On April 4, 2012, a Minnesota country newspaper, the Mille Lacs Messenger, published the following letter of mine.

Evolution and creation

In science, a theory is the best explanation for a set of facts. The scientific and everyday usages of the word 'theory' are very different. In everyday usage "theory" means "hypothesis". Evolution is long past the stage of a scientific hypothesis. Evolution is basically a fact with some details that are not entirely agreed upon.

Evolution poses a problem for some Christian, but not for all Christians, since many Christians happily accept evolution: they see Genesis 1 as merely a metaphor, and declare that if God chose to create us using evolution, that's fine by them.

I used to be this kind of Christian myself; but this was only possible because I had only a vague idea of how evolution works. As I learned more about evolution I came to believe that attempting to co-opt evolution as part of a divine plan of a loving God simply was not compatible with modern-day revealed scientific truth.

Not only does evolution not need to be guided in any way, but any conscious, sentient guide would have to be a monster of the most sadistic type: for evolution is not pretty, is not gentle, is not kind, is not compassionate, is not loving. Evolution is blind, and brutal, and callous. It is not an aspiration or a blueprint to live up to: it is simply what happens, the blind, inexorable forces of nature at work.

An omnipotent deity who chose evolution by natural selection as the means by which to bring about the array of living creatures that populate the Earth today would be many things - but loving would not be one of them. Nor perfect. Nor compassionate. Nor merciful.

Evolution produces some wondrously beautiful results; but it happens at the cost of unimaginable suffering on the part of countless billions of individuals and, indeed, whole species, 99 percent of which have so far become extinct. It is irreconcilable with a God of love.

Evolution destroys the "loving Creator" on which the whole of Christianity depends.

Thomas Dahlheimer
Wahkon