Intelligent design is 'creationism in a tuxedo'
RAY CRYER Rusk

A struggle has raged across America, particularly in our schools, on whether or not to teach creationism along side science. Attempts have been made at compromise, and at coming in the back door with word re-definitions.

A prominent school board member in another state remarked, "Intelligent design is simply creationism in a tuxedo." I reluctantly agree. Yet I have hoped to forever see Judeo/Christian declarations (such as the Ten Commandments) in our school.

I lament that we seem to have gone much further in separation of church and state than our founding fathers intended. That is not to treat those fathers as gods, immune to error so that no amendment of the constitution would ever be needed. I believe in good science.

As far as I am concerned, those who think that the world is only 6,000 years old are eligible for membership in The Earth is Flat Society. Prevalent religious thinking has been proven wrong before.

Consider that clever Polish scientist Copernicus, who showed that, contrary to church thought, the world moves around the sun rather than vice versa. But science has, historically, made its share of blunders too.

I believe in the Bible, and not just in poetic, general terms. For me, reconciliation of the Bible and science is important and not so difficult. The Bible states that God made the world in six days. But the Bible states in Genesis 1:16 that God made two great lights (apparently the sun and the moon) on the fourth day.

The Biblical creation day could not have been 24 hours. How do you have a 24 hour day without the sun? There are also subtle Biblical hints that it may well not have been a day as we know it. Genesis 1:3 records, "Before the creation of the sun, God said, 'Let there be light,' and when he separated the light from the dark." He called the light, "day" and the darkness "night," a bit different from our definition of those terms.

I presume without the sun it was a celestial light operating on God knows what scale and cycle to make an evening and a morning. Also, 2 Peter 3:8 indicates to the Lord a thousand years are like a day.

It is equally plain to me that evolution is a fact. God used it as a tool. God is no less God if he creates things to develop slowly than if he does it all instantly like a stage magician with only 30 minutes for his act.

No credible scientist now believes that man descended from apes. Rather, we have a common primate ancestor somewhere in the fog of time. I believe in a dual creation. If when you read Genesis 1:26, "God said let us create man in our image," you loudly put emphasis on "Our," instead of reading it flat, you have a whole different meaning.

Let us suppose (whether you call them Neanderthals or Australopthicus) there were humanoids before Adam and Eve. That would answer the timeless questions of who Cain married, who the people were that populated the city he built, and even possibly the enigmatic verse of Genesis 6:4.

It even makes the repetition of Genesis 1:27 fall into place. You may also have noticed that when God suggested making man in their image, no one in the heavenly host asked, "What's man?" They had probably been looking at him for thousands of years. I believe Adam was the first man created directly, and instantly, just as the Bible states, and he was the first to be given the spirit of God. Science is difficult to understand - it is easier to just say, "God did it." But if you want to reconcile the Bible and science and have not yet found a way, this may work for you as it does for me.