Darwinists, Christians may be able to agree

By STEVE MAYNARD Tacoma News Tribune Scripps Howard News Service

Can a Darwinian be a Christian? That's the question philosophy professor Michael Ruse
spoke on recently at Pacific Lutheran University. It's also the title of the Florida State
University professor's latest book, which has netted strong sales in its first
two months.

                His answer?

               Well, the answer I give is yes, they can, but it's not
easy, Ruse said. But whoever said the important things in life are
easy?
                Ruse's comments zero in on the often conflicted
relationship between evolution and Christianity that spills over into the
public arena. Just last August, voters in Kansas repudiated the state school
board's removal of evolution from state science standards.
               The point is that there is really quite a strong clash
now between Darwinians on the one hand and the religious right on the
other hand, or the religious conservatives, Ruse said during an interview.
               Basically, what I'm trying to do in my book is suggest that if
you take the time to look at what the two sides are saying which I don't
think most people do you find that there's considerably more
opportunity for overlap and reconciliation.
                Before Ruse's lecture, a group of seven students discussed
with him the conflicting views of some evolutionists and Christians.
                I think that's where the problem comes in, said Erik
Samuelson, 22, a religion and classics major. Two positions think they
have the truth, and neither listens to each other.
                Ruse follows the ideas of Charles Darwin as written in the
Origin of Species in 1859. Darwinism and evolution teach that Earth
is billions of years old and that humans were not the product of a
miraculous intervention, but evolved from apelike creatures.
                We believe that the main cause of change is natural
selection, he said. More organisms are born than can survive and
reproduce. Just a few get through, and those that get through are the
winners and better-adapted than others.
                The 60-year-old Ruse is also a Darwinian of note. He is
one of the top three or four philosophers of biology in the world,
said Pacific Lutheran philosophy professor Paul Menzel.
                Ruse has written at least 15 books. A native of
Birmingham, England, he has taught at Florida State University
in Tallahassee for just six months. He moved there after teaching
for 35 years at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.
                In terms of religion, Ruse describes himself as a skeptic.
He was raised as a Quaker and said he's retained an appreciation for
Christianity throughout his life. Christianity, at its most basic
level, teaches that God created the universe, Ruse said. Creationists are
Christians who take the early chapters of Genesis in a reasonably
literal sense.
                Can one believe God created the universe and be a
Darwinian? I don't think it's got anything to do with Darwinism,
reall, said Ruse.
                I think you can just simply say, I believe that God
created the universe, but how did God create the universe? He did it
in such a way that it was through an unfurling, a development, an
evolution, rather than through instant, miraculous boom, boom, boom.
                I'm not saying that all who are Christians could
comfortably and easily be Darwinians.
                Creationism includes the belief that Adam and Eve were the
literal, first human beings, Ruse said. Some Creationists believe
the world is only 6,000 years old. Other Creationists concede the Earth
is much older. They depend less explicitly on biblical accounts of
creation, but still argue Earth is the result of divine intervention and
intelligent design, Ruse said.
                Ruse contends that Creationism doesn't represent
traditional Christianity.
                What I'm also saying, and this is important, is that
 that group that Creationism with a capital C if you like is not
traditional Christianity. That is a distinctive form of Protestant
fundamentalism, evangelical Christianity, a distinctive American form of
the 19th century.
                Because the Christian tradition both Catholic and
Protestant has always been one of interpretation and accommodation, I
the idea that one doesn't necessarily have to take every last word
of the Bible absolutely literally.

Oryginal:
http://www.courierpress.com:80/cgi-bin/view.cgi?200101/27+darwin012701_fandv.html+20010127