20091118

I don't know if this has already been passed around and/or whether or not it's worthy of mention, but there was a group of people on campus today (CU-Boulder) passing out copies of Darwin's 'Origin of Species'. It is a '150th Anniversary Edition'.

However, upon closer inspection, it turns out that it is actually a repackaging of the 'Origin' text (abridged, of course) along with a 'Special Introduction' (50 pages of creationist propaganda).
It's just about the sneakiest attempt at evangelism I've ever seen. I certainly can't fault them for it. It really is ingenious.

A coworker came back from the cafeteria (coffee run) and showed me his copy, and said there's some guy handing them out at the UMC. So, when I saw that it was Darwin's 'Origin of Species', I walked on over there to see if I could get a copy (of course, I already have my own on the shelf at home, but it looked like a collector's item of sorts, and it couldn't hurt to have another copy around in case I ever want to hand it to one of my creationist relatives or whatever).

I didn't really pay much attention to it a the time, and set it down at my desk.

Later in the day, a different coworker (knowing I care about encouraging a scientific approach to life) noticed my copy and said, "So, you got one too, huh?"
In our discussion, he informed me that, when he was there earlier and got his copy, he asked them where they are from. They said, "Living Waters".

After browsing the book a little more closely, he looked it up online. It turns out it's actually an evangelism campaign by a group in CA.

http://www.livingwaters.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=383

Nothing to be scared of, of course; I'm not afraid of what anyone has to say.
Of course, you may already know all about it, but I thought it's just a very interesting tactic, and I thought you might be interested.

steven