Would I really want to win this argument?

I think I just had a small epiphany in relation to the Evolution debate.  Someone at the EvC forum said what is so often said there:

It is not necessary to abandon your faith in order to accept the facts regarding the history of the earth.

People who think you don't have to abandon your faith to embrace the Old Earth and the ToE have no idea what Christian faith is all about. It's about a very specific revelation, given by God Himself, that contradicts those "sciences" that purport to reconstruct the history of the earth. (The "sciences" of the past, that is, since the past can't be tested and all you have is speculations. There's no problem with the sciences that study anything that can be replicated in the present). 

God gives us enough of the history of the earth in His revelation to contradict both the Old Earth and evolution, and those "sciences" reject it. They don't have to. True science should affirm the Biblical revelation, that's why there is such a thing as Creation Science. You definitely have to choose. God or fallible "science." That's your choice as a Biblical Christian. You don't have to argue the issues of course, you can ignore it all, but some of us find them interesting enough to try.

These thoughts led me to something I tend to forget when I'm arguing these things, which is that Christianity really is about a radical choice one makes between Christ and the world. I keep wanting to be able to persuade evolutionists to the Biblical perspective, but what happens instead is that I am met with a solid wall of rejection. Meaning God is forcing me all the time to that radical choice and isn't going to let up.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "Come to Christ and die." As Jesus said in many ways, "You must take up your cross (that is, embrace your own death) to follow Me," you must "die to yourself," you must "hate" everyone who would draw you away from Him.
 
Well, that seems to be played out even on the "scientific" front.  God isn't going to let evolution be defeated because it's a very effective "cross" for us to die on. This debate is a daily "ego death" for a Christian.  Not that we submit nicely to it, we usually fight it, but this is what I mean about how I forget what the Christian life is all about. It's not about winning the argument, it's about dying to self. I hate it, I fight it, but every time I get involved in the debate I'm staring it in the face and it's staring back at me: Die, die die. Maybe I'm finally getting it. There is no way to win this argument, and I would lose something precious if I did.
 
So I should be thankful for the rejection, for the ridicule, for the misrepresentation, for the jeers, for the ego crunching, for being called a liar. The ego rises up all the time and sometimes I can squelch it but sometimes I retaliate, ridicule back and so on. I shouldn't, I should quietly die instead. I kind of sort of know this but apparently I have a tough pride that is hard to break. Well, the evolution debate provides a lot of instruments for breaking it, I guess that's what it's really all about at least on a personal level.

But wouldn't winning the argument lead some people to Christ? That IS the idea behind it all, at least it's the rationalization. Evolution is basically hatred of God too, and the culture is deteriorating daily under the effects of all the ways God is hated these days. Don't we want to be able to be salt and light that keeps such corruption from getting worse?

I think the way to understand this is that we can't defeat any of this with "carnal" weapons, weapons of the flesh ("The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God..."), and the effectiveness of spiritual weapons does require that we personally die.

Come to Christ and DIE. That's how we ALL come to Christ. God engineered Bonhoeffer's many deaths through the Nazis, but He has many ways of doing it for each of us. But our death is imperfect at first and sometimes we resist it to the end and can't really be used as a result.

It's very sad when a Christian capitulates to evolution or any worldly doctrine. It's a refusal to die, it's a refusal to accept the radical division between Christ and the World. You win the world and lose your soul. "He who saves his life will lose it but he who loses his life for My sake will save it for eternity." You get the approval of the worldly wise but you've lost the approval of God.

So at least by staying in there and fighting one is not giving in to the world, but fighting is also a way of refusing to die to self. This Christian life really is a radical challenge to the world and the flesh.

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As a result of that contemplation I feel a sort of peace.  I don't know if I'll have a reason to post more here but my favorite two very simple arguments remain the same: 

1)  All you have to do is look at the strata and know they had to be formed in the Flood and couldn't have been formed over millions of years.  Just look.  Yes, I know, there is looking and there is looking. 

2)  And the second is that the genetic ability to change gets reduced with every change in observable differences in creatures, which means that eventually there is no more ability to change:  End of Evolution. 

The genetic argument is usually argued as a depletion in "information" by creationists but I don't think that's as clear as this way of putting it. 

The strata argument is argued in many different ways by many creationists;  I particularly like that video lecture on the Grand Canyon done by the British creationist Paul Garner.

Creationists who lose their faith

EvC should stick to the evolution-creation debates and leave religion alone, but of course, despite denials, the whole evolutionist framework is just as much against religion as it is about science -- not against ALL religion of course, just TRUE religion. This is why so many young people become atheists when they become convinced of the "science" of evolution.

So here's a rather typical post by Taq that purports to identify a mental deficiency in Christians. The mental deficiency is of course nothing other than the belief itself, and he's oddly quite amazed as if he'd never encountered Christian belief before. That in itself is amazing. Anyway, the accusation of the Christians' "inability to understand" is simply false, so I thought I'd see if I could clarify things for the amazed unbeliever.

Taq is referring to a discussion at another evolution-creation debate board:

Libby Anne recently wrote a "Why I am an atheist" essay over at Pharyngula. In it, she discusses how she argued against evolution but finally conceded that the evidence was on the side of evolution:

[Libby]And then I went to college, where my young earth creationist views were challenged. I responded by fighting back. I argued with both students and professors, sure that I had some sort of truth they were missing. I brought out every argument I had, and went back to my creationist resources for more. As time went by, though, I found my arguments effectively refuted by arguments and information I had never been exposed to before. To my utter shock, it seemed that the evidence actually fell on the side of evolution and against young earth creationism. After nearly a year of fighting, I conceded defeat.

What happened next is fascinating, at least to me. Two creationists felt the need to comment: Dr. Georgia Purdom and Ken Ham from AiG. When I read their responses my jaw just hit the floor. They just don't get it, as Libby Anne was quick to point out. Quite frankly, they would have been better served not saying anything at all. In an attempt to explain why Libby Anne left the faith they have given away the farm, IMHO. Here are just a few excerpts from Dr. Purdom and Mr. Ham:

Libby seems to have things backwards. It’s not that “we know the Bible is true because young earth creationism is true,” but rather because the Bible is true we can believe what God said in Genesis about the time frame in which He created. Although she read AiG resources, attended AiG conferences, and came to the Creation Museum, I have to wonder how much she really understood what she was reading and hearing. The very idea of God creating in six literal days, 6,000 years ago, and the global flood comes from Scripture (and of course the scientific evidence confirms it)!--Georgia Purdom

So the Bible is true because the Bible says it is true, and Libby should have remembered that. Oh, and the evidence backs it up. Why not just say that the Earth is young because that is what the evidence says? I think Dr. Purdom is revealing more than she may want to with this statement.

First I wonder why Taq is so amazed at this response, why his "jaw hit the floor" and how he arrived at the conclusion that Dr. Purdom "just doesn't get it." What does that even mean, she doesn't "get it?" Get what?

Why not just appeal to the evidence for a young earth? Because a Biblical creationist starts from the Bible. Why is this so amazing to Taq? Dr. Purdom is right that it isn't that the Bible is true because creationism is true, and it also isn't true because it says it's true as Taq spins it, it's true because it's God own word and true Christians know this. There shouldn't be a question about this, there shouldn't be anything amazing about this, it's the first principle of Christian belief. Serious Bible believers pursue the creationist debate because God's word tells us the world is not as the evolutionists and Old Earthers say it is, and we expect ultimately to be able to find scientific evidence for the Biblical claims (and as Dr. Purdom says, there is such evidence). What's not to get?

Also, if you read Libby's response it is more than apparent that she did know her stuff, perhaps even better that Dr. Purdom does. It's not that Libby did not understand the arguments, it's that the arguments are WRONG. Creationists just can't understand that.

Well, of course we aren't given the arguments that Libby found so compelling, or what arguments she was using as a creationist, so there is no way to determine the rightness or wrongness of either side of the debates. No matter of course, if it's a creationist argument it's wrong by definition according to Taq, no need to produce specifics so that we could judge for ourselves.

Then Taq quotes Ken Ham:

As we train our children, we need to do much more than just expose them to resources like those produced by AiG; we need to make sure they understand them correctly and are taught to be able to answer questions logically. . .

We can undermine a lot of what we have done if we send our children to the wrong institution (e.g., a compromising Christian college or even a theologically conservative one that does not teach them why they believe what they do—and how to logically defend the Christian faith and so on).

--Ken Ham

Both Dr. Purdom and Ken Ham seem to agree on this point. The solution for creationism failing in the face of criticism is MORE INDOCTRINATION. As Libby Anne puts it:

And the solution Ken Ham and Dr. Purdom make? Double down. That’s pretty much it. Teach the same things, just more. Oh, and isolate yourself and your children from other points of view – oh the dangers of the state college or “compromised” Christian college!

Creationists, is this really the new strategy? When it becomes apparent that creationist arguments can not stand up to criticism is it really the right move to protect creationism from any type of criticism? Is this why creationists are fighting so hard to get evolution out of the classroom?

But it isn't that creationist arguments have failed to stand up against criticism -- or at least there is no way to tell in this case since there isn't enough information either about the creationist arguments Libby used and her understanding of them, or the arguments used against her and whether they could have been handled better.

But nobody has suggested protecting bad arguments from criticism, it is obviously assumed by both Dr. Purdom and Ken Ham that either Libby did not do a good job defending the creationist arguments or she caved in when there was no need to cave in, to evolutionist arguments that could have been answered. In either case, of course the response is that Christian students need better training in dealing with these things.

Taq has no problem with any of it, of course, because he "knows" that the creationist arguments are wrong. Therefore he sees further training as merely indoctrination in wrong arguments. Purdom and Ham know that people who are not solidly grounded in the Bible can be persuaded by the seemingly scientific arguments of evolutionism to give it up. Their answer is to advise better grounding.

It's good to have a good grounding in the science of course if you're going to try to debate evolutionists, but the emphasis should always be on the Bible as God's word and not just on the logic of scientific arguments. That's where a Bible-believing creationist must start, that's where our grounding has to be. The stronger the faith the better will be our scientific arguments too. Some of us don't have the mind to grasp many of the scientific questions anyway, or we can only go so far in that direction, but those who can't grasp the science still need to hold to the Bible even in the face of the kind of ridicule that is constantly coming at us from evolutionists.

The weakest creationist arguments come from those who aren't solidly grounded in the Bible, don't have a real relationship with the Lord, but only give mental assent to the truths they've learned over the years, or abandon parts of the Bible under pressure from the world. Most of the creationist arguments at EvC really aren't very good. And of course those weak in faith capitulate to the supposedly superior science of the evolutionists all too easily.

This is sad because the science that supports evolution is really the flimflam I keep saying it is. It's an illusion. But it SOUNDS scientific, and all genuine science is done in its name as well, without any real justification. The entire disciplines of biological and geological science are given over to it. It's all smoke and mirrors so it's not easily falsified and the fact that it has the allegiance of millions, even though the vast majority of them don't really understand it, exerts a powerful pressure to accept it, especially as it's backed by ridicule of dissenters.

No wonder it's not uncommon for a Christian of weak faith in God and His word to capitulate as Libby apparently did, and others all the time do. Ken Ham is right that you can't just assume that somebody who can repeat all the creationist arguments really has a good grasp on them -- same as it's even possible for someone to think he's a Christian and appear to be a Christian just because he's learned all the basic teachings and does all the accepted things, and yet not really be born again.

If your "faith" is really intellectual learning and tradition it's not really faith and it's easy to lose it. You have to build your learning ON your faith, not the other way around.

What a creationist loses by capitulating isn't just a scientific argument but God Himself. The Bible is either God's word or it isn't. WHOLLY God's word.

====Later:

NoNukes in Message 8 got it right.

That the Bible is true is a given. So what the Bible says is right. The evidence, when interpreted correctly also supports the Bible, but it is possible to become confused

Exactly.

But Taq still doesn't get it:

Then why even look at the evidence? Why does AiG spend so much time discussing the evidence? If you already believe that you are right and can not be wrong, then why do you need evidence?

Because, knowing that the Bible is the truth we expect science will ultimately confirm it, and we believe it already confirms a great deal of it. It's not science so much as the evolutionist bias that is what we have to overcome, but that requires dealing with the scientific claims.