No, Mark Joseph Stern, Creationism is not the Caricature You’ve Created

            My life as a blogger is a mere five days old.  Consequently, no one knows much about me.  However, I have written many “posts” but only recently found the time to actually put them out on the internet.  For anyone who ever reads these, you will find most of the time my attitude will likely be bemused and sometimes saddened, but rarely irritated.  However, I am writing today out of irritation.

            Frankly, I read Mr. Stern’s column on Slate (access it here: The Cruelty of Creationism) and found myself fuming.  Right from the beginning he shows a complete misunderstanding of creationism stating, “it’s the terror of doubt that fosters the toxic, life-negating cult of creationism.”  No, Mr. Stern, you are utterly, completely, and totally wrong.  As a Christian who has journeyed from theistic evolution (God worked through evolution), to days in Genesis representing a very long period of time, to ultimately accepting a young earth creation (although I don’t necessarily agree it has to be exactly X amount of years), terror of doubt never entered the picture.  I do not believe in either young earth or creationism (not necessarily the same thing) because of concerns the Bible might turn out to be false; rather, I came to the reasoned and logical conclusion that if God really is there, and He really is truly the ultimate being, then He can act to create this world and all that is in it in whatever fashion He desires. 

            Of course, my view starts with acceptance that God exists.  What follows from that step of faith is neither terror, toxic, nor life-negating.  Rather it is liberating beyond anything Mr. Stern can possibly conceive or understand.  Mr. Stern’s analysis rises and falls on his own, pre-conceived belief in a materialist view of the universe – the Carl Sagan view that the universe is all there ever was, all there is, and all there ever will be.  However, Mr. Stern doesn’t bother telling us his pre-supposition, which is why I was fuming from the start.  He just arrogantly presumes his view is correct without identifying it, explaining it, or defending it.  However, he proclaims that creationism is a “suffocating and oppressive” worldview.  Hey, Mr. Stern, at least we state up front what we believe and why we believe it and we explain what and why we believe.

            He also mistakenly assumes creationism necessarily means young earth creationism, but this is inaccurate.  As Bill Nye was fond of pointing out in the debate last Tuesday night, many Christians don’t believe in the young earth view; however, one is very hard pressed to claim any form of theism and deny God created everything, regardless of when God did it.  Mr. Stern is guilty of mixing philosophical metaphors, so to speak.

            Moreover, very little of his screed actually provides any sort of logical, rational, or philosophical explanation for why his position is correct and the creationist position is wrong.  Rather, he resorts mostly to ad hominem attacks on creationists by pounding on them again and again for their anti-intellectualism.

           

            For instance, he claims “For all creationists’ insistence that evolution denigrates humanity, creationism is fundamentally anti-human, commanding us to spurn our own logic and cognition in favor of absurd sophism derived from a 3,000-year-old text.”  Whoo, boy, not sure I’m smart enough to understand what “absurd sophism” is.  No, Mr. Stern, I’m not deceitfully abandoning logic and cognition at all.  Think about it: if the materialist explanation for our existence is true – that by some unknown means, at an unknown time, under unknown circumstances life spontaneously began on planet earth, then one must admit life has no intrinsic purpose, meaning, or value.  There is no basis for making any other claim.  Consequently, Mr. Stern is simply wrong.  Our humanness simply is.  Nothing about it is a cause for celebration; nothing about it is a cause for despair.  There is no cause for any particular anything – we are simply here by accident, serve no function and will, presumably at some point in the future outlive ourselves, and go the way of the T-Rex.  If this is what Mr. Stern means when he talks about being human, no thanks.

            The Christian view says that God created the universe.  In doing so, he created humans in His image.  There is a specialness about humanity that derives from God’s nature.  Why is this such a horrible thing?  What is so bad about being like God?  It’s a peculiar argument to claim that you are made more human by being nothing more than sophisticated slime than being a child of the living, sovereign God of the universe.  I having some difficulty seeing the logic in that, Mr. Stern.

            Mr. Stern has accepted the caricature of creationism because that’s what he wants to see so he can paint all creationists with the same brush.  He’s really mad at God, but since he won’t acknowledge God, he’s got to be able to lash out at someone.  I’m sorry you are so angry and so bothered by creationism Mr. Stern.  Maybe it’s time to leave your ignorance and dogmatic evolutionary fundamentalism and actually think before ranting.