It”s not often when one has the honor of responding to two Letters to the Editor in one day. Both of these letters revolve around one thing: What world-view works for you to comfortably make it through life? I never had to think about the gift of faith so my choice of world-view was to pursue a life of scientific thinking with no thought of any existence but this one life. I hope that my two respondents feel the same way; that they freely chose the path they are pursuing and that it satisfies all of their interests.
So Bill, since the Bible never gives us the answer as to how old the earth is except through some contorted logic used by James Ussher in the 1600s, I prefer to accept the latest science which gives the age at about 4.5 billion years. This presents a wonderful canvas in which evolution can work its … magic. Through plate tectonics, volcanism, and weathering the earth can change dynamically and with these changes the evolution of life can occur, and Antarctica could have been near the equator at one time. Since we share 98 percent of our DNA with the great apes we both have been quite stable genetically for millions of years. We can also set our earth into the evolution of the universe which began 13.8 Billion years ago.
To Doug, thanks for your honesty in saying that some of my friends “have not been taught and taken the time to learn” about their religion; a sad commentary on the state of Christendom today. I have been critical of the Bible and the Christian religion for decades in spite of having been raised in a family that attended church on a regular basis, and my father was even the treasurer of our congregation. But I have to say that there are many, many books which are far more interesting than the Bible. The whole idea that there was one covenant, then another but we can keep some of the old but throw out other stuff is getting close to the old “magic ring” we used to wait for to decode the secret message from one of our radio stars.
So for me, this is our only life, our short 80 or so years. It makes no sense that we will be judged for eternity for such a short time when the life of the universe is mind-numbingly large.
Greg Blinn, Kelseyville
