My thoughts on evolution.

I have gotten over 100 responses so far to the survey after I posted it a couple places and then a couple other people posted it in other places. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten much feedback in terms of how people would rather have phrased the questions and what other questions they are interested in or think would be better than the questions I wrote. As I mentioned, it's a poorly-written survey and needs plenty of work before even most takers would be happy about it.

Of course, it goes without saying that, despite our many disagreements about many things, both Young Earth Creationists and those who don't dismiss the mountain of scientific evidence are earnest followers of Christ acting in good faith and are both capable of being holy and pious Orthodox Christians, no matter how wrong one of the sides is.

With that said, however, this video is rather amusing:

Professor Farnsworth debates Creaturism from PhilM on Vimeo.

My personal thoughts on evolution are that the Young Earth folks, particularly those following Fr Seraphim, are significantly overstating the patristic case for their view and their reasons for dismissing the idea of a 14-ish billion year old universe with a 4.5-ish billion year old Earth and the evolution of life as we know it over the course of hundreds of millions of years from single-celled organisms simply won't stand up. However, a wholly Orthodox position consistent with the mind of the Fathers will be able to be integrated with this understanding. I hate to disappoint, however: I am not the one to do so. There are some people who have done some things in this regard and there are certainly several prominent bishops, priests, and theologians who are working on it. I am also not the one to dismantle Fr Seraphim's arguments or those of his followers. I mean, one of the prominent ones is a seminarian who has spent several years thinking about this and compiling a giant pile of patrtistic YEC proof texts. I have neither the time nor the inclination nor the training. Nor the desire. And especially not the gift.

EDIT: I don't think "batting for the right team" makes me any smarter or a better person than other people or that "batting for the wrong team" makes other people any less intelligent or worse human beings. Fr Seraphim was a very bright fellow and very holy, to boot. His followers are also right that there are a lot of theological issues to hash out if an evolutionary perspective is going to carry the day. I mean, heck, I'm not smart enough to do it. But, somebody will have to do it, and it's a pity that these earnest and intelligent folks are not going to be the ones to do so, because the evolutionary position is correct and the Young Earth position is simply wrong, albeit very attractive.