Science + Christianity T-shirt Idea

Thanks to ‘s reaction to my regular “Churchylizing” away message for Sunday mornings, the following t-shirt idea popped into my head. However, I’m not sure on the proper way to art it up, since I haven’t taken chemistry in 7 years.

First, we have a quotation from John 1 “In the beginning was the Word”; then we have a simple molecular diagram of an amino acid, H2NCHRCOOH, but with the R group replaced with the text (probably in a cheesy overwrought gothic font) “Jesus”.

I’m trying to decide whether to do an L or R molecule… I think it would look better for the R group text to be flowing to the right, at the top of the molecule (so the carboxyl group would be pointing left, and the amine group would be at the bottom right).

So, is the joke funny at all? I find it amusing, but I wonder if it’s just stupid, or if too many people won’t get it, or think it blasphemous or something. The point is to get across the idea that you can believe in a creator god but also accept the scientific explanation for the origins of life on Earth.

Melancholy Man” from Question Of Balance by The Moody Blues


Comments

14 responses to “Science + Christianity T-shirt Idea”

  1. Sounds like a variation on the “And God said, let there be (Maxwell’s Equations)” T-shirt.

  2. When you see a fish with the word EVOLVE in it on the back of someone’s car, do you assume they are Christian? Because I don’t. I assume that they are sufficiently familiar with Christianity to parody it, but not that they are necessarily Christian.

  3. When I see a darwin fish or a fish with legs (any of those variations), I assume that it is someone who is frustrated with the way some Christians react to science, and while they may have been raised Christian, they are probably not practicing anymore.

    For whatever reason, I’m not one for a jesus fish or even wearing a cross around my neck. I’d much rather just actively tell people I’m Lutheran, and explain the whys and hows, than to have some visible symbol that they might misinterpret.

  4. Oh, right! I had forgotten about that, but I suspect you are correct in that that design was lurking in the back of my mind.

    I wonder what the stats are on wearers of that shirt… are they mostly science people using an often-paraphrased Bible verse that has entered the cultural mainstream, or are the mostly Judeo-Christians who like physics?

  5. Since Jesus had nothing to do with the creation of life, shouldn’t you put “God” instead of “Jesus” there? I find that funnier.

  6. Uh, I think you just missed the point.

  7. Never seen that one.

  8. There’s a thing about how that word was Jesus, I think. (People who are actually well-informed Christians, please do not kill me when you correct me if I’m wrong.)

  9. Yeah, but then I have to come up with a line other than one involving The Word (Jesus).

  10. I don’t quite get the joke. It seems like you’re taking the theological position that amino acids were an act of special creation, or something like that.

  11. It’s amusing. However, I don’t think this shirt does a very good job of conveying the “scientific explanation for the origins of life on Earth” part of your point. You will find very few Christians, including intelligent design folks and probably even young earth creationists, who will deny the existence of DNA.

  12. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made … The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”

    John 1:1-5, 14a

  13. It might be a little clearer exactly what you mean (although it becomes less defiantly Christian) to make the Word “LOGOS” rather than “JESUS”. (For one thing, it’s arguable whether the human name Jesus rightly applies to the Word before his Incarnation.)

  14. I like that shirt better.

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