Born Talking: Creation and Time

While again reading The Magician’s Nephew, the first in the Chronicles of Narnia, I was once again struck by a scene that seems to suggest some curious perspective on our origins.  The book is the first about Narnia (in terms of Narnian history) and presents the creation of the world with the song of the lion, Aslan, who Lewis uses as his representation of Christ.  At one point Aslan has created the entire world, then calls forth two of each animal (male and female) and gives them the gift of language.  They not only have the ability to speak, but they have knowledge to speak about as if they had spent time in classrooms for years.

Foregoing the interesting connections to the doctrine of election (one that Lewis strongly opposed), it is intriguing to think about a creature, just finding itself to exist, but having knowledge and “age.”  How rarely do we talk about the first chapters of Genesis and think about how odd it is that God did not create seeds and eggs, but he created plants, fish, and birds.

Deny The Bruise?

Several years ago (not telling how many) I was at a hotel at the end of youth convention, awaiting our leaders to check out and the bus to arrive to whisk us back home.  Since the convention was over there were so many people in the lobby that there were no places to sit.  So I decided to lean against the glass wall at the front of the hotel for a good vantage point.

Suddenly I felt a full body WHACK!  Startled I looked around and saw no one and nothing that could have done the damage.  In fact there was no one even close.  I thought nothing of it and continued to wait.

The Magic (Not Science) of Evolution

“Science is fact.  And since fact is superior to your holy book, then science is right and you are wrong.”  How many times has that argument been foisted by people who cannot acknowledge their own biases?  It would be way too simple to think that because it is based in fact, any time science seems to contradict faith then it must mean that faith is wrong.  But the question is in the word “fact,” which has its own set of definitions and connotations that may intentionally mislead even its supporters.

Creation Among the Athiests: A Retrospective

It has been more than 6 months since I became an incognito Christian and joined a group of more than 300 atheists as they toured the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky on August 8, 2009.

The response to my reflections have been overwhelming.  To date there have been more than 14,000 hits on “Scarlet ‘A’ for a Day” alone.  The experience has generated much open dialogue and has challenged me in more ways that I can express.

In case you missed them, here is a comprehensive list of my posts about the experience:

• What Do You Get When You Cross 300 Atheists and the Creation Museum? – A brief introduction to the event with a list of other accounts of the trip and a link to national news coverage.
• Scarlet ‘A’ for a Day – My own reflections on being at the museum, how visitors responded to us, and brief encounters we had there.
• A Skeptic’s Creation Museum Video Tour – A video chronicle of conversations that some of the atheists/agnostics had during the day.
• And This Atheist Was a Walking Christian Tract – Encounter with a skeptic who wore a t-shirt that visitors found offensive, but not for the reasons you may expect.
• Atheism at the Creation Museum – How museum curators mistake moralism for Christianity.

Another trip to the museum is planned for the end of the month.  This time it will be a group of friends and I will be going as a Christian with good critical-thinking skills.  We shall see if anything of interest comes from that perspective.

Speaking Creatively

Creationists and evolutionists are interesting groups of people.  It would seem that both sides of this debate are so passionate that the sound of the blood pumping in their ears prevents them from really hearing the other side very clearly.  Oh, I know, it is all about “intelligent conversation,” but if we are honest there are too many times that both sides are at fault for giving in to subjectivity.

A friend sent me a link to the following article just today.  While there are plenty of issues that I have no doubt will be hot points for debate, there is an excellent sentiment in the tone of the article as well as the challenge to discussion at the end.  The author, Alan Dowd, suggests that his fellow creations speak respectfully, humbly (yet boldly), intelligently, and personally.  He is quick to acknowledge that the debate, as much as we want to say is completely academic, is of such concern on both sides of the table that it is sincerely difficult to have apart from emotional context.

Click here for the full text of the article.  Then come back here and comment until your heart’s content.