“Creationists” are demanding equal time with the Cosmos Series hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
They want their version of a Bible story to be accepted as a different “scientific” point of view.
The responsibility for this silly request lies in part with the news media that created the monster called “fair and balanced news” wherein one story must be balanced by one that makes the opposite point.
That works if you’re talking about who is the best baseball player of all time, or whose economic policy is best for the nation, but when it comes to actual events or facts necessary to understand an issue, it is an absurd and dangerous policy. Opinions don’t equal facts.
But the responsibility for this ridiculous request also lies with the Christian community as a whole.
Trying to be tolerant of fundamentalists by disagreeing with them as if they just have a different way of understanding the Bible has had an effect just as disastrous as “fair and balanced news” has.
These people are doing immeasurable harm to the credibility of the Christian message.
In today’s world millions of children are now raised without ever stepping a foot inside a church. Why does any sensible Christian think when they become adults they will be interested in hearing a message that denies science and facts?
Many sincere Christians believe God wrote the Bible, but they don’t want to get on television and explain to a scientific world why they do.
But Creationists do, and that is the problem. These are people who are ignorant of biblical scholarship and are not at all embarrassed by that ignorance.
That wouldn’t bother me as long as they kept it to themselves, but when they want to tell the whole world this is what the Bible says, that crosses a line I find unacceptable.
To use the Bible as a science book is the equivalent of using Shakespeare’s Richard III as a history book. Using history and writing it are two very different things.
Neal deGrasse Tyson shouldn’t have to explain why Creationism doesn’t deserve equal time with the Cosmos series.
Sensible Christians should.
