Will creationists ever catch on that addressing evolution questions to "Atheists", is admission of defeat?

Every time I see another creationist address an evolution question to "atheists" ... I see the equivalent of a football team celebrating a touchdown it has scored against itself. (Or for soccer and hockey fans ... it's like the creationists celebrating an "own goal.")

Three reasons:

1. By failing to understand that the *supporters* of evolution includes the consensus of the scientific community ... both atheist and theist scientists ... this reveals a lack of understanding of its arguments. I.e., it reveals that the creationist is arguing against a concept he has not bothered to understand.

2. By addressing questions to "atheists", the creationist is admitting that their beef with evolution stems from the (unsupported) assumption that evolution is a rejection of God. To the creationist, this is not just an academic debate about evidence, this is a deeply *personal* debate over the very existence of God!

3. It backfires as a shot against atheists, by portraying *atheists* as the "representatives of the scientific community"! And we Christians are portrayed as the enemies of science and rationality! (Do the creationists not notice how *happily* the atheists accept that role as the "defenders of mainstream science"?)


So my questions: Is it just me, or does it seem like this practice of addressing evolution questions to "atheists" has increased lately?

And either way, do some creationists notice the tactical MISTAKE of this practice?

2010-11-14T17:01:04Z

@Pastor Art writes: "I've never seen such a question."
I guess you haven't been around here much.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101024113605AAT8aQL
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101022113744AAwV45L
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101112065430AA8eY7E
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100817085532AAYdvAf
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101017015251AAyzB1l

2010-11-14T17:05:37Z

@Annie writes: "When will atheists catch on that addressing questions about God to Christians , is an admission of defeat ?"

Irrelevant ... as I am neither an atheist, nor did I address a question about God to Christians.

2010-11-14T17:17:09Z

@Central N.Y. Guy: If you recognize the difference between biological death and *spiritual* death (sin) then there is no conflict with the Bible ... biological death did indeed exist before spiritual death (or human beings *capable* of spiritual death). So no, evolution does NOT mean rejection of the God of the Bible ... much less God in general.

2010-11-14T23:30:55Z

@Central N.Y. Guy: Obviously we disagree theologically ... but it doesn't matter! My claim is that there are theists who accept evolution. Whether YOU accept their belief in God as "Biblical" enough for you is irrelevant ... what matters is whether they believe in God.

In short, your claim that no true theist would accept evolution is an example of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. (Look it up.)

Facts Matter2010-11-14T17:19:34Z

Favorite Answer

Fundamentalist Creationists really believe that you can't believe in God unless you accept biblical literalism and inerrancy. It follows that someone like, say, Pope John Paul II who accepts the fact of evolution is actually an atheist.

Maybe the increased number of these Qs is because the end of semester is approaching for Dembski's trolls, who get credit for trashing evolution in public forums.

80

Vincent G2010-11-15T00:24:43Z

Well, let's see...

Evolution works by trail and error, 'admitting' failure by letting individuals without a required beneficial mutation or those with a unsuitable one to die off and/or fail to reproduce.

Creationists, if they are to be coherent, would deny themselves a capacity to learn from their mistake.

So I guess catching up on their incoherence is probably beyond the intellectual capacity of most creationists.

By addressing their question to atheists, at the extreme opposite range of their own belief as far as fundamentalism and literal (and quite stubbornly limited) interpretation of the bible; they more or less feel empowered to take on the unmovable object with their 'irresistible' force; except that they are just like 15 year old kids jumping in the ring against Georges St-Pierre...

So... no. They will not learn. Otherwise they would already have understood a few things.

50

?2010-11-14T22:57:19Z

I do not believe that they actually notice this mistake, nor agree that it IS, in fact, a mistake.

Creationists are under the misapprehension that "true Christians" don't accept evolution, when in fact the evolution-deniers are a small minority in this world. The US just happens to have a large proportion of those deniers, and they are VERY loud. They also wear their ignorance of science like a badge of honor, but that is beside the point.

A creationist will never accept the reality in front of them- that evolution is NOT a controversy in the scientific community, that the vast majority of Christians in the world understand that evolution is how the world works, and that evolution has absolutely nothing to do with the existence (or not) of their god.

Though, you are certainly more statistically likely to have an atheist who has a degree in one of the "hard" sciences than a Christian. We make up only 8% (or less) of the US population but 40% of scientists in the "hard" fields (biology, chemistry, physics).

81

Anonymous2010-11-14T23:34:21Z

As a world-renowned award-winning Creationist I can tell you most plainly that the mistake made by some Creationists is in asking questions at all.

God did it, final answer.

When you have the Final Answer, you stop looking for other answers.

51

Anonymous2010-11-14T22:55:36Z

if christians are pinning their hopes of the validity of their faith on the absence of evolution, then they are already proven wrong. Even something is simple as getting a seasonal flu shot is an admission of the existence of evolution.

Yeah its a pretty bad strategy...but what do you expect?

I would even just say its a bad strategy and leave it at that because they are trying to win, not discover truth.

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