Creationism vs. Evolution

Patrick Buchanan has written an interesting commentary dealing with the controversial issue of Creationism( or Intelligent Design) against Darwin's theory of evolution. The sad aspect of this on-going controversy is the constant knee-jerking and idiocy that seems abound on both sides of the argument. Many atheists and other anti-religious minded folks will try to argue for evolution as a way of to debunk religious faith. In particular they like to group all creationists or supporters of Intelligent Design as Christian nut-cases who try to promote theology as science. Casey Luskin refuted this notion in a critique of such arguments made by Michael Shermer. The truth is the Creationist/Intelligent design camp is full of people from different backgrounds(not just Christian). Of course the same should be said for supporters of evolution, many religious people can be found in that camp as well. So the controversy is not entirely religion vs. science as many people try to portray it, it's far more complex.

Yet there are many problems with Creationists as well. In response to Evolutionist arguments, many in this school of thought will degrade themselves into a full-blown crusade against science as a whole. What's even more annoying about many creationists is their literalism towards the Book of Genesis. This is clearly irrational and even goes against Christian tradition in relation to how the scriptures are to be read. Christianity has always been rooted in an allegorical tradition not a literalist one. It was the literalism of the Pharisees that Jesus and the early Christians clearly rejected.

As a Christian, my sympathies are clearly with the Creationist/Intelligent Design camp, but I should mention only in a general sense. That is, I clearly believe that the universe was created by an intelligent being(God). The specifics of how God created the universe and how life came to exist, well.....I'm more than happy to leave it to biologists to explain the specifics of that. So I'm very much in favor of a Creationism/Intelligent Design governed by a strong sense of reason, and there are plenty of Creationists who would agree with me. In fact the Book of Genesis itself advocates an evolutionary-like development of life, where God starts off creating small simple creatures and ending with more complex creatures.

A very interesting commentary on the relationship between evolution and religion (and one which forms much of my viewpoint on this issue) was written by Fr. Deacon Andrey Kuraev. Although it argues largely from an Orthodox standpoint, the points Kuraev makes can easily apply to all denominations. He notes that there's no "textual nor a doctrinal basis to reject evolutionism" especially when separated from its "atheist interpretation". Kuraev goes into more detail concerning what several Orthodox theologians have states on this issue, to even debunking many inconsistencies of Creationists who take the Book of Genesis literally.

Well these are my two cents on this issue.