Or, why creationists bug the ever-loving *snot* out of me (I try to avoid swears).
The world is amazing and fascinating and wonderful and terrifying and silly and awe-inspiring. I think anyone who isn’t at least occasionally in awe of the everyday miracles around us is seriously missing out.
And science is our primary tool for figuring out how the whole amazing, intricate world is put together and works. So part of my issue is just a distaste for people who badmouth science when they don’t like what it’s saying. But there are some other issues I have with creationists.
First, let’s define a few terms. When I talk about “creationists”, I am referring only to those who believe that their faith’s creation myth is (more or less) literally true, and/or that a Creator, well, basically magic’ed the world and everything on it into existence. No evolution, no stellar or planetary formation, no Big Bang, just Goddidit. I may also mention intelligent design, and…usually, when I talk about intelligent design, I only mean what I tend to call “strong” intelligent design. That is, the belief that not only was there a Creator who guided the Big Bang, evolution, and all that (that, by itself, is what I call “weak” intelligent design, and is a view that I and many other science-accepting theists hold), but that said Creator was an absolutely necessary component for basically every step, or at least every step leading to an outcome that they care about (usually humans, for the most part)–that is, that the world as it is could *not* have existed without a Creator.
I believe in God, but I do not insist that anyone else do so, and I *certainly* don’t insist that the amazing world we live in could only possibly have come into existence through divine intervention.
What creationists say about the world
Creationists lie. Like, a lot. Not always intentionally, I think most “rank and file” creationists are merely spreading lies they learned in places like “Answers in Genesis” or whatever, but at least in this modern age, you essentially can’t be a creationist without either saying “I don’t know” a lot, or saying a lot of things that are not only provably false, but in most cases *easily* proven false.
So that means that not only are they deliberately blind to a lot of the world around us, but they’re trying to get others to be so as well. And that seriously chaps my hide.
Even some proponents of intelligent design feel the need to lie about the evolutionary history of things, in order to imply that complex structures like eyes or bacterial flagella couldn’t have evolved “gradually”.
What creationists say about non-creationists
I have frequently seen creationists claim that “evolutionists” (which is… as silly as claiming that I’m a “gravitationalist” or “germ theorist”, but whatevs) are ignorant, or buying into a conspiracy, or *creating* said conspiracy, or the like. I’ve also seen occasional claims that we’re all atheists (we’re not), or anti-Christian (again, not), or “just want to deny God” (ditto), or framing belief in evolution as a religion (which… it’s not…). Again, lots of lies, or at least untruths. Lots of willful ignorance.
And every moment science types feel like they have to spend fighting against these kinds of baseless accusations is a moment they’re *not* spending either learning more about that world, or sharing more of that actual knowledge with those around them. I have spent more time recently than I probably should arguing with the creationists in the comments of this video. And while I’m not saying I definitely would have spent the time I was doing that, say, researching and writing another article for this blog, I also can’t definitely say that I *wouldn’t* have.
What creationists say about God
Creationists seem to think that God can, in essence, fit between the pages of a book. Not just *any* book, of course, *their* book. That God, and Her creation, (I tend to alternate pronouns for God, as He doesn’t exactly have genitals, and I’m not overly fond of singular “they” on aesthetic grounds) could not possibly be more amazing and complex than they, personally, can understand. And I think that shows, at *best*, a lack of imagination.
As one of my favorite songs puts it, “Humans wrote the Bible, God wrote the world”. An honest look at the world around us leads you to… one of two conclusions, as I see it:
- Evolution or something very much like it, whether divinely guided or not, happened.
- Evolution didn’t happen, but someone or something tried very, very, very hard to make it look like evolution happened.
If the true answer is 1, then no problems there with God, as long as you’re willing to treat your faith’s creation story as an allegory or whatever instead of as literal fact. But if the answer is 2, then there is a limited spectrum of options.
A. God wants us to believe that evolution is true–in which case, weird, but you’re still not “defying God” by rejecting creationism.
B. God made it look that way, but wants us to reject that false appearance in favor of the underlying reality–in which case She is being a massive jerk. What kind of being worthy of worship, or even just simple acknowledgement, would lie to you, then punish you for believing the lie?
C. Someone or something other than God made it look that way–in which case either He could have stopped it but didn’t (which kind of leads to A or B by proxy), or said Someone or Something is stronger and more powerful than Her, in which case… um… that would make God very decidedly *not* omnipotent.
So, either God wants us to accept evolution (or, at least is absolutely fine with us doing so), or He is rather cruelly jerking us around, or She isn’t actually all that powerful. I know which of those best matches the infinite, loving Deity I believe in.
Any questions? Any counterarguments? Any other thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment, and I’ll do my best to respond intelligently.
Science is Really Weird 
4 responses to “Creationism: a rant”
Very good rant! It is enough to earn yourself a follower.
It is almost hopeless arguing with creationists who are as ingrained as you mentioned. They are so set in denying anything that doesn’t come from their own holy book that they will never listen to arguments. They can’t. They’re mind, trained as it is, will not allow them to do so.
As you said, it is an activity that is better left off and for us to gain that time for more meaningful pursuits. Eventually we will win and change the world. It is a matter of time and vigilance. The purveying sense of creationist dogma will fade into the ephemera. We may not see it in our time but at least we’ll know we’re setting people on the right path.
Until then, we can be annoyed and rant. But progress will be made.
I’ve written an article on my own blog that you may enjoy. It pertains to the theme of your own. I’d appreciate any comments you choose to leave, as well.
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The only problems I see with *not* confronting the creationists are roughly as follows:
1. They’re not all hopeless. Some of them are just legitimately, for realsies ignorant. Especially the younger ones, who maybe grew up with bible-thumper parents who homeschooled them or sent them to a religious school, and thus never let them be exposed to the actual facts. So if people like that never see their beliefs challenged, and especially never see them challenged in a relatively respectful and informative way (rather than just someone calling them morons or whatever), they’ll… never learn differently, or at least will take a *very* long time to do so.
2. If you don’t present your side, then “neutrals” will never see it. If one side has arguments that at least seem persuasive on a basic, surface level, and the other side doesn’t say anything, then people who legitimately are trying to make up their minds (eg kids who got bad or no science education, but also didn’t get a lot of religious indoctrination) may decide those arguments are correct. Now, I agree that past the first maybe 2 exchanges, it’s fine to just say “I refuse to play chess with pigeons; peace out.” But if someone doesn’t at least *try* to present the facts, to at least some token degree, the creationist idjits might “win” in those kinds of cases.
But, yeah. For your own sanity, if nothing else, at a certain point you need to just say “Nope. I am not your personal tutor, the information is out there, it’s up to you to actually look at it.”
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I agree wholeheartedly. It is only the hardheaded dogmatists that I find are hopeless to persuasion. If someone is genuinely curious or confused I could not think of a better thing to do than to help them out of that confusion. Teaching, answering questions, is part of the core of being a scientist; it is enjoyable to persuade.
It is always worth presenting your side. Dawkins does it, and look how much he continuously hears nonsense about it. But he does it. It’s worthwhile to follow that example, yes. You are right, we have to make it known that we are the more logical, reasonable side, and that questioning is not a bad thing.
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Nice blog! You told me about it last night when you were getting your foot looked at. How are you feeling? We share a lot of the same thoughts about things and I’d love to contact you by email sometime and chat about them and a whole heap of other things if you’d like.
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