Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Is the creationist position intellectually honest?
I've seen hundreds of evolution vs creationist questions on here but it boils down to be asking the intellectual honesty of some of those positions. There are those that teach the creationist viewpoint that take the positions that radiometric decay rates are not constant, no transitional fossils (not arguing whether this meaningful just stating it), various positions and papers the Institute for Creation Research publishes--all attempting to use reason and rational thought to disprove the concept of evolutionary biology. All well and fine--this is part of the scientific method--objections are raised--these can be falsified or not. Having said that the creationist then will not apply the same logical reasoning skills and methodology to a book he claims is the inspired literal word of his deity. If we examine that premise with intellectual honesty-it should be relatively simple to strengthen or weaken the position. The epic of gilgamesh predates the biblical noah story by over a thousand years, the king sargon myth predates the story of moses by over a thousand years, the babylonian creation myth of gods creating men from the clay of the earth predates genesis--we find most of the ten commandments in the egyptian book of the dead--and we find that many of the spectacular bible events have no historical/archeological support. It seems odd that a deity wouldn't write an original book--so the fact that these stories predate the bible and the bible stories sound suspiciously like they were taken from them--at least like the no transitional fossils idea should be suffiecent to make one question not whether there is a god--but whether the book is literal or not literal. However logical reasoning is thrown out the window in this arena--isn't that the epitomy of intellectual dishonesty? Picking and choosing? Serious question. Wouldnt creationists be better off simply saying I don't care is found nor what the explanation is--my blind faith tells me this book is true. The point is--isn't it dishonest to use logic and reason to poke holes in evolutionary biology--but forego using that same logic and reason to evaluate their own bible faith?
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