Sunday, February 20, 2011

Moving on up!

In the past, I have had some enlightening literature left on my desk.


If you reject Jesus, your Creator, that will be your worst mistake ever! You'll be in the lake of fire with billions of others who believe we evolved from monkeys. 




If "billions of others" believe we evolved from monkeys, well, something is wrong with science education. We did not evolve from monkeys, we evolved from a common ancestor.

On the other hand, if "billions of others" accept natural selection as the mechanism for descent with modification, but are simply confused about which organism we came from, maybe there's still hope for science education and the billions of souls sitting in the cauldron of fire.

On the other other hand, if I'm 15 years old, and I have a choice between passing an exam about something I don't quite understand, or tanking the exam and avoiding the whole lake of fire thing, well, I'm taking the easy way out. Eternity is a long, long time--longer, even, than when the Cubs last won a World Series.

We must never forget what children are learning outside science class. I'm not saying it justifies willful ignorance, but really, if we just preach instead of teach, we are not going to make a bit of difference in our students' worldviews.






Yes, it's really called Chick Publications.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Good thing I believe in Jesus, accept evolution and don't believe we evolved from The Monkees. After all, how could intelligent life evolve from a band that couldn't even play their own instruments?

I'll repeat what I've said quite often. To me, I see paradoxical beauty in descent with modification. It has deep, profound impact on philosophy (much further than, say Social Darwinism) because it tells the story of permanence and flux, of ebb and flow, of the sacred dance of character and setting. I see value in cosmology and I'm fascinated by the science of how it began. I also find beauty in the lyrical poetry of Genesis 1-2, the allegory of chapter 3 and the story of Jesus.

I'm not sure where faith, acceptance, belief and speculation fall within those stories. But I have to admit that I like them all. Much better than I'll ever like The Monkees (who, incidentally, seemed to like singing about belief).

doyle said...

Dear John,

I can count on you to leave responses that exceed most others' posts. I love reading you here as much as I love reading your blog.

It is, indeed, "the sacred dance of character and setting." I am stealing your words to use in my classroom. They might even end up on the bulletin board.

As always, thanks for sharing your thoughts here.