Science, The Bible and Dinosaur Bones

Spirituality Column - #16 - Feb . 27, 2007
Current! In Carmel newspaper

Science, The Bible and Dinosaur Bones

By Bob Walters

What is science if not the search for God?

Science is the study of how things work and why things are. How long can you study the cosmos before you realize that, a) it can’t possibly be an accident, and b) Darwin can’t explain how the dirt got here?

That’s the punch line to an old joke about the world’s smartest scientist who challenges God’s uniqueness as Creator. “I can create life,” says the scientist. “Oh? How?” says God. The scientist says “It’s easy. You just take some dirt and ….”

God interrupts, “Where are you going to get your dirt?”

Science and religion should be separate, a USA Today article by Tom Krattenmaker Feb. 4 said, because Creationism is so, well, stupid. I thought the article read like a long-winded excuse for sleeping in Sunday mornings.

Science and religion are different, sure; but they aren’t mutually exclusive. I can have God, the Bible, and a pile of dinosaur bones and see no conflict whatsoever. God and God’s word are perfect, and the dinosaur bones are sitting right there.

Just because we can’t figure everything out doesn’t mean dinosaurs obviate God and the Bible (or vice versa). That’s our problem, not God’s.

Religion is how I find God in my heart; science is how I find God in creation. What’s wrong with that? He wants us to discover him; he just doesn’t make it easy.

What I think is hilarious is how scientists are perceived to be busily working against the idea of God, when what many scientists come up with is a healthy appreciation for God.

The Grand Canyon probably did take millions of years to be cut (I wasn’t there so I can’t be sure), but when I see the Grand Canyon, I think of God, not Darwin.

Walters, a Carmel resident at rlwcom@aol.com, sees God as a fact of all life.

Lent Symbolic of Christ's Sacrifice

Current! In Carmel - #15 - Lent
February 20, 2007

Lent Symbolic of Christ’s Sacrifice
By Bob Walters

Today is Mardi Gras, French in reverse for “Fat Tuesday.”

The resurrection of New Orleans, while laudable, is not the reason for the holiday.

Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, begins Lent, the Holy season of Christ’s last days on earth. To Christians it is a season of denial, fasting, self-examination and repentance, once, of course, they get home from New Orleans.

Lent represents Christ’s 40 days of denial and resisting Satan’s temptation in the desert. Tradition among many Christian denominations is to “give up” something for lent, symbolic of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

The idea is to give up something important, to honor Christ’s command that we must “die to ourselves” to serve God and serve others. Too many people give up watermelon or something that doesn’t constitute much of a sacrifice.

Lent isn’t in the Bible but was known in the early centuries as the quadragesima pasche, “40 days before Easter,” mentioned in the writings of the famous Council of Nicea in 325 AD.

Fat Tuesday was about having a feast the day before the Lenten fast. On Ash Wednesday, which became common tradition in the 11th century, ashes representing our sin are placed on the foreheads of penitents, those who are sinners before God.

Um, that’s everybody.

The ashes look like a smudge but are administered by a priest with his thumb in the sign of the cross. You’ll see them on people’s foreheads tomorrow. It used to be they didn’t wash them off until the Thursday before Easter, aka Maundy Thursday, the day of the Last Supper of Christ.

If you count the 40 days of Lent on the calendar you’ll note that Easter is April 8, which is actually 46 days away. The six intervening Sundays are already Holy and don’t count as days of Lenten fasting.

Walters, a Carmel resident, hopes New Orleans hosts the Super Bowl in 2012, right after Indy hosts it in 2011. Contact him at rlwcom@aol.com

Tough Love, Tough Jesus

Spirituality Column - #14 - February 13, 2007
Current! In Carmel newspaper

Tough Love, Tough Jesus
By Bob Walters

Lambs are gentle and sheep are stupid, but a good shepherd has to be tough enough and smart enough to make up for the weakness of the flock.

An attentive read of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) reveals a critical truth about the incarnate Christ Jesus – God become man – that runs counter to “Gentle Jesus” stereotypes.

Jesus was one tough customer.

Look at it another way … if sins are our weakness, and Jesus was without sin, how far from weakness was Jesus?

Pretty far.

We are the children of a loving God Who created the world to glorify Himself, then gave us freedom to seek Him and to love Him. Given the awesome power of God Almighty, it’s much more comforting for us to look at God in terms of gentle than tough; savior not disciplinarian; because, to tell you the truth, a tough God scares me.

But how tough can God be, if God loves us?

Put that another way – how tough would a Shepherd need to be to love us, to love this world, to love us in spite of our sin, to die a horrific death to redeem our lives in the eyes of God?
Most of the time I think, pretty tough.

So, Jesus … Gentle Lamb of God who died for our sins? Good Shepherd?

Here is the miracle of Christ ... He did the hard part. He was tough so we can receive the gentle gift of His love; a redeeming love that gives us peace and assures eternal salvation. “My yoke is easy and my burden is light … “ says Matthew 11:30.

“O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world …” goes the wonderful hymn. You can’t possibly think that was a gentle job.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), a Carmel resident, thinks Valentine’s Day is no big deal compared with the redeeming love of Christ.

Unfunny Circus of Postmodernism

Spirituality Column #13
February 6, 2007
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper

Truth Be Told, This Circus Isn’t Funny
By Bob Walters

The postmodern circus of man-made truth and intelligence has quite a ringmaster in Princeton professor Peter Singer.

The New Yorker magazine hails the Australian-born atheist as the “most influential” philosopher alive. Believers of any God-based faith owe this guy an incomparable debt of gratitude for his commitment to moral shock therapy and trans-species equality.

If Singer can’t inspire intellectual return-fire from the God-inspired trenches, then truth and morality are already dead. Study up, my friends; this fellow is giving us a run for our spiritual money.

Singer, among other things the intellectual father of the animal rights movement, presents accidental philosophical comedy of the first order; grand theater of the absurd. Morality is no more than a test of consciousness; an alert dog has greater moral standing than a healthy infant human.

Blue-state liberals eat that nonsense up because Singer effectively removes truth from intelligence and responsibility. The sliding scale of an eloquent opinion replaces truth, regardless of what 2,000 years of Christian thought has taught us about the divinity of truth and morality.

A Christian believer lives with the beating truth of Christ in our heart. The resurrected Christ is our specific and personal link with the Creator God. Absolute Truth exists in Christ and – you can look it up – nowhere else. Christ is the only recorded incidence of God become man.

Examine all the belief systems you can find. Truth is discussed in just about all of them, but Christ makes the only claim on record of actually being the Truth.

Singer’s brain just isn’t a fair match against God’s intellect, Christ’s truth, and our freedom in the Holy Spirit. Let’s not let absolute truth get sucked away by the moral vacuum of postmodernism.

Truth in Christ? Truth in philosophers?

Live Savior? Dead philosophers?

Choose wisely. Study up.

Walters, a Carmel resident, likes his steak medium rare. Contact him at rlwcom@aol.com