Essay:Understanding the Creationist Mindset - A Guide For Perplexed Atheists

I have been lurking around a number of Facebook forums for a couple of years, and have gleaned some little understanding of how and why creationists think the way they do. What follows below is quite a long post, which I have split into sections. My aim in doing this is to try to help shed some light on why scientific arguments and the use of evidence do not work when debating creationists, and to explore some of their possible motivations, some of their concerns, and some of the methods which have been used to confirm them in their beliefs.

Creationism is a paradox

On the one hand, creationism pronounces proudly that the universe was created by supernatural means, and that the order and timing of events during the creation process follows a non-naturalistic sequence, and a non-naturalistic timescale; it rejects purely naturalistic explanations both of the process and of the timescales involved in creation and development of the universe, and yet, it seeks to validate its claims through naturalistic evidence.

Therefore, on what basis, on what set of assumptions would anyone even think that the evidence for a supernatural sequence of events, would be found by sifting through the debris left in the natural world? Why would you go looking for "proof" that the stars were created on day 4 of creation, or that there would be remnants of a supernatural flood to be found in the rock layers beneath the earth? Why would you not simply assume that God did these things supernaturally, zapping things in and out of existence as required, and supernaturally left no traces of what he did?

The real paradox here is seems to be that creationism is seeking to validate itself by the very means that it has rejected in the first place. It has declared that the naturalistic explanations achieved by cosmology and geology are incorrect, which means that the methodology and/ or the enquiry methods are either misguided, inadequate, or just plain wrong; yet it sets up parodies of this process, in order to construct an edifice through which it then attempts to challenge the consensus of naturalistic scientific rationalism.

Therefore, the natural inclinations of those seeking to combat what they see as creationist "scientific reasoning" and "scientific evidence", is to use conventional science using the standards of evidence and argument which apply in the scientific community at large. However, that is precisely the wrong thing to do - mainly because it doesn't work, but primarily because it misunderstands the basis from which creationists are operating.

Creationism is a movement born out of cognitive conflict

Creationists are fully aware, like almost all human beings who are alive on this planet today, that they owe their continued existence to advances made in medicine, food technology and the materials sciences. We all live in a world replete with the products of science; a world where communications is made possible through science, a world where science is understood to have developed ways of thinking and ways of investigating which have opened up our world to our understanding on all scales, a world in which every discipline aspires to the model of mathematical and scientific thinking epitomised by Newton, and every developing country sees the education of scientists, and engineers as a priority for competing in the global market.

Creationists understand that science is key to our survival, and has been a powerful tool in our advance as a civilisation. However, they also see that science takes away the mysteries, demotes the supernatural to last ditch or fringe explanations, and provides coherent accounts for phenomena which do not involve God. In their minds, science leads to atheism, pure and simple, and that must be combatted. In the battle to win hearts and minds from atheism, the first casualty has been scientific “truth”; the argument being that if science leads people away from God, then at its heart it is intrinsically flawed, and then anything it pronounces as true, is suspect, and not to be trusted.

I gleaned this from a Facebook post:

“Science, whilst well intentioned, is also a tool atheists use to trick the weak minded into abandoning Christ. You cannot deny it has been continously manipulated to serve corrupt agendas. I have such little faith in any of science's conclusions. You all constantly change your mind and expect the masses to follow your beliefs and agendas? Yea right!”

This seems to articulate precisely one aspect of the Creationist mindset. Science leads to Atheism.

However, this observation delivers creationists a dilemma – they can see the benefits of science, they participate in those benefits. No one is proposing to eschew those benefits, yet the very thing which has provided the benefits, making their very existence possible, is destroying the thing that they hold in the highest regard – their faith, their religious certainty, and worst of all our collective faith in God as a society.

That’s the source of their Cognitive dissonance, and Creationist must find ways to resolve it.

The Creationist Diagnosis : The world is sick

You can see where this thinking leads: science, and in particular those sciences which tell us about our origins, portray humans as animals, tell stories of nature red in tooth & claw, or offer analyses of the human condition as being subject to our genetic makeup, together with those sciences which offer Godless explanations of how the cosmos evolved , lead us directly to atheism and the rejection of God and all his works, including the scriptures, his moral codes and the possibility of salvation. Thus in this diagnosis, some parts of modern science are seen to lead us inexorably to anarchy, mob rule, lawlessness and the rejection of all that is good. Creationists look at the world and it confirms this diagnosis – the world has already become an evil place, full of dissent, religious hatred, and ambivalent sexuality, and that these evils are due to the fact that we have raised science above God; we worship at the altar of scientific achievement and materialism, and have lost our way- we no longer understand our place in the cosmos, and we have lost all respect for our creator. They look at their scriptures, and this is the very thing that scripture foretells : “Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man.” Rom 1:22

If you follow this reasoning, since you can no longer trust science (or at least those elements of science deemed responsible for this apocalypse) then you have to trust God, that God will, in the fullness of time help us to overcome this maelstrom. Trusting in God means trusting his word; and that means believing that the bible is the inerrant word of God. That means whatever is written there is the “truth”, no matter what science appears to say. If our eyes, our instruments, our logic or our interpretations tell us something else, then those eyes, instruments, logic and interpretations are wrong, since they conflict with what must be the case.

Creationists therefore will seek to root out those elements of science which conflict with the book, especially those that they see are responsible for the descent into atheism, and declare them wrong – a priori wrong, precisely because they conflict with the “truth” found in scripture. This is not on any consideration of the evidence, not as a result of any rational analysis, but wrong, pure and simple because these elements conflict with the Holy word of God, and can be seen to be directly responsible for the moral armaggedon we find ourselves in.

Breaking Bad Science: Cooking the Creationist Myth

The successes of science have left creationism with its biggest problem; the fact that young people know that science is effective, it produces the goods, it offers viable and coherent explanations to phenomena. You cannot get rid of science. You cannot tell your children that they can’t have TVs, mobile phones and downloads because science doesn’t work. You have to accept that science, even though it leads to atheism, isn’t going to go away. Young people have become dangerously addicted to the drug of science.

That means creationists need to take on science at its own game, and do science, even though they have little respect for it, even though they think it is flawed, and even though they think that the results of scientific thinking leads to atheism. They have needed to create a scientific version of their own drug, reformulated and repackaged, to wean the youngsters off the designer drug of science and onto a newly formulated 21st century version of the real thing – the true opiate of religion.

And so we see the growth of myth-labs, cooking up alternative accounts of the target sciences, selling the product via their distribution network of journals and websites : articles which have a surface veneer of science, with all the appearance and trappings of scientific authority, and which are sufficiently convincing to a non-scientific audience to make it appear that some creationists are actually knowledgeable about science. These articles are bewilderingly diverse, some re-interpreting evidence, some creating confusion by promulgating alternative theories as if they are of equal status to the mainstream; some using hidden confirmation bias to offer empirical evidence for biblical claims, some claiming that the accepted scientific consensus is in disarray, most seeking out any information which can cast doubt on the established consensus, and worst of all - some presenting parody accounts of recent journal papers which select data from those papers in an attempt to undermine the value of their findings, or even present the findings in a way which directly contradicts what the authors of the paper actually claim. Embedded in all this deceit, in this simulacrum of science is always the hard drug of choice – religion, in the form of quotes from the bible, homilies and sermons, and of course the ever watchful presence of God.

The Creationists’ Guerilla War on Science

In the battle to win hearts and minds from atheism, the first casualty has been the idea that science can systematically provide us with “truths”; the argument being that if something in science leads people away from God, then at its heart that thing must be intrinsically flawed, and anything it pronounces as “true”, is suspect, and therefore not to be trusted.

However, a full-scale attack on science is neither possible nor necessary. Creationists' challenge to science needs only to focus on those particular areas where the results of science specifically conflict with the text of the bible- the creation of the universe, the flood, evolution, archaeology and so on.

This is a well-thought out, tactical guerrilla war, and in pursuing it, creationists make use of three main strategies which are in fact not mutually compatible:

The first strategy is a dangerous attempt to undermine the entire basis of science and its methodology, in order to demote science from its perceived pinnacle of authority. This is achieved by offering re-interpretations of its terms, its philosophy and its methodology so as to cast doubt on the status and nature of theory, or by suggesting that it is intrinsically atheist in nature because it specifically excludes God, and proffering a view that science – or at least some parts of it - are based on faith, rather than evidence. It is dangerous, because if it ever were successful, it would undermine the whole basis of science, and therefore Western Culture – as it would invalidate the whole of the scientific endeavour, and leave us without any means of ever reaching any kind of empirically-determined knowledge. We would be left helpless in the hands of seers, mystics and interpreters of scripture.

The second strategy is singles out those specific areas which directly conflict with the biblical narrative, and attempts to redefine them as something other than science. In doing this, Creationists seek to completely discredit entire branches of science, or at least marginalise them as nothing more than unverified conjecture or fantasy. This strategy, as bizarre as it seems to scientists working in those areas, has credibility because it resonates with the creationist faithful: as one person put it in response to an earlier section: “Evolution has disguised itself as a stand alone science in biology. It is not. Biology, the study of life, is a legitimate science. Evolutionists have declared that biology is not credible without the underlying theme of evolution, which is a lie. Biology can stand alone with the understanding that life does indeed adapt to its environment.”

The third strategy, as we have already seen, is the creation of parodies of science– biblical interpretation dressed up in scientific finery - Creation Cosmology, Flood Geology, Baraminology, Intelligent Design, which both seek to undermine the accepted paradigms by cherry picking results from actual scientists to make it look as if the real scientiifc disciplines are flawed -or are in disarray -or their results are spurious, and attempting to establish the validity of their biblical alternatives by using extreme confirmation bias as the basis of arguments.

And so, in the Creationists’ guerilla war, as in any war, the first casualty has been truth. This is perverse, since it might be expected that Christians would be specifically concerned with preserving the truth, but those Christians who are Creationists see that their purpose is doing God’s work, in combatting anarchy and atheism. That means whatever methods they use against those whose ideologies would destroy God, those methods must therefore be righteous, because they are working on behalf of God. Taking a scientific paper and twisting its words to say the opposite of what it does say, is not wrong, because you already know the paper is spreading lies, and you are only twisting the words of liars, in order to put people on the path to truth. Memes, soundbites, and catchphrases which provide followers with “ways of seeing” evolution, are all valid, even though they do not accurately portray evolution. Evolution is wrong, and therefore, to distort it can only be to make it better

Ministering to the Wounded - the Warzone Carpetbaggers

And into the abomination of desolation created by creationists’ guerrilla war on science, step out the carpetbagger snake oil salesmen, the “experts” with virtually no scientific background purveying pirated copies of science to the wounded- biblical understandings repackaged with a scientific label, and fraudulently-created imperfect alternative versions of the major scientific theories in each of the target areas. These medicine showmen understand their audience well, and know that too much scientific explanation would simply turn off their audience – who, after all have very little understanding of actual science. Instead of explaining their “alternative” science, and exposing it to possible criticism or falsification, they concentrate on ridiculing real science as if it is somehow in disarray, and that it has major flaws, and somehow scientists are either too dumb, too perverse, or too biased to realise it.

For their audience, they produce takeaway easy-to digest soundbite-sized “put down” versions of evolution or geology or cosmology which superficially mimic what the theories say, but are framed so as to ridicule those who think the theories are valid. “nothing exploded and then a universe appeared”, or “when has a cow given birth to a whale?”, “carbon dating – well we know THAT doesn’t work”. While these memes are complete and utter distortions have no scientific validity whatsoever, they have great utility as mantras, because they work. Any creationist using them seemingly finds it easy to win a debate. This is because in order to to address the memes, a debate opponent has to spend a lot of time explaining precisely why the meme is a distortion of science and what the actual science really does say, by which time the creationist whose understanding of science is limited, and in any case conditioned by the view of science obtained from their sources, has become bored and switched off. In this way the argument against the meme never gets through, and the meme stays intact to fight another day. And so the arguments endlessly repeat themselves, with the same memes recurring endlessly, even though they have been refuted not a thousand – but a million - times.

These memes have one further value – they are so memorable that they can be mindlessly recited one after the other in any debate against an “evolutionist”, in a stream-of-consciousness rant, which has come to be called a Gish Gallop after one of the most notorious of the snake oil merchants. Using these debate tactics, remembering the soundbites makes any creationist feel good, because it confirms them in their views, and at the end of it they know that they are doing God’s work.

And the carpetbags? - They get fuller and fuller and fuller by the day with the cash the salesmen relieve from the wallets of the gullible.

Facebook Creationists – The Walking Wounded

So, Creationism is embroiled in a guerrilla war against science, targeting specific areas of science, and using overarching strategies which are designed to create a vacuum of uncertainty and disbelief in those areas, which can then be filled with biblical explanations.

But to creationists who contribute to the pages of Facebook and other fora, these are not lies, these are not falsehoods, these are not deceitful: how can this be lies, if it confirms what they already know? A typical Facebook Creationist will read these things and immediately recognise them as true. These articles are viewed as not only doing a great service to the faithful, but they are helping put others on the path to righteousness. And once you are on that path, you can see the foolhardiness of those who are left by the wayside, failing to recognise the hand of God in creation, and the stupidity of those who refuse to accept His Word:

“I always suspected. nay, knew, Lucy was a hoax. Imagine, all kinds of bits and pieces of bones picked up in shallow sand in the blazing hot Ethiopian sun and pieced together as Lucy. How ridiculous.”

And so we end up with the faithful, believing in a ‘creation science’, not science, but a conscious parody of science, whose only aim is to vandalise specific scientific disciplines, in order to create sufficient misunderstanding, mistrust and confusion, to sow enough disbelief, that they are able to infuse the void with enough pseudo-science, enough possible doubt, smoke and mirrors, that into the gaps can be inserted cutouts from a 2500 year old document, which then becomes the “scientific truth” for new generation, who are fully able to reject those elements of science that would lead to atheism.

As one YEC put it to me in a post: “ I am secure in my understanding of creation and atheists are welcome to post anything they wish regarding creation, it is like water off a ducks back. "

And this is the insane world we have come to, where parodies of science are touted as scientific evidence by those with little or who have no scientific understanding, in an attempt to prove scientifically to all who will listen that the pages of a manuscript written 2500 years ago as part-mythology, part-poetic mysticism and totally partisan historiography somehow has scientific relevance and accuracy in the 21st century. They use these very parodies of science to attack science itself, yet all the time depending on it for their communications, sustenance, transport and health, and target their greatest venom onto those particular sciences that they despise the most – Evolution, Geology and Cosmology, because they are convinced that these sciences are hell-bent on destroying the very thing they wish to preserve - theirs and everyone else’s faith, in God.