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Christian Morality Derivation of Principles Gary Novak
Creationism should not be a subject of religion, because none of the contributors to the Bible had the slightest intention of describing biology. The six day story of Genesis had the purpose of creating a seven day calendar and nothing else. But creationism is used as a test of allegiance by fundamentalist Christians, and it gets forced onto a lot of persons. Kids do not deserve to go to school assuming that their teachers are lying to them about evolution. One of the motives for creationism is to lock in the concepts of total literalness and inerrancy in use of the Scriptures. Biology is not the real concern of creationists. Their real concern is to not allow anyone to question Paul's corrupt analysis. If it's in the Bible, it's supposed to be unquestionable. To establish such a standard, fundamentalists use creationism as the litmus test for legitimacy. Another reason why creationism is promoted in Christianity is because ultra-conservatives are opposed to a philosophy of change. If realities change, then there is a responsibility for humans to account for change. Doing so requires constructivity, reason, knowledge, morality, justice, etc. Instead, conservatives contrive a static state, where human responsibilities can be ignored. They can then use nihilism as a basis for not seeing or correcting their errors. They pretend that there is some other purpose to life which relegates constructivity to detraction. Since there are ulterior motives for creationism, creationists cannot be corrected. They keep stating the same falsehoods, over and over, no matter how often they are proven wrong. Creationists don't just claim they have subjective religious values which contradict science; they claim they know more about science than the scientists, while they use quasi scientific arguments to supposedly disprove evolution. They don't seriously try to change the minds of scientists; their purpose is to convince a group of gullible followers that they infallibly interpret God's words in the Bible. Here are some of the absurdities of creationism. How did Noah get all of the animals on the ark? There was supposedly seven cubic feet of space for each animal, which is the size of a sheep, and nothing more was needed. Even if the animals could have gotten by without water or food for thirty days, there would have been nothing but feathers, fur and blood afterwards. Did Noah defy God and leave off the dinosaurs? No, he took along baby dinosaurs, and the group died in some flood later. Were there not dozens of ice ages that lasted hundreds of thousands of years each? No, there was only one ice age which occurred six thousand years ago. There is a professional geologist who is a creationist, and he said so. What creationists are saying is that during the past six thousand years, two baby dinosaurs repopulated the earth, while ice covered the northern continents and melted again—all happening before recorded history began about four thousand years ago, but not more than the six thousand years ago, which leaves only two thousand years of duration for those events. Another absurdity of creationism is placing all different types of ecosystems on the planet at the same time. Supposedly, the dinosaur ecosystem which contained nonwoody plants existed at the same time as the modern ecosystem which contains woody plants. The modern mammals and predators supposedly existed at the same time as the dinosaurs. Wolves, bears and jackals would have made mincemeat of baby dinosaurs. But creationists never take up these points. Instead they focus on abstract mechanisms. They claim that microevolution exists as change within species, while macroevolution never did exist as change between species. Their evidence is limited to false claims, such as no major transitions ever being found in evolution. Supposedly, the skeletons of human ancestors are from extinct animals unrelated to humans. Supposedly, the scientific opinions are worth nothing, while the creationists know the truth, because they get their knowledge from God in the Bible. Such claims are not questions of science but belief, as courts have concluded in trying to protect school curricula from creationism. But losing court cases does nothing to change creationism, because the only purpose is to keep gullible followers aligned upon an inerrant and literal interpretation of the Bible. Creationists make such sweeping claims as science never showing adequate mechanisms for major transitions in evolution. Sex has that purpose. It promotes rapid and dramatic genetic recombination, so changes in form and function can occur rapidly in response to major environmental changes. A totally separate question which sometimes gets related to creationism is whether God has an involvement in evolution, which is called intelligent design. Christians who believe evolution to be a scientific fact, which was the majority prior to the recent fundamentalist tide, assume that God controls evolution. As science reveals more about life and evolution, the supernatural influences become more and more apparent. There are not enough random mutations to create all of the options that are needed in evolution. The degree of complexity of life involves too many improbabilities to be a result of random results. For example, it is totally improbable that a tree would produce the material needed for tires on automobiles, while technologists are still incapable of producing a substitute. What if a mammal did not survive the catastrophe that wiped out the dinosaurs? Zilch to mankind, according to atheists. There were other near misses over time which turned out to be opportunities rather than catastrophes. To Chapter 1. |