“Eohippus Encyclopedia Dream”
found-object sculpture. found objects, wood, adhesive, acrylic paint. 15 in x 11 in x 4.25 in.

“Eohippus Encyclopedia Dream” found-object sculpture

Growing up, I was constantly picked on at school, so I spent most of my free time in the school library flipping through books and encyclopedias.  I would browse through all subjects, but mainly I read geology, natural history, the history of science, etc.

Now I sometimes notice fundamentalist experts on television explaining all the undisputable holes and contradictions in the theory of evolution.  They have color charts and use of important sounding technical jargon, but they rarely bother to get basic facts right.  They tell anecdotes about all sorts of new scientific discoveries, but either the conclusion or the full content of the story is always in question at best, at least to anyone with any depth of knowledge of the subject.  Usually they seem content to argue with Darwin’s original text of over 150 years ago, in spite of all their discussion of new science.

Does God really need us to lie for Him?  Is our faith in Jesus so shallow that we need to believe that the world started 6000 years ago just to prop it up?  If God wanted us to interpret the Bible literally for political purposes, why did Jesus continually speak in parables?  Is our faith in God or in our creed?  Is there a contradiction between the Gospels and evolutionary science, or rather is the contradiction between our creed and evolutionary science?

It was only a few hundred years ago that Christians argued that the world could not be round because it didn’t say so in the Bible.  Those Christians are directly responsible for reasonable people losing their faith and Western culture becoming even more secular.  Are contemporary fundamentalists fighting a culture war or unintentionally discrediting religion?