Playing By the Rules

The purpose of this book is to help high school and college students gain a clearer understanding of the distinction between the study of natural science and the study of religion. The world of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has witnessed great debate over the relationship between these two topics as the techniques of modern natural science have brought to light new knowledge that has changed our understanding of ancient history. By the label "ancient history" I refer to what is sometimes called "pre-history," that is, the story of the events on Earth (and in the larger universe) prior to the written records of humans. These events include the formation of the planet Earth and the development of life upon Earth, especially the development and growth of human life on Earth. Although in one technical sense you cannot have "history" until you have written records, it is still common to use the term "history" in a looser sense to refer to the events prior to the invention of writing, and to also use the term to refer to the events on Earth prior to the time that most scholars envision humans operating on Earth, such as the age of the dinosaurs.