Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Family Day came and went, I spent time with my family. What a compliant Albertan I am. I just hope the next statutory holiday isn't something like "Pit Bull Day."

On that topic (not Family Day, but being Albertan), I got a call yesterday from Ipsos Reid wanting to do a survey. Worst...survey...ever. Generally, I'm the kind of strange person who actually enjoys taking part in phone surveys. Who doesn't want to be a part of the 63% of Canadians who think such-and-such? It's a feeling of power, I tell you--power. *Ahem.*

That said, this survey was awful. First off, I wasn't really in the mood to take one, but, being the nice guy that I am, I didn't want to just hang up the phone on the poor guy outright (note to self: hang up the phone outright next time, regardless of the hit to the telemarketer's self-esteem--hey, if he has issues, telemarketing probably isn't the profession for him, and if I can play a role in his voyage of self-discovery, then so be it). What to do? Look for an opening, that's what. I had mine within the initial ramble (which was barely comprehensible thanks to this guy's accent and inability to read from his sheet properly--it was ugly, let me tell you). The line was, "We're taking a survey to discover the opinions of Albertans on various matters."

"Ah ha," thought I, and quickly replied with, "Well, actually, I'm not really an Albertan, I'm just transplanted temporarily, so I'm not sure I'd be of much help."

His response? "Yes sir, I understand, but we're taking a survey to discover the opinions of Albertans on various matters."

Uh, wait a minute--didn't we just go over this? I felt like Bill Murray waking up to the same radio show, except it just happened seconds before. I was stunned, and while I was busy considering the ramifications of being caught in some kind of alternate universe wrinkle in the space-time continuum, he moved right on. Opportunity lost.

What was the survey about? Glad you asked. It was wide-ranging, actually, and you could tell it had been commissioned by some right-wing group based on the nature of the questions. The first topic: Telus' plan to offer downloadable "adult content" to their internet-enabled cell phones. Just what I need to see when I'm sitting on a bus or standing in line, right? Anyway, the question he asked me was, "Why do you think this is a bad idea?" Uh, you know, if you want the sort of unbiased answers that actually matter, it's probably best not to lead the respondant.

Next topic: liquor. Apparently there's talk in Alberta of allowing grocery stores to sell liquor within the store (currently, they can sell liquor in a separate store on their property; thus every larger grocery store has a liquor store across the parking lot). Somehow I'm not surprised about that, but I digress. The question: "On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you think selling liquor in grocery stores will lead to increased social problems like underage drinking and family violence?" I wanted to launch into something like, "That's a difficult question to answer, given the confluence of factors that contribute to social ills such as the ones you've just mentioned. I think it's difficult to isolate any one factor as being the cause of such things, and, although I'm sure the wider availability of things like liquor will increase the opportunity for those problems to crop up, what we need in society is to control the external factors that motivate people to drink when they're underage or beat up their wife when they have one too many." I knew, however, that a response like that would draw a scripted response from this particular guy (if he could even understand what I was saying), so I gave him a seven, which is probably what the sponsor of the survey wanted to hear. Hey, I've got no problem playing into predetermined stereotypes. Bring it on.

The last category was way out in left field: "How do you feel about the amount of information on your electricity bill?" No kidding. The first question, of course, is to weed out those who don't see the bill: "Do you receive an electricity bill at your place of residence which you are responsible for paying?" Well, yes, I do, but it's not your standard electricity bill because it's issued by my school as part of what I pay for my pad rental.

At this point, the interview started to sound something like a Seinfeld episode. He asked me to tell him how often I looked at various parts of the bill, such as amount due (uh, always), due date (yup, always again) and such things. One of the things was the graph showing this month's usage compared to last month's. Unfortunately, the bill I receive doesn't have that information. So I told him that. Nothing. He repeated the question. I clarified: "My bill doesn't have that information on it, so the question probably doesn't apply to me. He asked, "So, would that be never?"

"Well, no, it's not 'never' because I always look at that portion if I have it, it's just that I don't have it. If I did, I'd be happy to look at it, but I don't, so I can't. If you enter my answer as 'never' it falsely represents my actual habits, which, as far as I knew, was the whole point of your survey!"

Actually, what I said was, "Sure." Pearls before swine, and all that.

I've learned my lesson from this whole experience: don't answer the phone.

I know I gave it a thorough treatment yesterday, but I just can't resist one more thing from the weekend conference, then I'll leave it alone. In fact, it's one of those really important things that I'd never thought of before, but makes all sorts of sense.

Here it is: many Christians think that they can allow for an old earth because what if the "days" in Genesis 1 don't mean literal days? We've been so indoctrinated that we've actually conformed our views of Scripture to the "evidence" presented by the scientific community, and we're okay with it. Well, I mentioned yesterday that there's a compelling grammatical reason in the Hebrew; that's not my point tonight. My point is something much more subtle. It is literally quite impossible to allow for the "millions of years" thing if you believe in the Bible.

Why? Good question. In Genesis 3, man falls into sin--we all know that story. Part of the resulting curse is death--spiritual and physical. Adam was immortal before sin because there was no death on earth. Even among animals. I don't have my Bible with me, so you're going to have to look up the references, but in Genesis 1, God tells Adam that He has given him every green plant for food--this applied to the animals as well. In fact, the first death of any living creature recorded in the Bible is when God makes coverings of hide for Adam and Eve. Okay, the Bible doesn't say that the animal died, but how else do you get hide, right?

Here's the thing: death did not exist until sin, period. Romans 5 says that death entered the world through one man, Adam. What we don't consider is that this applies to animals and humans equally. Thus, there was no carnivorous activity before the fall. With me so far?

The fall into sin corrupted everything, and now creation is groaning for its restoration as in childbirth. When Adam fell, animals who once peacefully coexisted suddenly became enemies and hunted each other. They killed because sin corrupted them.

Does this all sound too weird? Am I reading a lot into the text that's not there. Not really. Death did not exist until the fall (to reiterate that point, because it's major). We can't assume that only human death didn't exist--it was an unknown entity to all.

It comes down to this: if we believe that millions of years passed between the creation of dinosaurs and the creation of man, what we have is man being created into a world that already had death. If we believe that the dinosaur fossil record predates man, the fall really didn't mean anything at all because death was already a part of the world. It would mean that God created the world as a brutal place bathed in blood and death. And that's just not true. God created paradise (and will one day restore that paradise, where the lion will lie down with the lamb, etc); man corrupted it.

If we believe that man entered a world that was rampant with death already, what's the big deal about the fall? I mean, if man was just going to die or get eaten by dinosaurs, who cares if you eat the fruit, right? And if the fall didn't introduce death into the world, then what's the point of the second Adam who broke the power and hold of death on earth? He wouldn't be needed. And so the whole basis of the Christian faith crumbles because the foundation is destroyed.

Before this weekend, I didn't know what to think about creation. Now I know that--and this is a strong statement, so I'm sorry if you take offence--young earth creationism is the only tenable position for a Christian to hold in light of all the other theological considerations wrapped up in it. If you disagree, why? Let me know via comments.

Okay, I'm really going to leave that alone. No wait, I can't promise that: we're going to Drumheller to the Royal Tyrell museum tomorrow, the home of evolutionist indoctrination. Oh well, should be a nice counterpoint to the weekend. And hey, if I've learned anything, it's to think critically about the claims made by evolution scientists, so I'm ready to not just accept things face value. And that's never bad.

Full report tomorrow. For now, it's bedtime. See you soon.