Question to creationists...

[Nathan Poe]

Hope no one minds me jumping in....

Of course not. Welcome to the party.

Karl is right in that much of the Creation story is symbolic... but just because it is symbolic does not mean that it didn't happen that way.

There are many things in Genesis that represent mankind as a whole, and all sorts of other things too. These representations are to be recognized, and learned from, but that does not entail the disregarding of the literal part of the Creation story.

But nobody seems to be able to agree on which parts are symbolic and which are literal. YECs tend to take the whole thing as literal.

You say that the talking serpent screams not to be taken literally... it seems that you're under the idea that this was purely a different snake, not satan merely taking on one of the plethora of forms at his disposal.

Another snag for literalists: There's no reason to believe that the serpent was Satan. If Satan had "possessed" the serpent, then there was no reason for God to punish it.

On a different note... it seems strange that the Creationists here are merely letting those that would poke wholes in Creationism do just that without in return arguments against the obvious alternative; which is Evolution. Just an observation... and that is not to say that those arguing do not have the right, or respected opprutunity to argue their opinion.

Actually, creationists try to poke holes in evolutionary theory all the time, but it's not only futile, it's pointless.

First of all, many creationists understand little to nothing about exactly what evolution is. The most hard-core creationists, believing evolution to be some sort of Satanic plot, actually wear their ignorance of it with pride and honor.
Worse, they tend to get their "information" from professional creationists who exploit ignorance for their own gain (Kent Hovind is a prime example). The result is a lot of nonsense which either has nothing to do with evolution in the first place, or a series of outdated arguments based on ignorance, misinformation, fudged data, out-of-context quotes, and just plain outright lies. We call these arguments the PRATT (Points Refuted A Thousand Times) list.

Second, evolution is a scientific theory based on observations. If a part of it is found to be mistaken, the theory is changed. Unlike creationism, it's not believe to be the result of divine revelation. You need to do a lot more than "poke holes" in it. You need to completely falsify it.

(Any second now, a certain someone who shall remain nameless is going to quote me and claim that evolution has already been "falsifyed." Remember what I said about ignorance?)

Besides, poking holes in evolution does nothing to prove creationism. It is, as you say, the obvious alternative, but not the only one --

A: Creationism is correct
B: Evolution is correct
C: Neither is correct; the correct answer is something nobody's thought of yet.

 

[ObbiQuiet]

A: Creationism is correct
B: Evolution is correct
C: Neither is correct; the correct answer is something nobody's thought of yet.

Heh heh heh....