We bring you another letter-to-the-editor from Your Houston News, a community newspaper in Conroe, Texas, near Houston. Conroe seems to be overrun by creationists, as we’ve written about two other letters from the same place recently: #196: Three Questions, and also #209: Apples and Oranges.
Today’s letter is Now the rest of the story. It’s the third letter at that link, so you’ll need to scroll down to find it. We’ll give you a few excerpts, enhanced with a bit of bold font for emphasis, and as we usually do we’ll omit the writer’s name and city. Here we go:
After mentioning the same letter we wrote about in “#209: Apples and Oranges,” the letter-writer says:
In 1859, Charles Darwin published his theory “the origin of the species” and his theory “the descent of man.” One hundred fifty years ago, science had not proven creation, so it’s natural that there was a big controversy over science and religion.
We’ll ignore that those were book titles, not the names of theories, and we’ll also ignore that the latter book wasn’t published until 1871. Let’s see where this is going. The letter-writer says that back then, science hadn’t proven creation. Okay …
For several years now, we have added scientific proof of creation, specifically “the Big Bang.” Sadly, no one has sought to use it to settle this ongoing argument of evolution. Written 150 years after “Darwin’s published theories” and some 80 years after “the Scopes monkey trial,” it is time to settle it.
Are you expecting us to comment on that paragraph? No, we’re leaving that one to you. Let’s read on:
Let’s begin by looking at the proofs that Darwin was collecting; all of it dealt with a similarity in each species; he found that the further back he went, he still found a common makeup; he traced the origin of the species back to that “primordial soup,” that soup that everything in the universe is made of.
Wow — Darwin went back farther than we realized. The letter continues:
The evolution that Darwin published, and it is a true viable scientific theory, but it is the evolution of matter (the elements), and the Bible confirms this evolution. His theory coincides with the book of John in the Bible (KJV) 1, 3: All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made; and also in the book of Gen. where it refers to what God made or formed.
All right — now we’re getting somewhere! The bible confirms Darwin’s theory. Here’s more:
As Paul Harvey would say, “now the rest of the story.” To do this, we must go back beyond the “Big Bang;” —
We break that sentence because: (a) the sentence should have ended there; and (b) we need to calm down a bit, as we are trembling with anticipation. Today’s letter-writer is taking us back beyond the Big Bang. Are you ready for that, dear reader? Okay then, our journey begins as the letter-writer’s sentence continues:
— from the Bible we are told in Genesis, “God said let us make man in our image after our likeness (1:27). So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” He created the whole universe and all there in; in his image, this image is not a mirror image, but for want of a better terminology, it would be like a dream in which everything is there but has no substance.
We have to think about that some more before commenting. Moving along:
From the Bible, from Genesis 2:7, it states, “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.” Carefully note: while this passage refers to man, it also includes every living thing in the universe. As God formed each entity, he placed into that entity it’s [sic] creation “life” and it became a living thing, and so therefore it’s [sic] evolution began.
Did you follow the letter-writer’s advice and carefully note that information? Very well, here’s another excerpt:
Let me add a substantiating quote, God said, from dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return; and the life shall return to God from whence it came. Simply put, all God formed will return to the matter it was made from; and the life that God put in that form will return to God.
Yes, that is a “substantiating quote.” Now we have reached the letter’s end:
And that is the rest of the story. Sadly, Darwin did not have this part of the story to make his origin of the species complete.
That wraps it all up, dear reader. Darwin’s theory is now complete.
Copyright © 2011. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
Adam and Eve were made before the Big Bang?
From the letter: “For several years now, we have added scientific proof of creation, specifically ‘the Big Bang’.”
I may have more comments later, but I urge everyone who hears or reads such regurgitated anti-evolution nonsense to ask these clowns the hard questions. In this case one question that screams to be asked is: “So you think that those evolution-deniers who claim there was no Big Bang are wrong?” Similarly, those who deny the BB need to be asked “So you think that those evolution-deniers who claim there was a Big Bang are wrong?”
Then don’t miss the opportunity to have much more fun by asking them which evolution-deniers are wrong about the age of life, and common descent. Start with Behe, who concedes that mainstream science is correct on those claims, and that most self-described creationists are wrong about one (OECs) or both (YECs). Then sit back and enjoy them tryiing to spin their way out of it.
Ouch. My hed jez sploded.
I think the writer is arguing that material evolution is true, but God is the source of souls which inhabit the evolved beings, and maybe that God caused the big bang and the creation of a material universe to begin with.
He must be right, because he cites sources.
Conroe is a small town about 60 miles north of Houston’s outer edge (aka The Woodlands.). After you drive through Conroe (leaving Houston), you get to empty highway space. Therefore, Conroe is the “boondocks.”
Just sayin’.
😀
Gabriel Hanna: Adam and Eve were made before the Big Bang?
Yes, the Big Bang has been proven by eye-witness account to have happened 5,999 years ago.
@Poolio:Yes, the Big Bang has been proven by eye-witness account to have happened 5,999 years ago.
Must have been a big surpise for the Sumerians. Bet it messed up their whole irrigation system.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/sumerians-look-on-in-confusion-as-god-creates-worl,2879/
Members of the earth’s earliest known civilization, the Sumerians, looked on in shock and confusion some 6,000 years ago as God, the Lord Almighty, created Heaven and Earth.
According to recently excavated clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform script, thousands of Sumerians—the first humans to establish systems of writing, agriculture, and government—were working on their sophisticated irrigation systems when the Father of All Creation reached down from the ether and blew the divine spirit of life into their thriving civilization.
“I do not understand,” reads an ancient line of pictographs depicting the sun, the moon, water, and a Sumerian who appears to be scratching his head. “A booming voice is saying, ‘Let there be light,’ but there is already light. It is saying, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass,’ but I am already standing on grass.”
“Everything is here already,” the pictograph continues. “We do not need more stars.”
Historians believe that, immediately following the biblical event, Sumerian witnesses returned to the city of Eridu, a bustling metropolis built 1,500 years before God called for the appearance of dry land, to discuss the new development. According to records, Sumerian farmers, priests, and civic administrators were not only befuddled, but also took issue with the face of God moving across the water, saying that He scared away those who were traveling to Mesopotamia to participate in their vast and intricate trade system.
Moreover, the Sumerians were taken aback by the creation of the same animals and herb-yielding seeds that they had been domesticating and cultivating for hundreds of generations.
“The Sumerian people must have found God’s making of heaven and earth in the middle of their well-established society to be more of an annoyance than anything else,” said Paul Helund, ancient history professor at Cornell University. “If what the pictographs indicate are true, His loud voice interrupted their ancient prayer rituals for an entire week.”
According to the cuneiform tablets, Sumerians found God’s most puzzling act to be the creation from dust of the first two human beings.
“These two people made in his image do not know how to communicate, lack skills in both mathematics and farming, and have the intellectual capacity of an infant,” one Sumerian philosopher wrote. “They must be the creation of a complete idiot.”
Gabe, that’s awesome. I love the Onion.
Gabe, that IS good. I am so tempted to copy/paste (at least parts) in response to some of the fundies who show up on comments sections for science articles on Yahoo and elsewhere. See how many of them will understand the concept of “satire.” My experience has been that they are a generally pretty humorless lot, with no sense of irony at all.