An evolving situation
I was taken aback today at the beginning of my Sunday School class. (Background: I'm actually a co-teacher; my counterpart Lisa has kids who are into cheerleading, soccer, etc., that sometimes hold their events on Sundays.)
While Lisa was running off sheets for the class, Laura, my 9th grade girl, asked me a question for a school project of hers: "What are your thoughts on evolution?" Here's what I answered (along with some stuff I'm adding here; call it Web-exclusive):
In their own lifetimes, people evolve. They start off crawling, and end up walking. Their behaviors, appearances, habits -- they can change. And even if we did evolve from monkeys, didn't God make monkeys too? Why should we be any more important in God's creation than any other animal?
Now she didn't ask about creation, but I have thoughts on that:
Nobody was there at the beginning. Or if they were, nobody wrote about it.
Was it 6,000 years ago or 4 billion? If your argument is merely that God said it was 6,000 years ago (which I don't believe is explicitly stated anywhere in the Bible), you have to allow scientists to make just as big a leap claiming dinosaur bones carbon-date back 80 million years.
And if God is such an eternal creature, why did He only start us up 6,000 years ago?
While Lisa was running off sheets for the class, Laura, my 9th grade girl, asked me a question for a school project of hers: "What are your thoughts on evolution?" Here's what I answered (along with some stuff I'm adding here; call it Web-exclusive):
In their own lifetimes, people evolve. They start off crawling, and end up walking. Their behaviors, appearances, habits -- they can change. And even if we did evolve from monkeys, didn't God make monkeys too? Why should we be any more important in God's creation than any other animal?
Now she didn't ask about creation, but I have thoughts on that:
Nobody was there at the beginning. Or if they were, nobody wrote about it.
Was it 6,000 years ago or 4 billion? If your argument is merely that God said it was 6,000 years ago (which I don't believe is explicitly stated anywhere in the Bible), you have to allow scientists to make just as big a leap claiming dinosaur bones carbon-date back 80 million years.
And if God is such an eternal creature, why did He only start us up 6,000 years ago?