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This is the second thread in a row I’ve posted for Richard specifically, but something we discussed on AIM made me decide that I should explain this, and I think it’s worth opening it up for the rest of the members here to discuss also. One of the things Richard told me was that there’s something he likes about being a creationist, and he also seemed imply that he didn’t think it did any harm. There are several ways that I think creationism is harmful, though, so for his sake I think I should explain them.
1: Creationism prevents us from fully appreciating God’s abilities as a designer.
There are a few different ways that this can happen. The one I consider the worst is when creationists claim things such as that animals were never intended to eat meat (as AiG does), so anything related to that is the result of human sin. In other words, this means that if cheetahs were able to run 70 miles per hour before the fall, that ability should have been useless to them, because the only function it serves is for them to pursue their prey. The same is true of spiders’ ability to build webs in order to catch insects, or the ability of certain birds of prey to see an object the size of a dime from over a mile away, in order to be able to attack animals on the ground by diving out of the air. When I consider these aspects of nature, I usually think of them as results of God’s creativity which he appreciates also, even if he created them indirectly via evolution. (In the case of birds of prey, the Bible states the same thing in Job 39:26-30.) But according to the most common version of young-earth creationism, these aspects of nature do not give glory to God, because he did not intend for them to be this way.
Even among creationists who don’t believe the “no carnivores before the fall” idea, the earth being less than ten thousand years old still forces them to ignore some of the most amazing aspects of the world. For example, from a young-earth standpoint, dinosaurs are hardly more than a divine mistake—they became extinct less than five thousand years after being created, leaving no living descendents. To a theistic evolutionist, on the other hand, dinosaurs were a 160-million year project for God that still isn’t completely over, since their descendants (birds) are still alive today.
This problem with creationism also applies to the process of evolution itself. I think one of the things that speaks most highly of God as a designer is him having created life in such a way that it’s capable of changing and producing new forms without requiring his direct intervention. Charles Darwin described something similar in The Origin of Species:
To someone who denies that life’s current diversity is the result of evolution, however, it’s impossible to appreciate this.
2: Creationism makes it more difficult to trust God.
In order to understand this, one has to be aware of evolution’s explanatory power, but I know that Richard is aware of this already. In many cases, such as chromosome 2 in humans, the only alternative explanation is that God went out of his way to make humans and chimpanzees appear to share a common ancestor when we actually don’t. In other words, creationism requires that God be intentionally deceiving us. This is a conclusion that is reached inevitably, when any area of biology or geology is studied in sufficient depth from a creationist perspective.
In my own case, the way I reacted to discovering this was just that as a Christian I refused to accept that God was a liar, and I became a theistic evolutionist as a result. To someone who comes to believe in God’s dishonesty as a necessary consequence of creationism, though, the results can be a lot worse. I described the worst example of this that I’m aware of in my letter to AiG. Most examples of it aren’t this severe, but I’ve seen numerous creationists who abandoned Christianity for this reason. After all, if the Bible demands that God be intentionally deceiving them with the way in which he created the world, why should he be trusted about matters such as salvation?
Creationism makes Christianity into the ultimate Catch-22. According to AiG, since other parts of the Bible refer to Genesis as though it were literal, if one doesn’t take it literally one shouldn’t be able to trust what the rest of the Bible says. But on the other hand, if one does take it literally, then God can’t be trusted because he’s deceiving us in a different way. In either case, if you say that Christianity requires Genesis to be literal, it’s only an indirect way of saying there’s no hope of salvation from God.
3: The mindset behind creationism interferes with vital cognitive processes.
This relates to my previous point. Once a person is aware of the physical evidence for evolution, for them to continue rejecting this theory because of what’s in the Bible is an example of a mental process that would be crippling in any other situation. And the process is this:
They are presented with two lines of evidence—what they can see in the physical world, and the content of the Bible. In order to gain an understanding of the world from physical observations, they need to use two things: they need to use their senses such as sight and hearing in order to gain information from the world, and they need to use logic to determine what can be concluded from that information. In the case of gaining information from the Bible, they need to use these same two things: they need to use their sense of sight to read what’s in the Bible (or hearing if someone’s reading it aloud to them), and they need to use logic to determine the intent of the original author, such as what’s intended to be literal and what isn’t.
If that were all there is to it, then conclusions drawn from the Bible and conclusions drawn from the physical world would be exactly as reliable as one another, but this isn’t the case. The reason it isn’t is because gaining an accurate understanding of the world from the Bible requires one other thing, which is for the Bible to be a reliable authority. It’s beyond the scope of this thread to say whether the Bible is a reliable authority or not, but the one thing that’s a requirement for normal thinking is to be aware that nothing can be a higher authority than the conclusions we draw from what we see and hear for ourselves. This is because understanding anything, even the Bible, requires making use of both our senses and logic; and anything other than what we see and hear for ourselves will involve additional assumptions that make it less certain than our own observations.
To use an example of how the mental process behind creationism can be crippling in another situation, imagine that you’re driving a car and you see the light in front of you turn red. Your eyes tell you it’s red, and you remember that when the light is red you’re supposed to stop, but the passenger sitting next to you says that you need to keep going. Now, there are a lot of questions you could ask about this. Could your eyes be deceiving you that the light is red? Yes, but they could also be deceiving the person next to you who apparently thinks it’s green, or your ears could be deceiving you about what they said. Could you have forgotten what the color red looks like, or what you’re supposed to do when you come to a red light? Yes, but the person next to also you could have made either of the same mistakes, or you could be misinterpreting the meaning of what they told you. If you follow your understanding of their advice and get into a car accident, you will be the one who has the legal culpability for it, because you’re expected to trust the conclusion you draw from your own senses more than you trust what you’re told by someone else.
Now, obviously the Bible is more widely-trusted than some miscellaneous passenger in a car, but the principle is the same. The only way it’s possible for anyone to learn what sources of information can be trusted—for example, which of the numerous religious texts in the world is actually the word of God—is by observing the world for themselves, and determining which sources seem most logically consistent with it. As soon as it becomes possible for any source of information to become a higher authority than your own senses, you will have abandoned your primary line of defense against anyone who might try to trick you into believing something false.
I worry about you, Richard, and where your life might end up going if you allow anyone else’s authority to overrule what you can conclude from your own observations. Please don’t let anyone stop you from making full use of the brain God gave you.
1: Creationism prevents us from fully appreciating God’s abilities as a designer.
There are a few different ways that this can happen. The one I consider the worst is when creationists claim things such as that animals were never intended to eat meat (as AiG does), so anything related to that is the result of human sin. In other words, this means that if cheetahs were able to run 70 miles per hour before the fall, that ability should have been useless to them, because the only function it serves is for them to pursue their prey. The same is true of spiders’ ability to build webs in order to catch insects, or the ability of certain birds of prey to see an object the size of a dime from over a mile away, in order to be able to attack animals on the ground by diving out of the air. When I consider these aspects of nature, I usually think of them as results of God’s creativity which he appreciates also, even if he created them indirectly via evolution. (In the case of birds of prey, the Bible states the same thing in Job 39:26-30.) But according to the most common version of young-earth creationism, these aspects of nature do not give glory to God, because he did not intend for them to be this way.
Even among creationists who don’t believe the “no carnivores before the fall” idea, the earth being less than ten thousand years old still forces them to ignore some of the most amazing aspects of the world. For example, from a young-earth standpoint, dinosaurs are hardly more than a divine mistake—they became extinct less than five thousand years after being created, leaving no living descendents. To a theistic evolutionist, on the other hand, dinosaurs were a 160-million year project for God that still isn’t completely over, since their descendants (birds) are still alive today.
This problem with creationism also applies to the process of evolution itself. I think one of the things that speaks most highly of God as a designer is him having created life in such a way that it’s capable of changing and producing new forms without requiring his direct intervention. Charles Darwin described something similar in The Origin of Species:
Charles Darwin said:
To someone who denies that life’s current diversity is the result of evolution, however, it’s impossible to appreciate this.
2: Creationism makes it more difficult to trust God.
In order to understand this, one has to be aware of evolution’s explanatory power, but I know that Richard is aware of this already. In many cases, such as chromosome 2 in humans, the only alternative explanation is that God went out of his way to make humans and chimpanzees appear to share a common ancestor when we actually don’t. In other words, creationism requires that God be intentionally deceiving us. This is a conclusion that is reached inevitably, when any area of biology or geology is studied in sufficient depth from a creationist perspective.
In my own case, the way I reacted to discovering this was just that as a Christian I refused to accept that God was a liar, and I became a theistic evolutionist as a result. To someone who comes to believe in God’s dishonesty as a necessary consequence of creationism, though, the results can be a lot worse. I described the worst example of this that I’m aware of in my letter to AiG. Most examples of it aren’t this severe, but I’ve seen numerous creationists who abandoned Christianity for this reason. After all, if the Bible demands that God be intentionally deceiving them with the way in which he created the world, why should he be trusted about matters such as salvation?
Creationism makes Christianity into the ultimate Catch-22. According to AiG, since other parts of the Bible refer to Genesis as though it were literal, if one doesn’t take it literally one shouldn’t be able to trust what the rest of the Bible says. But on the other hand, if one does take it literally, then God can’t be trusted because he’s deceiving us in a different way. In either case, if you say that Christianity requires Genesis to be literal, it’s only an indirect way of saying there’s no hope of salvation from God.
3: The mindset behind creationism interferes with vital cognitive processes.
This relates to my previous point. Once a person is aware of the physical evidence for evolution, for them to continue rejecting this theory because of what’s in the Bible is an example of a mental process that would be crippling in any other situation. And the process is this:
They are presented with two lines of evidence—what they can see in the physical world, and the content of the Bible. In order to gain an understanding of the world from physical observations, they need to use two things: they need to use their senses such as sight and hearing in order to gain information from the world, and they need to use logic to determine what can be concluded from that information. In the case of gaining information from the Bible, they need to use these same two things: they need to use their sense of sight to read what’s in the Bible (or hearing if someone’s reading it aloud to them), and they need to use logic to determine the intent of the original author, such as what’s intended to be literal and what isn’t.
If that were all there is to it, then conclusions drawn from the Bible and conclusions drawn from the physical world would be exactly as reliable as one another, but this isn’t the case. The reason it isn’t is because gaining an accurate understanding of the world from the Bible requires one other thing, which is for the Bible to be a reliable authority. It’s beyond the scope of this thread to say whether the Bible is a reliable authority or not, but the one thing that’s a requirement for normal thinking is to be aware that nothing can be a higher authority than the conclusions we draw from what we see and hear for ourselves. This is because understanding anything, even the Bible, requires making use of both our senses and logic; and anything other than what we see and hear for ourselves will involve additional assumptions that make it less certain than our own observations.
To use an example of how the mental process behind creationism can be crippling in another situation, imagine that you’re driving a car and you see the light in front of you turn red. Your eyes tell you it’s red, and you remember that when the light is red you’re supposed to stop, but the passenger sitting next to you says that you need to keep going. Now, there are a lot of questions you could ask about this. Could your eyes be deceiving you that the light is red? Yes, but they could also be deceiving the person next to you who apparently thinks it’s green, or your ears could be deceiving you about what they said. Could you have forgotten what the color red looks like, or what you’re supposed to do when you come to a red light? Yes, but the person next to also you could have made either of the same mistakes, or you could be misinterpreting the meaning of what they told you. If you follow your understanding of their advice and get into a car accident, you will be the one who has the legal culpability for it, because you’re expected to trust the conclusion you draw from your own senses more than you trust what you’re told by someone else.
Now, obviously the Bible is more widely-trusted than some miscellaneous passenger in a car, but the principle is the same. The only way it’s possible for anyone to learn what sources of information can be trusted—for example, which of the numerous religious texts in the world is actually the word of God—is by observing the world for themselves, and determining which sources seem most logically consistent with it. As soon as it becomes possible for any source of information to become a higher authority than your own senses, you will have abandoned your primary line of defense against anyone who might try to trick you into believing something false.
I worry about you, Richard, and where your life might end up going if you allow anyone else’s authority to overrule what you can conclude from your own observations. Please don’t let anyone stop you from making full use of the brain God gave you.
