Maybe it’s just PR trickery, the sort of thing one might expect from a church that boasts about having “a sympathetic approach to contemporary culture,” but the Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor sure has a nice bumper sticker. It’s nice to see Christians who are so openly down with Darwin (usually the phrase “down with Darwin” means something entirely different in a religious context).
They sponsor something called “Camp Creation,” which seems like the kind of thing that would raise all sorts of red flags to nonbelievers, but turns out to be an artsy-craftsy summer camp where kids focus on creating things. And something they call “Jesus Brand Spirituality®” (yes, including the “®” symbol) turns out to be fairly innocuous.
All in all, they seem like a nice bunch of folks — for believers, that is. I’m sure there’s much to criticize (they do believe in a magical sky-wizard — I mean, these aren’t UUs we’re talking about here), and I’m sure someone like PZ Myers would be willing to go out of his way to do so, but my gut feeling is that religious folks and institutions that are friendly to evolution are rare enough that we should try to meet them halfway (or at least, a couple baby steps in their direction).
(via Reddit)
Posted by izaakmak on March 17, 2010 at 8:53 pm
I wholeheartedly agree. The fact is that some of the nicest people I’ve met were also religious. But it’s also a fact the 99% of the people I’ve known were religious. So it just stands to reason that, having met so few people who AREN’T religious, most of the nice ones would’ve been.
But I try very hard to never forget that there’s a potential crusader or jihadist inside every last one of them. It’s not that atheists never go nuts and take out a bunch of innocents. It’s just FAR more likely to be someone who’s religious. And the tally of innocent victims is likely to FAR higher!
Posted by Blotz on March 19, 2010 at 8:24 am
“NOOO!!! Darwin Fish! Kissing the Jesus Fish will give you super God Cooties!”
Posted by Sunday Sermon: Before Tim, there was him « Atheist Etiquette on March 21, 2010 at 8:49 pm
[…] RSS « Down with Darwin (in the good way) […]
Posted by bobloblawlawblog on June 10, 2011 at 10:53 am
this is quite cool. thanks for posting…we could all use more religious people like them.