Random Designer by Richard G. Colling (2004, Hardcover)

The subject of Evolution and Religion has been of concern to me for years. Having an interest in TRUTH and not in any agenda based on presumptions of any kind, I tend to reject authoritative statements which are not factually or logically supported. The fact that both sides in the Creation versus Evolution Dispute seem to fail to see the natural break between their respective disciplines also bothers me.

Richard Colling seems to have a very good grasp on the fact that science and religion have areas of "operation" that may mesh while not actually overlapping. He clearly warns that when one side oversteps the boundary nothing good results. Science can legitimately address factual questions of When and How something happens, but can not address the spiritual issues of Who did it and Why. Religion addresses the issues Science can not. So why all the fighting? Why is the fight so often portrayed as One or the Other winning when there is really NO common field of battle.

I am also a believer in a God that transcends our limited ability to understand His ways. Science tries to understand what happens but right now we don't know it all. Until we do - and even if we do - we need faith in something beyond ourselves. So for me personally, the fact that many "Christians" seem to limit their understanding of God by believing in a Child like God (a Small Weak God limited to fiat creation) instead of having a Childlike faith in a Big God who can use the Random nature of Evolutionary forces to Create. By limiting God to only what was written down in any Primitive text (be it the Bible, Koran, Book of Mormon or any other book) these True Believers actually try to force reality to match what is written. In this process, they have to deny objective TRUTH. Any religion that denies the TRUTH supports a God that I can not accept, because they support a LIE.

The fact that the world is ancient far older than just a few thousand years - that the earth revolves around the sun and that the earth is not flat are all simple scientific facts. To deny facts is ignorant. To fight against those facts by twisting evidence to comply with "revealed truth" based on religious books of any age is worse than foolish. It is a BIG LIE. Just like the Flat earth believers who used the Bible to justify belief in a flat earth and the Religious Authorities who denounced Copernicus were WRONG should be a warning to Literal Creationists that they need actual facts to support Scientific theories. Lies about what science says will not make literal Creation true. No amount of wishful thinking makes a LIE true. All of Creation "Science" is founded on lies.

The author here is making a very common sense point and to know that he is being attacked by "True Believers" who think they are defending God is pathetic.

I am less inclined to support positions held by Fundamentalists now than at any time in the past. Fundamentalism of ALL types is simply Primitive Religion and somehow must be defeated before we all regret it. Having the right to yell fire in a crowed theater is no more correct than to hold to a literal belief in a Primitive Religion that kills people, ideas or the TRUTH in the name of it's God.

The book serves a great need and should be mandatory reading for both sides.