Creation / Evolution Battle Resumes
January 5, 2008 4 Comments
Here is an article discussing how the battle between Creationists and Evolutionists are picking back up in 2008. Let me know what you think.
This is a foundational battle. If evolutionists are ever able to prove that life could have been formed purely by “chance” then that will be the day they can claim God is not necessary. Until then, though, they are only able to get around the necessity of God by choosing to ignore the facts.
The evolutionists current tactics include indoctrinating children through the public school systems. They do this by being able to control what is taught and by controlling the content of the textbooks. They are very successful at this time. It is our job a Christians to refute their claims and to work to get creationism (or at least intelligent design) also taught in schools. It is our goal to get both theories taught. Once that is done and students are able to compare and contrast the two, most will choose creationism. That is why evolutionist fight so hard to keep it out of schools.
Evolutionists claim that evolution is science and that creationism if religion but it is my contention that both are religions. Do you agree? As such, both should be allowed to be taught in the public schools or both should be barred.
Where do you stand? Do yo believe in man’s flawed observations and understandings or do you believe the Creator of the universe? How you answer that question will tell a lot about you and your world view.
The Everyday Christian 
Tom, why do you suppose that some men’s decisions about which precise texts (of the many texts and traditions of diverse religions) and which precise interpretations (out of the many different views of scripture held by sincere Christians), represent the real views of the Creator of the universe, are less flawed than the research of thousands of scientists on five continents? Are men’s opinions more reliable when they insist that their reasonings are not corrupted by reliance on reasoning and evidence?
Now, strictly speaking, evolution concerns what happens to life once it exists, not the origin of life from nonliving matter, but put that aside: how would showing that such a thing could happen through natural laws show that God is not necessary? After all, the Bible states that God created each of us in his mother’s womb; does, therefore, naturalistic embryology show that God is not necessary? The Bible says that God sends the rain on the just and the unjust; does meteorology therefore imply, by ascribing rain to predictable natural causes, that God is unnecessary?
Conversely, if it cannot be shown how life could originate through known natural processes, how does this show that God is necessary? This is the very epitome of the “god of the gaps” argument: stuff the Creator of the universe into any gaps in the current explanatory power of science, and ignore the possibility that the unknown cause just might not be supernatural and omnipotent.
Creationism and intelligent design amount to nothing except flawed arguments (misstatements of fact and egregious logical fallacies) against evolution. It is not “indoctrination” to insist that schoolchildren not be told lies merely because those lies are thought to bolster the religious beliefs of their parents. And it seems rather specious to suggest, as the AiG article does, that evolutionists, if they feel confident in their theories, ought to welcome the chance to waste their times rebutting the falsehoods that creationists want to introduce into the curriculum.
There is also a certain incongruity in the assumption that schoolchildren, whom you presumably would not trust with a decision even on whether or not to go to school, and whom you would not wish to see exposed to “both sides” of, e.g. the abstinence/birth control debate, are somehow wise enough to decide for themselves, when presented with a mixture of scientific fact and pseudoscientific drivel, to decide for themselves which is which and to weigh the evidence correctly. You might wish to consider whether this represents an inconsistency or lapse of logic on your part.
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Steven J said
Thank you for pointing out an inconsistency I have had. You are correct and I should have been more careful with my position. I will correct that in the future. Having said that I think that if one side is taught then both sides should be taught and that parents should get involved and teach their values to their children. Having both sides taught gives the parents a great teaching moment with their kids.
Steven J said
The research was done by flawed men with limited ability to understand the data. The texts were given by the actual Creator, the One who knows what He did and why. Now, who would you suggest we follow….men with flawed, limited abilities or the One with the power to actually create?
Steven J said
You are correct if you only look at the modern definition of evolution which seeks to redefine the term to something similar to specization or changes within species. But this is not what Darwin originally taught. Unless my memory is incorrect, he taught that evolution could explain the origin of life. You cannot simple set that aside….that is the crux of the entire debate.
Steven J said
It does not strictly show that God is necessary but it does show that something must be the creator….this is the basic intelligent design position. Christians believe that the creator is actually God. Evolutionists would say the creator was chance.
Creationism is not a “god of the gaps” argument. It precedes science. Science is trying to discover what God has done. So the “god of the gaps” argument has it backwards….it seeks to start with science and fill in the unknown with God but Creationism starts with God and what he has done and waits for science to discover the details of the creation.
You sound very knowledgeable in this area. Are you a scientist? What is your field?
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It is simply a matter of relying on the evidence vs. relying on what one chooses to believe in spite of the overwhelming evidence. Recognizing the validity of evolution does the former, holding to Creationism the latter. It is a huge step backward in terms of human knowledge, a kind of intentional ignorance.
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Hokku,
I agree that we should rely on the evidence. Can you tell me what evidence we have that points to evolution?
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