Current Events Round Up

In what I hope to be a somewhat regular Friday feature where I give my take on interesting stuff happening in the world. This isn't intended to be political commentary, but may be take as such. I would hope that it is, instead, interesting news bits from the lens of my faith. I'll just let those chips fall where they may.

So what's of interest to me this week?

Budgets - I've already spent two posts on the topic already this week (see link), but I think my thoughts boil down to this: our federal budget is messed up, the process by which we create it is messed up and I don't even know where to begin. I know it's the government and not a person, but if where your heart is, there your treasure will be also, then we have a heart of conflict and chaos. Then again, the many heads that are on this beast are not of one accord, so what can we expect? Somehow, I think it will eventually collapse under its own weight if we can't bring it into order.

The Plame Game - Washington, the blogosphere and the national media outlets are all a-twitter over what federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is going to do about the leaking of a CIA agent's name. The leak was intended to hurt former ambassador Joseph Wilson by outing his wife. Wilson wrote an op-ed piece critical of the administration's arguments for WMD's in Iraq, specifically nuclear weapons. A report issued by Wilson and commissioned by the government debunked the claim that Iraq was seeking yellow-cake uranium from Niger. That's the short of it anyway.

Why do I care? Aside from the fact that this is a huge story and having massive repercussion inside the White House, I care because it is a story about how government has come to be conducted. Somehow, we've allowed governing not to be about SERVICE in the PUBLIC GOOD, but about winning ideological and policy battles at all costs. Karl Rove has been ruthless in attacking, not the merits of his opponents arguments, but the opponents themselves. Character assassination has become routine and win-at-all-costs the mantra. Some may claim that this is just business as usual in Washington, but as far as I'm concerned I refuse to support anyone who eschews love, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, patience and self-control. You can tell a tree by its fruit and I haven't liked the apples on this tree.

Hurricane Season - Wilma made landfall in Mexico a couple of hours ago and it sounds like it's not pretty. After Mexico, it's slated to hit Florida and who knows where it will go from there. It seems like natural disasters have been piling up in recent memory: the tsunami last year, hurricanes this year, not to mention devastating earthquakes, the latest of which hit Pakistan. The earthquake is shaping up to as bad as the tsunami, if not worse. I can't really comprehend the devastation and loss of human life - it's overwhelming. My only response is prayer, for understanding, for those in need and in shock and for direction. I know in my heart that it is the church who should be leading the charge in relief efforts, bringing food, shelter and comfort to those in need. What is my role in that? I'm still seeking it, but I know there is one, even it is only to pray.

intelligent Debate? - A trial has been going on in PA over whether a statement about intelligent design (ID) can be read before a high-school biology class. The courts aren't really the place for this debate since it's really about academics arguing science that goes far over my head. I'm not claiming to be stupid, but the inner-workings of mitochondrial DNA and its implications on bacterial natural selection seems more like a doctoral thesis than an argument in court. I'd hate to be the jury on this one. Most scientists tend to agree, at least tacitly, in Darwinian evolution. A small percentage publicly question the model and find it lacking in ultimate explanatory power.

Here's my take: I believe the Genesis account to be true, but it's not a scientific text book. The opening words are probably the most important "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The actual scientific mechanics of the thing aren't particularly relevant in my mind. Does Darwinian evolution, if true, disprove God's existence? Hardly. Does it invalidate Genesis? No - only a strictly literal interpretation of it. Then again, I think there is plenty of other science that goes against strict literalism (see Reasons to Believe dot org.) Science, for me, only helps illuminate the mystery, power and glory of God. It will never invalidate my faith, because it can't, it can't. It is inherently incapable of understanding the supernatural - that's not what it is for. What I hope these things help demonstrate is that faith and science are not mutually exclusive, but synergistic ways of understanding our existence.

One final thought on this. ID and evolution aren't necessarily mutually exclusive philosophical ideas. ID deals more specifically with origins of life, which encompasses physics, chemistry, astronomy and biology. Evolution is a process of natural selection and mutation. It has little if any explanatory power for how life began. Life has to already exist for evolution to work. So at least on that level ID and evolution are apples and oranges. Do they overlap? Yes, but for the sake of argument, I could grant you evolution and still claim ID is at work. The media accounts I have read oversimplify and misstate the debate (at least at the academic level). I'm not surprised, though, given that a bunch of hard science PhDs are on the stands. What was that, again? F₁-F₀ ATPase enzyme?