Would he be having a happy birthday?
February 12th, 2010 | 10 Comments
Two days shy of four months ago I posted a poll that asked Christians how important the faith/science debate is. I was going to wait until there were 100 results to make a wrap-up post, but I’ve decided that in honor of Charles Darwins’s 201st birthday, I’d go ahead and comment on the 97 votes already in.
Christians, how important is the faith/science debate? Add comments here.
- Critical: Christians have got to pull their heads out of the sand, for the good of the Kingdom! (41%, 41 Votes)
- Pressing: This issue has too much visibility among those engaged in the general believer/unbeliever discussion. We need to deal with this head-on. (35%, 35 Votes)
- Important, but not pressing: I'm sure it's important for some people to address, for certain groups. But just give me the Readers' Digest version. (14%, 14 Votes)
- Unimportant: Totally a non-issue. Next! (2%, 2 Votes)
- Worse than unimportant: What a waste of time! An utter distraction from what really matters. (8%, 8 Votes)
Total Voters: 100
It should be noted that I actually stopped looking at this poll’s results after around 50-60 votes. Until then, there had been a lead of five or ten votes (varying) in favor of “Pressing”, with “Critical” in second place. So now today when I looked at it, I was surprised to see that “Critical” had finally overtaken “Pressing”. The popularity of both answers could be read as a testament to the impact of Charles Darwin, but I find myself wondering, would he be pleased by this result?
Would Darwin be happy knowing that 128 years after his death, considering the virtually unanimous support his theory has garnered among specialists across the scientific disciplines, that so many of the general populace would still be rigorously debating how important it was to take his theory seriously? How content would he be with the fact that mainstream Christians throughout the world — people like his own wife — would only now (gradually) be coming around to the realization that, “Hey, maybe we should think this common descent stuff through before dismissing it…”?
Oh well. Better late than never, I guess.
February 12th, 2010
Tags: creationism, evangelicalism, evolution, fundamentalism, intelligent design
