DiscussMormonism.com

The False Equivalence of Creationism
AronRa does a thorough job of showing the basic dishonesty and intellectual bankruptcy of Creationism (especially YEC). He clearly lists the 8 demonstrably false assertions that creationism absolutely depends on to argue their case and concludes with:

1. Creationist are either deceivers or deceived. They can be both, but there is no third category.

2. ...but once sincere believers begin to investigate the evidence and arguments on either side of this alleged controversy, they will very quickly find themselves making a life altering choice--whether to remain Creationists or whether to remain honest, because it is no longer possible to be both.

3. It is not possible to defend Creationism honestly.

See the video, and you'll see what I mean. One simply can't defend Creationism without relying on some or all of the 8 demonstrably false assertions listed by AaronRa, and leading Creationists know this, and also know full well that those assertions are false, yet insist on repeating them over and over again anyway.

What makes their position so dishonest is that they unabashedly admit that, while they eagerly cite any evidence that seems or can be made to seem to support their view, they will absolutely reject out of hand and refuse to accept any evidence, no matter how abundant and compelling that contradicts it. Some of them even admit they would continue to believe it, even if it were not true!

To be fair there are many flavors of Creationism. While the biggest group is the YEC, or slight variations of them. There are plenty of people who are small "c" creationists in the sense that they believe God did it. But leave it up to science to explain how He did it.

The CCC wrote:To be fair there are many flavors of Creationism. While the biggest group is the YEC, or slight variations of them. There are plenty of people who are small "c" creationists in the sense that they believe God did it. But leave it up to science to explain how He did it.

Good point. I have no real problem with the latter.

I believe the telling word here in "Intellectual." Dishonesty can be defined by those who disagree to suit their own criteria. Please consider: http://creation.com/scientists-wrong

LittleNipper wrote:I believe the telling word here in "Intellectual." Dishonesty can be defined by those who disagree to suit their own criteria. Please consider: http://creation.com/scientists-wrong

I don't have a problem with people who disagree with a science. Science by its very nature is subject to vigorous and prolonged disagreement. It is only after that vigorous and prolonged disagree that objective evidence is produced and reproduced that science is confirmed or disproved. There is no final truth/proof in science. Just the amount of objective evidence presented. Newton was right about gravity up to Einstein, whom was right up to Quantum Mechanics, and there is still rigorous debate about what gravity actually is.
SEE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hByJBdQXjXU

The CCC wrote:

LittleNipper wrote:I believe the telling word here in "Intellectual." Dishonesty can be defined by those who disagree to suit their own criteria. Please consider: http://creation.com/scientists-wrong

I don't have a problem with people who disagree with a science. Science by its very nature is subject to vigorous and prolonged disagreement. It is only after that vigorous and prolonged disagree that objective evidence is produced and reproduced that science is confirmed or disproved. There is no final truth/proof in science. Just the amount of objective evidence presented. Newton was right about gravity up to Einstein, whom was right up to Quantum Mechanics, and there is still rigorous debate about what gravity actually is.
SEE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hByJBdQXjXU

I believe that you will find that theory, opinion and science are entirely different matters. God reveals through the Bible that HE CREATED everything that exists. HE also defined days of CREATION as an evening and morning. The revelation is that there was entirely NO DEATH UNTIL sin entered into the CREATION equation. These are frankly Biblical absolutes and unprovable. This is why GOD reveals it in His Word.

Now, the question remains, does true thoroughly researched observable repeatable science prove otherwise? I genuinely feel that no it doesn't. Yes, there are things which defy a physical explanation ----- GOD being one. However, true scientific study has under no circumstances been able to fabricate any living biological thing from inert materials, much less create inert materials from nothing. Scientific research has proven that this planet, as well as others, have been bombarded with catastrophic results. The Biblical revelation is that there occurred a Deluge that lasted about 1 year.

As a Christian I am fully aware that GOD is an eternal being according to His Word. And that anything HE creates would likely present this illustration. Science does in fact reveal that the earth and the universe appear as being billions of years old and seemingly limitless if not convoluted. I simply understand that appearing to be something and actually being that are two entirely different matters.

The Bible does not reveal Adam's apparent look of age when he was CREATED. However, It would seem that 25 -30 is not unreasonable. A manufacturer does not fabricate a baby robot, unless that is what the manufacturer intended to be his end result. GOD reveals HE CREATED a MAN. Not an ape to be changed into a human. It is revealed in the Word of GOD that humanity was created independently of all other creatures to rule over and care for GOD's CREATION.

It would seem that fallen man has been trying to prove that humanity reached this present position as the result of chance and personal self-motivation apart from GOD ever since. This is what separation from GOD inevitably brings about. Man imagines he is on his way to becoming a supreme being and he points to technology as his proof. What man is only proving that is technology is to man, as man is to GOD. Entirely DEPENDENT!

I wouldn't say that they are entirely different. More like they MAY be entirely different. I was born on at a certain time on a certain date. I have a well evidenced opinion on that. Would it really change the fact I was born to learn it was recorded a few minutes/hours/days incorrectly? NO!

God is a non-falsifiable hypothesis in science. To be science a proposition must be falsifiable. I can't put God into my test tube. As a scientist I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any God, or Godlike force.
SEE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJpYUxRL_3U

After thousands of years and detractors of all stripes claiming if God intended for man to fly he would have given them wings. On a bright winters day in 1903 at Kitty Hawk; North Carolina two men proved that heavier than air, power flight, by man could be done. Just because something hasn't been done yet does mean that it can't.
Abiogenesis is well established in science.
SEE http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/
SEE http://www.udonmap.com/udonthaniforum/a ... 13609.html

In science if I can't observe what I am proposing then it isn't science. Science is based on observation.
There is figuratively and literally mountains of evidence for a some 13.5 Billion year old universe that stretches some 100 billion light years across.
SEE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bRvt0InhYkqw
Be sure to watch the whole series.

There was no World Wide Deluge in the time of Noah. It is a scientific impossibility.
SEE http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

Evolution is NOT chance.
SEE http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrar ... ns_faq.php
SEE http://www.evolution.berkeley.edu/evosi ... ance.shtml

Biologically all humans are apes.
SEE http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics

Take away all our vaunted technology and tell that to a 500 LBS man eating tiger.
SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_tiger

What God has in mind for me is my religious belief, that can't be support by science.

August 1, 2003, Vol.3, No.15.
Two new articles every two weeks. Bible Question? E-mail us.
THIS ISSUE: "Of Apes and Men" (see below)
and "Of Rocks and Bones"



Of Apes and Men


guest article by Harry E. "Buddy" Payne, Jr.


Evolution, Apes"And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature alter his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (Genesis 1:24-27)

If you have visited a zoo and spent some time watching the monkeys, the apes, and especially the chimpanzees, you surely have noticed the many characteristics which these animals have in common with human beings. You probably thought to yourself that they look as if they might be our distant cousins. You may have even thought that somewhere back in time humans, monkeys, and apes had the same ancestors. Of course, you would not be the first to think such thoughts.

Carolus Linnaeus, the great Swedish biologist of the 18th century, who is given credit for establishing the modern system of classifying all living things, classified human beings (homo sapiens) as relatives of monkeys and apes. He did not mean to imply that there was any common ancestor for humans and monkeys because he believed strongly that God had created them separately. However, he did recognize that the characteristics of men and apes are more similar to one another than to those of any other creature.

Not until after the publication of Charles Darwin's books The Origin of the Species and The Descent of Man in the mid and late19th century did the notion that humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor become widely accepted. Darwin proposed that the species in Linnaeus, system were not fixed creations of God which had remained essentially unchanged since creation. He said that all the species living today came from common ancestors in the past by a process of gradual evolution. This process, according to Darwin, was guided by nature (natural selection), not by God. Thus, in particular, apes and men evolved from a common ancestor many thousands or millions of years ago.

The general theory of evolution, which states that all living things have a common ancestor, has come to be believed so strongly that it is taught in many places as an established fact. You have been taught by your teachers, television or books that men and apes are the result of a long process of evolution which began on earth some 4.5 billion years ago. The following quotes from Thread of Life by Roger Lewin (published by the Smithsonian Institute) are typical.


Primates apparently evolved in the late Cretaceous from creatures resembling today's tree shrews. The primate line gave rise to two groups: the prosimians, including tarsiers, lemurs, and lorises; and the anthropoids, the monkeys, apes and humans. (page 220)

Humans are not just a part of the rich pattern of evolving life; through possession of our sense of awareness, we know we have evolved and are evolving still. (page 249)

Obviously, the account in Genesis quoted above presents an entirely different picture. Man and the beasts were distinct creations by God. Man was specially made in the image of God and was given power to control all the other creatures. The Bible claims to be the inspired word of God. There is much evidence to convince you that the Bible must have been written under God's direction, as you will learn later in this series. If the Bible is God's Word then, of course, its account of the origin of men and apes is the true account and the subject is closed.

However, there is much evidence from God's world that can also help us answer our questions about men and apes. From the scientific evidence, is it more reasonable to believe men and apes were created separately or that they evolved from a common ancestor? We shall examine some of the evidence together and see that God's Word and God's world testify to the same truth.

The only direct evidence from nature with regard to the ancestry of men and apes is the remains of dead men, apes, or intermediates from the ancient past. If scientists could find, identify, and date a sequence of fossil skeletons showing the evolution of men and apes from a primitive ancestor, it would go a long way toward supporting the general theory of evolution. But such a sequence has not been found, nor in fact can it be. Certainly parts of fossil skeletons have been found and great claims have been made, but the fossil record of supposed human and primate evolution is (at the very best) sparse. Interpretations of the fossils that have been found do not agree. There are as many ape to man genealogies as there are experts. In spite of this, the National Academy of Sciences has put out the following statement on human evolution:


Studies in evolutionary biology have led to the conclusion that mankind arose from ancestral primates...The 'missing links' that troubled Darwin and his followers are no longer missing. Today, not one but many such connecting links, intermediate between various branches of the primate family tree, have been found as fossils. These linking fossils are intermediate in form and occur in geological deposits of intermediate age. They thus document the time and rate at which primate and human evolution occurred. (Science and Creationism, National Academy Press, Washington DC, 1984)

Every one of the supposed "missing links" in the primate family tree has been seriously questioned and/or discarded from the human family tree. William R. Fix, in his book The Bone Peddlers, examines each of the major finds through 1979 and shows that all of them are beset with problems, disqualified by later finds or exposed as hoaxes. A sequence of fossils forming our ancient family tree cannot be found because there is no way to determine whether a given fossil is the ancestor of another fossil as required by the theory of evolution. Richard Lewontin of Harvard University made the following insightful observations:


All the fossils which have been dug up and are claimed to be ancestors, we haven't the faintest idea whether they are ancestors. Because... all you've got is Homo sapiens there, you've got that fossil there, you've got another fossil there...and it's up to you to draw the lines. Because there are no lines. I don't think any one of them is likely to be the direct ancestor of the human species. But how would you know if it's that one?

The only way you can know that some fossil is the direct ancestor is that it's so human that it is human. There is a contradiction there. If it is different enough from humans to be interesting, then you don't know whether it's an ancestor or not. And if it's similar enough to be human, then it's not interesting. ("Agnostic Evolutionists", by Tom Bethell, Harper's Magazine, February, 198, page 61)

The scanty fossil evidence with regard to apes and humans is more reasonably interpreted from the creationist viewpoint. All of the fossils proposed as "missing links" in the evolution of apes and men are in reality either apes or men. They do not fit somewhere between. Apes and humans existed in the past, as they do in the present, as separate types with a large but limited variation potential within each type. The similarities (such as the striking similarities in their skeletons) between apes and men, past and present, are better explained as the result of a basic plan used by the Creator to serve as a model for creating many different forms of life. What need was there for the Creator to start all over with a totally new plan for each new creation? Would you have done so?

In addition to the fossil evidence there are a number of essential differences between men and apes which also testify that men and apes were separate creations.

1. Men have a unique ability to use language. Apes can communicate only in limited ways by using noises and gestures. One chimpanzee named Washoe mastered 67 signs from the standard American sign language for the deaf, but there is no comparison between this learning by imitation and rewards and man's ability to learn an alphabet, spelling and writing. Man can use language to name, discuss, abstract and symbolize. There is absolutely no evidence that man's ability to use language evolved. The difference between men and apes in the use of language is a difference in kind, not a difference in degree.

2. Man's unique ability to transmit knowledge from one generation to the next has led to tremendous progress in developing technology and civilization. While there are some animals that seem to have intricate social systems (e.g. ants, bees, baboons) these are all instinctive and remain the same from one generation to the next. In this, too, man is different in kind from all of the animals.

3. Man is a moral, esthetic and religious being; apes and other animals are not. How can a random, impersonal, and nonmoral process like evolution produce human beings with moral principles, personal consciences, a deep appreciation for beauty, and a capacity to worship God? There is no evidence that the apes possess such abilities. Here too men and apes are different in kind, not just in degree.

The evidence from God's world convinces us that it is more reasonable to believe that men and apes were separate creations. They were designed by the Creator based on similar blueprints, but were made distinctly different with the capacity to vary within limits. This testimony agrees completely with the testimony of God's Word.

Let us all give praise to God!

LittleNipper wrote:Let us all give praise to God!

To a nonexisting entity who is the product of your imagination?

No, thanks.
Do it twice today. One for yourself and one for me...

LittleNipper, you are a prime example of what AaronRa was talking about. The question in my mind is, are you one of the deceivers or one of the deceived? The website you referred to is another particularly egregious example. It doesn't take much reading of that site to spot examples of deliberate deception and misdirection in it. It inadvertently confirms what I concluded my OP with.

What makes their position so dishonest is that they unabashedly admit that, while they eagerly cite any evidence that seems or can be made to seem to support their view, they will absolutely reject out of hand and refuse to accept any evidence, no matter how abundant and compelling that contradicts it. Some of them even admit they would continue to believe it, even if it were not true!

Your problem, and that of creationists in general (especially YECs) is that you start out with the unprovable and unwarranted presumption that the Judeo/Christian Bible is the infallible word of God, and refuse to even consider any evidence to the contrary, no matter how abundant or incontrovertible. There is no better justification for assuming the Bible to be the infallible word of God than is any other ancient religious scripture. The Bible is not even the oldest of the available ancient scriptures, and it clearly borrowed from or was influenced by much older scriptures and religious myths, as we can easily tell by comparing it with these much older texts.

It is simply not true, as claimed in that website, that biologists accept Evolution only or mainly because the overwhelming majority of other scientists do. They (including many devoutly religious biologists) accept it only because they are thoroughly familiar with the available, supporting evidence and its implications. If you really think the evidence does not support evolution, then you either are unfamiliar with it, do not understand the evidence, or are intellectually dishonest. There are no other options.

Creationist simply do not have any good or credible answers to the arguments pointed out in the websites listed by The CCC, like http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/, and they certainly can't argue against the billions of years old universe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bRvt0InhYkqw series without exposing their extreme foolishness and/or egregious dishonesty. Real scientists really do not care how old the universe really is--only that whatever it is, they want to determine it accurately, using the best available evidence. There should not be anything surprising or disturbing about the fact that the ancient writers of the Bible got it wrong with the much more limited knowledge available to them.

Arguing that scientists have been mistaken in the past doesn't help your case in the slightest. The strength and virtue of science is that they are willing and even eager to learn from past mistakes and modify and/or reject old theories when warranted by new and more complete evidence. This is what so called "creation science" seems utterly incapable of or unwilling to do.

Given the undeniable advancements and accomplishments of modern science, can there really be any reasonable doubt that scientific knowledge is far more abundant and has got more things right now than ever before in history? What accomplishments can religion point to that even begin to compare with the accomplishments of rigorously applied scientific methods?