Why can’t they both just get along?

Recently, science and religion have been at each other's throats. I wonder when these friends became enemies. In the thousands of years of civilization, it wasn't until recently that our artists, philosophers, and scientists became different people. The notion that divinity created a world that is consistent, rational, and understandable has perpetuated in all three of those fields, resulting with those fields pleasantly going hand in hand with each other.

The latest front of this recent conflict has been the "Evolution versus the Bible" battle. It seems to me that the fight is over nothing. But wait! Aren't they contradicting beliefs? That's what the propaganda wants you to think.

"Science" starts with the Big Bang Theory to say that all matter exploded and formed the universe as we see it today. The Bible starts with saying God was there, and then he formed the universe as we see it today. "Science" uses evolutionary theory to say that life started with something simple and over time through a series of changes it became more complex and people are here now. The Bible says that over a period of time, God first created fish, then land animals, and people are here now.

The Bible does say that God used the dust of the earth to create Man, and that image of divine hands molding the earth like clay to form the body of a man is the popularized image we have from that passage. However, most people don't realize the creation passage in Genesis could be Hebrew poetry, and in poetry sometimes figurative language is used.

Science has shown that everything on earth is made of the same basic elements and when people die they decompose into what is essentially dirt. It would really not be a stretch to say that the Bible is saying that God used the same substance to make the earth as God used to make people, and the Bible clearly says that after our bodies die they will return to dust.

Even though the Bible and science are often painted to be arch enemies in our culture, upon any examination it's easy to realize that science and religion are talking about two different things. After science explains our origin via change over time, it proceeds to describe how the world works, with gravitational theories, ideal gas laws, and the like. After the Bible explains our origin via God's design, it proceeds to describe why the world works.

Knowing how the world works isn't a bad thing, it just doesn't have any bearing on why the world works. This is why religion is important; it speaks to the basic desire in humanity to know "why?"

So while the Bible may not fill us in on exactly how God created our world, it does say God did it because God is a creator. The Bible does say that there is evil in the world because God wants you to choose to love him back. The Bible does say that even though we've blown our chance to be in a relationship with God, God loved us so much that He came to earth in flesh, called Jesus, to live the perfect life we could have and Jesus died the punishing death we should have. The Bible does say that those who accept this gift from God will be with Him when He rebuilds the world to restore perfection and separates from Himself all that is imperfect and broken.

The Bible sums this up in 2 Timothy 1:9-10: "It is God who saved us and chose us to live a holy life. He did this not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan long before the world began-to show his love and kindness to us through Christ Jesus. And now he has made all of this plain to us by the coming of Christ Jesus, our Savior, who broke the power of death and showed us the way to everlasting life through the Good News." The stories in the Bible aren't about how we should believe in magic, but rather that a supernatural creator created all that is natural and why that pertains to us.