The Problem with Scientific Evidence for Creationism

2014-06-18

Three weird thoughts involving Christianity. I think they would also generalize to Islam and Judaism, but no guarantees. Today's subjects are: human-angel warfare, God messing up creation, and the Fall of Man as analogy.

Thought #2:

There is a theory (a form of Creationism) that posits that God created the world recently (thousands of years ago), but deliberately set it up to look older (e.g. rock strata, starlight, similarities in junk DNA between species). The analogy of fictional worlds having their own history is often used. (e.g. Middle-Earth has the Battle of the Last Alliance even though the story started with The Hobbit.)

The thing that is bothering me is when people look for scientific evidence of this. For example, trying to find places in the fossil record where there are jumps between species without an appropriate transition. Or maybe trends in physics that produce chaos if extrapolated backwards too far. These, if conformed, do pose serious problems to the science in question. Unfortunately, I don't see what they have to do with Creationism. I find the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent God who made the universe (recently or otherwise) believable. The idea that He tried to cover His tracks is a bit strange (why would He want to?), but again seems possible. It is when we assume that God tried to cover His tracks and bungled it that I start to have problems. Surely God is smarter than that?

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