The failures of creationism

The failures of hard line creationism

I recently had to rewrite a review of a book by Richard Dawkins. The book under review was written in support of Darwin’s revelations about evolution and although I have not read the book, the review inspired me to share my opinions on the subject. Far too many otherwise intelligent people keep quiet about controversial subjects to avoid conflicts with their friends and associates. Since I have only a half dozen friends and they already know how I feel I have no fear of reprisal. I will say what I believe.

Evolution is a proven fact that has been demonstrated scientifically, both with natural history evidence and with recent scientific experiments. I say again: Evolution is a proven fact. In the opening paragraph I did not say “Darwin’s theory of evolution” I said “Darwin’s revelations” because evolution is not a theory. The argument that evolution is a theory is like saying gravity is a theory. If a scientific fact can be dismissed by labeling it a theory the people using the argument should climb a high structure, declare gravity a theory, and take flight.
Faith in God means faith in the gift of existence in an afterlife. This wonderful gift from God can only be realized by mortals as faith. We keep our faith in the face of uncertainty and in spite of the impossibility of getting any tangible, hard proof. This is faith. It is part of the message all religions try to pass on to us.
Hard line Creationism is not faith. It is a corruption of the faith concept. The origins of creationism are in the bible – a work of man even if it was inspired by a real God. We have to look deep inside ourselves to find our personal connection to our creator. We cannot rely on someone else’s overt connection no matter how divinely inspired. The preaching that the path to heaven is through individual acceptance is important. The message is not “follow your church elder or your pastor and he will lead you to heaven”. Blind faith in the strict interpretation of another person’s written work prevents the personal search for the inner connection we all have. In effect being too lazy to put forth the individual effort toward understanding puts us under the control of others. We can become slaves to someone else’s visions and plans.
Stepping back from established and proven facts in favor of blind faith in another person’s interpretation takes us further away from our own understanding. When we categorically deny our own intelligence and reasoning ability and allow ourselves to be led by well meaning but misguided opinion we also deny one of our Creator’s greatest gifts to us – our ability to seek personal understanding. Hard line Creationists have denied the most important thing that makes us human – advanced reasoning. Denying that which makes us human, in effect takes us a giant step backwards toward the very unreasoning animal ancestor we want so badly to prune from our family tree.
In the creation versus evolution argument, refusing to recognize established facts actually demonstrates the scientific proof of the one thing we try to disprove.

How’s that for circular reasoning?