“Letters to the Editor” appeared in the December 16th Record-Bee by Bill Kettenhofen and Stacey Salvadori. Bill”s comment, that the eternal torment doctrine misrepresents the character of God and makes Him look like some kind of monster, hits the point that “many level-headed individuals have an aversion to Christianity.” The scary point Bill makes is that the actual punishment is only temporary, leaving the conclusion that God will eventually destroy or annihilate the wicked, leaving only the righteous to live in immortality. Many Christian denominations believe in Annihilationism as described above. Hopefully, Bill can clarify this point.
Stacey”s first point, that I must accept, is that the Bible is a superannuated book; and contrary to her beliefs, I think the teaching of the Bible will not bring more people to Jesus. The opposite is most likely. A study conducted in 2010 by the Pew Forum on Religion showed that the more people know about religion, the less likely they are to be religious. In other words, the best way to become an atheist is to read the Bible from cover to cover – everything, not just the select passages taught in Sunday School.
Secondly, Stacey wrongly believes that the Geologic Column was created by a scientist and is accepted as fact by today”s scholars. Creationists actually devised the idea of the column in the mid-1800s and it is still rejected to this day as a mental abstraction. There are sufficient anomalies to show that the timescale is wrong, and any order is at best a local phenomenon. The Geologic Column does not exist in science and is found only in Creationist books and web-sites. This is certainly not debatable by equally intelligent and informed opponents!
Finally, Stacey posits that the Bible does not contradict true science and you don”t need to choose between one or the other. The problem with religion and science is that religious persons “believe” in an unchanging dogma while scientists are open to change tomorrow, next week, or whenever new evidence is found. There is an oft-heard claim that “science is a religion.” Simply stated, religions are characterized by hardened beliefs that, if changed, result in a new spinoff sect while the old one continues with a smaller membership. In contrast science has been one continuous flow of new knowledge and progress as old ideas are cast off and new ones take their place.
Greg Blinn, Kelseyville
