The Ol' Creationism/Evolution Debate - Not As Clear-cut As You Think

I was reading another blog entry on Simply Blogical's site regarding the introduction of Creationism into the curriculum of Texas public schools.  Simply put, his stance is that it's a bad decision.  As the topic spawned a big reaction in myself, I went to comment on the post, but unfortunately (or not), I was passionate enough about it to exceed the character limits on comments.  So I will instead post my rebuttal here, which might possibly serve as another example with which to show that there are a lot of misunderstandings between people who believe one thing and those who believe another, and communication is necessary in order to get rid of these misconceptions so that we can discover real and substantial solutions to our disagreements in as peaceful of a way as possible.

After reading Simply Blogical's short post, here is my comment/argument, addressed to him:

I won't claim to have intimate knowledge of all of the scientific arguments that are said to support the theory of evolution, and I'm willing to bet that neither do you since you only make very sparse reference to them, so my critique of your post will try to focus on ideas outside of all that science.

You say: "Firstly, the “theory” of creationism is scientifically incorrect."

Although Creationism is a theory, so too is evolution.  If you look into the definitions of the words 'theory' and 'fact,' you'll see that the differences between the two are really just a matter of probability and not absolute truth or absolute falsehood.  Scientifically you can't completely disprove the possibility of something being true, you can only prove it's unlikelihood, or you can prove that something wasn't true at the time that you carried out the experiment.  Evidence found today only supports theories which become generally accepted as facts, but that doesn't discount future discoveries which may require modifications to the theory accepted today.  Essentially, you can never prove anything absolutely, but you can only fail to disprove it.  People take this simple concept of science for granted.

You say: "Genesis states that God created light 3 days before the sun and the stars."

It's funny how you first mock Creationism for taking a literal interpretation of the Bible, and then in your own argument you rely upon doing the very same thing, assuming that the Bible is literally saying the sun and stars were created three days after light.  The Bible didn't say the light created in Genesis 1:3 was light from a star - it's just light, brightness on it's own without any organization or form.  It's only when God creates the sun and stars that he organizes that light into focal points.  Compare this with someone making a cake - they don't start with the cake.  First they mix up the batter in one bowl, then finally pour the batter into the baking pan.  You can't look at these ingredients of Creation as being final until everything is put together.  As we all know, light doesn't ONLY come from stars; of course there are other sources, such as light bulbs or camp fires.  It's not too hard to imagine light coming from another source than stars until those stars were created.

You say: "The bible also states that earth was created before the stars.  This is incorrect because earth is billions of years younger than many stars."

Not all Christians accept the Genesis account as completely literal - have you ever heard of the idea of Gap Creationism?  It provides an explanation not only for the age of the Earth which fits with scientific findings as well as the difference between the 'earth' as we know it today and the 'earth' as a concept of the mass of atoms that God later formed into the earth we know today.  And don't complain that it's just a young theory slapped on to defend against the new idea of evolution - this stuff was thought about long before evolution came along.

You say: "The bible also states that the earth was created in 6 days and humans and animals in less than 1 day,"

Once again you make false claims about the Bible, as it does NOT say humans and animals were made in less than one day.  Fish and birds were made in one day, land animals on a different day, and humans again on a totally different day.  Check the facts before you make the claims.

Of course your reference to evolution stands at the root of this whole debate and branches into other issues which I shall partially address below.

You say: "students will learn to accept ideas despite the lack of any factual backing, which will handicap their intellectual ability."

That you don't even give references to where you got the information to make these claims about the Bible seriously hampers your argument's strength and believability.  Did you even actually read the Bible to verify if your assumptions about it were true, or did you just rely upon what somebody else said about it?  If you're going to demonize another group of people and their beliefs, you might as well do it in a proper way other than making false assumptions and ungrounded accusations.  At least give us the decency of throwing REAL mud at us if you can find any.  Do you even really know if Creationism is going to be taught without any kind of reference to scientific findings?  Or is that another assumption without any factual backing, which is exactly what you're saying student's shouldn't do.

Are you so trusting to give someone else the benefit of the doubt on a question as important as the origin of the whole human race, which at least in the case of Creationism gives us our purpose for existence.  To let a bunch of scientists tell me what I should believe, I'd better have a lot of trust in those scientists.  In fact, man, I should have become a scientist myself, since it sounds like they have all that power to influence people.  Obviously we have to trust other people to a certain extent, otherwise no progress would ever be made.  When it comes to certain things, I'm willing to trust science.  Hey I'm using a computer right now - it's an amazing invention of science and I'm glad for it, even if I don't know how it works.  But I'm not willing to so easily trust scientists when it comes to something as big as the origin of life and the subsequent meaning and self-worth that it gives me today.  For something that important and personal, I'm going to go with my own personal experiences which tell me that there's a lot more than what science can explain to you.

Now, regarding the theory of evolution, like I said, I'm not going to go into the science itself since I lack the knowledge, and I concede this willingly, though I don't think it invalidates any of my other points about this discussion.  Again, evolution is only a theory just as you say Creationism is.  Evolution can possibly be disproved upon future discoveries.  Like many other theories, including Atomic Theory, Cell Theory, Music Theory, the Theory of Relativity, evolution has been helpful in explaining many things that previous theories could not, and that's great!  But that doesn't mean it's the final word on everything.  I mean, before Atomic Theory we had monism and corpuscularianism before it, which for their own time were helpful in explaining scientific phenomena until even better theories were arrived upon.  Let's not be so sure that just because we live in the present and we may have progressed from the past, that the future isn't capable of progressing even from what we have right now.  Surely we haven't arrived at the pinnacle of human achievement and understanding yet, have we?

Have you ever even read Darwin's books?  He himself was raised in a Christian home and it took a long time for him to lose faith despite all of his scientific findings.  Yet he still could never completely give up the possibility of God's existence.  Darwin himself said: "In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.  I think that generally (and more and more as I grow older), but not always, that an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind."  So the man himself didn't even want to follow though with the implications of his own findings.

As to religion itself, too many people are not willing to acknowledge how much of an impact religion has on the world.  Surely something that has such a big impact should be studied in our education systems.  And if religion is as dangerous as you claim, then at least inform kids about why religion is dangerous, rather than avoiding the topic completely.  Surely an 'enemy' that is well-known is easier to defeat than a completely unknown one.  This is another example of the problem with demonizing the 'other' and refusing to carry out communication between groups just because you don't agree with them - something I keep trying to address in my own blog posts.  Check out these figures here on membership of world religions.  It seems to suggest that a third of the world's population is Christian and accepts Genesis as truth.  Then Islam too believes in a God who created everything.  That's already over half the world's population, not even talking about other religions (something for another time).  Of course there are many within these religions that don't always accept everything taught by that religion - let's not bunch everyone into the same group, which can be misleading.  This might be a good book for you to read to clear up some of your misconceptions on religion: God is not One.

Even if evolution's claims are so overwhelming and ground-breaking, why is it that so many people still refuse to accept it as true?  Why is this still so contentious of an issue?  There's a Newsweek poll conducted in 2009 (you'll notice that I'm giving you the source of my information so you can see for yourself - you don't have to accept it just because I said it) that shows almost 9 out of 10 Americans have faith in a spiritual being, and 85% say that religion is "very important" or "fairly important" in their lives.  That's a lot of people.  Now if you believe that all of these people are being influenced by dangerous ideas, maybe you ought to work a little harder to save us from our own stupidity.  And what do you say to the 84% of people in the world who still believe religion is important?  I know you say: "Many will get the idea that solely because many other people believe something, regardless of how fallacious it is, it must be true."  Of course there's always a danger in following the masses.  Seek truth for yourself, don't just do what everyone else does.  But what about people like me who do think for themselves and still find reasons to nevertheless follow religion, whether it's popular or not.  Just because it's popular doesn't mean that it's evil.  But maybe you're just one of the privileged few who are intelligent enough to resist brainwashing?  I know the feeling all too well myself, but I have completely different views from you!  So how are we to figure out what's right?  Why don't we start with communicating and actually discussing these issues rather than declaring everything you don't believe in to be a lie.  I don't think anywhere in my comment do I refute the scientific evidence for evolution, and if I appear to do so, I'm sorry for giving that impression - we can all make mistakes.  I don't even need to go into my reasons for why I believe what I do, as I've found ample evidence to refute your claims simply on the grounds that your claims rely on false information hearsay.  I will however clearly state just for the record that I choose NOT to accept evolution's premise that there is no Creator.  Everything I see in life just shows me more evidence of God's existence, even explaining why evolution is so readily accepted by some people while not even given a second thought by others.

About the issue of school curriculum - it's entirely possible to present Creationism in an unbiased manner that doesn't violate the separation of church and state.  You're taking this way out of context - teaching creationism doesn't mean people have to accept it as truth; you can teach it in an objective way as a POSSIBLE theory, just as evolution is a possible theory.  There is nothing lost in discussing contentious issues, only misunderstandings bred by avoiding them.  George Bernard Shaw said that "All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions."  It seems that you fear if Creationism is taught in schools, gullible students will be mislead into believing a 'lie.'  If our education system is not capable of teaching students to think for themselves enough to be able to resist something  so 'false,' then maybe there's something more pressingly wrong about our education system than whether it should allow discussion of different theories.  Isn't that what open-mindedness is about anyway?  Being able to freely discuss all viewpoints no matter how marginalized?  Whether or not Creationism is justifiable I would think it's still worth teaching in schools as a form of thinking that has at least significantly impacted the history of science and historical social and political events.  Especially if evolution has only risen in the last 150 years or so, while Creationism has been accepted for thousands of years.  And if Creationism can so easily be disproved, as you seem to think your four paragraphs sufficient for such a feat, then surely it's not as dangerous of an idea as you claim?  Let them teach Creationism in class, then provide the scientific evidence that destroys the believability of Creationism.  Isn't that a better way to eliminate any doubt about evolution and expose this Creationist 'lie'?

Is not our justice system based on the idea that both sides of the story must be heard in full before judgment is to be made?  Do you seriously know how scientists came up with the idea for evolution?  Read a book on it that describes the logic to it, and read a book that refutes it as well - get both sides of the story and use your brain to figure out what's going on in the debate.

As to your outrageous claims that: "The bible also states that homosexuals, fortunetellers, people who don't listen to priests, people who hit their father, non-believers, followers of other religions, people who work on the Sabbath, and many more innocent people must be killed, so why shouldn't this also be taken literally? Also, the bible commands many acts of self-sacrifice necessary in order to go to heaven after death." - I'll ask you where in the Bible it says those things?  It sounds like a lot of assumption to me.  There were situations where people of those groups were killed at God's command, but it wasn't simply because they weren't Christian.  The situations were far more complicated than simple killing of the 'other.'  Besides that was in the old days, over two thousand years ago, and God has changed things.  The separation of the Old and New Testaments shows this change.  This is another big issue, but I've already written a nice long paper for you and I have other things to do, but I'll point out one easy hole in this statement of yours: Jesus himself worked on the Sabbath, supposedly 'breaking' God's rule.  There's much more at play here than silly rule-following; God's not some old guy who gets cranky and kills you because you didn't do exactly the letter of the law - who would want to follow such a dictator?  I wouldn't.  Matthew 12:1-13 shows clearly the real meaning behind the Sabbath.  Then there's a simple remedy for this silly idea that Christians should kill anyone non-Christian: in Matthew 5:43 Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you."  That sounds like Jesus gave His followers a mandate to love people, rather than kill them.  Just because people in the past have done horrible things while claimed to follow the teachings of Jesus, doesn't mean they were accurately following the teaching.  People can be gullible and misunderstand things, or yes, they can accept what someone else says without verifying for themselves whether it's true or not.

Now, what are these self-sacrifices you mention?  And are you assuming that self-sacrifice is a bad thing?  As far as what the Bible says about going to Heaven (something that happens if you are 'saved'): Ephesians 2:8-9  says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."  So it's not through self-sacrifice or any kind of works, but by simple belief in who Jesus is and what He did for the world that gets you in to Heaven.  That sounds a lot easier than following a bunch of rules and killing people.  If you care to double check that what I'm saying isn't just false information used to my own gain, browse online and you'll find plenty of sites that clarify these issues.  The question is, do you really care to find out the truth of what Christianity is about, or is it easier to just assume?

In the end, it's not all these little details about evolution that really affect my belief, but the implications of it all - that God created the universe and everything in it.  Perhaps this isn't too different from you not knowing all the little details of the theory of evolution, but you're willing to accept the premise that we all evolved from some common ancestor which somehow came out of nothing.  Seems both of these ideas require faith in order to be accepted.  So what's the difference between these ideas?  Maybe I'm just crazy and brainwashed, and everything I believe is wrong.  But why are we even discussing this topic if life's all about survival of the fittest and passing on stronger genes to our offspring?  A random thought: why do people love to eat unhealthy foods in excess like chocolate or ice cream if it's bad for their body?  Isn't a silly example like that a case where humans aren't doing something that's in their best interest for survival?  All of these issues are a lot more complex than you think, and they deserve further question and research before you make claims about them.  Even though your arguments were poorly constructed, reading your post wasn't intellectually harmful whatsoever like you claim discussion of Creationism in schools might be; I was able to argue against what you claim because of other knowledge that I have.  Can't we trust kids to do the same if taught about Creationism?  Or do we believe that education is actually just brainwashing and makes people accept exactly what they are told without questioning its validity?  Diversity and opposition help shape and strengthen your own beliefs, so we shouldn't be afraid of constructive confrontation.  Again, I'm not trying to attack you personally or have any hatred towards you as a person, but when you make these strong claims and false accusations about my beliefs, whether directed at me individually or at the group I identify with as a whole, I have to stand up and defend myself and my beliefs.  My goal is truth, so I hope my rebuttals were grounded in logic and evidence rather than hearsay, emotion, or assumption.  If, as you claim on your 'About Me' section, challenging your beliefs is a 'favor,' I challenge them with the above arguments, and I'm completely open to criticism of them.