The Origins Divide is Harmful for Christianity: Rant from a Theistic Evolutionist

I originally posted this as a response to comment made by an Old Earth Creationist on another blog. It ended up becoming a fullfledged rant, and it was so big that I thought I might as well give it its very own entry here. Enjoy.

It’s too bad Christians are so bitterly divided over the age of the earth issue. Satan must be laughing all the way to the bank.

I know, it’s distressing. Having many perspectives isn’t such a big deal, but a lot of Young Earth creationists tend to go towards the “we’re absolutely right and you’re absolutely wrong” attitude.

They’re very aggressive and they often try to make converts by intimidation. They say things like “A non-literal Genesis undermines the gospel” and the like. The implication being, of course, that accepting either of those positions puts you on the fast track to hell.

People get frightened when they hear that kind of thing and if they aren’t well read in science they may join just because of fear. I don’t believe that it is ethical to use this emotionally manipulative tactic. I also feel that their view about the gospel being undermined by any Genesis interpretation is utter rubbish.

I really don’t want to be part of the age of the earth/evolution debate. I think its hurting Christianity’s mission substantially. The main reasons I speak up in this debate are:

1.) I’ve been highly interested in science since childhood, so this is where I feel I have the qualifications to do some good for the faith.

2.) The theistic evolutionary viewpoint is grossly underrepresented. Compared to YEC websites and hardcore atheist evolutionist sites how many Thevo sites do you see? I’ve searched the web far and wide and found very few sites advocating the position. Most of the sites I did find useful were more along the lines of “Old Earth sympathetic to evolution” than sites actually in accord to my beliefs.

3.) I feel that Young Earth sites often have science that is so poor that I feel compelled to respond. I also have a hard time accepting the very philosophy of their “science.” They say “the Bible is the basis of true science.” Does that make any sense?

You might as well say “the Bible is the basis of true tennis,” or “the Bible is the basis of true stamp collecting.” The Scientific Method is the basis of true science. If you think science and the Bible reach the same conclusions, then great. But to say that one is based off the other is absolutely untrue.

4.) Young Earthers present their view as the sole true one to the exclusion of all others. I believe my view is the only true one as well. Most people feel that they are right. Fine. But Young Earthers like to pretend that others don’t exist, or at least that they’re not worth mentioning. If an atheist says something like “Science contradicts the Genesis creation account!” The YEC says “Oh yeah, well evolution is bogus, blablabla.”

Instead something like “many Christians have differing views on the meaning of Genesis and the implications of science. Some believe that evolution supports the Genesis account. Some believe that evolution never occurred although scientific dating methods are mostly accurate.

I don’t know a whole lot about these positions, but I believe [such and such]. If you disagree, though, you may find these books by people who believe [Old Earth/Evolution/Whatever] helpful in understanding other Christian perspectives.” Would be an appropriate response that is helpful to the faith.

They have no intention of evangelizing for Christianity. They’re evangelizing for YECism. Young Earth belief seems to have taken an almost cult-like hold over people. They act like it’s a religion in itself. When potential converts see this “Young Earth is the only acceptable view of creation” stuff, they believe it.

And then, if they’re not convinced they feel that Christianity is not worth believing. I want to remedy this condition by showing that theistic evolution represents a solid alternative to YECism for those considering Christianity.

With potential converts leaving because Young Earthers were only willing to reveal their own Christian perspective, what do you think God will say to these Young Earthers if their views turn out wrong? I doubt he’ll be happy with their intolerance and closed mindedness.

5.) Like I want non-believers to see theistic evolution is a Biblical belief, I also want Christians to see thevo as at least a respectable view. I’m getting awful tired of having insults thrown at me. How does AiG expect people with similar beliefs to mine feel when they go to the site and see OECs labeled in lists of creationists as “Old Earth Compromisers?”

There’s only two reasons they would be throwing terms like that around. Either A, they’re degrading belief in an old earth as an attempt to bully fence-straddlers into taking their side, or B, they’re just trying to insult people like me.

Another example. Today I was going to rejoin the CARM forums and ask some questions about Young Earth beliefs. And then to my surprise on the registration page there’s a disclaimer that says something like “Warning: false teachers like evolutionists [and a list of other groups the webmaster disagrees with] represent themselves on this forum.”

Wow. I haven’t even joined yet and I’m being insulted. And just look how it’s phrased. We don’t “post here,” we don’t “participate in discussions here,” we “represent ourselves here.” As if our sole goal in going there was to prowl the forums as ambassadors of the Wicked One attempting to convert [corrupt] other members [wonderful godly people] to our beliefs [satanic heresies]. We don’t contribute anything constructive, we disagree with the webmaster on something and that makes us horrible ungodly servents of the devil.

This is absolutely unacceptable. Do these people even understand the Golden Rule? You know, treat others the way you want to be treated? I don’t know how the perjorative terms and insults fit in there. How can these people be trusted with the gospel if they can’t even manage simple politeness?

And by politeness, of course I mean “refrain from using labels designed to degrade and fearmonger people into agreeing with you.” Heck, I’ve found most atheists to be more civil than this in discussion. Even Satanism sympathizers have treated me more respectfully in debate. What gives? Why all the name calling?

How would they feel if they were the ones on the receiving end of this treatment? Most non-Young Earthers feel that “creation science” is basically stupid and that creationists are often dishonest. How would it feel if after every usage of a Young Earth researcher’s name we put “Lying Idiot” in parentheses? Somehow I doubt they’d take kindly to that.

They have no problems calling us compromisers in their schooling material, but how do you think they’d feel if we used “Lying Idiot” in ours? Name calling just isn’t as fun when you’re on the receiving end, is it?

*ahem* Sorry, this turned out to be a big rant. Have a nice day.

It’s a Fish-Eat-Fish World: Carnivory Existed Before the Flood

Disclaimer: Some YEC readers have “gently reminded” me that not all Young Earthers adhere to the position I’m criticizing.

Considering that Young Earthers attempt to read an obviously non-literal passage of the Bible as if it was meant word for word, it’s not surprising that their claims often end up being a little eccentric. And while people who are familiar with evolution, science and the Bible may sit back and ignore the creationists’ antics, the layman may actually fall for their tricks.

Even more dangerous is when a non-Christian is persuaded by these people that their doctrines actually represent those of the Bible! A non-believer will almost surely reject Christianity out of hand, or some people may be ensnared by creationist claims, only to wake up to how false they are at some point in the future. At that point the dangerous possibility exists that the convert will reject Christianity itself because they built their beliefs on a false and shaky foundation.

It’s for this reason that all Christians should unite against Young Earth Creationism and expose the foolishness of its teachings. Fortunately for us Theistic Evolutionists, the Young-Earthers often expose their logical fallacies without us even having to raise a finger.

One example of just such an occurence happened around my birthday two years ago when a couple actually donated the world’s finest fossil specimen of one fish eating another fish to the museum that Answers in Genesis founded.  For such a travesty to happen near the day of my birth was certainly a slap in the face to me, but fortunately I get the last laugh because that fossil the AiG folks treasure so much actually undermines a major creationist doctrine! Not to mention that it shows how rampant Orwellian Doublethink is amongst even the most celebrated authorities on creation.

If you are familiar with the origins debate, you will no doubt be aware that YECs¹  believe that most if not all of the world’s fossils have their origins in the Great Flood of Noah. They also believe that animals never ate each other until after the flood, when God explicitly decreed it acceptable to Noah. Genesis 9:3² they say, is the Biblical record of carnivory’s origins.

Unfortunately for them, a fossil created during the Flood showing carnivory would ultimately be the death knell of this belief. Evolutionists (and other Old Earthers) believe that fossils were made thousands to millions of years ago- way older than the Flood and thus the alleged Divine “go-ahead” given to pre-carnivorous animals to finally begin eating meat. Young Earthers believe that fossils were created during the Flood which is still older than God’s giving permission for carnivory.

Thus this prized fish specimen is a major problem for creationists. How could there be any fossils demonstrating carnivory if carnivory didn’t exist until after all the fossils were created? There is no way around this. The implications are that either carnivory existed prior to the Flood, or that this fossil was made sometime after the catastrophic event.

There seems to be a little bit of disagreement among creationists as to whether or not the Green River Formation where these fossils were found actually was formed by the Deluge, but even if it wasn’t, there are still many hundreds of fossils that show evidence of carnivory. Everything from Allosaur tooth marks on Diplodocid tails, to tooth marks on ammonite shells, and then of course, that famous specimen of a Velociraptor with its claw plunged into the belly of a Protoceratops, their struggle for survival frozen in stone.

The claim that most fossils are of vegetarian, pre-Flood animals does not hold under scrutiny. Either the biggest portions of the fossil record were created post-Flood, or carnivory has been around since the beginning. The implications for creationist doctrine are big, whichever path you take.

It is a fossil in exquisite detail of a fish caught in the act of swallowing another fish—this could not have been a slow event. Whatever happened had to be a catastrophic event—consistent with the Flood of Noah’s day.

Thus saith Mr. Ham. Now how can anyone in their right mind justify believeing that carnivory didn’t exist until after the Flood at the same time that they recognize the existence of a fossil recording a carnivorous act taking place during the Flood? The cognitive dissonance must be astounding.³

A proper, less literal understanding of Genesis, is the solution to to the conundrum of pre-Flood carnivory. Using science as a guide to fill in details that the Bible doesn’t elaborate on is a proper way of learning about the past. Melding a scientific understanding of Earth’s history together with the Bible ultimately yields an accurate synthesis of the world’s beginning.

Edenic animals were indeed vegetarian (or else naked defenseless Adam would be in big trouble!), but the Bible gives no detail on the dietary habits of animals outside of this general vicinity. It’s for that reason that we rely on secular sources like the fossil record, sources that clearly indicate that carnivory had been around ever since life forms were advanced enough to eat each other.

It may seem a travesty for such a beautiful and important fossil to end up in a creationist “museum,” but what at first seemed a travesty may end up being a very good thing. God can use evil to accomplish his good purposes in this matter in the same way he did when Joseph was sold into slavery. Hopefully this obvious contradiction to creationist doctrine on display in a creation museum will cause someone to wake up to the foolishness of YECism. This person can then stop posing a threat to the spread of the gospel with their weak-foundationed evangelism, and can shift their focus of their witnessing where it belongs: with Jesus, not any particular understanding of Genesis.

Footnotes!

¹ Just try to pronounce that! Sounds like an exclamation of disgust to me. “Yeck!”

² “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I [God] given you all things.”

³ Honesty compels me to inform you that I could not find a statement on Ken Ham’s beliefs about when carnivory originated except that it was sometime after the Fall. That being said, many of the less “prestigious” creationist web sites I’ve found have indeed stated that they believe carnivory began after the Flood. I just don’t want you to think I was trying to build a straw man argument or misrepresent Mr. Ham’s views if it’s ture that he disagrees with these other creationists.

Of Weedwhackers, Abortion Clinics and Dystopian Political Fiction

I’ve read a lot of literature from various Young Earth people and websites, and to see them rape all the meaning out of Biblical passages and ideas is nothing new. This post is about a particularly strange idea, speaking from a biological perspective.

I had downloaded a young earth PDF file that contained an essay on how evolutionist (or Old Earth) ideas about the fossil record and death before sin is “unbiblical.” The author then tries to defend his view point by refuting the obvious objection that the opposition would raise: even if all animals were vegetarians back in the day, the plants themselves would still be dying so it would be rediculous to say that there was no death before Adam and Eve ate the fruit.

In his refutation of this devastating objection the author is forced to rewrite the definition of life itself and then desperately scramble his way through the Bible looking for quotes that can be twisted to support this rather, um, “unorthodox” idea. Unfortunately, that PDF was on my old harddrive, which headcrashed.

I tried finding the file online again so that I could pull some quotes from it to show where whoever wrote it went wrong, but could not. Luckily, academic integrity and respect for the hard work of their fellows is largely absent in the Young Earth community and I found some probably plagiarized quotes that were identical to that article I had read previously on a completely unrelated website.

I took a passage and will now disect it in depth to examine its flaws and the frightening implications of its ideas.

The Bible is very clear about the nature of life. Life, according to the Bible, resides in the “soul,” or the Hebrew word “nephesh.”

Gotta love creationists making bold Biblical assertions without backing up what they say with scripture. How is it so very clear if you can’t even give one verse in defense of the idea?

This might be equated roughly with the concept of consciousness.

Wow, I’ve received a great Biblical insight from this! No wonder the new testament substitutes the word “death” with “sleep” so many times! The instant you fall asleep you are no longer alive by Biblical standards!

But, woe is me! I’m now doubting my faith! How is Jesus’s ressurection special? After all, by the “Biblical definition of life” I ressurect myself from the grave pretty frequently. On weekdays I’m dead until 7:45 AM. What’s even more disturbing is that on the weekends I spend extra time in the afterlife and “die in” until around 11 AM! The implications of “the Biblical definition of life” are bizarre indeed.

This quality is ascribed only to man and some animals, but never plants. The Bible is also very clear as to what happens to plants—”they wither and fade” (Isaiah 40:6-8; James 1:10) but plants never die.

Are you kidding me? What happens to plants when they die? Could it be that they dry up and “wither” and that bright green color “fade”s away? How much clearer a description of a dying plant do you want?

I suppose if instead of the bible saying that a person dies it said he “Ceased moving and became cold and stiff” you would surmise that people aren’t alive in the Biblical sense? Give me a break!

They have biological life, but not Biblical life. Men and animals could eat plant life without death, in Biblical terms, taking place.

Then why did God say (in Jeremiah I think), that “[in heaven] my people will live as long as the trees!” I may have paraphrased the quote a little, but it was very obvious that God felt that trees were alive, and not just living, but they had very good longevity!

Of course if you’re a creationist, this verse should frighten you. After all, despite trees having a solid lifespan they don’t last forever. Whatever happened to “eternal life” in heaven? Is the bible errant? This verse from Jeremiah and other verses about heaven aren’t “literally” compatible. Must we flee from Christianity and become secular humanists?

Or maybe obsessive literalism is a poor way to interpret the Bible.

This assumes, of course, that plants are alive in the Biblical sense. While there are hundreds of verses dealing with man dying the following scriptures will show that plants do not die in the same sense that a man or animal dies.

Maybe plant death isn’t mentioned very much because the impact of any particular plant dying just wasn’t historically or doctrinally very important? Hmm.. I wonder…

Just as a computer is a complex machine able to run for hours at the touch of a button, a plant is a complex self-replicating food source but it is not alive. A computer can “die” and so can a car engine but they don’t die in the sense people do.

Oh bollocks! I hope my response has already put this to rest. But just in case, let’s examine this metaphor. The creationist is saying that computers and plants are analogous because they share life-like qualities while not actually being alive and are said to die by humans when in fact they do not. Is this valid?

Well, what do plants have in common with things alive in the so-called “Biblical” sense? Well for one, they have a common chemistry. They also have…

Nucleic acids as “blueprints”

Metabolism

Cells

Reproduction

Environmental interactions

Environmental reactions and that’s just for starters.

What do computers have in common with “biblical” “life”? Nothing! Saying “plants and computers are only analogous to truly living things and are such in the same way,” as our creationist friend has done is completely fallacious because even though plants fulfill every expectation and criterion for being alive computers do not!

Plants have no breath or blood.

Ah! Here we are! That PDF I read focused more strongly than this watered down copy I found more recently on this. Breath and blood. He’s obviously referring to the “the life of the body is in the blood” and “the breath of life.” References to these ideas are scattered throughout the Old Testament. But what do they mean?

Well, the first one is easy, it refers to the ritual purity ideas present in the Pentateuch. You know, the whole “If thou doest such-and-such, you shall be unclean until the even” and that kind of stuff. The blood is used in ritual sacrifice, it was commanded not to be eaten, it was to be spilled when certain sins were committed.

But, notice that none of these things actually have to do with biology. The phrase “the life of the body is in the blood” has nothing to do with biology. After all, what is special about blood biologically? Sure you can’t live without it, but try living without a brain or a digestive tract. If the Pentateuch was going to spend time making definitions of life rather than giving instructions for living from God, why were those critical organ systems not mentioned?

The second one’s pretty easy too. The “breath of life” doesn’t originate with that animal, it was given to it when God made it! Look at Genesis 2: God breathed the breath of life into Adam’s nostrils! It had nothing to do with whether Adam was respirating or not, because he wasn’t!

The breath of life originates with God and not with whatever animal is being discussed. Thus, it is pointless to pretend that God was revealing some sort of biological tid bit when he inspired this text.

Now what are the implications for actually believing these definitions? Does an organism have to have both lungs and blood to qualify as being “Biblically alive”? What if an animal has blood but doesn’t breathe? Fish are like this with minor exceptions (anabantoids and lungfish spring to mind), and many amphibians respire through their skin without “breathing” per se.

But of course most animals don’t keep the same structure or physiology through-out there whole lives. Many compliated in utero changes have to happen from the moment of conception to the birth of a mammal, the very earliest stages of which lack blood! Humans are no exception.

Humans have no blood until week 6 of prenatal development, and even then I’m pretty sure that the blood isn’t fully developed. And they don’t breathe until they’re being born. This means that for the entire duration of a pregnancy the human fetus fails to meet one of the “Biblical” criteria for life, and for the first month and a half both of the “Biblical” criteria are unsatisfied.

If you reflect on this The point I’m making should become clear: Young Earth creationists are engaging in Orwellian doublethink. For those of you who never made it through reading 1984 (I only made it halfway through, myself), doublethink means the following:

the act of holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously, fervently believing both.

A passage from the novel reveals it in a more poetic way (Thanks Wikipedia!):

His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully-constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them; to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy; to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the art of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved using doublethink.

I know it’s likely that not all Young Earth creationists are pro-lifers, but let’s face it, I’d say that 95% of them are. So the paradox of their thoughts is that they believe these two things simulataneously:

1.) Their incorrect knowledge of the death that came with sin spoken of by St. Paul requires them to believe that bloodless, non-breathing organisms are not alive, in order to force their traditional religious worldview on the Bible.
2.) It is morally necessary rallies and vocally wage political warfare in a crusade to protect the “sanctity of life” for an organism that does not meet the very definition of life they purport to believe in!

I’m surprised such a perfect example of doublethink didn’t make it into the original novel. Time to release a new edition, methinks.

Let’s follow all the way through with the implications of the Young Earth creationist “Biblical Definition of Life” on that hot-button topic, abortion:

Are you a whore? Are you faced with an inconvenient pregnancy? That’s ok, this problem is easily solved! Just stroll over to your friendly neighborhood abortion clinic and terminate that unwanted child! After all, “it” doesn’t fit the Biblical definition of life anyway!

If it ain’t breathin’ and ain’t bleedin’ it ain’t livin’! Feeling pangs of post-infanticide blues? Well, cheer up, Bucko! You shouldn’t feel any more guilt for getting an abortion than you do after you mow the lawn. After all, “Plants have no breath or blood” either!

P. S. I’m sure a creationist in the studio audience is going to show up, ignore the obvious implications of their beliefs like they have done their whole life; they’ll say “No! You’re the one you using doublethink! You pretend to believe in God and evolution! THEY CANNOT BE RECONCILED!” and thus attempt to completely change the focus of discussion.

Please don’t. That response is not witty or clever. No one will be impressed. That’s the exact response I would expect to hear after my accusations of doublethink. I don’t care if you agree with me on evolution or not, but I won’t put up with people coming here insulting my faith in God. Thank you.

Abyssal vs. the Pedophile

My dad has been considering starting his own business with a guy who, it turns out, may be a formerly convicted child molester.

I don’t know how Dad met this guy, but I think it was through his old job as a security guard at Rite Aid. Starting a security guard business has been a goal of my dad’s for a while now, but because of the nature of the business law suits are always a significant possibilities if you have to defend yourself by using force. This risk made Dad a bit reluctant to want to invest very much into the business, finanically speaking.

When this guy, call him “Bill,” shows up and expresses interest in being his partner in the business, Dad was thrilled. With two people in charge any investments lost or lawsuits gained would be kind of divided up. However, dad had a few reservations. See, “Bill” just didn’t seem like a trustworthy guy.

Supposedly he had recently bought a house near us, and was planning on moving there soon. He also claimed to have bought a black Ford F-150 recently. Yet his finances also seemed to be in poor condition, so his claims seemed doubtable.

My first encounter with Bill was when Dad picked me up from campus one day and was like “We’re going to Charleston, to meet up with Bill.” Apparrently, “meeting up” meant we were going to drive him around to the grocery store. And buy him lunch. And take him to buy ciggarettes. And talk about the business. I wondered why we had to run over to Charleston and shuttle this guy around if he had a new truck. I think dad was wondering the same thing.

Apart from the annoyance of a surprise trip, it really didn’t seem too bad. There was something about Bill’s eyes that made me very distrustful of him, and he was a heavily racist misogynist, but I would describe my father the same way so I’ve learned to deal with attititudes like those. But at least Dad has the good sense not to avoid voting for Hillary Clinton just because of her two X chromosomes.

A few days pass and Dad gets a strange phone call. I was the one who answered the phone only to hear a female voice I didn’t recognize. There was something about this call that gave me a weird intuitive feeling. This would be the feeling Miss Cleo would have gotten if she was a real psychic.

I told Dad to pick up the phone in the other room. I then decided to do something I don’t ever think I did before- I chose to eavesdrop on the entire conversation. What I heard really freaked me out.

What’s with the line, you ask? Why would I suddenly interrupt the flow of this possibly interesting blog entry? It’s because this post is old news. I began typing it like two months ago, but never posted it.

By now it has become old news, and I’ve honestly forgotten a lot about the incident in question. So, I’m gonna have to summarize things from here on out. Sorry that this post sort of keeled over just when I was getting to the interesting and important stuff.

The woman who called was claiming to be ”Bill”’s ex-girlfriend. She says that he was a big user of illegal drugs and get this- he had molested her 6 year old kid! His current residence is in Charleston because after being jailed for two years for the sexual abuse the City of Huntington no longer would allow him to reside within the city limits. She said his claim to have purchased a nearby house was a lie.

After this rather disconcerting call, I volunteered to look up Bill on the West Virginia sex offender registry site. Problem is, niether me nor my dad knew how to spell his last name. So, we searched with nothing in the search bar (which makes every convicted sex offender in the state pop up).

Then came the laborious task of searching through the entire database by first name. You’d be surprised how many child molesters happen to be named Bill. Although it seems that our Bill wasn’t on the list.

She was right about Bill having lied about his supposed house nearby us. One day Dad stopped by this house. Nobody was home. So, dad went to the neighbor’s place and enquired about who lived there. It was home to some young newly weds who had already been living there for a year. The man was tall and drove a white car. Bill is single, short and claims to drive an F-150.

As time wore on it made it more obvious that Bill’s intentions of helping Dad with a legitimate business weren’t exactly honest. He has made the claim to have all the paper work and government stuff done to allow us to begin practicing the business, yet never seems to be able to email us a copy.

It seemed like he was looking for was a part time chauffer and someone to have official-looking badge made for him to flash at people like he’s some sort of bigshot.

We never found any evidence to corroborate the claim that this guy was a pedophile, but we have definitely concluded that he’s a liar and full of crap.