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The response to my Special Report column yesterday on the Mac-bashing "Objective Christian Ministries" parody Web site has been tremendous. The first batch of letters appears below with my replies to specific issues raised in some of them. Their are plenty more in the mailbag and they are still coming in, so I will post another installment tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who wrote.

I'm always fascinated by the degree of passion that the evolution issue generates on both sides of the dialectic. As I affirmed in the article yesterday, my own provisional perspective is, how shall we say?. evolution as part of the process of divine creation. I don't see one as necessarily contradicting the other categorically. however, the real issue of contention is man's (generic) place in the universal scheme of things. Christians believe that man is created in God's image, uniquely possessing an immortal soul, and that God Himself became a man in the person of Jesus Christ -- none of which is a product or consequence of evolution. Secularists/athiests/humanists/radical Darwinists, et al. disbelieve all of these points, mistakenly in my estimation, but that's of course the root of the controversy.

See my further comments below.

The Letters

The Richard Paley Christian hoax...

From Jeremy Wood

Regarding the recent fundamentalist Christian website hoax, it may be interesting to note that *William Paley* was a historical figure who posited the "watchmaker hypothesis". He argued specifically that the human eye was so perfect that it must have been the result of intelligent design. He referred to the analogy of a native islander coming upon a watch that had floated up on the beach. This man would have no knowledge of watches, but would still realize that this watch, this artifact was the result of an intelligent designer.

Paley's (the real one) "Natural Theology (1802) was a required text in Darwin's university education."*

This is all from:

• Barbour, Ian G. Religion and Science. San Francisco: Harper, 1997 page 51...

This might just be coincidence, but who knows? It is amusing nonetheless.

Jeremy Wood

Hi Jeremy;

I'm highly skeptical that its a coincidence. Those hoaxers have a subtle sense of humor.

Thanks for the reference.

Charles

From Craig Heydenburg

I appreciated your article regarding the anti-Christian/anti-Apple website. Being a Mac fan and a born again believer, I was trying hard to laugh at this article, but had to wonder if others might take it seriously and further erode the "reputation" of fundamentalist/evangelical Christians. You state that the web site is an elaborate hoax, and I *want* to believe you, but you didn't really provide enough technical evidence for me. You might try contacting the hosting company or finding out who the site is really registered to, etc. I would be very interested in that kind of information as well.

I also appreciated your views on Creationism v. Evolutionism. I struggle with this concept as well and agree with you in many respects. The main problem I have is that I believe the Bible is inherently Truth and so how can you reconcile that *most* of the Bible is true, but the creation part is just a "myth"? I struggle with the same questions, so I am not condemming your view, but questioning how you became comfortable with your view in light of your evangelical background.

thanks
Craig

Hi Craig;

See my reply to Brian below.

I also believe that the Bible is inherently true -- all of it; not just most of it, but there is interpretation, context and the use of metaphor. I also believe in Creation, as I affirmed in the article -- just not "young earth" Creationism.

It is unfortunate that the creation vs. evolution debate is usually framed in either-or dialectic, because from my perspective, at least, one need not negate the other. I am strongly convinced that the biological realm, which we humans are partly part of, has been subject to an evolutionary process, but I don't see that conviction as being antagonistic or contradictory to the idea of a created universe.

The problem, for many, appears to be ideological adherence to complimentarily contradictory dogmas -- narrow-minded scientism on the one hand; narrow-minded Biblical literalism on the other, neither of which seems adequate to me.

As Eastern Orthodox scholar Fr. Anthony Coniaris notes: "The Bible is inerrant (without error) when it speaks to us of God and His will for us. It is not inerrant when it speaks to us of geology or biology. Its purpose is to tell us WHO created the world (theology) not HOW the world was created (geology)."

My provisional theory on human creation is that our biology is the product of an evolutionary process, and that we probably share a common biological ancestor with the great apes. Small differences between human and ape DNA make this seem highly likely. However I do not accept the notion of natural selection in the sense it is usually interpreted by evolutionists, and I emphatically do not believe the things that distinguish us from the animals -- moral consciousness, knowledge that we are going to die, and a living eternal soul, are the result of a mindless and haphazard natural selection process. My conviction is that at some point God breathed human spirit into an evolved biological being.

Even William Jennings Bryan, prosecutor at the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, was comfortable with interpreting the six day Creation account in Genesis as metaphor. As the Bible tells us, "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." -- also surely a metaphor. If a thousand years, why not 600 million years? Not a problem, at least for me.

Charles

Cheap website

From Scott Yoshino

Aloha Charles,

What's going on? It's absolutely absurd how much credence and legitimacy is being given to this so-called "Christian" website. The logic, the people, the stupid lessons--they're nothing more than pathetic attempts at caricature and over-arching stereotypes--cheap shots at Christianity.

Any intellectually lazy clown could put a site up like this and, frankly, this whole thing smells like a circus.

Scott Yoshino

Yup, but they had to have a lot of spare time to do it.

Charles

"Christian" Web Site

From Judson

Charles,

Since you brought it up...

"But I emphatically do not accept that our humanity is a result of that evolutionary process, and that our cleverness, imagination, ability to use tools, artistry, and many other things that distinguish us from even the highest nonhuman mammals are simply because we are just more highly evolved animals ourselves."

I question the ' higher/ lower ' species specific human definitions. It just means we are very impressed with ourselves. I don't believe the universe ranks it's elements.

I'd like to see the evidence for humans being a higher species ie; species longevity, environmental successes etc...

I am an atheist, though not card carrying. I do not 'believe' in a creator as you 'believe' in one though we are both Mac enthusiasts...go figure!

I have found most all religious and biblical definitions of a creator, creation etc to be rather unimpressive when compared to the physical, natural world. A natural universe that requires no creation nor ending.

"I have faith that in the fullness of time, all will be clearly revealed, and I'm happy to be patient and wait."

Waiting for revelations ignores the thrill of pursuit...my opinion. There is no 'answer' no face to the unknown and I feel it is mostly fear of that unknown that drives faith.

[There was a world. We came and named everything, gave everything a name. Soon we'll be gone and the world will be quiet again.]

Thanks,

Judson

(ps; I did tech support for Ecunet. An early ecumenical bbs. Ever heard of it?)

Hi Judson;

When the Gorilla or Orangutan world produces a Beethoven or a Tolstoy, or even a Steve Jobs, I will be more inclined to hearing your argument.

Christianity also teaches that humans are original sinners -- essential screw-ups, and that the universe is under a curse becaouse of our disobedience and cupidity -- through no fault of its own.

As for waiting, it's not passive. As Plato (I think) advised, the life properly lived is in preparation for eternity.

Charles

"But I emphatically do not accept that our humanity is .."

From Steve Consilvio

Hi Charles,

Yesterday you wrote...

"But I emphatically do not accept that our humanity is a result of that evolutionary process, and that our cleverness, imagination, ability to use tools, artistry, and many other things that distinguish us from even the highest nonhuman mammals are simply because we are just more highly evolved animals ourselves."

Like many others, and no doubt yourself, I am a great lover of life, of the good of life, of the good and great expressions of humanity. But this idea that we are at the top of the life chain has always puzzled me. It could be argued just as easily that animals have evolved beyond the need for what we hold so dear.

For every scientific advance we create, we create a chemical that seeds future havoc. For every weapon we create to defend ourselves, we create a weapon we must defend against. For all the wealth of spirit we create, we create an equal amount of misery and hardship. Socrates, Christ, Shakespeare and John Lennon all speak to the same soul and the same human condition. All the technology, all the so-called advances have not changed man's basic make-up. We are who we have been for thousands of years. If we are so highly evolved, then why are we stagnant? We follow all of the same basic patterns of animals, we feed, we nest, we breed, we fight, we build, we live, we die.

How is a group of birds discussing a well-built nest any different from a group of people admiring the architecture of the new art museum? Is our sense of beauty any more remarkable than their sense of navigation? We praise our own skills and then hold them more dear. By what criteria are we truly better, more evolved, or more advanced? We claim a visit by God as the basis of our superiority. How do we not know that the same is true in their world, especially when we see special powers in those that can communicate with animals? Evolution does not frighten my Christian soul.

All living things are coequals sharing the gift of life. We all live and feed off of each other. In the same way that forests lived and died over millions of years so we could have coal today, we too are part of a process that we can't hope to understand from inside of it. We live and we die. Time passes, the universe continues to expand. The only thing we can control, is our own actions and our own ideas.

For me, Christ explains how best to live and to think, it requires no other baggage of explanation. Humor or hate, innocence or experience, it's all a part of the gift, it's all a part of the journey, it's all a part of life. We cannot understand it. When you state "many other things that distinguish us from even the highest nonhuman mammals," you use the word "distinguish" pejoratively, as in "superior." It is a perspective, I believe, that cannot be justified.

With peace and respect,
Steve

Steve Consilvio
Squeegee Graphics
http://www.squeegeegraphics.com/

Hi Steve;

See my reply to Judson above.

I am a professing Christian. Christianity believes that man was created to be the apogee and pinnacle of Creation. As Genesis puts it:

26 God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
27 God created man in his own image. In God's image he created him; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them. God said to them, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Christians believe that Jesus is God the Creator (one of the "us" in Verse 26 above) who was incarnated as a man -- not as a dolphin or a bird or a chimp.

We are the only being in Creation that can sin -- ie: that has free will to disobey God's will, and the Bible is quite up front about the negative consequences of this on the Creation. See Genesis 3 :

17 To Adam he said, "Because you have listened to your wife's voice, and have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

and Romans 8:

20 For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope
21 that the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of decay into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now.

To speak of "superior" or "inferior" does not apply. Only man (generic) is made in God's image and likeness. Only man has free will. Only man can love. Only man can sin. Only man is human, with all the baggage that comes with it.

You said: "For me, Christ explains how best to live and to think." I agree, but please examine carefully and ponder what Christ said on how to live and think.

You can choose to accept or reject that, because you have free will, but it is what Christ's Church had taught and believed for two millennia. I believe.

Respectfully,
Charles

...Many thanks

From Lindsay Graieg

Greetings Charles

Many thanks for your follow-up on the hoax anti Christian and Mac site Charles.

Blessings,
Lindsay

Anti-Apple "Christian" Web Site A Hoax?

From Joy Denton

I'm very impressed by your commentary on the subject. I, too, saw the web site and at first thought it was real until reading some of the other stuff on the site. The web site must've gotten a lot of views from Mac people because at times it was impossible to connect to it. Perhaps the author picked the wrong audience to attempt to parody -- Christians who also happen to love their Macs.

Joy Denton
Computer Consultant

Re: Anti-Apple “Christian” Web Site A Hoax

From Dennis Walls

Thanks much for the analysis of this "hoax". Keep up the great site.

Dennis Walls

Christian Web Site

From Charles Hastings

Oh, boy, MAN, was that web site a hoot. I am a Christian believer myself, too, and have seen such fundamentalist sites, but I must say that this one had me going for a while.

I did realize that it HAD to be fake when I saw some of the other pages on his site. Especially the Halloween site. Just wanted to let you know that I had just arrived at that conclusion, when I saw your link on macsurfer.com, and I totally concur with your feeling that it is fake.

Thanks,
Charles Hastings

Thank you

From Raymond E. Griffith

Thank you for your well written article: Anti-Apple “Christian” Web Site A Hoax.

As a Christian, this site grieved me. Although I go to an Independent Baptist Church, I do not appreciate the tangents certain of these people go on. The site provided a perfect kind of parody of them.

Unfortunately, fundamentalist Christians often revel in their ignorance. Although I believe as you do that this site is a hoax, I rather think that it is the unreasonableness of some people in the Christian community that made this hoax possible and believable. I hope to be person whose faith is demonstrated to be reasonable, not silly or driven to paranoia.

Again, thank you.

Raymond E. Griffith

Hi Raymond;

I agree with your analysis. I have many Baptist friends, independent and convention. I respect them, although being a catholic, I don't always agree with them theologically on every point. My late mother was an ordained Baptist minister. A good friend whom I do a lot of Mac tech support for is an independent Baptist pastor.

One the other hand, I've encountered some real nuttiness over the years, and that is what made the site fool me until I dug abit deeper.

Charles

Your article about the anti-Christian site

From Jerry Carmichael

Thanks! There are many believers who appreciated your comments and statements of your faith. I am one of them. Thanks for clarifying info about that web site.

Jerry Carmichael

"Richard Paley" Comment

From Michael Sohaski

Charles,

I too read the "Richard Paley" polemic. On the surface, it appeared internally well reasoned until I got to the part about linking Open Source and Communism. I knew that something was not right. Thank you, Charles, for digging deeper!

Best wishes,
Michael Sohaski

A hoax I wish

From Brian Brown-Cashdollar

it may seem over the top to you, but to a lot fundamentalist Christians this is right on, truth telling, confronting evil, however they might term it. Having grown up a fundamentalist Christian, I know a lot of people who wouldn't have found this over the top at all. Stupid, yes, scary, yes, true, unfortunately.

Brian Brown-Cashdollar

Hi Brian;

I don't need to be educated in the tomfoolery and idiocy that goes on in some nominally Christian circles, but this site is bogus. It fooled me at first too. It is very well done parody.

I suspect that the perpetrators may be the same folks who did the Landover Baptist church Website hoax. This is either the Landover bunch redux (parodying their own parody), or somebody doing a tribute.

For example, Objective Christian Ministries "staffer":

""Diamond" Jack Holgroth
"Diamond" Jack Holgroth is a Game Theoretician who currently teaches a course in Advanced Game Theory for Theologians at Fellowship University. He served our country during the Cold War as a Game Theory Tactician for the Department of Defense and single-handedly developed an elegant solution to the "Fisherman's Quandary", a game theory problem that was crucial to the winning of the arms race and that was famously intractable - until Diamond Jack came along. Favorite Passage From Scripture — Psalm 142"

I mean, really........

Their link to WhiteHouse.org is another giveaway too. The motif and style of humor is reminiscent of the Landover site. One commentator observed that the image they have of Jesus on WhiteHouse.org for the "Department of Faith" (which, according to the page, is powered by Landover Baptist Church) and the banner at the bottom of LandoverBaptist.org is the same one.

And there is no "Fellowship University." It doesn't exist. Run a Google search and check for yourself.

On the Halloween page:

"Sources for Biblical costumes:

* Joyful Costumes - A Christian performing arts company that also sells Biblical costumes. Be sure to check out Jesus's every day outfit!
* Charm City Rags - Offers Biblical era costumes
* Church Drama Catalog - Rentals, beards, and makeup
* Biblical Themes - Many costumes and accessories, including a comfortable latex crown of thorns"

Charles

Anti Apple "Christian" Site

Peter Kline

I read on some site today that the bogus site was produced using a Mac! (Sorry can't seem to remember where).

Involved in ?

From Stan Ulrich

"Secondly, I have been involved in evangelical Christianity for over 30 years, "

I hope not as one of them.

I, too, have been "involved" with evangelicals for even longer than that. Sad lot, really.

Stan Ulrich

Hi Stan;

I became a Christian through evangelical ministry (specifically Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship) 31 years ago.

I am now an Anglican Catholic, but I have not renounced evangelicalism. I don't believe they are mutually exclusive. Christ's Great Commission is to evangelize.

Charles

Concerning your article on evolutionistic origins

From Charles

Greetings Charles

In response to your statement "the fact that we share about 97% of our DNA with the great apes being pretty strong evidence."

We also share about 90% of our DNA with a sponge (for real, check into it). that does not make a case for evolution being bona fide, nor does anyone argue that point. You may enjoy investigating more modern arguments for and against evolution, you are unwittingly relying on an argument that is not in the least (strong claim I realize) real "scientific" evidence for evolution. It is used more as a sort of emotional rationale, I guess, but really has nothing to do with Darwinian nor neoDarwinian evolutionary theory.

I appreciate your articles, and agree that the site in question is probably a mean attempt to make evangelicals, (I am an evangelical pastor, retired science teacher).

Anyways, there are many scientists, some believers and some not, who question the current scientific dogma of evolution. Michael Behe has written an excellent book called Darwin's black box, that hits the problems head on, in more ways than one.

IHS

Hi Charles;

I question the current scientific dogma of evolution.

Please see my reply to Michael Wills below.

Charles

Anti-Apple "Christian" Web Site A Hoax

From Michael Wills

Hello Mr. Moore,

Just found Applelinks in the quest for a WebShots client for Mac OS X. The search brought me here: http://www.macntosh.com/macdownloads.html

Which had a brief reference to Applelinks. Intrigued, I looked up the site. Haven't had time to go in depth yet. However, being a Christian I soon noticed this article. You'll probably get lots of flack on both sides by not being a pro-ponent of a young earth theory. I am still processing that one myself.

The way I understand it right now is that we don't have enough conclusive evidence to say it actually took the billions of years to occur as stated by the late Carl Sagan (I grew up watching Cosmos... loved the show). However, as with the game of Life which my brother introduced me to (who is not Christian) and being a casual artist from time to time myself, I am left with the possibility that though things do in fact appear to have been around for billions of years, God could have "painted" it that way, if you see what I mean.

In the game of Life my brother argued that life can evolve out of apparent chaos. But said two important things as I recall: 1. Someone had to make the rules of growth/evolution 2. Sometimes in experiements the observers didn't want to wait the entire time needed to let the growth hapenned so they would either speed up the process or, as in many modeled simulations, they just set the time ahead

So in essence, to me, God being omnipotent, he *could* have "painted" (again to borrow the analogy) oil, diamonds, cosmic gasses, the Pleiades in the midst of being born, etc. Even the process of "painting" humans and great apes with this likeness that we have which should be separated by huge time scales, but time scales which would have no meaning to the Painter. So it's like we could be part of a simulation with evidences that things are "billions and billions of years old" but we've only been involved for the last few thousand years.

As I said, I'm still processing this one too and just perhaps I won't get it until I can see from the perspective of eternity. :-)

One other note which was the primary cause of this oration, the link to the other site is now dead. :-)

Mac OS X is so groooovy!

Cheers,
Michael

Hi Michael;

God can of course do anything, but why would He design an apparently old universe to deceive us?

Here is what a friend of mine, a very wise and godly man who was a trained biologist before he became an Anglican priest, had to say on this issue recently.

You have a problem -- reconciling the facts of science with the Bible. Either you must deny the facts of science (and there are a lot of them, even though they tend to be submerged under a plethora of unsupported hypotheses and guesses) or you must adjust your interpretation of the Bible. That is not a problem I have.

Is the earth several billion years old, during which time life emerged and changed colossally? Or is the earth of an age to be measured in thousands of years, during which time life may have changed but not colossally? I accept the former as a fact of science. The latter is an interpretation of the Bible which some Christians accept but I do not and never have.

If anyone accepts the `old earth' idea as a fact, it will be because he has already accepted as factual the approximate dating and broad outline of the geological record. He will also accept that the remains of animals and plants in the strata are genuine remains of organisms that were once alive but have since died out. He will not accept that God put these remains there just to confuse us. Every geologist and palaeontologist would admit that these remains are *comparatively* miniscule in number and the gaps are *comparatively* enormous. But he would also say that we have a vast amount of geological and palaeontological data, showing that there is no doubt whatsoever that organisms have changed colossally during geological time. Inevitably this data has raised lots of questions, but it has also provided quite a few answers. Biologists use this palaeontological information, but they also use information from organisms still alive -- data from comparative anatomy, genetics, geographical distribution, physiology, microbiology, embryology, and so on. I think a fair summary of all of it is what I said in an earlier posting: that evolution has occurred very extensively. This, in my opinion and that of virtually all workers in the field, is a fact and not a theory or a hypothesis. So, if you approach all this with Genesis in your hand you have a problem, as do any evangelicals and catholics of a fundamentalist persuasion. But there are far more evangelicals, and an even larger number of catholics, who are not of a fundamentalist persuasion and who have no such problem.

However, having said all that, there is much else to be considered. Biologists, qua biologists, are human so naturally they press the loud pedal about things we know and the soft pedal about things we don't. Personally, while accepting the things we know, I am also vividly aware of how much we do not yet know and perhaps never shall. The gaps in the evolutionary story are huge and the hypotheses suggested to bridge them are numerous and to a considerable degree unsupported.

That is why they are gaps. The latest perplexity comes from a tiny beast called Symbion pandora, discovered a few years ago. It is so different from any other known animal that everybody who is interested in such matters is asking, `Where the dickens has that thing come from?'. I am sure that many hypotheses are being suggested (which is probably why it was given the specific name of `pandora'), but they will be little more than wild guesses. Mind you, the non-evolutionist also has a problem. How did it fit into the divine plan that God should create a creature scarcely visible to the human eye that lives only on the lips of the Norway lobster?

With regard to human evolution the difficulties are increased. I am convinced that Homo sapiens of today has evolved from some non-human hominid. But the things which make humans distinctively human -- even omitting `the soul' which some people think we do not have -- are things like consciousness and indeed almost everything to do with the human mind. Our knowledge of the `evolution' of such things -- if indeed `evolution' is the right word -- is almost non-existent although tentative hypotheses abound. These, of course, are what get into the magazines.

Of course there is an "Intelligence directing all this". No genuine Christian doubts this for a moment. We believe that God, before ever the heavens and the earth were made, had a Great Design in his Divine mind -- a Design which would ultimately result in humans becoming children of God. But many of the details of his direction remain obscure, as much for the fundamentalist as for the non-fundamentalist. Genesis says that God "made the beast of the earth after his kind...and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind...." etc but he did not make them all vegetarians so that nature has always been a very bloody red and extremely violent in tooth and claw. Incidentally St Paul seemed to have an inkling of the difficulty when he said: "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" (Rom 8:22). If that is the case, creation cannot have been all that "good" in the first place. And don't forget that while there is a teleological argument for the existence of God, there is also an opposite dysteleological argument for the non-existence of God.

Chance? According to Darwin's theory chance has an important part to play, but some evolutionists -- and people like me -- are strongly anti- Darwinian except for some comparatively small evolutionary changes here and there. And there are a number of evolutionary theories (i.e. not the fact of evolution but its mechanism) which also give only a small place to chance. I have a pet theory that if good old Aristotle had lived for another 10 years he would have stumbled on evolution but he would not have produced a chance-theory to explain it.

Biologists as a group are not particularly noteworthy for their humility, but I think that if gently pressed they will usually admit `I don't know the answer to that question' where this applies. A commendable attitude, I would say, and a mark of a good scientist.

The scientific facts which are most reliable are those where something or other can be weighed or measured in some way. The facts of the physical sciences are usually the best. You measure something, do some maths, and come up with a numerical result. Early medecine could not measure the goings-on in the human body to any great extent so early medical science was, as Linus Pauling said, virtually non- existent. But in recent years it has become possible to measure an incredible number of things -- the concentration of hormones and other substances in the blood, for example -- and so medical science is becoming a reliable science. In a `science' like psychiatry measurements are extremely difficult, so if you wish to exclude such studies from `science' I won't argue with you. Generally speaking, the more measureable a subject is the more its practitioners will agree. The less measureable, the more its practitioners will use hypotheses and impressions, and opinions will probably vary very widely. The mainstream might easily be wrong, so carry on spanking your kids! But beware -- an expert in one subject area may be utterly ignorant in others. Stephen Hawking may be excellent at his physics, but his theology is hopeless. So if an expert on the age of the earth tells you that it is an `old earth', and an expert on something quite different tells you it is a `young earth' you will know which one to accept. You mention `murdering babies'. Doing this is a mixture of surgical skill and deplorable ethics, and the only thing which the abortionist is measuring is his fee. That is not science.

Dating the past is now largely done by methods of the physical sciences. One of the methods is by using radioactive isotopes. For example, most of the atoms of potassium in a rock have an atomic mass of 39. A few have a mass of 40, and these are radioactive. Very slowly these change into argon, the rate of change being unalterable by anything happening on the earth's surface. It takes 1.35 billion years for half the atoms of potassium-40 in a sample to become argon, and this figure is measureable to a fair degree of accuracy -- an accuracy which can itself be calculated. So if you can measure the proportions of potassium-40 and argon in a rock -- which nowadays is possible -- you can calculate when the rock was formed. The `old earth' is a certainty. Incidentally, radioactive decay is taught in high schools and colleges these days and students can actually see it happening for themselves. Not the potassium-40 case, of course, but cases where the half-life of an element is conveniently short.

I admit that it would be a circular argument to say 'this layer is this old because of this fossil, this fossil is this old because it is in this layer'. That is not what happens. The scientist says `I can date this layer by e.g. radioactive methods, and fossil X occurs in it. If I find an identical fossil X in another layer I can reasonably assume that the second layer is the same age as the first even though the second layer contains different minerals which cannot be dated. Broadly speaking. That is why fossils are almost always dated very broadly into periods as I have done below.

Transitional forms. Archeopteryx is not the only one by any means. For example, Seymouria is a transitional form between amphibia and reptiles. However the most abundant transitional forms are with those invertebrates which have hard parts such as the molluscs with their shells and which were marine. Sedimentation causes rock layers to be formed at the bottom of the sea, and these contain the shells which eventually form fossils. Evolutionary series of molluscs are fairly plentiful.

The idea that you and a tree have evolved from the same single-celled organism is not a fact. It is a hypothesis. Maybe one day in the distant future we shall have enough evidence to be able to say whether *or not* it is a fact but we cannot do that now. Of course God created man. No question for Christians. The question is whether God created Man `de novo' -- Man was not there one day but he was there the next -- or whether God created Man from some less-than-human creature that he had already brought into being.

Re: Anti-Apple "Christian" Web Site A Hoax

From Michael Wills

Ah... the other thing.... I liked the article. The points and thoughts... if only I had read up to the very very end. Got caught up with something here before I did I would have seen your thoughts on the issue. I like it. :-)

In case you're interested, found another reference to the site that does still work so far:

http://207.67.219.101/objective/propaganda.html

aaah. I see now....

Time for lunch now.

All the best,
Michael

P.S. I'm writing at almost 11:30 am from Taipei, Taiwan so I *may* have gotten to see your artcle before many of the Western Hemisphere readers. :-)

CM

Charles W. Moore

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