![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2014\/02\/57-iguana.jpg\" "\\"Iguana\\"")
<\/a>I didn\u2019t watch last week\u2019s evolution vs. creationism debate between Science Guy Bill Nye and Creation Museum founder Ken Ham.\u00a0 I had better things to do than listen to them talk past each other.\u00a0 That was all they could do \u2013 Nye and Ham share no common ground from which to begin a rational debate.<\/p>\nI\u2019m familiar with their arguments.\u00a0 I\u2019ve read excerpts and commentary of the debate.\u00a0 I\u2019ve read more of Ham\u2019s Answers in Genesis than I wish I had.\u00a0 Any lingering doubts I might have had about evolution were crushed when I read Richard Dawkins\u2019 The Greatest Show on Earth<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 While I agree with those who said the debate was unlikely to change anyone\u2019s mind, it presented some issues of importance to us all.<\/p>\n A third of Americans reject the theory of evolution<\/a>, a theory so strong and so in line with the evidence that cries of \u201cit\u2019s just a theory\u201d are laughable.\u00a0 How can this be?\u00a0 Despite my cynicism around contemporary culture, I don\u2019t think a third of Americans are intellectually inferior or tragically uninformed.\u00a0 Most, I suspect, unmindfully repeat what they were taught by parents or preachers.\u00a0 Some are uncomfortable with our close relation to other animals and the loss of our privileged position as the sole creatures \u201cmade in the image of God.\u201d\u00a0 A few can\u2019t or won\u2019t grasp the concept of deep time<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the words of philosopher Brendan Myers<\/a>, \u201cno one is served or benefitted by believing in false or faulty ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n What do we unquestioningly accept because it\u2019s what we\u2019ve always believed?\u00a0 What meaningful concepts do we reject simply because they\u2019re hard?<\/strong><\/p>\n This doesn\u2019t fully explain the allure of creationism.\u00a0 There are some highly intelligent, very well educated people who are creationists.\u00a0 Rev. Al Mohler is the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.\u00a0 He is a fundamentalist, but there is no questioning his intellect.\u00a0 How can that be?\u00a0 Here\u2019s a quote from an essay Rev. Mohler wrote in 2011<\/a> about the incompatibility of Evangelical Christianity with evolution:<\/p>\n the denial of a historical Adam means not only the rejection of a clear biblical teaching, but also the denial of the biblical doctrine of the Fall, leading to a very different way of telling the story of the Bible and the meaning of the Gospel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In other words, if evolution is correct and Genesis is not literally true, then his entire religion tumbles like a house of cards (not Christianity, just his particular flavor of Christianity).\u00a0 Rev. Mohler carefully refrains from claiming that the undesirable (for him) consequences mean his conclusion must be correct, but his self-identification as a young earth creationist shows this is what he believes.<\/p>\n What do we cling to not because we\u2019re sure it\u2019s true but because of what we would have to change if it wasn\u2019t?\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n Because of science\u2019s demonstrated reliability in explaining the natural world, it is a tremendous source of authority.\u00a0 No one \u2013 not even a fundamentalist \u2013 can completely dismiss science and still be taken seriously.\u00a0 So Ken Ham and his fellow creationists misrepresent science, claiming there is a categorical difference between \u201cmicroevolution\u201d and \u201cmacroevolution\u201d and between \u201cobservational science\u201d and \u201chistorical science.\u201d\u00a0 They accept what they can see with their own eyes (some of it, anyway) and rationalize away anything that does not conform to their desired conclusions.<\/p>\n How can they do that?\u00a0 Here\u2019s Rev. Mohler again, this time commenting on the recent debate<\/a>.<\/p>\n The argument was never really about ice rods and sediment layers. It was about the most basic of all intellectual presuppositions: How do we know anything at all? On what basis do we grant intellectual authority? Is the universe self-contained and self-explanatory? Is there a Creator, and can we know him?<\/p>\n On those questions, Ham and Nye were separated by infinite intellectual space. They shared the stage, but they do not live in the same intellectual world. Nye is truly committed to a materialistic and naturalistic worldview. Ham is an evangelical Christian committed to the authority of the Bible. The clash of ultimate worldview questions was vividly displayed for all to see.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This brings us to the issue of worldviews, of our core assumptions about the Universe and the way it works.\u00a0 Creationists claim we can\u2019t know the answers to the big questions of life.\u00a0 I agree with them here, though I strongly disagree as to why<\/em> we can\u2019t know.\u00a0 So since we can\u2019t know, and they aren\u2019t willing to live with not knowing, they assume the Bible is literally true and go from there.<\/p>\n There is a kind of freedom in not knowing \u2013 where we don\u2019t know, we\u2019re free to believe what seems most likely to us.\u00a0 But we aren\u2019t free to believe anything we want<\/a>.\u00a0 We\u2019re not free to ignore clear evidence and say \u201cyou can\u2019t prove me wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n What facts do we ignore because they don\u2019t match our assumptions?\u00a0 What experiences do we dismiss because they don\u2019t fit into our worldview?<\/strong><\/p>\n Creationists claim they understand their presuppositions while everyone else ignores their own.\u00a0 But ironically, fundamentalists and atheists alike share an unexamined assumption: that the only real truth is literal truth.\u00a0 Marc Barnes at Bad Catholic<\/a> here on Patheos has a very good \u2013 if overly long \u2013 explanation.<\/p>\n Fundamentalism, which includes creationism, is a modern phenomenon. The Middle Ages, though rife with scientific illiteracy in comparison with our age, never bred such a beast. It is a 20th century frenzy, not the product of ignorance as much as a by-product of materialism, and I daily blame \u2026\u00a0 the propagators of this selfsame materialism for cursing the world with the idiocies of devil-buried fossils and 6-day literalism. For evolution is only ever a threat to the idea of God if your idea of God has been hopelessly manhandled by materialistic assumptions. That\u2019s right kids.\u00a0Creationism is materialism\u2019s inescapable, obnoxious spouse.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This assumption overvalues literal truth and devalues mythical truth and mystical truth.\u00a0 It demands black or white answers and ignores the rainbow.\u00a0 I\u2019ve long said bad science makes bad religion<\/a> \u2013 I should add that unexamined assumptions make bad religion too.<\/p>\n What unexamined assumptions \u2013 about the way things are or about the way they should be \u2013 are causing problems in your life?\u00a0 What other assumptions would be more likely or more helpful?<\/strong><\/p>\n There is another issue here that nobody\u2019s talking about \u2013 fear.\u00a0 If you grow up being taught that accepting the Evangelical version of the story of Jesus means you\u2019ll go to heaven and rejecting it means you\u2019ll suffer unspeakable torments for ever and ever, then continuing to accept that story \u2013 no matter how implausible it is \u2013 becomes very important.<\/p>\n