Deinonychus antirrhopus

My question is why do creationist writings always seem to contain so darned many logical fallacies?

They can't engage in the methods of science, so their only alternative is to be wordsmiths of sort. Unlike scientists, creationists already know the answer that they want to achieve with their "reasoning" and will use faulty tools to help them get from A --> B. The fact that they got the reader to the state of B is what matters, not that there were some contortions along the way, because once you get to the truth, the truth is self-evident, so even though the road to the truth may have had some illogical washouts that matters for little.

I think that's the difference between scientists and creationists. Scientists come to understanding via process whereas creationists view process as irrelevent to understanding - the process is something they're forced to engage in in order to appear reasonable. If they claim that process is crucial to how they understand the world, then they'll really be stuck because they can't get to their conclusion using solely logical processes. Then what do they do? Abandon their truth or cling to logical process?

I guess the answer is fairly obvious: jettison logical process.

It explains alot really. It explains, I'd say, about 99.9% of the articles I've seen on apologetics. Frankly, I just don't understand it though. Why not just say, "Hey God is...well God, and he can do whatever he likes. If he wants to use natural law that's up to God and I'm not going to try and second guess him." Seems to cut the Gordian Knot here and allow one to believe in God and practice good science.

Why not just say

But that's an outright admission of faith. I think that they're trying to staddle the middle - they want others to think that they arrive at their conclusion logically, and maybe they're trying to reassure themselves as well. But they already know the conclusion.

You know there's a good intellectual exercise of trying to honestly argue your opponent's position - kind of like me arguing that President Bush is going to be one of the greatest Presidents in history. I bet I could craft such an argument but the process would be quite selective in what was included and excluded. I'm sure you could sit down and write an argument from a creationist perspective. Doing something like that will actually show you what real creationists have to go through to arrive at the conclusion that they set for themselves.

And you can't cheat, and neither can the creationists, by simply stating a conclusion. You have to appear reasonable, open-minded, considered and that means making an attempt at making an argument. They know that the argument doesn't convince them, that is if they're honest about believing in the power of logic. They need to appear this way for their audience - the ones who share the same belief in the conclusion and need a way to justify it and those who can be led astray with bad argument.

“there is an objective standard of good”; and “God exists.”

Well, it's nice that old Joe Carter has managed to solve thousands of years of human philosophical inquiry in one handy sentence.

My main problem with most of these people is that they've obviously never read any philosophically important work besides ye olde Bible. No "good" without God? I think De Bouvouir in Ethics of Ambiguity has something to say about that. Cannot truly struggle with faith? Ever read Kierkegaard, jackass? I mean, seriously, this is college sophomore level reading. Not. Very. Difficult. Although it should be noted that I do not, in fact, believe in God, so I might be as delusional as Dawkins.

In general, a theological argument is logically airtight but boring. This is because the arguments have been developed for centuries, and tested against every conceivable objection. See the catholic encyclopedia for examples http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04475a.htm

Creationist arguments are fallacious because they are bad theology. The early Christian church recognized before 300 AD that Genesis could not be interpreted literally (see Scriptural Allegorism @ http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11306b.htm)

Creationism is a modern construct by a small group of American churches that explicitly and deliberately rejected formalism and intellectual rigor in favour of emotion. see "evangalism and the second great awakening @ http://www.nhc.rtp.nc.us:8080/tserve/nineteen/nkeyinfo/nevanrev.htm

I'm not spoiling for a fight here, but I have yet to run into "airtight" theological arguments, particularly those that supposedly prove the existence of God.

My take however is that ID proponents want to leave considerable room (and in some cases, rule out all rival theories) for a supernatural and unobservable intelligent designer, no great surprise here. But frankly, this isn't compatible with rational empiricism (the problem is that if it can't be observed under any conceivable testing method, then it doesn't exist), which ia the framework they are attempting to argue in.

So if your conclusions are fundamentally incompatible with the axioms you work under, then no reasoning process can be completely logical which obtains the former from the latter.

Dear Karl,

Thank you for your rebuttal.

Our host noted logical fallacies in creationist arguments to begin this thread. I take your point that many theological arguments are invalid. Proofs of the existence of God are a good example of invalid theological argument because, as you note, there is a logical disconnect between the axioms and the conclusions.

My points are two: first, that creationist arguments not scientific argument but disguised theological arguments, and second, that they are weak theological arguments.

The two most common "scientific" demonstrations of creationism are the improbability of human evolution and the existence of irreducible complexity. Both these arguments were advanced as proofs of the existence of God several hundred years ago. They have been dressed up as scientific, but remain theological arguments.

I believe that scientific arguments for and against creationism are simply not relevant from the creationists' point of view.