Princeton University Class of 1957

Preface

You may have noticed, watching me walking around the Fermilab this morning, a pronounced limp. My hip has been bothering me for more than a year. I’m not sure what is causing it. I don’t need a new hip. My doctors don’t seem to have any definitive answers. I got a strong hint several weeks ago when I read Karen Armstrong’s book on Genesis. She begins by describing Jacob’s return home after twenty years absence. He was concerned, as well he should have been, about his brother Esau. In a high state of anxiety, he camped in a wild place and a stranger began wrestling with him. This went on all night until the stranger, unable to overpower Jacob, struck him on the hip. Jacob, sensing that this was not a normal man, refused to turn him loose until he gave him a blessing. He got that and a new name, Israel, meaning one who struggles with God[1]. Karen Armstrong thought it remarkable that the editors of Genesis in about the fifth century BCE would include such an account. Later generations “would find it blasphemous to imagine their deity appearing to any mortal in human form.” She thinks they felt justified because the “tale” eloquently described the religious experience of Israel. “There would be no final revelation: God would never fully impart his name and nature to his people. The sacred was too great a reality to be contained within a purely human definition or system of thought.”[2] I have been struggling with evolution for the past year, waiting for an epiphany, some divine help. And what can I show for this, a very sore hip and no blessing.

On the Co-existence of a Christian Faith and Evolution

I sat in my church one morning last January and prayed this prayer:

Great God of the universe, whose wisdom pervades all creation, we gather before you to give all praise and honor. Wonderful and majestic are your works…

Five years ago such words would have come easily off my lips without any of the hesitation I experience in the recitation of certain portions of the Apostles Creed. If I stumbled over “born of the Virgin Mary” I never hesitated to praise God for the wisdom of His creation. Now I have some doubts. I was familiar with the difficulty of an all-powerful God permitting bad things to happen to good people[3]. But long ago I pushed it to the back of my mind as one of the mysteries men and women could not solve with our puny intelligence. One of the ways to excuse God for the problem of evil is to suggest that He created the universe much as a watchmaker builds a watch[4]. Don’t blame the watchmaker if you abuse a perfect watch. If man has free will then we are responsible, not God. In Paradise Lost, God speaks of Satan thus:

“I made him just and right

Sufficient to have stood

But free to fall”

Even Calvin, the great theologian identified with predestination and “the elect,” encourages us to think and to act. Karl Barth in his famous lectures on Calvin’s theology described its ethical dynamic in this way[5]: “Knowledge of God engenders a desire to act. A desire to act engenders a new seeking of God. A new quest for God engenders new knowledge of God.[6]” So, this is my quest, to understand the science of God’s creation, to make my peace with the devils of Evolution. It won’t be easy, they are unlike any other.

I want to believe that the God of Galileo, Newton and Francis Collins[7], uses the process we call Evolution to work his will. I have long believed that my Christian faith is, in no way incompatible with science. I believed that science, is simply the truth of God’s creation. It explains how God does it. Jimmy Carter, a President I can still admire, addressed the subject in his new book, Our Endangered Values. One of his chapters is called, No Conflict Between Science and Religion. The ex President easily dismisses the issues using Stephen Jay Gould as his authority. Gould’s famous rationalization for our understanding of God as He functions in the natural world of science and the spiritual world of religion was to refer to them as “nonoverlapping magisteria.” Science explains the natural world and religion explains the spiritual world. Don’t mix them up. Somehow that doesn’t satisfy me. I live in one world, part of a universe in which the Creator has placed me. He has made it all happen and I must somehow identify Him with his creation and all the processes which science tells me make this watch tick. I can’t separate God from nature. If the process of Evolution is operating, then He is responsible, or was at the beginning if you take the watchmaker or Deist view. This is the way He has chosen to bring living things to their present state. Nonoverlapping magisteria doesn’t work for me.

In the past and certainly today in Kansas and Pennsylvania God-fearing people have mistakenly challenged science when it exposed some fault in their belief system. Saint Augustine warned against this but Pope Sixtus the Fifth, possibly influenced by the Duchess Castelli of Pisa, challenged Galileo. The Duchess is said to have asked Galileo if what he saw in his telescope was not illusion since it contradicted scripture. His answer was an attempt to be honest yet true to his faith. This was not good enough and his letter was sent to a church council which accused him of “diabolical arts.” He was made to stand down (“but still, it moves[8]”) and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. When overpowering evidence in favor of the Copernican System proved the Old Testament writers mistaken, the church looked foolish. Galileo was finally rehabilitated by Pope John Paul II in 1992. The sun did not stand still for Joshua. For him and us it doesn’t move. We move. We move with the other planets in the elliptical patterns described by Kepler and mathematically proven by the God-fearing Newton, helped finally by the reverent if not religious Einstein. His famous quote, which some use to suggest a faith is, “God does not play dice with the universe.” Darwin himself is said to have departed quite significantly from the faith that he once possessed. In a review for Newsweek, Jerry Adler describes Darwin’s struggle in this way: “his life exemplifies the painful journey from moral certainty to existential doubt that is the defining experience of modernity.” I feel a little better. I have been having the defining experience of modernity.

My belief that faith and science are compatible is helped by recognizing that scripture uses metaphors to express truth. Marcus Borg said it for me and others, in his Reading the Bible Again for the First Time. He suggests that we overlook the obvious errors of the scripture writers to see the truth of their message. He quotes a Catholic priest who said in a homily, “all the Bible is true and some of it really happened.”

I went to a Lutheran school and was taught that scripture is the divinely inspired word of God. I assumed that with such inspiration the writers always got it right. The inconsistencies of the gospel writers never came up. We joyfully sang the hymn, This is Our Father’s World , with the verse praising the “music of the spheres”, an unwitting(?) tribute to Ptolemy’s, earth-centric system long ago proven to be untrue. Indeed, in 1543 when the Polish priest Copernicus proposed a different alignment, Philip Melanchthon, a collaborator of Luther suggested that “some Christian Prince should suppress this madman.” We didn’t hear this story and last Sunday I joined with my fellow Presbyterian worshipers and sang the same hymn with joy. The verse has not been re-written and few appreciate the irony of its lyrics. Perhaps an ellipse and a sphere are symbolically close enough. We talk of today’s sunrise and sunset without thinking it a throwback to a mistaken belief. My teachers failed to tell me there was no archeological evidence to prove that the Israelites ever lived and suffered under the Pharoah in Egypt. Perhaps they didn’t know. In Arthur’s book he suggests that the Israelite Exodus was so insignificant, with so few people it didn’t make the daily paper. So we shouldn’t be disappointed that there is no mention in the Egyptian history tablets. The Bible was my teachers’ infallible reference. A more sympathetic explanation is that they understood but didn’t think we were ready for such harsh truths. A minister told me that in seminary they were told two things were not to be discussed with the congregation: the Virgin birth and Creation. Too hot.

At Gethsemane Lutheran we didn’t study Evolution in any of the science classes. Darwin was not present in our history books. I did get in trouble for impertinent questions and a fourth grade teacher inscribed my Catechism, “to Bartley the Doubter.” But I truly believed the Bible was literal truth from God. I suppose creation in six days was a stretch for even my nine year old mind. But this was not one of my serious doubts. 10,000 years was a lot of time. These issues never surfaced until Princeton, Religion 103 (?), Jesus and the New Testament with Malcolm Diamond. I’m not sure if this was the course Arthur referred to in his essay for our 50^th Yearbook as Faithbuster 101. But for me it was a faithshaker. I told some old Lutheran friends, who worried about me, that Princeton didn’t make me an atheist but it did make me a Presbyterian. Almost as bad, they said but at least you didn’t marry a Catholic. I recall from the Preface to Arthur’s book that he was told by Father Halton not to read some of the books required by his religion courses. I was never close enough to the Lutheran Chaplain to get such advice but it may have come had I sought it. What we were reading was incendiary material. No doubt about it.

So, what is wrong with this picture? If you can believe the creation story is a metaphor and a day in the Genesis Creation myth is equivalent to billions not thousands of years, why is Evolution such a problem? How far are you prepared to extend the metaphor? In Genesis, God is said to have created all the many species of animals, male and female. Evolution challenges the immutability of species describing how they have evolved over time. When Darwin began his historic voyage on the Beagle, he believed with other scientists, that species were immutable. Evidence on the Galapagos convinced him otherwise and subsequent research cemented his belief. I am prepared to extend the creation metaphor in Genesis to a belief that species are not immutable, they evolve. This does no injury to my faith although it is disturbing to some. The big trouble comes on the sixth day when God creates man in His own image. Having animals evolve from low to higher species is one thing but man in Genesis is special, made in God’s image, with a soul.

At what point in the evolutionary process did the ape become a man? John Scopes was convicted in the famous “Monkey Trial” because he broke the law. The judge was not interested in the validity of evolution as science or Genesis as literal truth. He ultimately refused to let Clarence Darrow engage the court on this issue. The Tennessee law specifically forbade teaching that man was descended from a lower order of animal. John Scopes taught this with the authority of Charles Darwin and his book, The Descent of Man[9]. By such a law, Scopes was guilty as charged. Forty three years later a similar Arkansas law was challenged by a biology teacher named Susan Epperson and the case went to The Supreme Court. In Epperson Vs. Arkansas, The court ruled that such laws “contravene the Establishment Clause” (in the First Amendment) because their primary purpose is religious. Why did the religious community go to such lengths to enforce a doctrine which denied scientific truth? The answer is simple. The idea that God’s creation used a process in which man evolved from a monkey was anathema to them. Accepting the creation story in Genesis as myth or metaphor is one thing but believing God created man over billions of years, finally evolving us from an ape was too much. It is still too much as we witness today in Kansas and The Dover Area School District in Pennsylvania. Lark Myers, a middle-aged shop owner in Dover told the Washington Post last year,

“I definitely would prefer to believe that God created me, than that I’m 50^th cousin to a silverback ape.”[10] It is flattering to consider that we have been created in God’s image and remain special from all other creatures. But evolving FROM so many lowly creatures over billions of years, including apes takes some of the shine off the comparison. Although man may be closest to God, it is a comedown to know that we are here by the same process that produced the HIV virus, poisonous snakes, lizards and monkeys. In his book, The Mind of God, Paul Davies refers to man as “animated stardust.” That is much more pleasing to the psyche.

There is another characteristic of Evolutionary behavior which is disconcerting. It is hard to predict. It can be explained after the fact as Darwin did, so brilliantly with beetles, birds and orchids. But environmental circumstances change and influence evolutionary behavior. There is a random factor which I thought unusual until my introduction to Quantum Mechanics by Paul Davies[11]. Perhaps Evolution should not be called science? Note the hopeful tone in my question. Alas, it does meet the test of a science since the theory works with all the evidence which has been accumulated. The Intelligent Design folks would have us believe otherwise but their arguments do not stand well against the assaults of the scientific community and the evidence. In a recent NY Times report[12] on the August school board elections in Kansas, Connie Morris, a conservative Republican, running for re-election, said she “did not believe in Evolution[13].” It’s a nice bedtime story but science does not back it up.” One wonders where Ms Morris[14] gets her science. From what I can tell there is an abundance of evidence and an overwhelming majority of scientists supporting Evolution. In the January-February Issue of The Fourth R, Patricia Williams writes, “the theory of Evolution is as robust a theory as science posseses. It is the oldest major unfalsified theory in science.” Note the term unfalsified. A scientific theory is always open to review when evidence suggests that it be modified. Always it comes down to that, the evidence, the facts, the truth. When Creationists refer to Evolution as a theory they hope to sow doubt. People use the term loosely, as in “I have a theory about what is causing the pain in my hip.” The theory of Evolution is supported by a vast body of data and is the bedrock for biologists and anthropologists. There is little or no doubt that Darwin got it right and everything since are but footnotes to his great idea. According to Daniel Dennett, “natural selection is the single best idea anyone has ever had.”[15] Quite an accomplishment for the young man thought to be a dull student and sent to Cambridge to study for a “safe” career in the ministry.

Herbert Spencer, in a commentary on Darwin’s work coined the phrase, survival of the fittest. It was a way to explain the phenomenon of evolution by natural selection. In short, the fittest survived and the rest were history. In an excellent lecture on Evolution[16], Eugenie Scott made an important distinction. Spenser’s famous description exaggerated the truth. Evolution is really the survival of the “fit enough.” The fittest may be kicking butt in the next county but if you are fit enough to best the others in your neighborhood you will compete successfully for a desirable mate and guarantee that your genes make it into the next generation. That is the only thing that matters in the evolutionary chain. Do your genes live on or do they die? Barbara King is a biological anthropologist. She teaches this at William & Mary[17]. She makes another important point that “survival of the fittest” is not what is most important in the evolutionary process. She tells her class the story of two women. One is 98 years old and as physically fit and mentally sharp as her 80 year old friends. But she has no children. She is perhaps the fittest but is an evolutionary failure. The other woman at 35 has produced five healthy children before stepping in front of the truck that kills her. Dead at an early age, she is an evolutionary success. It is all about getting the genes into the next generation. Reproductive Success (RS) is a critical factor.

What do we know about the fittest or the fit enough?[18] Did they always play fair? Did they win without steroids? At this point in my discussions with friends I am reminded of certain passages from the Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.[19]” The meek may be blessed but such an attitude does not seem to prepare one for the Evolutionary battles. The field seems to belong to the bold.

Now, I want to step back and examine a point in the evolutionary chain when man first emerged. The chimpanzee has 98% of its DNA in common with humans. It is reasonably close to our ancient ancestor ape, the so-called missing link. They are also closer to human beings than they are to gorillas. This was the dramatic finding of Jared Diamond in his book, The Third Chimpanzee, published in 1992. Chimps can and do have Down’s Syndrome babies when the same chromosome is misplaced.

Anthropologists suggest the critical transformation (to Homo Sapiens, the wise ones) came when the ape fashioned tools. In his best selling book of 1961, African Genesis, James Ardrey suggested that the critical tool, for the ape that would be man, was a club, a weapon. The successful apes, the survivors, were killers. The book’s memorable opening line is, “Not in innocence and not in Asia, was mankind conceived.” Never mind that serious anthropologists found much fault with Ardrey who was a journalist, not one of their own. It planted a seed in my mind which has never been completely removed. If evolution is God’s process how can he permit the bad guys to win? Couldn’t He have come up with something better, a process that was more compatible with Christian ethics? One where good guys finished first? Much of the trouble is competition. Too many people (or beetles or monkeys) competing for too few resources.

Darwin was known to have admired the work of Malthus. His Essay on the Principle of Population was published in 1798 and argued that population explosion and famine were inevitable. Population grew geometrically and the food supply arithmetically. Under such conditions there can never be food enough for all to eat. So, who gets fed first? I think you get the drift of this rather grim projection. By agreeing with the Malthusian conclusions, Darwin draws the enmity of some.[20] It is very difficult to accept such life lessons. It is a world “red in tooth and claw.[21]” That is what it is. Not the peaceable kingdom of a providential God. Today, modern agriculture and population control make it possible for China to feed its 1.2 billion people but famine still takes a grievous toll in many parts of the world.

In 2005, the first court case challenging the teaching of intelligent design came to trial in Pennsylvania (Kitzmiller v.Dover Area School District). The expert witness for the plaintiffs was Kenneth Miller, a biology professor at Brown University. In one exchange he noted that “99.9 per cent of the organisms that have ever lived on earth are now extinct. A designer who designed things, 99.9[22] per cent of which didn’t last, certainly wouldn’t be considered very intelligent.” What an idea! I have always viewed God’s creation as wonderful. How well the human body performs its tasks! What an invention is the human eye! The idea of the Creator as a bumbling inventor taking billions of years to get it right is nothing pleasing to me. In the New York Times of May 12 this year, Holden Thorp observed that there are hundreds of genes that occur in both bacteria and humans. An intelligent designer trying to make things better for His favorite species might have done better. Having the same genes makes infections harder to treat. Drugs that act on bacterial gene products act on the human version as well, so those drugs could kill both the bacterium and the human host. Scary.

Eighty years before Darwin, David Hume published his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. In a Socratic-like dialogue he has Cleanthes make the case for God and the Argument from Design. Then Philo anticipates Darwin with this:

“And what surprise must we entertain, when we find him (God) a stupid mechanic, who imitated others, and copied an art, which, through a long succession of ages, after multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections, deliberations, and controversies, had been gradually improving? Many worlds might have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity, ere this system was struck out: Much labor lost: Many fruitless trials made: And a slow, but continued improvement carried on during infinite ages of world making.”

A dangerous idea is the way Daniel Dennett put it in the title of his book on evolution published in 1995. It was a respected finalist for the National Book Award. I have owned it for a few years but was unwilling to read it, fearing the experience would shake my faith. My fears were justified. Quite early in the book, Dennett makes this point. You can’t easily separate science and philosophy. To use his metaphor, “there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination.” He also challenges the reader. “This book, then, is for those who agree that the only life worth caring about is one that can withstand our best efforts to examine it. Others are advised to close the book now and tiptoe away.” So much for Gould’s “overlapping magisteria.” On reading this I wondered. Am I accepting the fruit of the forbidden tree?

Reading Dennett or Dawkins is heavy going. They try their best to make the science understandable to lay readers but they only go so far. They don’t write Evolution for Dummies books. I thought I would prepare myself with some lighter reading on the subject and selected a book by Robert Jones, God Galileo and Geering, a Faith for the 21^st Century. Published last year, it was an attempt by the author, a pastor and seminary teacher to synthesize the work of Lloyd Geering. You may know him as a distinguished scholar, an ordained Presbyterian minister and seminary teacher in New Zealand. His reputation was made by courageous and some would say radical application of modern science to religious belief. I flipped to the chapter on Evolution and found this:

“Geering recognizes that Christians who find Darwin a dire threat to their faith have at least understood the full impact of his theory. Evolution means that since human beings derive from the same natural processes as all other creatures, a divine creator is unnecessary. We are products of the planet. This seriously undermines accepted theologies of creation. It makes sense for theology to resist the idea of evolution as vigorously as possible, for the alternatives are either to throw out faith altogether or take up the challenge of formulating a whole new kind of faith, which is difficult, lengthy and not always rewarding work.”

I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Resist the findings of evolution vigorously? Does Pastor Jones actually believe this a responsible policy? Are we to fear the truth as a condition of retaining our faith? In Victorian England, reaction to “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” was immediate but rational up to a point. A debate was scheduled in Oxford between Bishop Wilberforce and Thomas H. Huxley. As the presentations wore on, the good bishop asked Huxley whether it was from his grandfather’s side or his grandmother’s side that he was descended from an ape. Huxley is said to have turned to a companion and muttered “the Lord has delivered him to me.” Huxley replied that he “was not ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor; but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used his great gifts to obscure the truth.”

This idea cannot be so dangerous as Pope Sixtus, Wilberforce and the Kansas Board of Education believed. Still, I am shaken. I need support. I think about Reverend Paley. You may recall him as the 18^th Century minister/philosopher who made a strong case for the existence of God[23] using the complexity of his creation as evidence. He lived before Darwin. It was easier for believers before Darwin. I read in Dennett that given enough time, “primeval simplicity can lead to organized complexity.”[24] A case is being made for a complex design without a designer! Or to use Hume’s construction, a designer who is a stupid mechanic, taking billions of years to get it right. Will he dismiss God completely from the process? Not even give him credit for the Big Bang? The woods are dark and deep. This science even frightened such Godless unbelievers as George Bernard Shaw who wrote in a preface to his play, Back to Methuselah :

“it (Evolution) seems simple, because you do not at first realize all that it involves. But when its whole significance dawns on you, your heart sinks into a heap of sand within you. There is a hideous fatalism about it, a ghastly and damnable reduction of beauty and intelligence, of strength and purpose, of honor and aspiration.”

That says a lot for me. If I am to continue believing in a God, I want him to be one of beauty and intelligence, of strength and purpose, of honor and aspiration. I don’t want a stupid mechanic for my God.

Charles Darwin was also caught in a dilemma. His wife and members of his family together with the Victorian Society to which he belonged were deeply religious. Darwin did not set out to explain the meaning of life, only the origin of species. True to his science he reported what he observed. He was a very perceptive observer and his observations were more devastating to the coexistence of science and religion than those of Copernicus and Galileo. He knew there would be trouble and only published when it was known that Wallace had many of the same ideas and would publish them soon himself. It says a lot about Victorian England that its outrage over The Origin of Species was expressed in debates not riots. My favorite[25] was the debate between Huxley and Matthew Arnold. Although Huxley and Evolution may have been the technical winner, Arnold got in the best punch. With his classical training as background, he observed to the crowd, that he had been reading The Descent of Man. He thought much about our ancestor which Darwin described as a hairy quadruped with large eyes and small brain. “What was there about this hairy quadruped, asked Arnold, that inclined him to Greek?” I was cheering for Arnold and still believe he has a point. If the best of our race are those closest to God I want to be among them, even if best doesn’t mean fittest in the Darwinian sense.

Plodding my way through the Dennett book was tough. But somewhere around page 300 I got it. I finally understood what was so dangerous about Evolution. Dennett devotes an important chapter to Stephen J. Gould and his sycophants. According to Dennett, these are the modern and more clever successors to Sixtus V and Wilberforce who use their great gifts to obscure the truth. Gould is interesting because he was a defender of Darwin and Evolution most of the time. But, says Dennett he was always looking to insert a “Skyhook” into the process. The Skyhook[26] analogy is to the theatrical device by which God intervenes to save the day. Gould and various partners have published challenges to the accepted process of Evolution. They are bothered by two things “pervasive adaptation” and “gradualism.” Things[27] happen in Evolutionary time-space which cannot be completely explained by mindless adaptation. As for gradualism, Gould has attacked it with the concepts of “punctuated equilibrium” and “radical contingency.” Why is he doing this asks Dennett? How can such a gifted man of science not see the truth? Some critics suggest the reasons are political or religious. This is getting interesting. Is Gould somehow in league with Reverend Dobson and the Christian Right? Not a bit. He was actually a Marxist and a vocal supporter of left-wing causes. Dennett’s take is this: “I see his antipathy to Darwin’s dangerous idea as fundamentally a desire to protect or restore the Mind-First, top down vision of John Locke – at the very least to secure our place in the cosmos with a skyhook. Secular Humanism is a religion for some and they sometimes think that humanity cannot be special enough to matter if it is the product of merely algorithmic processes.” So, if this is correct, Gould is now sharing a space with George Bernard Shaw and both are hoping that their limbo will soon lead to something noble and grand. For sure, they don’t want the company of Dennett or Richard Dawkins. Both of them and I suspect the majority of the working biologists and anthropologists believe this:

“With Evolution there is incessant local improvement. This improvement seeks out the best designs with great reliability. Replay the tape a thousand times and the Good Tricks will be found again and again. This is the power of the underlying algorithms, mindless all the way down. There is no room and no need for skyhooks.”

Mindless? No room or need for skyhooks? Is this how Darwin would see it if he were with us today? If this is a fair and accurate description of life, it is one without meaning. I don’t like it. But my mind can’t refute the logic of their arguments. What comes to mind now is a quote from Paul Tillich, “ the most important question is not, what will happen to me when I die, but who should I trust?” Who should I trust? Daniel Dennett or Richard Dawkins don’t seem completely trustworthy to me for such a big issue. I much prefer an old friend like Jerry. Jerry tells me not to believe everything I read.

The Mind that “banged” this universe into motion is so superior to mine and those of all mankind that we may never completely understand Him/Her/It. Dennett and Dawkins think they understand. Jerry Falwell thinks he understands. I have tried but fail on the last test. I don’t trust my brain to inform me of a process which assaults my best instincts. Earlier in my quest I rejected the idea of “nonoverlapping magisteria.” Perhaps I need to return to it. Lingering in the back of my mind is the voice which came to Job from the whirlwind, “were you there when I laid the foundations of the earth?” The truth of Evolution is a harsh truth. If we can’t penetrate the ultimate mystery of creation, perhaps it is better to trust in an interpretation where

beauty and intelligence, strength and purpose, honor and aspiration matter.

I can live with that. Maybe I can die with that.

I will end on a less morbid note. When Darwin and the crew of the Beagle were returning from the Gallapagos in 1836, they collected a number of tortoises for the voyage home. They were to be eaten en route, but one, which Darwin called Harry, took his fancy and survived the trip. Darwin later saw that Harry was really Harriet. She survived the voyage, outlived Darwin who died in 1882 and was still living in 2004[28] somewhere in Australia. Harriet has lived through a great breakthrough in the understanding of God’s creation. I appreciate this more than she but I still lack understanding. I didn’t read enough in preparing for this seminar. I don’t have all the answers I want. Maybe I want too much. Someone said that happiness lies in knowing when you have enough. I thought this meant material things not ideas. Jesus told the rich young man to give away all his belongings and follow him. That was and is a hard thing to do. Even harder now, since he has been gone for so long. I would like to have a conversation with Him about God being a stupid mechanic. I also want Jerry with me to explain it all later.

[1] The Hebrew may also be interpreted, “may God rule.”

[2] Karen Armstrong, , In the Beginning, a New Interpretation of Genesis, Ballantine Books, 1996.

[3] The problem named theodicy.

[4] This is the view of the 18^th Century Deists that included Thomas Jefferson

[5] Marilynne Robinson, The Death of Adam, Marguerite deNavarre chapter.

[6] Karl Barth, 1922

[7] Mapper of the human genome

[8] E pur si muove

[9] The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 1871.

[10] National Journal, January 7, 2006. page 39.

[11] The Mind of God , 1992.

[12] In Kansas Evolution’s Backers Mount a Counterattack in School Board Election, New York Times, August 1, 2006.

[13] President Bush has said the same.

[14] Connie Morris was ousted in the election by Sally Cauble. The Kansas school board will turn in January 2007 to one which favors the teaching of evolution.

[15] Breaking the spell, Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Viking Press.

[16] Evolution, Creationism, and Myths of Nature, Westar Institute Annual Convention, 2004.

[18] Richard Dawkins in his widely acclaimed book, The Selfish Gene implies that selfishness is an important characteristic among the survivors. In the game of life survival of your genes is all that matters. How you do it is not important unless you teach your children habits which will make them less competitive in the next round of the fight. Turning the other cheek might be such a habit.

[19] Matthew 5 v.5

[20] Marilynne Robinson, The Death of Adam, Picador, November 2005. The author also has no fondness for Freud or Nietzche whom she says inspired Freud in his criticism of religion, the golden rule etc.

[21] Alfred Lord Tennyson

[22] Perhaps 99% says Dennett

[23] The Argument from Design. God as the Watchmaker is Paley’s metaphor.

[24] Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, p.153

[25] Apes Angels and Victorians

[26] Deux ex machina

[27] Spandrels

[28] Harry Thompson, postscript, To the Edge of the World, a fictional account of the Beagle’s voyage. Pub. 2005.

Quicklinks