Young Earth Quotes
This quotation is important and memorable for several reasons. First, the Congressman is one of the relatively few highly educated Americans who believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible. Most Christians and Jews do not interpret the ancient scripture literally. Most Christian and Jewish religious organizations, including the Roman Catholic Church, have no problem at all with evolution and the big bang theory. As a matter of fact, the scientist who developed the mathematics to explain the big bang was a Catholic Priest. Even some religious people who do not believe that that evolution is not an accurate interpretation, rarely claim that the Earth is only 9,000 years old. It is actually over 13 Billion years old. An anti-scientific view of the world is certainly within an American’s right, but the fact that this congressman was assigned by The Republican Party leadership to be a Member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology given his belief structure is amazing, If the earth were only 9,000 years old, there is no way the global positioning satellites could tell us where we are, our nuclear arsenal would be unstable and dangerous, radiation medicine would not help anyone get well just for a few examples. A second noteworthy aspect is that the Congressman is not just stating that the millions of scientists and science teachers are wrong—in error. He accuses each and every one of them of acting as agents of Satan and that their motivation in studying and doing science is to undermine his and others faith in God and that none of them has any belief in or desire for a personal Savior. It is rare that this type of un-American behavior is found in a member of Congress who claims that any person who disagrees with his religions views or has different Biblical interpretations is an agent from Hell. The founding fathers created the First Amendment to cope with and even tolerate the few who had the extreme and unrealistic views of this Congressmen.
In the middle of the 19th century, there was an Anglican English Bishop by the name of Usher who was the first person to perform this “Biblical” analysis. Even then the absurdity of this claim was demonstrated over and over again with the science of the time. Most religious fundamentalists believe that the word “day” was really an unspecified period of time which might have been billions of years. Other religious theologians argue that the entire Genesis story was a metaphor and not meant to be taken literally. Today we know that our universe is over 18 billion years old, and the overwhelming proportions of the different animals and other life forms that have existed are long since extinct, while a few, like horseshoe crabs, are many millions of years old. New species are being created constantly. Even man, one of the more recent life forms, was well developed, had communities, and had spread over the world more than 6,000 years ago. We have archeological evidence of human life that goes back 10s of thousands of years. None-the-less, there are a number of American citizens who actually believe the 6,000 year claim, and they are entitled to their opinion regardless of how absurd it may seem to others. That is the great strength of a liberal democracy. Absurd seeming beliefs must be protected and respected. However, views that are so variant from known scientific reality may not be allowed to interfere with the teaching and public education to advocate a particular theological view and especially under the rubric of science.
