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Throughout these pages I will be adding commentary to the letters and columns by other authors.  My commentary will be in [ bracketed red text ].

Editor:

I've been following with great interest the evolution/creation debate taking place on this page. Until now I've not felt compelled to jump in, but the letter by Dale Morejon (April 8) demands a response from a pastor, which I am. Mr Morejon made the following statement: "Additionally, most theists believe in evolution. Lutherans, Baptist Catholics, Jews, Unitarians, Episcopalians, Methodists, Hindos, Buddhists... none have problems with evolution."

The arrogance and ignorance displayed by supposedly educated people who declare evolution to be a fact of science is appalling enough. [ It is arrogance and ignorance to "declare evolution to be a fact" ...?  What this displays is Rev. Achilles' ignorance of what 'evolution' is, and what the facts are, not vice versa.]   It is not a fact, nor can it ever be declared a fact by honest scientists [ Inference: any scientist who declares evolution to be a fact is dishonest.], because evolution from one species to another is neither observable [ Wrong! Here's one list of observed speciation events, and here's a second ],  nor repeatable [ Wrong again!  Both of the lists I provided above contain some speciation events which occured in laboratories, therefore they should be/are repeatable ] - both of which would be necessary to establish it as fact. [ Given the above, will Rev. Achilles now admit that evolution is an observed fact?  Somehow I doubt it.]  For this reason alone, even if the multitude of other contradictions [ Gotta love those vague references...  What "multitude of other contradictions" does Rev. Achilles speak of?  I don't know either.] did not exist, evolution would always have to be declared a theory, a working theory, perhaps, but never [ 'never' is a long time.] a proven fact.

This same arrogance is evident in the statement from Morejon's letter, quoted above. Though many theists do believe in evolution, most true Christians [ Inference: Any so-called "christian" who believes in evolution is not a "true" christian.  cf. false dichotomy.] do not.  Lutherans, Catholics, Jews, Episcopalians, and Methodists (as named by Morejon) are a mixture of believers and unbelievers, divided in direct proportion to their respect for the Bible [ By "respect for the Bible" I infer that Rev. Achilles means "acceptance of a literalist interpretation of the Bible" ]. Unitarians, Hindus, and Buddhists make no claim to believe the Bible [ Unitarians have no 'creed'.  An individual Unitarian may "believe in the Bible" or not.  I find it unlikely however, that a Unitarian would accept a literalist interpretation of the Bible.  As far as Hindus and Buddhists, Rev. Achilles is obviously conflating 'theist' with 'fundamentalist' or some other closely related word ] and are likely to believe most anything regarding this debate.

Baptists, however, as a body, are overwhemlingly committed to the literal truths of Scripture, which totally contradict the theory of evolution [ This is interesting... I was raised a Baptist.  I attended an American Baptist church for many years.  I was never told that the scripture had to be interpreted in a literalist manner by my Pastor, or by any of my Sunday School teachers. ]. Though not mentioned by Morejon, most Pentecostal, charismatic and independent churches, along with many others in the evangelical dommunity, also completely reject evolution [ Rev. Achilles is listing off fundamentalist and evangelical denominations.  Ticking them off one by one like this, and then tossing in "independent churches" and "many others" makes the "community" of which he speaks sound larger than it is.  The size of the "community" is irrelevant anyway, and is argumentum ad numeram ]. And while there are a few [ I think the editor must have taken out "misguided souls" here... I'm sure Rev. Achilles meant to say that ] in these groups who do hold to evolution, they are very much in the minority [ More argumentum ad numeram ], reflecting a liberalism [ Oooh, the "L" word... that's a bad thing, right? ]  most often found in the more mainline denominations [ And remember, they're not true christians ].  For Morejon to lump all these into his one categopry of "theists" betrays a very great ignorance [ On the contrary, to lump these all together is correct, with the exception of Buddhists, who do not believe in a deity ], not to mention bias [ How is this biased? ]. If his scientific research is no better than his religious research, it's no wonder he's placed his faith in evolution. [ I'd say Morejon is pretty spot-on in both categories ]

I pray the young people in his classes will hold his feet to the fire when he makes such outlandish claims. And I pray that professing Christains of all denominations will recognize what even the true evolutionist recognize - that evolution and the Bible cannot be harmonized [ More false dichotomy  ]. Don't be taken in by "science falsely so-called" (1 Timothy 6:20).

I do not with to be personally unkind to Mr. Morejon, but the presentation of his opinions as fact cannot be left unchallenged.