Any discussion on faith and reason will inevitably engage itself into the thick of the creation wars. The battle at times slips into the courtroom but largely finds itself in the arena of the classroom. In one corner is the young earth creationist. Refusing to acknowledge Curious George as his long lost brother, he demonizes widely accepted claims of science in order to protect his Genesis model. In the other corner, the smug evolutionist. Full of confidence, reason, and himself, he spews an onslaught of verbal vitriol aimed at tearing apart the faith of all those who refuse to bow to Science. Okay, so that's a bit dramatic. Truth is, the spectrum between the extremes is filled with both good Christians and good scientists. But, as it often seems, it's the outlying fundamentalists from both camps that tend to have the biggest mouths. One such mouth is
Answers in Genesis. In an effort to equip Christian high school students for battle against the Evil Evolution Empire, AiG has published
Evolution Exposed in both a Biology and Earth Sciences edition. Intended as a reference guide to be used in the classroom, Evolution Exposed takes aim at four of the most popular high school biology books by summarizing key sections of each textbook while exposing evolution indoctrination throughout and highlighting inconsistencies in their presentation of evolution concepts as appropriate. The evolution debunking cheat sheet even comes complete with questions the students can ask teachers concerning the ideas presented in class.
Since Young Earth Creationism is mostly assumed and not often looked at critically in our circles, I'd like to take a few posts to review the
Evolution Exposed on-line guide here on Fools with the hope that it will generate some healthy discussion (even its just among our 3 readers).
A few questions to consider for now.
What do you think? Is this something you'd like to have for your teenager as he engages with his high school science curriculum?
Do you think tactics like this impedes the development of young scientists? (The best way to fight indoctrination by the 'system' is to teach kids
to think reasonably for themselves tell them what to think and how to express it - Really?)
Does the faith of Bible believing Christians need protecting?, and if so, does this help?
you sure you want to tackle this publicly, krook?
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to the posts!
ReplyDeletefair warning - to be more clear, the intent of the posts will be to wrestle over the material and their appropriateness, not to argue against the young earth position. I'm aware that I'm walking a fine line on a potentially fiery issue, but one that I don't think we should be threatened by. Let's face it, for those of us with kids in the public schools, this is going to come up. I think its best to think through our positions before we send them onto the front lines.
ReplyDeletei have stuff to say but because i feel wholly inadequate on this topic, i will keep my keyboard quiet. i am a young earth kinda gal but am woefully inadequate in able to explain it. pathetic, huh? i had always thought old earth until about five years ago at the homeschool convention, and i had a lightbulb moment where my thinking switched. shutup todd, i know what you are thinking. or, at least, i think i do :)
ReplyDeletePlease Jan - no need to silence the keyboard! I need some heckling - Greg, are you out there? Seriously, I would love to hear about your move towards YEC. I can give you your own post if you'd like!
ReplyDeleteSo, am I getting this right? Just let our kids reason things out for themselves? I believe what Im trying to say here is "HECK-to-the NO"! I won't just sit back and let my kids arrive at their own conclusions. It's not brainwashing or teaching them what to think, it's imparting values and passing on truth as laid out in Deut. 6.
ReplyDelete~Smitty