Paul Kaiser's Blog

Taoist philosophies are about as close as I get to identifying with a religion. I’m “spiritual, but not religious,” if that makes any sense. The rest of my family is Catholic, and we have some interesting conversations. When it comes to Creationism vs Evolution, my wife and I seem to be on the same page.

My explanation of creationism / intelligent design / evolution:

• The Universe and life is indeed a wondrous place. It seems reasonable that this wasn’t all created by accident.
• The science of evolution seems pretty solid. It makes a lot of sense to me.
• It seems reasonable that some higher power — which means “God” to many people — intelligently created the Universe and life through a process we recognize and call evolution.

There are many fine points people will endlessly debate about. This is not one of those issues that gets resolved with a final answer. I’d like to mention just one of those points here to shed a little more light on my philosophies.

A million years, or 7 days?

Proponents of Creationism might argue the Bible says everything was made in 6 days, with a 7th day of rest. On the other hand, Evolution is defined to have taken millions of years to get our Universe in shape.

So how could Creationism have possibly been fulfilled through Evolution? How could Evolution have been the tool by which a higher power brought our World about?

Speak in terms people can understand

I’m no Bible scholar, but I argue the Bible cannot be taken literally — and I’ll tell you why I think that. When the Bible was first written, people were largely uneducated. I’m not saying they were stupid — they knew what they had to know to get along. I don’t think they could possibly grasp the concept of “millions of years,” though. Further, I don’t think they could grasp the concept of the “Universe.”

Therefore, the story of the Bible — designed for the masses — scaled the story down to concepts that could be embraced by all. Seven days isn’t hard to visualize. The World could easily be visualized as the region a person inhabits and interacts with.

No conflict

I see no conflict, then, between Creationism and Evolution. You could say Creationism was the plan and philosophy, while Evolution was the strategy. The actual messy stuff that living organisms go through to fulfill Evolution, then, are tactics.

What do you think? Is there room for both Creationism and Evolution in your way of thinking?

… in that order.

Literally as I walked in the door, one of our neighbors said “Sorry, I made your wife cry.” Well, it wasn’t like she did something bad. She came to tell us our next-door neighbor, Merle Heath, had died earlier this morning. He’d had a motorcycle accident.

I won’t go in to Merle too much, but we’ll definitely miss him. He was President of the Dinosaurs motorcycle club, and one of the nicest guys ever. He loved seeing our kids running around playing, petting his dog “Toad,” eating his popsicles, and everything. We have a few mementos, such as his Roy Rogers collectible cowboy gloves.

If I said much more, I’d have to — well — say *much* more, so I’m finished on the Merle topic for now.

After we’d talked with the kids about Merle, I heard a loud CRACK! It turned out to be a front window breaking, courtesy of Xander. I’m not going to lie — that pissed me off. I’ve already been talking to him about not hitting the windows with his hands, sticks, rocks, etc.

Xander was in timeout upstairs, then, when I heard Gwen in the back yard shouting about a turtle. He was a good looking guy! And hey — who said turtles are slow? That little guy was fast! We had to let the kids down, though, and not try to keep the turtle as a pet. They are not easy to take care of and keep healthy.

Those were the highlights from today. I was really tired, and I’m telling you it was nearly physically painful to be at work today. Hopefully I’ll get some rest tonight, then.