Caution: Droning post ahead.
It seems that as more is discovered about how life works (particularly when it directly involves evolution) the more depressing the thinking behind Creationism becomes. Does Christianity really support the following:
1. All living beings, even the Earth itself, is slowly atrophying. This is either because Adam brought sin into the world or because God created everything in its perfect, complete form which is gradually 'winding down'. Evolution cannot happen because nothing is getting better.
This is basically a very pessimistic idea as it suggests that God has abondoned us; indeed many evolutionists accuse creationists of being 'deists'. I would even say that according to this argument Jesus did not come down here teach us how to make the world a better place (what's the point? Everything's just getting worse) but is simply offered as a sort of 'get out of jail free' card. Believe in him and when you die you'll leave this miserable world forever.
2. Evolution teaches us 'survival of the fittest', where you survive by killing the weak and favouring the strong. Death and disease is everywhere. Our genes break down with age. How could a loving God make such a cruel world? This probably relates to the first argument: God made the world perfect, we cheesed him off, he's now abandoned us to our fate. He offers Jesus to those who can't stand this planet and want to get off. I also suspect this line of reasoning it what turns many Christians into atheists.
3. In order to prove Creationism true, God must have created the everything in such a specific way that any slight variation would cause it to go wrong. Whether or not they intend it this idea suggests variety is a bad thing. Things have to be done this way or else. It also suggests that living things are not independant of God, that they can't possibly do anything without him. Our relationship to Him is a clingy, parasitic one.
Even worse, if all things are guided by God does this mean he made people deformed / disabled / retarded on purpose? This doesn't seem to be the case, as Jesus healed people on many occasions.
This doom-and-gloom philosophy isn't central to Creationism, but seems to have been inferred by various individual creationists until it became the norm. If we were to travel back a few centures, when creationism was a genuinely valid theory, I doubt many of it's supporters would have agreed with them.
It seems that as more is discovered about how life works (particularly when it directly involves evolution) the more depressing the thinking behind Creationism becomes. Does Christianity really support the following:
1. All living beings, even the Earth itself, is slowly atrophying. This is either because Adam brought sin into the world or because God created everything in its perfect, complete form which is gradually 'winding down'. Evolution cannot happen because nothing is getting better.
This is basically a very pessimistic idea as it suggests that God has abondoned us; indeed many evolutionists accuse creationists of being 'deists'. I would even say that according to this argument Jesus did not come down here teach us how to make the world a better place (what's the point? Everything's just getting worse) but is simply offered as a sort of 'get out of jail free' card. Believe in him and when you die you'll leave this miserable world forever.
2. Evolution teaches us 'survival of the fittest', where you survive by killing the weak and favouring the strong. Death and disease is everywhere. Our genes break down with age. How could a loving God make such a cruel world? This probably relates to the first argument: God made the world perfect, we cheesed him off, he's now abandoned us to our fate. He offers Jesus to those who can't stand this planet and want to get off. I also suspect this line of reasoning it what turns many Christians into atheists.
3. In order to prove Creationism true, God must have created the everything in such a specific way that any slight variation would cause it to go wrong. Whether or not they intend it this idea suggests variety is a bad thing. Things have to be done this way or else. It also suggests that living things are not independant of God, that they can't possibly do anything without him. Our relationship to Him is a clingy, parasitic one.
Even worse, if all things are guided by God does this mean he made people deformed / disabled / retarded on purpose? This doesn't seem to be the case, as Jesus healed people on many occasions.
This doom-and-gloom philosophy isn't central to Creationism, but seems to have been inferred by various individual creationists until it became the norm. If we were to travel back a few centures, when creationism was a genuinely valid theory, I doubt many of it's supporters would have agreed with them.
