I usually wouldnt step out of character like this, but I feel like giving tips to creationists to help them move along in their discussions with evolutionists.
Tip #1: The reason why creationism is so unpersuasive is because it doesnt criticize evolution for the claims that it actually makes.
For instance, what good does it do to claim that evolution is inheritly racist despite the million and millions of evolution adherents firmly rejecting racist ideas. You could never persuade anyone that evolution is racist if there are close to zero evolutionists actually making racist claims.
This tip also applies to a lot of other claims, such as the claim that evolutionists are communists, endorse eugenics, implies that we should behave like animals, implies might makes right, imply everything happened by chance and accident, etc. I dont know anyone who believes any of these claims and I doubt you could find any evolutionists who have made such claims, so why bother attacking claims that no one has actually made.
And what good does it do criticizing evolution on the grounds that it presupposes that no gods exist, especially in light of the number of people who believe evolution and god can coexist and even compliment one another?
How could you hope to win the hearts of all the evolutionists if your arguments have nothing to do with the claims that evolution actually has to make? Thats right, you couldnt. You wouldnt like it if evolutionists claimed that Christians eat babies, despite the fact that no Christian does nor advises anyone to do such a thing.
If you have never seen an evolutionist make the claim that you are arguing against, odds you would be better off withholding your argument until someone actually makes the claim.
Tip #2: Think before you type.
As some of you may know, I am the owner of a website called Fundies Say the Darndest Things. If there is anything that I have learned since running that website, it is the virtue of taking 10 seconds to read over your posts and asking yourself "is this actually correct".
You might think that saying things like "apes dont shave, therefore humans and apes dont share a common ancestor" or "the banana is curved towards the face to make eating process easy, therefore it was designed" are incredibly compelling arguments against evolution, but your enthusiasm will likely not be shared by evolutionists.
Lets face it, typing one silly thing, or a bunch of silly things consequetively, will ruin your credibility. I've seen a few times on these boards that some creationists suffer the problem of having 5 or 6 people following them on every thread they post on just to make fun of them - while that is rude, that is probably an indication that your credibility has been all but lost on them.
I recommend the advice of d.beebee from Rapture Ready who reviewed my site:
Just be careful what you say and how you say it. We are supposed to be representing Jesus Christ and some of the things I've read from members of RR have made me wince. However, some of the things I've seen from some of the other Christian boards have made me close, my eyes, moan, and say, "Dear Lord what were they thinking.".
Remember, if you discredit yourself, you'll probably discredit your fellow creationists by association, making it impossible to win the hearts and minds of evolutionists.
Tip #3: The worst way to make a case for creation is to criticize all of the alternatives
I frequently find myself coming back to this quote from Freethought Mecca - Creationism:
Creationists have yet to undertake the process of detailing an alternative model to the evolutionary scheme currently accepted by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community. The central strategy of all creationist literature has been to debunk evolution, thereby leaving creationism as the sole survivor according to the skewed logic of its proponents. In a sense, creation scientists are simply critics of the evolutionary theory of biology, nothing more. In the minds of creation scientists, it makes abundant sense that, if evolution could somehow be shown to be fatally flawed, then their version of the history of the cosmos would be instantly established as the correct one. Unfortunately, their version of the history of the cosmos has been unchanged for two thousand years, and it consists of only one written page of Hebrew. [11]
That quote is important because it speaks much truth: creationists are so furiously working to disprove evolution that they havent actually put together an alternative model of origins and diversity. Too much effort is spent utilizing apologetics to defend creation rather than constructing a series of testable scientific statements.
And remember, to question evolution takes more than saying "how can evolution explain...". Because, odds are, evolutionists can explain your concern. And if they couldnt, then so what? It isnt a secret that there are some open questions that evolution has not properly addressed yet (such as a detailed timeline of shark evolution), but those kinds of concerns only show that current knowledge is incomplete, it doesnt show that there is a contradiction or anything at fault with the theory.
I would strong advise to creationists to avoid making statements like "how can evolution explain...", because that inevitably implies a god-of-the-gaps argument. When you try to defend God on a basis of the gaps of our current knowledge, then consider that everyday those gaps become smaller and smaller until eventually there is no place left for God to be found? The ironic consequence of the god-of-gaps argument is that it creates more atheists and evolutionists when those gaps are filled.
Its one thing to prove evolution wrong. Its quite another to provide no reasons to accept creationism in the first place.
Tip #4: Dont be afraid to admit you are wrong
I make mistake, you make mistakes, your neighbors make mistakes, McDonald's employees make significantly too many mistakes - its a fact of life that none of us are perfect. And when we say things that are hopelessly incorrect, we ought suck it up and say "my apologies, I have been mistaken" if we want to retain our integrity.
Believe me, this tip is more worthwhile than it sounds. For instance, in the Do Apes Shave thread, LittleNipper said that apes do not grow beards, yet after dozens of images of bearded apes and monkeys were posted he never said "oh! I was wrong, my bad you guys", he never actually recanted his point. That does not look good in the eyes of evolutionists. (I dont mean to pick on LittleNipper, I'm just using his thread as the most convenient example that I happened to have bookmarked.)
You risk conceding a lot less ground to evolutionists by admitting your mistakes than if you admit no error at all.
Tip #5: Points refuted a thousand times
There are some creationist arguments that even creationists have given up on, you can see a few of them on AnswersInGenesis's Arguments We Think Creationists Should NOT Use.
I dont even have to explain what the arguments are, all I have to do is say their names and evolutionists will know exactly what I'm talking about with no further explanation:
- Second Law of Thermodynamics
- Moon Dust
- Missing Neutrinos
- Paluxy Tracks
- Missing Day
- Darwin Recanted On Deathbed
- Darwin on the Eye
- Just a Theory
- C-decay
Evolutionists have heard all of these before, and repeating them will make your look bad. The key to communicating with evolutionists is innovation: dont just copy and paste a clever one-liner like "something cant come from nothing", you need to provide a compelling set of facts and evidence to make your point.
Tip #6: Quoting the bible to non-Christians accomplishes precisely nothing
I started another thread on this topic. The basic idea is that evolutionists find no authority in the statements contained in the bible, just like you find no authority contained in the statements of other holy texts - if you try to quote the bible to prove a point to evolutionists, you will do nothing but alienate and irritate them.
You shouldnt use the bible to prove anything to non-Christians. Instead, you should recognize that if creationism has any merit, then science would complement the teachings of the bible - evolutionists will find statements of science much more persuasive than scripture.
Hope you enjoyed
This guide should make you a better creationist debater. If anyone would like to extend this guide to include more tips, feel free to do so
Recommended reading:
The Need For Quality Apologetics
Tip #1: The reason why creationism is so unpersuasive is because it doesnt criticize evolution for the claims that it actually makes.
For instance, what good does it do to claim that evolution is inheritly racist despite the million and millions of evolution adherents firmly rejecting racist ideas. You could never persuade anyone that evolution is racist if there are close to zero evolutionists actually making racist claims.
This tip also applies to a lot of other claims, such as the claim that evolutionists are communists, endorse eugenics, implies that we should behave like animals, implies might makes right, imply everything happened by chance and accident, etc. I dont know anyone who believes any of these claims and I doubt you could find any evolutionists who have made such claims, so why bother attacking claims that no one has actually made.
And what good does it do criticizing evolution on the grounds that it presupposes that no gods exist, especially in light of the number of people who believe evolution and god can coexist and even compliment one another?
How could you hope to win the hearts of all the evolutionists if your arguments have nothing to do with the claims that evolution actually has to make? Thats right, you couldnt. You wouldnt like it if evolutionists claimed that Christians eat babies, despite the fact that no Christian does nor advises anyone to do such a thing.
If you have never seen an evolutionist make the claim that you are arguing against, odds you would be better off withholding your argument until someone actually makes the claim.
Tip #2: Think before you type.
As some of you may know, I am the owner of a website called Fundies Say the Darndest Things. If there is anything that I have learned since running that website, it is the virtue of taking 10 seconds to read over your posts and asking yourself "is this actually correct".
You might think that saying things like "apes dont shave, therefore humans and apes dont share a common ancestor" or "the banana is curved towards the face to make eating process easy, therefore it was designed" are incredibly compelling arguments against evolution, but your enthusiasm will likely not be shared by evolutionists.
Lets face it, typing one silly thing, or a bunch of silly things consequetively, will ruin your credibility. I've seen a few times on these boards that some creationists suffer the problem of having 5 or 6 people following them on every thread they post on just to make fun of them - while that is rude, that is probably an indication that your credibility has been all but lost on them.
I recommend the advice of d.beebee from Rapture Ready who reviewed my site:
Just be careful what you say and how you say it. We are supposed to be representing Jesus Christ and some of the things I've read from members of RR have made me wince. However, some of the things I've seen from some of the other Christian boards have made me close, my eyes, moan, and say, "Dear Lord what were they thinking.".
Remember, if you discredit yourself, you'll probably discredit your fellow creationists by association, making it impossible to win the hearts and minds of evolutionists.
Tip #3: The worst way to make a case for creation is to criticize all of the alternatives
I frequently find myself coming back to this quote from Freethought Mecca - Creationism:
Creationists have yet to undertake the process of detailing an alternative model to the evolutionary scheme currently accepted by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community. The central strategy of all creationist literature has been to debunk evolution, thereby leaving creationism as the sole survivor according to the skewed logic of its proponents. In a sense, creation scientists are simply critics of the evolutionary theory of biology, nothing more. In the minds of creation scientists, it makes abundant sense that, if evolution could somehow be shown to be fatally flawed, then their version of the history of the cosmos would be instantly established as the correct one. Unfortunately, their version of the history of the cosmos has been unchanged for two thousand years, and it consists of only one written page of Hebrew. [11]
That quote is important because it speaks much truth: creationists are so furiously working to disprove evolution that they havent actually put together an alternative model of origins and diversity. Too much effort is spent utilizing apologetics to defend creation rather than constructing a series of testable scientific statements.
And remember, to question evolution takes more than saying "how can evolution explain...". Because, odds are, evolutionists can explain your concern. And if they couldnt, then so what? It isnt a secret that there are some open questions that evolution has not properly addressed yet (such as a detailed timeline of shark evolution), but those kinds of concerns only show that current knowledge is incomplete, it doesnt show that there is a contradiction or anything at fault with the theory.
I would strong advise to creationists to avoid making statements like "how can evolution explain...", because that inevitably implies a god-of-the-gaps argument. When you try to defend God on a basis of the gaps of our current knowledge, then consider that everyday those gaps become smaller and smaller until eventually there is no place left for God to be found? The ironic consequence of the god-of-gaps argument is that it creates more atheists and evolutionists when those gaps are filled.
Its one thing to prove evolution wrong. Its quite another to provide no reasons to accept creationism in the first place.
Tip #4: Dont be afraid to admit you are wrong
I make mistake, you make mistakes, your neighbors make mistakes, McDonald's employees make significantly too many mistakes - its a fact of life that none of us are perfect. And when we say things that are hopelessly incorrect, we ought suck it up and say "my apologies, I have been mistaken" if we want to retain our integrity.
Believe me, this tip is more worthwhile than it sounds. For instance, in the Do Apes Shave thread, LittleNipper said that apes do not grow beards, yet after dozens of images of bearded apes and monkeys were posted he never said "oh! I was wrong, my bad you guys", he never actually recanted his point. That does not look good in the eyes of evolutionists. (I dont mean to pick on LittleNipper, I'm just using his thread as the most convenient example that I happened to have bookmarked.)
You risk conceding a lot less ground to evolutionists by admitting your mistakes than if you admit no error at all.
Tip #5: Points refuted a thousand times
There are some creationist arguments that even creationists have given up on, you can see a few of them on AnswersInGenesis's Arguments We Think Creationists Should NOT Use.
I dont even have to explain what the arguments are, all I have to do is say their names and evolutionists will know exactly what I'm talking about with no further explanation:
- Second Law of Thermodynamics
- Moon Dust
- Missing Neutrinos
- Paluxy Tracks
- Missing Day
- Darwin Recanted On Deathbed
- Darwin on the Eye
- Just a Theory
- C-decay
Evolutionists have heard all of these before, and repeating them will make your look bad. The key to communicating with evolutionists is innovation: dont just copy and paste a clever one-liner like "something cant come from nothing", you need to provide a compelling set of facts and evidence to make your point.
Tip #6: Quoting the bible to non-Christians accomplishes precisely nothing
I started another thread on this topic. The basic idea is that evolutionists find no authority in the statements contained in the bible, just like you find no authority contained in the statements of other holy texts - if you try to quote the bible to prove a point to evolutionists, you will do nothing but alienate and irritate them.
You shouldnt use the bible to prove anything to non-Christians. Instead, you should recognize that if creationism has any merit, then science would complement the teachings of the bible - evolutionists will find statements of science much more persuasive than scripture.
Hope you enjoyed
This guide should make you a better creationist debater. If anyone would like to extend this guide to include more tips, feel free to do so
Recommended reading:
The Need For Quality Apologetics
. It there a formal process for that?
