Fundamentalism v Evolution

I was very impressed with my first exposure to ‘Campfire’ – what a great way to use the web! I was very hard put to choose between my two favourites, Portrait of a Stranger and Fundamentalism vs Evolution. Both are so pertinent to our time. In the end I chose Fundamentalism vs Evolution, because I wrote more about it, and because it was so short and effective as a thought and discussion trigger.

This very short but clever piece in the genre of b&w silent suggests what will happen between the ‘adherents of Bible’ and the ‘followers of Darwin’. On first viewing it doesn’t seem to go anywhere in its brief life (1.10) and this could be the overarching point! Isn’t this why so many people are turned off religion – it can only end in a train-smash? But the short concludes with a picture of ‘The Founder of Fundamentalism’ – and perhaps this is the real point intended. It is worth watching more than once.

We have loved and read the bible for thousands of years without having to take it literally – and without it having to prove itself against scientific understanding, before this ridiculous adherence to it in the face of fact. The Bible is poetry, legend, myth – it contains deep and eternal understandings of God and human nature.

Jews say of the Torah (Hebrew Bible) as we read through it each year – ‘turn it and turn it, for all is in it.’ In other words, when we re-read, we can see or understand something new, perhaps because we have learned something new about the world or ourselves or our fellow human beings since last we read it. ‘God does not require us to believe in absurdities’. Belief in the bible need not be in conflict with our knowledge of the world – which is, of course, also ‘God-given’.

Good interesting footage of a deliberate train crash. But what the film had to do with the title, I do not know. Perhaps chaos rather than enlightenment - the result of the debate between fundamentalism and evolution? Who knows!