Creationists have always flummoxed me. Back when I was a story analyst in Hollywood, I had a boss at a big talent agency who was a serious evangelical Christian. The Boss Who Shall Remain Nameless actually told me that science and technology didn't matter. She said this while sitting in an office with the latest computer on her desk, with soft dichroic lights shining down and the fierce Los Angeles summer heat kept at bay by clever manipulation of the laws of thermodynamics. Her entire life, from a career in an industry that wouldn't exist without technology, to the birth of her children, to the car that got her to the office, to the vaccines that protected her from polio and tetanus, relied on science. But science didn't matter.
What did matter? The "pleasant poetry of Genesis."
Now, I'm a Jew. And from a strictly parochial standpoint, I'd like to point out that
1. Jews wrote the Book of Genesis;
2. The original is in Hebrew, our language; and
3. Even WE don't take it literally.
Really. There is an ancient principle in Judaism that states that "the Scriptures speak in the tongue of Man" - in other words, the Bible uses metaphors and parables to describe sacred realities that human beings aren't prepared to completely understand. So we are nowhere near dumb enough to believe that one must take the Garden of Eden as the literal truth in order to be a faithful, believing Jew - or Christian, for that matter.
Now, considering how science has enriched all of our lives, and how megachurches and Christian broadcasting networks would not even exist without it, I'm continuously astounded by Creationists. They sit surrounded by the proof that science works, basing their entire lives on technology, the daughter of science, and then simply abandon it when it points to a conclusion they find distasteful.
O foolish people, and without understanding! Who have eyes, and see not; who have ears, and hear not! - Jeremiah 5:21
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