Published: July 02, 2009 09:12 pm         

Readers' Forum for 7/3

Do not confuse science, religion



I would like to state in response to David A. Brown’s letter of June 19 that further obfuscation of the dispute that you say that you have started does not help to calm people. Being insistent about re-defining the clear line dividing science and religion with an obscure definition of considerable obliquity does little to help people confused about what science is and what it does for humanity.

Creation theories, as you prefer to call them, do not include evolution. Evolution IS a principle of science, NOT to be confused with any religion. If religion, regardless of its benevolence, seeks to control science by denying the principle of evolution, science is reduced to a meaningless hodgepodge of scientific perjuries that are utterly useless to help us understand how we might save our environment, prevent disease, discover new drugs and perform technological feats that seem miraculous to an average person without scientific training. We will replace science with faith. That will not benefit humanity.

If, however, science tries to control the religious belief systems of humanity, at once mankind is devoid of the hope of an eternal soul and a personal relationship with God for eternity. Knowing how the creator “did” creation is of no concern to us in a mortal condition. What IS of the foremost concern is maintaining your personal faith, regardless of the obstacles that are thrown in your way. Luke 17:6 — And the Lord said, “If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.”

Two of the principles that made America great are the separation of church and state and freedom of religion. We are free to worship God by conviction of the spirit in the way that we see fit, not in the way that somebody tells us we MUST feel owing to their own literal interpretation of Holy Scripture. That was tried in the Inquisition. It didn’t work.

We can all agree upon what it takes to run a scientific experiment, and what empirical evidence is without a spiritual component. Such empirical evidence can easily convince even an atheist. However, to ask as a Christian for science as a sign of God’s work instead of feeling the conviction of the Holy Spirit is tantamount to asking NOT to be made to bother to maintain your faith and humility, and we all know what Jesus had to say about that, don’t we? Matt. 16:4 — “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall be no sign given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them and departed.”

If America is to compromise her Constitution by the injection of religious principle, what shall it be? Mormonism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Islam, Baptists, Methodists, Buddhism or will it be Paganism? Or, will YOU be making that decision for all of us, David? The best advice is to not mix science and religion. Science belongs to all but religion is personal.

— John Garner

Terre Haute



Responding to the ‘uninformed’



Since Randall Allen will no longer be responding to me I appreciate him giving me the last word.

If this clearly uninformed person had looked at the Toles cartoon I cited he would have seen that I used the exact quote Toles used in his caption referring to the Second Amendment and conservative talk radio as “Not that I am suggesting anything”.

How this could possibly imply that I believe Toles is a unabomber escapes me. I believe ostracize is the correct word I chose as Allen and others of his ilk would love to exclude me from the conversation. As I have stated I am not going away anytime soon.

By the way, I am still waiting for someone to give me an example of a successful government program and I thank Mr. Allen for acknowledging “you were the one who listed only failed government programs”. Maybe Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or Sallie Mae come to mind as successful programs. Oh well.

— Raymond E. Broshar

Terre Haute