources, we never imagined that concern would extend to Ken Ham, who leads Answers in Genesis.
Ham, apparently has embraced the catch and release ethic of fishermen who want to preserve healthy stocks of fish for future generations. Lisa Anderson of the Chicago Tribune reports:
Too bad this wonderful design, like 99.9 percent of all species that ever lived on the planet Earth, went extinct.
Much of this was motivated by the notion that there's no need to preserve anything because it's going to be destroyed in the Apocalypse, anyhow. Born-again Christians, the thinking goes, won't need the Earth after they've been swept to heaven in the Rapture, anyway.
If the end is near, you might as well exploit this poor old planet to the max.
Recently, a group of evangelicals has indicated some concern about the ecological health of the planet. This is a welcome event.
While RSR is grateful that some evangelicals have now embraced wise stewardship of the planet's resources, we never imagined that concern would extend to Ken Ham, who leads Answers in Genesis.
Ham, apparently has embraced the catch and release ethic of fishermen who want to preserve healthy stocks of fish for future generations. Lisa Anderson of the Chicago Tribune reports:
Just hours after the fossil fish, called Tiktaalik roseae, landed on the front pages of many newspapers earlier this month, it also surfaced on the Answers in Genesis Web site. In a posting titled "Gone fishin' for a missing link?" the organization, in effect, threw Tiktaalik roseae back.
"Because evolutionists want to discover transitional forms, when they find a very old fish with leg-bone-like bones in its fins, they want to interpret this as evidence that it is some sort of transitional creature. . . . It may be just another example of the wonderful design of our Creator God," the posting said.
Too bad this wonderful design, like 99.9 percent of all species that ever lived on the planet Earth, went extinct.
