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| Artwork showing dinosaurs entering Noah's ark (ie, young-earth creationist fanon). Image source. |
Gather round, it's story time. Here's the story of me and creationism.
So, I grew up evangelical, and one thing that was definitely made clear to me is that Christians DO NOT "believe in evolution." Apparently, evolution is an evil ideology that gives people an excuse to not believe in God, even though it should be SO OBVIOUS to everyone that God created the world.
Yeah, definitely knew I had to believe that, because that's what Christians believe. But they were very sparse on the details. I never heard anyone actually put forth a comprehensive answer to "if we don't believe in evolution, what do we believe instead?" besides just a vague generalization like "we believe the bible" or "God created the world."
And there were many snippy comments that I heard at church, about why evolution is so obviously wrong: There are no transitional fossils. How could complex structures like eyes have evolved by chance? Imagine if you found a watch in the middle of a field, would you think someone designed that watch, or the pieces just fell together randomly? If a tornado goes through a junkyard, would it create a fully-functional airplane? LOLOLOL, evolutionists think their grandfather was a monkey. And, hey, the second law of thermodynamics, when things are left on their own, they naturally get more chaotic, not more ordered and complex. And there's no way for the life to arise from non-life- like come on, what are the odds that the exact right amino acids would just *happen* to come together in the primordial soup, like even if you waited billions of years, it would never happen. (Please note that "evolutionists" actually do have detailed answers to all of these objections. I had no idea- people at church would make these statements as if they were ironclad, like scientists were trying to cover them up and distract from the fact that evolution has no answers. Uh, no.)
And my favorite: sometimes I heard adults at church saying things like "when I was in college I had to take a class on evolution, and it just made no sense" and I can't believe I accepted that as an actual argument that evolution isn't true- really it's more of an argument that this person is not a very good student.
So anyway, I definitely didn't believe in evolution, but I wasn't given any alternative "scientific" theory to believe instead. And I was a huge nerd who read tons of books about dinosaurs, and nobody ever told me to be skeptical about the science in those books. I remember one time, I asked, "if dinosaurs went extinct millions of years before humans existed, but humans were created on the sixth day, how does that work?" The math doesn't add up, right? And someone answered "I don't know, that's a good question" (which is what you should say if you don't know, so good job to them). It was just one of those things I wondered about- because, obviously, dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, and never lived at the same time as humans, but also, obviously, humans were created by God on day 6. I knew both of those things were true, and I was curious about how that would work, but never came upon anyone actually attempting an answer. (I also remember vaguely wondering if you could add up the genealogies in the bible to find out how old the earth is- turns out Bishop Ussher literally did this in 1650 and that's basically where the young-earth creationist ideology gets its numbers.)
(In some Christian schools, students are actually taught that the earth is 6000 years old, and dinosaurs lived with people, and the Loch Ness monster is evidence of this- that's very different from my experience. I never heard anything that clued me in to the fact that there's a whole subculture of Christians who believe the earth is 6000 years old.)
So yeah, never heard any attempt at an explanation for this. Until one day, when I was reading an apologetics book. "Apologetics" means offering arguments and evidence about why Christianity is true. I'm a huge nerd, so of course I was really into apologetics because of the emphasis on evidence and logic- but actually, I know now that apologetics isn't about following the evidence, finding the truth wherever it is. No, apologetics is about "I know I'm required to believe this, but it doesn't make sense, please help me convince myself it does make sense." There's no awareness that if something doesn't make sense, perhaps that's a sign that it's not true, and you're better off not believing it.
Anyway, I was reading an apologetics book, when I was in middle school I guess, and this book had a bunch of questions and answers related to Christianity. One of them went like this:
Question: Should Christians believe that the "days" of Genesis 1 were long periods of time instead of literal days?
Answer: This belief, called "day-age theory" says that the 7 days described in Genesis 1 were not literal 24-hour periods, but that each "day" was actually millions of years long. But, no, we see no reason that Christians should believe this.
And I was like "!!!!! Wow! This actually makes sense! Why on earth does this book 'see no reason' to believe in day-age theory, umm, have they ever heard of modern science?" and I immediately became a believer in day-age theory. (Day-age theory falls under the category of old-earth creationism.)
So, that was cool, it felt like a good answer to the question of where the millions of years fit into Genesis 1. I didn't dig deeper for more details on it at that time though.
Okay, fast forward to high school biology class, in public school. I knew that we would be learning about evolution at some point that year. It would be my first time being confronted with evolution in a school setting, and I wanted to be ready to "stand up for my beliefs." I had read many fiction stories in Christian magazines about a brave student who stands up in biology class and says "I don't believe in evolution" and all the other students mock them, etc- I really believed that was a real thing that would totally happen to me, rather than some culture-war propaganda. Anyway, I knew that at some point in that class, the topic of evolution would be covered, so I decided to do a ton of research on my own so that I could argue against evolution in class or whatever. Also I prayed about it A LOT, this was a really big deal for me, fighting for my faith or something. (Yeah I feel very cringe, writing about it now.)
So that's when I really started looking for answers. And looking for even more answers. And more answers. I wanted to fully understand all of it. That's when I first encountered young-earth creationism.
See, before this, I had never heard about young-earth creationism at all. I had heard of the question "is the earth old or young" but I assumed they meant like, is the earth 6 billion years old or 1 billion- I had absolutely no idea that anyone was claiming the entire field of geology was just wrong about everything. And I had heard Christians talk about radioactive dating like "well how do they REALLY know that's how old it is" but again, I assumed they meant it like, maybe there's a slight math error and the number is off by a few percent- I had no idea that people thought every single rock on the earth was less than 6000 years old.
I think some Christians feel good about not being "extreme." Like, they told me evolution was wrong, but they didn't teach me young-earth creationism- see, they're being reasonable and not "extreme." But... no. When you make indirect negative comments about evolution, but you never provide any alternative explanation, that leaves science-nerd kids like me vulnerable to believing in "extreme" things like young-earth creationism. Because the young-earth creationists were actually presenting a whole entire ideology which answered all of those questions. That was much more useful to me than the occasional "well where are the transitional fossils???" comments I heard at church.
(I feel the same way about purity culture- I was definitely taught that it's a sin to have sex before marriage, but the rest of it was very vague, a lot of judging teenagers for this or that behavior which someone thought was "slutty" but no clear guidelines were ever given. Well then when someone came along and actually presented a whole complete ideology, with answers and guarantees and clear guidelines, of course I was all over it.)
So what I'm saying is, nobody personally taught me about young-earth creationism. I just learned it from books and the internet. But I believed it because many many many Christians had personally taught me that of course Christians don't believe in evolution, no way no how, definitely NOT- but never gave any details beyond that.
I started reading Answers in Genesis's website. (Answers in Genesis is one of the biggest young-earth creationist organizations. You know the "Ark Encounter," the full-size replica of Noah's ark in Kentucky? That's them.) And at first, it sounded completely ridiculous to me. They believe the earth is only 6000 years old! Like, what on earth??? I had taken earth science class in school, learned all about how rocks are formed, the different layers that different fossils are found in, how they're divided up into different prehistoric eras, radioactive dating, plate tectonics, all of that. I did very well in earth science class and learned a lot, and now here was Answers in Genesis saying all of that was wrong???
I had NO IDEA that the "controversy" about evolution had any connection to the age of the earth. Like, yeah of course I knew that as a Christian I couldn't "believe in evolution" but I had NO IDEA there was any "controversy" about the age of the earth. All my life, I had been happily reading books about how this or that species of dinosaur lived however many millions of years ago, and I had taken earth science class and learned all about geology, and nobody ever said anything that clued me in to "maybe all of this is wrong?" The most anyone ever said was "well how do they really know it was millions of years ago" which meant nothing to me. I was not concerned with *exactly* how many millions of years ago something happened, and surely if someone was so concerned about the exact number, they could go find an academic paper that explained it. Right?
So. Little high-school-Perfect-Number, reading the Answers in Genesis website. At first I didn't believe any of it, because the concept of the earth being only 6000 years old is just so ridiculous. But let me tell you the basic overview of their Genesis fan theory: So, God made the world, 6000 years ago, over the course of 6 literal 24-hour days. Well, then where did all the fossils come from? The answer is, Noah's flood. Yes, the bible says God sent a flood that covered the entire earth, but Noah and his family and 2 of every animal survived in the ark. Well, the flood is what created all the layers of sedimentary rock, and the fossils in it are the animals/plants that died in the flood. The reason that less-complex organisms are found in "older" layers of rock are that they were less able to escape from the flood, so they were buried first. And then as you move up the layers of rock- which were all formed in the span of 1 year or so, not hundreds of millions of years- you get more and more complex animals, because these animals were more intelligent and capable of escaping from the rising flood waters, until eventually they were buried too.
That's the overall structure of young-earth creationist ideology. Creation and the flood. See, before I started reading about young-earth creationism, I hadn't really thought scientifically about the flood at all. (Of course I believed it was a literal flood that covered the whole earth, and I believed it really happened like the bible said, but I didn't know there were, um, a lot of issues with that, from a science perspective.) I knew people were debating the science of Genesis 1, the creation story, but the flood was not anywhere on my radar at all.
It actually fits together neatly. (If you, um, don't really think about any of the details...) Like, if the earth is only 6000 years old, then how do we have millions of years' worth of rock layers of fossils? If Genesis didn't have a flood story, it would be much more difficult for young-earth creationists to answer that question. The flood creates all the fossils and sedimentary rock that the 6-day creation story isn't able to create.
So that's the overall story, but obviously, high-school-Perfect-Number-who-had-just-taken-earth-science-class saw a lot of problems with it.
If you had asked me back then, before I really started examining young-earth creationism, I guess I would have said that everything I learned in earth science class was right, and new species of animals arose because God popped them into existence at various points in time over hundreds of millions of years- NOT through evolution. Like, look at the Cambrian explosion, for example. A whole bunch of new species just suddenly appeared at the same time- that sounds like God created them, not like they gradually evolved.
I guess I still believed in some form of day-age theory, but I didn't know any details about that either. And Answers in Genesis had many articles about why day-age theory is wrong. You see, Answers in Genesis doesn't just argue against evolution; they also argue against other creationists who believe in a different type of creationism. All those so-called Christians who don't agree with Answers in Genesis are bad and wrong and don't really believe in the bible, they've been led astray by the world, etc.
That's AiG's whole schtick. Bearing false witness against your neighbor (ie, claiming that Christians who disagree are motivated by sin) and taking the Lord's name in vain (ie, "God agrees with me").
(Also, there are some things about day-age theory that don't quite fit- like, Genesis says that God made fish and birds on day 5, and land animals and people on day 6. But, the fossil record tells us that fish appeared first, then amphibians and reptiles, then birds and mammals. The order doesn't match up. Young-earth creationism has similar problems though- the bible says the sun was created on day 4, so... how could days 1-3 be days? How can you measure a "day" without the sun?)
Anyway, as I read more and more of Answers in Genesis's articles, I really struggled with it, because young-earth creationism just sounds so laughably ridiculous. But finally it came down to this: I knew that as a Christian, I have to believe the bible is true. And if you open the bible to Genesis 1, it's right there in black-and-white: On the first day God made light. On the second day, on the third day, etc. That's what it says, and I believe the bible, right? Why would the author of Genesis write "day" if they actually meant "millions of years"? And Answers in Genesis had cobbled together enough sciency-sounding words that I felt it could be scientifically supported. So, I became a young-earth creationist.
If you're wondering what ended up happening in biology class, well, uh, yes, I did "stand up for my beliefs." But now I feel really embarrassed about that so I won't go into details.
Anyway, after the school year finished, biology class was over, and I didn't really think about creationism and evolution much any more. Then in college, occasionally my friends would happen across young-earth creationist ideas, and they would all laugh- "can you believe that there are people who really think the earth is 6000 years old???" I didn't tell anyone I was a young-earth creationist. I knew they would think it was so obviously absurd, I wouldn't be able to find any kind of common ground to begin to communicate to them about it.
I started to wonder, why are people treating creationism like it's so ridiculous that it's not even worth a response? And then on the creationist side, this is spun like "they're not even responding to our arguments, because we're bringing up such good points and they don't have answers and they're trying to cover it up." I wondered, why does it seem like everyone is talking past each other? I even watched a video of a debate between creationists and evolutionists, and the creationists were saying all kinds of things about evidence that people and dinosaurs lived at the same time or whatever, and the evolutionists answered "these are half-truths" and didn't really engage with the actual points the creationists were making.
I later found out that there's a debate technique (the "Gish gallop" named after creationist Duane Gish) where you spout a whole bunch of nonsense, so much nonsense that your opponent can't possibly keep up with it and respond to every single point, and then you claim that you win because they aren't able to respond to all of your amazing points. Fortunately, though, I have discovered this website: An Index to Creationist Claims (from Talk Origins), which really does give detailed responses to a massive list of common creationist talking points. Yes, these answers exist- it's not like scientists are totally stumped and just hoping no one notices. The answers exist, it's just that it's not practical to take the time to go through all of them in a live debate setting.
Another thing that happened in college, is that a Christian friend gave me a bunch of video files which contained hours' worth of Kent Hovind's videos. Kent Hovind is a young-earth creationist who basically presents the same ideology as Answers in Genesis, except he's a little more loony. I later found out he spent several years in jail for tax evasion. Anyway, I watched his videos, and the creationist ideology basically made sense to me, but what I really wanted to know was, why do scientists all act like this is so ridiculous it's not even worth a response? Why aren't the two sides actually engaging with each other? I kinda felt embarrassed, like I didn't want anyone to know I believed in young-earth creationism, but I couldn't figure out why everyone else was so sure it was obviously wrong- were they seeing something that I wasn't?
But anyway, I didn't really think about creationism much for several years. It's just not relevant to my day-to-day life.
Then I started reading ex-evangelical blogs. I started questioning a lot of things that I thought Christians "have to" believe. Creationism wasn't one of them, though, because I just never thought about it- I was more concerned about the harmful effects of purity culture, anti-LGBTQ ideology, etc. I read Rachel Held Evans's blog- and that's how I first found out that it's NOT true that Christians have to believe all the things that I was told that "Christians have to believe." I was so confused when I first started reading her blog- I was like, "is she a Christian, or not?" Because she knew the bible, and she knew could speak evangelical fluently, and she was very motivated by very Christian concepts like, you know, the love of Jesus- but she asked questions that Christians weren't allowed to ask. She believed things- about the bible, about equality for women, about LGBTQ acceptance- that Christians weren't allowed to believe.
Rachel Held Evans taught me that it's *not* true that "the bible is clear." It's not true that being a Christian means I have to accept all these culture-war ideologies or else I'm a "fake Christian."
I started reading the Slacktivist (Fred Clark)'s blog. And at first, I disagreed with a lot of things he said, because they went against the beliefs that Christians "have to" believe. But, the thing is, I read more and more and more, and... he is a Christian. He really is a Christian. Even though he says so many things that Christians aren't supposed to say, even though he says things that would cause good evangelicals to immediately label him as a "fake Christian" and ignore everything he says... no, he really is a Christian. He knows the bible backwards and forwards. He preaches, on his blog- but he preaches about doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly before God, about hope and resurrection, about the kingdom of God, about the Ethiopian eunuch and Peter's vision that meant "God has shown me I should not call any person unclean" and how this means radical acceptance of queer people. I saw all this, and gradually I concluded that Fred is a Christian, despite every red flag that my evangelical perspective saw.
And, I eventually read some of his posts about evolution. He accepts evolution.
Why I am not a theistic evolutionist and why I do not ‘believe in’ evolution (part 1)
Why I am not a ‘theistic evolutionist,’ etc., part 2
Young-Earth Creationism is Cruel
'We too fall with it'
The Long March of the Koalas
Young-Earth creationism and the light of distant stars
Young-Earth creationism and the problem of telescopes (part 2)
Cain’s wife and Tubal-cain’s sonic screwdriver
Have a yabba-dabba-doo time
Creationism requires a global conspiracy of lying scientists and/or a lying God
Omphalos theory fan fiction
A grove of aspen trees that proves Ken Ham is full of it
That's how I found out that it's possible to be a Christian and accept evolution. And, actually, I was relieved. I was very happy I didn't have to believe in creationism any more. I just kinda dropped it, immediately ready to trust that scientists know what they're doing. Excited to learn, instead of fighting against it like I had always done.
It feels really good to be able to just learn from experts. When I happen upon some very knowledgeable person explaining something I don't know much about, to just take it in and marvel at how amazing reality is. Instead of constantly making sure I'm ready to argue about why they're wrong. Feels good, to just accept evolution and not have to have my guard up in every natural history museum.
(And young-earth creationism is a really cool fan theory. Seriously, it's impressive how much work they've put into this fan theory. But it's not true in any sense.)
You may have noticed that if you meet someone who believes in something very absurd, or some ridiculous conspiracy theory, and you tell them scientific facts that disprove their beliefs, it doesn't seem to affect them. That's because their reason for believing in it is something else- the scientific facts aren't the real reason, though they may spend all their time talking about their so-called scientific evidence for their theory. If you want to change their mind, you have to figure out what their actual motivation is, and argue against that. In my case, I believed in creationism because I thought that a "real Christian" can't believe in evolution, and being a Christian is very important to me. And even if someone told me "there are Christians who accept evolution", I had been warned many times that those people are bad fake Christians, so that wouldn't have convinced me at all. I had to really spend time reading what the Slacktivist had to say, before I became convinced that his Christianity was real.
But once I found out that it *is* possible to be a Christian and "believe in" evolution, that was great news to me. I didn't want to believe in something that everyone thought was ridiculous. I was happy to ditch it at that point. It was easy. And I was glad that it meant there was so much more science out there that I could now learn about, which I hadn't been allowed to learn about before.
So, what do I believe now, about Christianity and evolution and creationism? Well, I don't think Genesis 1 is a true story. It's just simply not a true story. It's not literally true, and it's not metaphorically true (whatever that even means). It's great literature, which is important to me for cultural reasons. But if you want to know where the world really came from, or where people really came from, Genesis has nothing to do with that. You should ask scientists.
The challenge that evolution brings to Christianity isn't about specific words in specific bible passages, or calculating how much water there was in Noah's flood, or trying to make the story in the bible line up with the fossil record, or anything like that. No, the actual issue is this: Evolution means that the reason we have such a beautiful world, full of complex animals, and humans with the ability to achieve amazing things- the reason is that natural selection ruthlessly eliminated any creature that wasn't "fit" enough to survive. Animal species become stronger and more able to survive, because the weak ones died. Animals take advantage of other animals which are weaker- and that's just the way it is, there is no justice, and in fact this ruthless taking-advantage-of-each-other is the driving force that has made us human.
That's just... really bleak.
I want to believe we live in a universe where love triumphs over power. Where "the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Where "blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." Where "he has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble, he has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty." Where "the first will be last, and the last will be first." Where Jesus died on a cross like a criminal, and then he rose and conquered death, and that changed the world.
But instead, we know that this is what happened, for hundreds of millions of years: Sometimes, by chance, an organism is born with a mutation which makes it better able to survive and reproduce, compared to other members of its species. If the mutation really does have a clear benefit, then eventually, the ones that don't have the mutation will die out- this is how the species advances, this is progress. It's about organisms competing with each other- members of the same species compete for food and other resources, predators and prey have an arms race as predators develop new ways to exploit any weaknesses the prey may have, and the prey animals develop ways to escape the predators. Any new development that makes an organism better able to take from others and ensure its own survival and reproductive success, will by definition become the dominant trait in that population. Power wins, not because it's right, not because that's how it "should be"- but because it can. Because if you're powerful enough to take advantage of others, then you do, and that's how it goes. Nobody cares about the weaker organisms who were exploited- that's the price of progress. They necessarily die out, because they are weaker, and that's how humans came to be.
Natural selection is bleak. But that's how it works- the logic of it is obvious, it's obvious that natural selection is real. (And even when I was a creationist, I knew natural selection was real and could cause changes in gene frequencies in animal populations- the creationist ideologies I followed never argued against that.) But evolution says more than that- not just that natural selection happens, but that it is the reason that the world as we know it exists. This is the reason that the people we love exist. This is the reason that humans have brains. This is the reason that humans have hands. And all of the abilities we have to do great things- these are the accumulation of small changes, and every time, those who weren't "fit" enough to keep up just died, and the universe didn't care.
(And I know I'm sort of oversimplifying it here. It's *not* true that animals will always take every opportunity to take advantage of each other. It is often evolutionarily advantageous to cooperate- and people do naturally feel that it's good to help each other. But here's the thing: animals cooperate not because "it's the right thing to do" but because, if you look at it as a long-term strategy, that's what's most advantageous. It's still about power, and what works and what doesn't work, rather than right and wrong.)
This is how it works, this is the reality we live in. But also, we long for a world that is better than that. As humans, we all have a sense of right and wrong. All throughout human history, there have been activist movements fighting for justice- people who stand up and say it's WRONG that the strong take advantage of the weak. All throughout human history, there have been religions that say you will be rewarded in the afterlife if you used your time on earth to help others, and you will be punished if you just selfishly amassed power for yourself.
We want a better world than this, and yet we are only able to exist because of the ruthlessness of natural selection, because our ancestors (all the way back to the first single-celled organism) were power-hungry and did whatever it took to get ahead.
And I know that the science of evolution is just describing what happens, and can't say anything about morality or what "should" happen. Creationists are always misrepresenting evolution, saying "this teaches people that they *should* take advantage of each other, and that life is meaningless, and that's why we have crime/murder/genocide." I'm not saying that. I have read articles from scientists talking about evolution, who say "that doesn't mean we have to be like that- we can be better, we can choose to protect the weak." What I'm saying is, it feels so pathetic to decide "we can be better," now, after hundreds of millions of years of benefitting from the strong preying on the weak.
If there's no god, then sure, there's nothing weird about humanity suddenly deciding to go in a different direction, and prioritizing equality and compassion for each other. Let's do it! But if there is a god... why would God have let things go on like that, for hundreds of millions of years, if that wasn't how They want people to live? Were They trying to create a world where love wins, or where power wins?
These are questions I don't have answers to- and this is the real reason that evolution is a challenge to my religion. And it doesn't bother me to be posting these things on my blog without answers- these things are worth talking about, and I'm not worried that this is not a good strategy to convince people to become Christians or whatever, because I don't care if y'all are Christians or not. I'm *not* trying to convince anyone. I just want to ask the questions that need to be asked.
So that's the story of me and creationism. I was always taught that Christians don't "believe in" evolution, but never heard any actual explanation of how the 6-day creation in Genesis 1 fits with the earth being billions of years old. Until I was getting ready for high school biology class, and decided to actually go looking for answers, so I could "stand up for my faith," and I discovered that young-earth creationists have a whole comprehensive ideology which uses sciency words and overconfidently answers all of my questions. But eventually, I found out it *is* possible to be a Christian and accept evolution, so I was like "oh, okay" and dropped my creationist beliefs without much fuss. And actually, that was great news for me, because it meant I was free to actually learn about evolution, rather than fighting it. That's great, because I love science. But still, here's the challenge that remains: Why would God let the world be this way, governed by the heartless process of natural selection? That's the real conflict between evolution and my religion, and I don't have an answer for it.
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Related:
As a former creationist, I'm super excited to re-learn evolution
Animals Screw Over Other Animals and Get Away With It
If God Metaphorically Made the World in 6 Days, What Does That Even Mean?
An Ex-Evangelical Mom Review of "When God Made The World"
She was the first (Thank you, Rachel)
"Winners Take All": Businesspeople Only Want To "Change The World" If It Makes Money
Also, I highly recommend Joel Duff's blog, Naturalis Historia. He takes young-earth creationism extremely seriously, and truly investigates what the implications would be if it were true- and then shows SO MANY examples of scientific evidence that can't really be explained by young-earth creationist ideology.
