Everybody hates me

Someday, I am going to make this T-shirt.

I managed to get into an argument about evolution vs. faith (which I still think is ultimately a red herring) with a private Christian college alumna from Janesville, Wisconsin IN THE MIDDLE OF FREAKING PAHANG. Sigggggh.

My dad's current posting is a bunch of 3 very small churches in Bentong, Mentakab, and Raub. On Sunday I followed my parents to Mentakab for evening service because a team from MV Doulos was going to be there. I have cool memories of visiting the Doulos at about age seven or so. Pa bought me a pocket dictionary of biology terms, actually.

There were six people on the team and they took turns talking about experiences they've had in deciding to serve on the ship, or while serving on the ship, or while going ashore to talk to people in various parts of the world. Afterward, I talked to some of them - a woman from Bangalore, two young guys from Canterbury and Ohio, and that girl.

I don't want to go into the details of the conversation, but let's just say that a) she had attended college at a Christian school and seemed to be under the impression that anyone going to a large public uni would be under immense pressure (IVCF, Campus Crusade, and YWAM notwithstanding?) and b) the only major presentation on evolution she mentioned having heard was by a creationist...

We went back and forth for a bit. I pointed out that theologians as far back as St. Augustine have been saying that we don't know the mechanisms of creation or the nature of the "days" over which it took place (as I said to Steve recently, Augustine is big guns).

Also, what I think is a more pertinent problem: that the ridiculous American evangelical insistence on taking Genesis literally is creating a stumbling block for people who might otherwise come to Christ.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

There is is. It's not that complicated, dammit. Jesus didn't say "whoever believes in me, and in the fact that my dad took exactly 144 hours to create the physical universe."

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And then, on the other side, there are people like the guy who writes this blog, Pharyngula.

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I am so frustrated. I really feel like everybody hates me sometimes. A while ago, I used to have a quotation from James Clerk Maxwell in my email signature, about . Maxwell is big guns too, but he's not a bio guy either.

...Christians whose minds are scientific are bound to study science that this view of the glory of God may be as extensive as their being is capable of.

Ironically, it's the following paragraph from an interview with the Skeptic magazine editor, Michael Shermer, that best articulates why I love science. I'm not a theologian. Studying the physical world is for me, the best window into God's wisdom.

If you believe God created the world, it's reasonable to ask, How did he do it? What were the forces and mechanisms he used? Why not look to science and see that he started with the big bang, the force of gravity, inflationary cosmology, quarks and natural selection. Those were his tools. To that extent, science is not a threat, it's your best friend. It's the best tool you have for illuminating the grandeur of creation. A Hubble Space Telescope photograph of the universe evokes far more awe for creation than light streaming through a stained glass window in a cathedral. I mean, come on, that photo is an actual representation of the reality that God created, if that's what you believe. So why not embrace science rather than fear it?

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Bloody Americans. Maybe they'll all go to hell - the hardline atheists for denying God, and the fundamentalists for pushing them into it.

I think one reason I want to come back to Malaysia after I finish my studies is to protect people against this sort of Manichaean mentality - to give bright young minds a better education in bio than our joke of a KBSM curriculum, and to show that freedom and faith go together.