Warning: some of you regular posters are about to get roasted just a bit. I give (mostly half-hearted and largely insincere) apologies in advance, but you are about to have words put into your mouth. I did something similar to this on the ASA list serve many years ago and remember having a lot of fun with it. Hopefully you all take it in the vein intended –with a good hearty laugh at ourselves. I expect I may be roasted in turn –and if it stings a bit, I’ll soundly deserve it I’m sure. To the many of you who are regulars that I left out below, I’m sorry. I just started with those who made themselves the easiest targets first. Feel free to add, and if I get into trouble –complete with moderators storming onto the scene for damage control, I’ll understand.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Evolutionary creationist:
There is a perfectly reasonable natural explanation for it. It no doubt evolved to prefer crossing roads and achieved a greater reproductive success over non-road crossing chickens. So now genetics can explain why it is crossing the road. Oh – and God makes it all happen.
Old Earther / Concordist:
We think the fifth day is the key to understanding this. God created birds of the air, and it was commanded that birds should “multiply on the earth”. Now, chickens can’t fly – so if they are going to multiply, there must inevitably be some road-crossing involved.
I.D. enthusiast:
This situation could not arise naturally. The road is a sure sign that something monkeyed around with the whole scenario, so that there would even be a road for the chicken to cross.
YEC:
Chickens were designed by God to commute wherever they need to go – especially if great need arises; and they have done this before … two-by-two, in fact. Are you sure it was alone?
anti-theistic materialist:
If the chicken’s road crossing involved anything nefarious or evil, we can be sure religion was behind it. Especially the theistic religions … well okay, I’ll just come out and say it: Christianity is almost certainly the culprit. But whatever superstitious religion is behind this, Science has the best chance of getting to the bottom of the matter.
Trump:
Until we secure our road ways from these invaders we can never have a secure nation. I will build a wall and there will be no more chickens crossing roads and threatening our nation. We’re gonna shut them down!
Bernie:
Why do only 1% of all chickens ever get this opportunity? There is a deep inequity here people, and until we reign in corporate greed and bring these same privileges to all chickens, we will always have systemic problems.
J. Burke:
It didn’t.
BeagleLady:
There’s a great Harvard Physics department article about it here.
GBrooks:
You really think that a chickens CROSS ROADS!!! Show me some EVIDENCE of this. There is NOTHING in the old testament that mentions ANYTHING about this. I’m just not seeing where you all can get that.
Eddie:
Where did you get the premise that there is any deliberation on the chicken’s part about this action? I can accept that there is an ontological necessity for a historical context in which, according to Aquinas…
… and half a dozen paragraphs later …
… which is why one shouldn’t prematurely exclude plausible, even well-warranted conclusions about the chicken’s road-crossing propensity.
R. Sawtelle:
Because of Greek influence, people have adopted a mistaken dualistic view of the chicken. But a chicken is much more than just feet and feathers. A chicken is also mind. And as such we see in the chicken a triune reflection of all of creation and finally of God’s self. The chicken, like God, is relational. Unless we rethink our modern philosophy, jettisoning its dualist foundations and see it in its triune context as I spell out in my book, we will never really understand why the chicken is crossing the road.
J. Garvey:
No chickens cross any roads at all apart from God’s complete sovereignty over every aspect of the situation. I can’t understand those who keep insisting on all this avian “autonomy” whatever that could possibly be. The great thinkers and church fathers of old have written clearly about this, and we can be sure that if any chicken crosses any road, then each and every crossing is part of God’s plan.
Christy H.:
Chicken dialects are very tricky. Is this a Cornish Hen? Rhode Island Red? White Leghorn? Some of the predicate phrases are conjugated very differently, and until we have studied this chicken’s language and have some cultural context in which to ground our translation, we can’t do more than speculate about its motivations.
Prof. Mom.:
This is a great field trip opportunity for home schoolers! And we can share resources about it with each other here; in fact it would be good to help plan. If anybody knows when and where the next chicken-road-crossing is scheduled, please post it for all of us. And if you have experience with home school groups who are not as open to all interpretations about the chicken phenomenon, let us know how you coped in your situation. If Biologos could share and host more resources over this, we would all benefit!
Deb Haarsma:
We here at Biologos realize that there are many different approaches to explaining why the chicken crossed the road, and we think that open and respectful conversation is important between all parties even when they strongly disagree with each other about the chicken and its actions. It is also important to remember that we should not question the Christian integrity of those who have sincerely arrived at different conclusions in this matter. But we do think it important to attend to everything that consensus science has to offer that may help explain the situation. And we see no reason why what we learn about the crossing chicken should be seen as threatening in any way to the authority of scriptures as we strive to properly understand both the chicken and God’s revealed word.
. It seems I do not see road crossing in chickens as frequently as in years past. Perhaps encounters with mechanized vehicles have limited the reproductive efficiency of those fowl that process the wandering gene.
