Their Smugness Kills Me

So, I was perusing Yahoo! Answers again, hoping to be inspired with something to write on my blog when I came across this gem:

Can religious people (Christian's and Muslims) Survive an education invasion?

In the past thousand of years ago people belive that god created the first man and women adam and eve.

Now when people are getting, better education and scientific studies on top that we know that Adam and eve. Was fake and human evolution tells us there was homo erectus neanderthal cro magnon and modern human homo sapiens which came out of Africa and spread all over the world.

Since more people are getting smarter they now know that religious myths and. Superstitions are just to keep people down, Christian's how will you stop people from becoming smarter the next. Generations of people who will become doctors scientists and so on?

Do I even need to explain why questions like this annoy me? This person stereotypes all Christians (actually all religious people) as uneducated simpletons who fear education – and not only for themselves, this person alleges we fear anyone becoming educated. He goes so far as to suggest we're trying to stop people from “becoming smarter.” Why do critics have to resort to such tactics? Beyond the straw man representation of Christians, the whole question reeks of snobbery.

By the way, the user who asked the question was posting under the name, “southasiangurung.” English is probably his second language so I'm going to excuse the terrible grammar – the misspellings, the random use of capitalization, inappropriate punctuation, verbs not agreeing with nouns in number, sentence fragments, etc. Even so, I cannot excuse the premise of his question – namely that generations of “educated” people (by “educated” he obviously means “non-religious”) will go on to be doctors and scientists and Christians won't be able to stop them.

I've mentioned before that Yahoo! is a bunch of liberals and on several occasions my answers have been removed for allegedly violating community guidelines. I was a little surprised the first time it happened but I later realized that many liberal people are just offended by religious/conservative viewpoints because I certainly don't include any offensive language in any of my answers. Yahoo! certainly doesn't have time to sit and read every question/answer posted in their forum so they rely on Yahoo! members to report inappropriate comments. So why is it that same type of people who flag my comments as inappropriate see no problem in asking inappropriate questions like this?

The Yahoo! community guidelines says, “Yahoo Answers is a diverse community of people with diverse opinions. It is up to each of us to be polite and treat each other with respect.” I believe this question violates that point so, just for fun, I reported the question as a violation. It's the only time I've ever done that. I'm more curious to see if Yahoo! handles comments against Christians the same way it handles comments made by Christians.

In the meantime, let me just say that liberals are an intolerant lot. For all their talk about inclusion and equality, you certainly can't see any of it in their attitude toward Christians. They have this attitude that they're the enlightened ones, the educated ones, and the champions of “fairness” while all religious people are just stupid. I need to sign off and get some fresh air. Their smugness stinks.

A Monopoly on the Evidence

I guess all writers have their own style. I know I do. For example, I know that I often begin sentences with “I” and “For example.” Anyway, when dealing with a subject that is often misunderstood – like evolution is – I constantly try to seek out new ways to explain the most commonly misunderstood parts. I sometimes try putting my arguments into different words hoping that I strike upon a way to make my point clear. In a recent comment I made to a visitor, I happened upon still a different way to make a point I've made many times before.

I've said over and over that evidence is neutral. It isn't “for” any theory. Rather, theories are invented in order to explain the evidence. A theory might seem to explain the evidence rather well but then later, the theory could still be rejected in favor of a new theory. As theories come and go, the evidence is always the same. The universe just keeps chugging along like it always has and nothing has changed except the theory.

For centuries, the prevailing model of the universe was that the heavenly bodies circled the earth. It's not an entirely unreasonable conclusion. When we look into the sky, the sun, moon, and stars appear to be moving around us in predictable patterns. At the same time, we don't feel like we're moving. The geocentric model seemed to explain well what we were observing. Of course, as we began to observe more of the universe, there were things that weren't explained well and the Ptolemaic model was eventually replaced by our current understanding. In all this time, though, the “evidence” didn't change; we just found a better way to explain it.

What is true of the sun, moon, and stars, is true for all of the evidence for any theory. Every phenomenon simply is and we invent theories to explain what it is, why it exists, and why it behaves the way it does. That's science.

Does anyone disagree with anything I've said so far? Certainly I've made it all very simple and there are some things I could elaborate on but I can't see any point that could be contended. Right? Okay, then. Creation and evolution are no different than any other theory. The scientific evidence for creation is the same evidence that is used for any secular theory of origins. It's the rocks and the fossils and the oceans and DNA and everything else that exists in the physical universe. So, keeping what I've said in mind, why do evolutionists repeatedly say, “There is no evidence for creation”?

Let me try to explain in still a different way how ridiculous that comment sounds. Take something like rock layers. Evolutionists believe that the strata were laid down gradually over millions of years. Where fossils appear in the strata supposedly approximates the time the creatures lived. Therefore fossils found in lower layers represent creatures that lived before the those found in higher layers. Now, because secular theorists have explained the rock layers this way, it seems to be their contention that rock layers cannot be explained any other way. In other words, because evolutionists have explained rock layers with their long age theory, the layers can no longer be used as evidence for a recent creation!

Evolutionists are playing a game of “dibs” on the evidence. Once they explain anything according to their theory, they refuse to let it be considered in any other light. That is why the rock layers can't be young because they've already said they're old. Similarities in features on different animals can't be because of design because they've already said it's because of common descent. There is no evidence for creation because they've already used it all as evidence for evolution!

Admittedly, some theories seem to explain certain things better than other theories do and if evolutionists want to say their theories explains the evidence better than creation does, we can have that discussion. In the meanwhile, I refuse to sit back and let evolutionists pretend they have a monopoly on all of the evidence. I will not be shamed into silence by the absurd statement that there is no evidence for creation. Perhaps Daniel Patrick Moynihan said it best when he said, “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”