Questions to Creationists

How do you win a debate?  Better question yet, how do you win a mind?  I.e. how do you not just win, but convince someone?  Debate is a two pronged spear.  You can't just show evidence.  You have to overcome objections.  You often have to break down a thick fortress of disinformation.  This is [unfortunately] especially true of the evolution and creation debate

So, is there a way to scale the walls and siege the city of creationism's bulwark?

Yes.

Get them out of objection mode and into question mode.  They *have* to be made to think and not just rebut. 

Only a well formed question can do this.

Think of times that someone has really turned your thinking around.  Has it ever been a silver bullet piece of evidence?  Maybe.  Far more likely than not in my mind, is that it was an unshakable question.  A haunting question.  A question that you couldn't run from.  A question that kept you awake at night wondering the answer to, internally wrestling with for hours.

My two questions I ask when debating hardcore creationists before I ever discuss evidences:

What would it take to convince you that evolution is true?  How much evidence?  What kind of evidence?  How would you know that it was valid?  Where would you find it? (Btw, I've had one creationist be honest with me when I asked this question and she said, "The Bible would have to say that it's true."  I then kindly dismissed myself from the conversation and said that she wasn't ready to discuss the matter.)

And

What would nature look like if evolution were true?  What would genetics look like?  What would the fossil record look like?  Geology?  Radiometric dating?  What would anatomy look like?  What would biogeography look like?  Ecology?  The tree of life?  Pathogens?  etc, etc.

Here's the scenario you create by doing that: they either set such a high criteria that they realize they aren't being rational or they set an achievable set of criteria that you then steam roll with thousands of pounds of evidence.  Either way is a battle won.  O, and by the way, if this seems arrogant, feel free to let them turn the tables.  From either direction we have the higher ground. 

True Mythology

There are features and commonalities that are ubiquitous to all human societies.  By understanding these universals we can better understand what it means to be human as opposed to just being a particular ethnicity.  It may in fact teach us our 'true selves', the most fundamental, essential part of our identity.  One idea or theme that is common to all groups of mankind (woman kind) is a story of origins - an explanation of whence came humanity.

What can we learn from this?  Well, that we are not, not, not okay with having no past.  We demand a past so much so that we're willing to make one up or embrace even the most ludicrous methods of creation - mud, spit, rocks, spontaneous generation, birth, semen, sneezing, fire, reordering of chaos, divine fiat - all sorts of methods have been concocted as the means of creation...

 Because we just can't leave our past alone.

We demand to know where we come from and from that our identity and from that what life is all about.

I've found that true even with myself.

And I've found a powerful means of satisfying that craving.

It isn't new.

Or, original.

It's got the main elements of every creation story - drama, tragedy, comedy, passion, an obstacle to overcome, character development, etc.

But, boy do I wish we'd be more explicit about thinking of it this way.

The reason that I love biology so much is that to understand any branch of biology you have to understand the roots of that branch - it's evolutionary history.  Every kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus and species on down has something to tell us about ourselves - just one miniscule twig peering down over the entire tree. It either does this by further illuminating our own direct evolutionary path toward greater complexity and specificity or that they illustrate a similar path that just might be illustrative in understanding our own.

Is there value in thinking of biology anthropomorphically?

The research disadvantages and biases are apparent, but what about the didactic advantages?  From an educational stand point, isn't there something to be said to showing the relevance, the power, the humanity and 'creation myth' behind the last 4 billion years of life on Earth?  If we could do this more explicitly, more dynamically in the classroom wouldn't our students be more engaged, better informed and far more ready to absorb lofty and cumbersome ideas of science?  Wouldn't we be able to tap into a fundamentally human need?  I believe it would and that society would be better of because of it.

Teach the story.

Teach the drama.

Teach our place in the tragedy, comedy and plot line of evolutionary history.

Catch people up in the true myth of creation.

The More I Learned, the More I Questioned

One attitude I find truly morally repugnant: a fear of learning the truth.

I've faced that dragon many times.

I can't say I've ever fully slayed him, but I have won several life changing battles that have caused me to read and listen to free thinkers and to face my own questions.  Maybe I shouldn't be, but I'm proud of that.  And, I feel my life is better off because of it.

There have been two categories of education that have been particularly powerful in steering me towards a less dogmatic view of religion.  It's been said that you can't unlearn somethings.  Yes, you may be able to forget things, but never unlearn them.  Your brain structure, consciousness and world view won't ever be the same.  Below are two fields of knowledge that I can by no means unlearn.  Furthermore, if we are to unite the world and break down walls of superstition, prejudice and myopic bigotry then these fields must be educated to tomorrow's leaders to our fullest ability today.

Scientific Thinking

What's the difference between religion and science?

That's a great question.  One that I hope you'll ponder.  They both make truth claims about reality.  They even both involve faith (I'm defining that as making a conclusion based on incomplete evidence).  They even both have authoritarian figures espousing contradictory views.

The difference is falsifiability.

One you can disprove.  The other you can't.

You can't disprove that Poseidon created the oceans.  You can't even disprove that God created the Earth 6 thousand years ago with the appearance of being 4.6 billion years old.  -BUT- you can disprove that the Earth is the center of the solar system (uh, Earthar system, I mean...).  You can disprove that mold is spontaneously generated by bread.  You can disprove that blood letting is an effective means of dealing with the Black Plague.  Et cetera.

They're falsifiable because they have to do with the physical world.  The spiritual world can't be empirically tested.  

So, the more I've learned about science the more I've just assumed that knowledge should be, necessarily be, backed up by facts and either proved or disproved.  No one ever had to explicitly tell me that.  Through repetition and constant exposure it's become a part of my cognitive fiber.  

The more science advances the more superstition retreats - in both my life and the world.  You can see it in every major field: astronomy (Galileo), biology (evolution), anthropology (pluralism), physics and cosmology (Big Bang Theory), etc.

The more familiar we are with the truth the easier we spot impostors.

The more I learned, the more I questioned.

Comparative Religion

Two of the most influential books I've ever read: the Qur'an and the Book of Mormon.

Why?  Because I thought they were true?

No, but because they made me read the Bible differently (my upbringing's holy book of choice).

The similarities took me aback.  They all are books that make truth claims about reality based on a human writing down what God said.  They all contain profound wisdom.  They all claim they must be accepted on faith.  They all are quite well written (for their time period) and can contain stories that are quite moving and powerful.  And, as I said above, they are all unfalsifiable.

What's more they are all believed by sincere, wonderful, genuine, virtuous people.

It seems to surprise people that I used to do street evangelism and have traveled to five continents doing missionary work.  Those experiences had a surprising effect on me.  In the short term arguing for one side only made me more convinced.  The more I'd say it, the more I'd believe it.  In the long term, though, it introduced me to different ways of thinking about religion.   

From debating with numerous people, from reading scores of apologetics books I've been introduced to many questions and different ways of thinking.

The more I learned, the more I knew I didn't know.

Here's how it works for most people: mythology is stuff people believed a long time ago, religion is stuff other people believe today and truth is something I believe.  

The more I learned, the more those lines blurred.

The more I realized that it is preposterous to think that a God would send people to hell for not believing something that is completely unfounded and incompletely known throughout the world.

The more I learned, the more I questioned.

So, if you're of the ilk like me that wants kids to question on their own and to think independantly, that doesn't just want to create prejudice and hostility against other's ways of thinking and wants the world to live in a greater state of harmony and enlightenment then you must educate on these two subjects - science and comparative religion.