Cryptoquote thoughts - 1

I haven't written my thoughts for quite a while but recently I began solving cryptoquotes on the Razzle Puzzle web site. Some of the quotes have triggered a mental response and I decided that I might as well write them down. This quote was from Edwin Louis Cole (9/10/1922 - 8/27/2002), a Christian evangelist type. Here's the quote: "Believing in evolution is believing in the unproved, while believing in Christ is believing in the proven." Which, of course, is exactly opposite of the real situation. Around the blogosphere people like Mr. Cole are frequently labeled as 'liars for Jesus'. If one were generous they might just say that Mr. Cole is mistaken but considering his place in the Christian community, he must certainly have been aware of the history of the Bible, especially the New Testament, and at least as knowledgeable as the average person about genetics and evolutionary theory. When he uses the word "proven" he isn't just stretching things a bit, he is making an unwarranted leap. Our actual knowledge about Jesus (i.e. Christ) is nowhere near "proven". There is a growing number of historians and biblical scholars who are convinced that there was no real person on whom the character of Jesus was based, that he and the stories about him were made up to establish an off-shoot of Judaism. An even larger group of scholars feel that there may have been an itinerant, charismatic preacher/prophet on whom the stories are based but that he was just a normal human being whose legend grew over time. In either case, there is no "proof" that Jesus existed, only vague hints that might or might not be true. There is certainly no evidence that he was the "son of God" or that he died and came back to life 3 days later and flew off to heaven. So when Mr. Cole says "believing in Christ is believing in the proven", he is flat out lying. As for the first part of the quote, evolution is about as "proved" as any scientific observation can be. It fits with every life science as well as geology and paleontology. If evolution were not true, genetic science would not work... biology would be incoherent... paleontology would be in utter disarray. But that's not the case. The vast number of links between the sciences point to the validity of evolution. To say it is "unproved" is another lie for Jesus.