A LETTER TO A CREATIONIST

I see you saying that you believe creationism because of the evidence, but then admitting that it is not the evidence which serves to convince you. It stands to reason that it doesn’t matter what the evidence even is, whether it is acquired honestly or presented by trickery, you will accept it because your conclusion doesn’t depend on it. The same goes for dismissing evolution’s vast wealth of evidence – you assume it is wrong a priori, and anyone who argues in support your assumption reinforces your position regardless of the truth of their evidence. This is not because of any evidence in existence, but because of your own subjective feelings. It is impossible to argue with you, because your confirmation bias is filtering out all opposing views.

The question you must ask yourself is how do you know what is true? Your current epistemology is an act of running the world through a Bible filter, but how do you know the Bible is true? If you are like most other Christians, you know this because you have a deep and meaningful feeling. But, what if there’s nothing special about that feeling, and it is simply generic humanity, a normal experience? What if what you feel, is the same thing an Islamic suicide bomber feels as he’s pushing the button? He has such certainty that his view is the right one, that he is willing to die. If anyone expresses utter certainty about his beliefs, it is the suicide bomber. Do you think your feeling of Truth can compete with that?

There is also the issue of projecting your own feelings onto others. You view scientists as “wanting” to believe in evolution, as if biologists don’t exist in evolution. It’s like wanting to be pulled to earth at a steady -9.8 m/s. Just like you use gravity every day to fall out of bed, biologists use evolution every day in order to successfully do their tasks. This contrasts with your inability to provide evidence for the basis of your belief, relying on faulty science and woo woo arguments to reinforce the feeling of otherness within that is the basis for your beliefs.

I understood the validity of evolution long before I became an atheist, so to suggest that I need to have faith in evolution in order to be an atheist is just wrong. Evolution works regardless of whether you believe in a god. That’s the joy of science – it doesn’t care what you think. It reveals what is true.