The problem with debates on this subject

The problem that arises when a debate involves both matters of religious belief *and* objective evidence is that the religious belief provides a degree of evidentiary proof for the believer which is not evidence *at all* to those who do not have the same belief. This is why both sides will talk around each other so often. The religiously founded evidence is ultimately founded in the believer’s personal religious experience. It has the same evidentiary value as a direct eyewitness account from someone they trust implicitly.

Given the choice between two possible alternative views, the believer will always choose the option that agrees with *all* the evidence at their disposal, and this includes their religious evidence. Even if the objective evidence indicates that there is an 80% likelihood that A is correct, and only 20% likelihood that B is correct, they will choose B if their religiously based evidence is sufficient to bridge that 60% gap. This is perfectly logical to the believer and entirely illogical to the non-believer, thus the impasse in the debate.

As an attorney (of the civil variety), a primary part of my job is to evaluate various types of evidentiary support for the position I will argue. I know the frustration which arises when you are trying to explain to your client that the objective evidence available (direct and circumstantial) will not support their story and they respond “But it is the truth, I just know it!” I take a deep breath and go through it again, telling them that the evidence available just won’t be sufficient to win at trial. What I do *not* say is that their belief is not true. In almost every case, there is no way I can know this for sure. I can see the evidence and draw my own conclusions with varying degrees of certainty, but that is as far as I can go.

Now to throw a twist into things. As a Christian, not all of my “bundle of beliefs” carry equal conviction. Thus, the evidentiary value of each belief varies. For example, my belief that there is a God and that He created the universe is absolute. My belief that God must have created any particular way is less so. This is an important factor when weighing *all the evidence* at my disposal. It would go something like this: if the *objective* evidence seemed to indicate an 80% likelihood that there was no supernatural causative in forming the universe and only 20% likelihood that was a supernatural cause, I would still believe that the (objectively) one in five chance is what did, indeed, occur. Why? Because for me, the objective evidence is not all that is available. For me, it is not an 80-20 ratio at all.

On the other hand, when the objective evidence seems to indicates an 99% likelihood that the Earth is “old” (making that percentage up, of course), and my religious conviction that the Scripture requires a reading of a young Earth is very slight, I will accept that the Earth is almost assuredly old. The weight of my religious evidence on this point is such that I conclude that the interpretation which would require a young Earth is more likely to be mistaken than that the objective evidence is all wrong.

So, we go round and round . . .

but you should also know that a single piece of unquestionable falsifying evidence will kill a case. there can be all the supporting evidence in the world to say someone did something, like rob a bank, but if there is a single CCTV picture of them being somewhere else at the same time the bank was robbed, then all the evidence is worth nothing, and there must be an alternate explanation for it.

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Very true. And it is such incontrovertable evidence which I allow to inform my decisions. When the evidence is less than incontrovertable, I must do my best to make judgment calls based on likelihoods.

My ultimate point is that Christians tend to incorporate a greater body of "evidence" into the analysis by bringing in their religious beliefs, which to them make the Scriptural text itself evidence.

Personally, it comes down to weighing the likelihood that a scientific conlusion is based on human error or, on the other hand, that a conclusion based on interpretation of the Scripture is based on human error. Very often it is the latter. ("Remember Geo-centrism" is my mantra).

Problem is, in the latter case, I've noticed a number of creationists consider their own Biblical interpretations to be infallible. That they equate their interpretations of the Word of God with the Word of God has all sorts of theological ramifications, but I can see why they would be reluctant to budge from such a position.

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Creationism has not made a single contribution to agriculture, medicine, conservation, forestry, pathology, or any other applied area of biology. Creationism has yielded no classifications, no biogeographies, no underlying mechanisms, no unifying concepts with which to study organisms or life. - Botanical Society of America's Statement on Evolution

I think you have hit the nail on the head, Vance.

What you may have noticed is that most of the regulars here (JohnR7 and ikster being notable exceptions) are evolutionists, and that a good number of the regulars here are non-Christians. You probably have also noticed that the evolutionists dominates the discussions here.

The normal turn of events here is that a creationist copys and pastes some argument from a creationist website (usually without attribution). They then declare something like "evolution refuted! Ha! All you evolutionists are idiots!" (usually not this rude, but along the same lines).

We then refute what they post. They completely ignore our rebuttals, or reply with nothing more substansial than "THE SEVEN-DAY CREATION OF THE WORLD IS A FACT!". They then copy and paste another creationist webpage.

Now, I can not understand the mind of someone who is a creationist. When I became Christian, I skirted with creationism for only a little while, but quickly snapped back to being an evolutionist after skimming Dawkins excellent "The Blind Watchmaker".

Your post makes gives me some more insight in to the mind of the creationist.

The reason why I oppose creationism is two-fold:

• Creationists will sometimes hit a point where the evidence for evolution and an old earth is irrefutable to them. Such a person needs a God which can do evolution at that point, or the person will become an atheist.
  
• Creationists have a lot of political power in the US. One example: Where I live, no elementry or high school is allowed to have a book which mentions evolution; our school board is a number of creationists voted in by a creationist grassroots effort.
  

- Sam

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When I bring up Geo-centrism, I get two kinds of responses:

• The whole Galileo thing was not really about Geo-centrism; usually posted by Catholic fundamentalists.
  
  This one, thinkfully, is easily enough refuted.
  
• That people misinterpreted the Bible back then, but today we know the one true interpretation of the Bible, which requires a 6000-year-old earth.
  
  This one is refuted by pointing out that "those who forget history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them"; must fundamentalists have this bizarre world view that there were no true Christians until their particular church was founded.

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Technically, I am not sure whether I qualify as a creationist, but that is how I classify myself because I go beyond standard Theistic Evolution concepts. I accept completely that evolution takes place (even AIG accepts that point), and I believe that God allowed most of what we see in our world today to arrive at this point by evolutionary means. But I believe that God had a direct and intervening hand in the process along the way (and still does today), which goes beyond the "pushing the first domino" idea. Further, I am still open to the idea that God may very well have stepped in to take some special action regarding Man, but I am not sure exactly what He did (I wasn't there at the time, I may have been on a lunch break).

Actually, as you define a "creationist", I am a creationist also. I have been lexically sloppy.

When I said "creationist", I mean someone who is generally a Young-Earth-Creationist. In particular, I mean someone who refuses to accept a scientific theory for religious reasons. The kind of person who was a Geo-centrist 400 years ago.

I do believe that God has directed evolution through seemingly chance events; God seems to favor manipulating chance.

- Sam

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It's the kind of guy like samiam that I can't argue with >_<

His interpretation of god isn't the literal one of the bible so I can't use genesis against him. To further compound my problem he basically agrees with my stance with just a minor detail different, the involvement of God. This can't be proven either way so all we can do is agree to disagree. Basically I have to admit that his theory is plausible because it's impossible to say that there is no God, we can only refute that which is stated in the bible by using evidence.

Arguing with him would be like trying to box my shadow >_<

Just an observation but Sam almost seems like an agnostic to me. The line between agnostic and liberal christian often gets blurry.