"It is something I get frequent letters about," he says. "They always
start with sweet reasonableness, you know, 'We love your programs, isn't
nature marvellous', and so on. But they always go on to say, 'We do
wonder why it is that you don't give credit to the almighty God who
created each one of these species individually.'
"My response," he says, "is that when Creationists talk about God
creating every individual species as a separate act, they always instance
hummingbirds, or orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things. But I tend to
think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of a boy
sitting on the bank of a river in West Africa, [a worm] that's going to
make him blind. And [I ask them], 'Are you telling me that the God you
believe in, who you also say is an all-merciful God, who cares for each
one of us individually, are you saying that God created this worm that
can live in no other way than in an innocent child's eyeball? Because
that doesn't seem to me to coincide with a God who's full of mercy'."
If Attenborough appears more bemused than annoyed by Creationism, it is
because as a scientist he looks for evidence to support his beliefs.
--
Enkidu AA#2165
http://www.musings.leaddogs.org/
EAC Chaplain and ordained minister,
ULC, Modesto, CA
PGP ID: 0xC4CE8CF0
"Gods always behave like the people who created them"
-- Zora Neale Hurston
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