Creation, Evolution, and Knowing the Opposition

Every once in a while, the hands at the Darwin Ranch at Deception Pass get a mite ornery and go looking for someone to slap leather with. Those of us in creation science ministries will, to varying degrees, encounter "debate" challenges from fundamentalist evolutionists. These come from people who are vituperative atheists, bullies, cyberstalkers, and those who simply want to try and make fools of creationists. I have seen many who express purile rage at God and his people, but are woefully uninformed as to what biblical creationists actually believe and teach. Instead, their primary sources are atheopath Websites who present biased disinformation.

Image credit: Pixabay / janeb13

Although I do not engage in actual debates, I have learned quite a bit about them in recent years. A basic concept that I agree with, whether for a formal debate or an intelligent discussion, is to be respectful toward your opponent. Another concept is that debates and discussions should be approached with the purpose of presenting one's point of view, and the critic should deal with the strongest points of the opposing side. 

It is important to know what the other side actually believes, but too many people cannot be bothered to do any research. I've been told what I believe by people who don't have a clue what they're talking about, and that puts a burr under my saddle.

As for discussions and debates... what we see on teh interwebs is typo pouncing, flagrant misrepresentation, copious errors in logic, attempts to "score points" playing "Gotcha!", and so on. This is not worth our time. To see my article on debating, click on "Debate Challenges".

It is often difficult to determine if a fundamentalist evolutionist who claims to be a Christian is a viperine atheist in disguise or a "Christian" who disbelieves the Bible.

In ideological debate, as with many areas of life, it is important to, in the words of Sun Tzu, ‘know thy enemy’, i.e. understand what one’s ideological opponents say. However, many skeptics of biblical creation fail to do this—they often rehearse the same fallacious arguments we have dealt with many times before. Today’s correspondent raises the old canard that abiogenesis and microbes-to-man evolution are separate issues. However, these instances can give us the opportunity to rehearse the strength of our responses, as well as introduce newer readers to the arguments and where to go to get fuller treatments of them. CMI’s Shaun Doyle carries us through these ‘old arguments’.

J.O. from the United States writes:

To see the venomous material from J.O. and Shaun Doyle's excellent response, click on "Know thy enemy". 



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