The arguments for biblical Creationism are like the lyrics to familiar television jingles.
Sure, Intelligent Design doesn't make a lot of sense. But everybody knows the words, and
sometimes it's fun to sing along. So...The Thinking Atheist presents...Our Top
Ten Favorite Creationist Arguments 1) Carbon Dating Isn’t Accurate To Determine
the Age of the Earth. Perhaps that’s why carbon dating isn't the preferred method for
dating rocks and fossils over 50,000 years old. There are a great many methods of radiometric
dating that accurately measure the decay of radioactive elements in rocks, meteorites
and fossils, and that’s why science can confidently estimate the age of planet earth
at 4.5 billion years.
2) You can't prove Evolution. As opposed to proving a Youth Earth theory from primitive,
anonymous texts? Actually...man has unlocked the world of genetics to reveal that all living
things have and do evolve, and that similarities exist between the DNA of plants, animals and
humans alike. Evolution is observable, provable science. To quote the famous evolutionary
biologist Stephen J. Gould "Creationist critics often charge that evolution cannot be tested,
and therefore cannot be viewed as a properly scientific subject at all. This claim is rhetorical
nonsense.” - 3) If man evolved from monkeys, why do we
still have monkeys? This is like asking, if America was colonized by the English, why
do we still have England? The "branching" phenomenon in speciation doesn't make the
original branch disappear. Next question, please.
4) The human eye is too complex to have evolved. This argument is also known as, "Irreducible
Complexity." This gross over-simplification ignores creatures like the single-celled Euglena
(you-GLEEN_uh)...which have evolved antennae for light. Mollusks and jellyfish have evolved
varying grades of vision. Plus...consider this: The human eye is more poorly constructed
and much less acute than the eye of the octopus or the great horned owl. The human eye has
blind spots in the visual field. The human retina is inverted, requiring the brain to
"flip" the image to appear right-side-up. Did God care more about the design of the
horned owl than his own children? Complexity does not demand a designer.
5) Atheism is actually a religion. Indeed. Much like "not collecting stamps" might be
called a hobby. Or “not smoking” might be called a habit.
6) Oh yeah? Well "Scientist-X" believes in God. That's nice. So did icons like Copernicus,
Kepler and Galileo, who also lived in the time of dirt floors, bleeding sick people
to cure them, and burning witches at the stake. Sir Isaac Newton was a believer and theologian.
He was also an alchemist. Did Newton's groundbreaking research on gravity and the Laws of Motion
also prove his belief that metals had magical powers and could be combined to make gold?
Cherry-pick all you want. The fact is, 93% of the members of the National Academy of
Sciences reject the concept of God . That's not just a majority. It's an overwhelming
majority. In fact, this is just a sampling of the reputable scientific organizations
that reject Intelligent Design and support Evolution by Natural Selection.
7) You're saying that everything happened by "chance?" No. Chance certainly plays a
part in the evolutionary cycle, but Natural Selection promotes non-random change of specific
desirable traits over time. Living organisms didn't just pop into existence by "chance."
But they did evolve over millions, sometimes billions, of years.
8) America is a Christian nation. Actually, the U.S. Constitution never mentions God.
And the mentions of religion in Article 6 and the First Amendment serve to separate
religion from government altogether. “In God We Trust” wasn’t printed on American
coins until 1863, after a religious surge during the Civil War. American paper money
didn’t have it until 1957. The words “under God” weren’t even in the original Pledge
of Allegiance. They were added by Congress in 1954. And many of our founding fathers
never proclaimed any allegiance or belief in the Christian God… including Thomas Jefferson,
Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Adams, Thomas Paine, and even George Washington.
9) The 2nd Law Of Thermodynamics! We love this argument, because almost everyone who
uses it has no idea what they're talking about. In a nutshell, The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics
says that systems must become more disordered over time, so complex living cells and organisms
couldn't have come out of basic inanimate chemicals. In other words, more time means
more chaos. What Creationists fail to mention is that this "law" only works in a closed
system, where no energy or matter leaves or enters. The earth is not a closed system.
It receives heat and light from our sun's nuclear fusion, fueling simple organisms so
that they can become more complex by consuming other forms of life and nonliving materials.
Here's an easy way to frustrate this argument. When a Christian brings up with 2nd Law of
Thermodynamics, ask him what the other "laws" are. When he shrugs and stares into space,
you’ll know how truly informed he is on the subject.
10) And finally...Our favorite. Adolf Hitler was an atheist. Actually...Hitler was raised
Roman Catholic. In "Mein Kampf," Hitler speaks of the "creator of the universe" and says
the Aryan race was created by God. His religious views (or lack of them) remain in dispute,
but using the name of history's greatest tyrant isn't an argument. It's a provocation that
has NOTHING to do with the concept of Evolution or Creation. Invoking Hitler is a "hot button"
designed to distract people from the true argument...the overwhelming evidence of Evolution
By Natural Selection. There they are. Our Top Ten Favorite Creationists
Arguments. Next time you come up against one of these,
just remember that your worldview is based on evidence. Their worldview includes an invisible
divine "Daddy", 2 naked people and a talking snake, contradictory documents written in
the Bronze Age, the wearing of torture devices around one's neck, and bumper stickers that
say "Seven Days Without Prayer Makes One Weak." For the record...we're not sure the Creationist
argument could be much weaker. We're just sayin'.