Tuesday, August 08, 2006
He's Got the Whole World on his Shoulder
If scientific findings, such as radiocarbon dating, seem to contradict a literal reading of the Bible, then the science must be flawed, right?
Seventh-day Adventists, for example, believe the six-day creation described in the book of Genesis is true in a literal sense. The Bible tells them that God created Adam and Eve and all the animals of the earth on the same day, so it must be true.
Dinosaurs and humans, they fervently believe, were created on the same day and lived together -- like Fred Flintstone and Dino -- until the flood.
But there's all that pesky scientific evidence that claims dinosaurs died out long before humans evolved.
What to do?
Well, if you're Seventh-day Adventist middle school teacher like Laurel Baker you could just skirt the issue and change the subject when confronted by questions from your students.
That's one approach to teaching the controversy.
Or, if you're an adjunct professor at Southwestern Adventist University in Keene, Texas, like geologist Elaine Kennedy, you might just write a book arguing that carbon dating doesn't take into account the impact of the cataclysmic flood recounted in the Bible.
"You're talking about phenomenon that can happen very quickly," Kennedy helpfully points out.
Adventists don't just ignore scientific evidence in their effort to make the natural world conform to the Bible, however.
There's a certain amount of creative thinking involved, as well.
"It's possible that some dinosaurs were small enough to enter the ark and survive, only to be killed by the great climactic changes that followed," says David Stair, principal of Joshua Adventist Multigrade School in Joshua, Texas. "A baby T-Rex, for example, was probably small enough to fit on a person's shoulder," reports Anita Wadhwani in The Tennessean.
Seventh-day Adventists, for example, believe the six-day creation described in the book of Genesis is true in a literal sense. The Bible tells them that God created Adam and Eve and all the animals of the earth on the same day, so it must be true.
Dinosaurs and humans, they fervently believe, were created on the same day and lived together -- like Fred Flintstone and Dino -- until the flood.
But there's all that pesky scientific evidence that claims dinosaurs died out long before humans evolved.
What to do?
Well, if you're Seventh-day Adventist middle school teacher like Laurel Baker you could just skirt the issue and change the subject when confronted by questions from your students.
That's one approach to teaching the controversy.
Or, if you're an adjunct professor at Southwestern Adventist University in Keene, Texas, like geologist Elaine Kennedy, you might just write a book arguing that carbon dating doesn't take into account the impact of the cataclysmic flood recounted in the Bible.
"You're talking about phenomenon that can happen very quickly," Kennedy helpfully points out.
Adventists don't just ignore scientific evidence in their effort to make the natural world conform to the Bible, however.
There's a certain amount of creative thinking involved, as well.
"It's possible that some dinosaurs were small enough to enter the ark and survive, only to be killed by the great climactic changes that followed," says David Stair, principal of Joshua Adventist Multigrade School in Joshua, Texas. "A baby T-Rex, for example, was probably small enough to fit on a person's shoulder," reports Anita Wadhwani in The Tennessean.
