While watching a series on cable recently about the creation and development of the universe, based on the scientific knowledge which has been growing for centuries, I was stunned by the flat out statement that the Earth was created 4.5 billion years ago in the smashing together of meteors.
This was in the context of a 10-billion-year old universe which started with a Big Bang.
The billions of years of lava formations, the cooling of water and the 1.5 billion year old covering of the earth with ice, the development of single-celled creatures that eventually evolved into water creatures thousands of years before dinosaurs – all these things which have been proven by science I found amazing and spectacular.
Then I read an online article about Mike Huckabee… essentially a discussion of his conflicts with environmentalists… and it brought up his Creationist beliefs: the six-thousand-year old world created by God, the separate creation of man (in the Garden of Eden, I guess).
This makes him no different from the early European church that burned those whose beliefs led to scientific discoveries, that kept millions from learning even to read, and made religion the basis of government.
How can time travel backwards in this way? I understand that there are millions of people who believe the same things and who will never allow themselves to read of, much less accept, contemporary knowledge. Religion, then, effects education, effects politics and effects our future.
We have spent seven years with a President who has all but disabled development in science, education and medicine, but who has used war and military invasions like the ancient Crusaders. Are we going to continue going into the historic depths of time?
