The great debate

Hi Kids!  I’m TV’s Kirk Cameron!  I’m here to talk to you today about creation.  Now, you might have heard some crazy stories from your friends who try to convince you that God doesn’t exist.  But did you know the existence of God can be proven, 100 percent, absolutely, without the use of faith?  It’s really cool.  Check this out.

Look at the computer in front of you.  How did it get there?  Did it just appear?  Of course not.  Someone had to have created it. I don’t think any scientist would argue against that.   Now, use that same common sense to think about how life began.  Did life just appear out of nowhere?  Of course not.  We’re all here, which means there had to be a designer. It’s really pretty simple.

a

Uh, Kirk, using your ‘common sense,’  isn’t the existence of God proof that someone designed him?

a

Kirk:  Good question Lisa!  That’s what’s so cool!  You see, God is eternal.  He transcends time.  So ‘who made God?’ is a question that doesn’t really make sense.  No one could have created him.

Lisa:  But I could just say that this computer wasn’t designed because it is eternal and transcends time.

Kirk:  First of all, that would be  a pretty silly thing to say.  We know computers didn’t just appear out of thin air.  Not to mention the fact that we could find out where your computer was made and visit the factory.

Lisa:  Let me get this straight.  Your 100% proof that God exists is that all things had to have a designer, but you also say that God exists and didn’t have a designer.  And your proof that God exists and didn’t have a designer is that someone must have designed everything?

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Tune in for Part II, when Kirk explains flaws in the theory of evolution.

Related links here and here.

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Creationist arguments

If you visit creationist websites, or discuss evolution with the ID crowd, you’ll see/hear arguments about why evolution couldn’t be true.  I was glad to see Steven Novella refute the most common claims made against evolution.  The most common one I have heard is that evolution does not increase genetic information, and therefore macroevolution (a popular term by the ID/creationist folks) is impossible.  Steven dismantles this claim:

All mutations increase genetic information…  If you start with one version of a gene and then it mutates in one offspring but not in another – now you have two versions of that gene. That represents an increase in information. Also, entire genes may be duplicated in the reproductive process. If you start with one copy of a gene and end up with two copies – that is an increase in information. This is especially pertinent to evolution, because one copy can continue to perform its original function while the redundant copy is free to mutate and evolve a new function.

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The idea that natural selection removes variation from the gene pool is true but a non sequitur. Mutations, duplication, and recombination increase information and increase variation and then natural selection causes differential survival of that variation which is better adapted to its niche.

The whole post is worth a read, if you are interested in the topic.  As tempting as it is to ignore creationist arguments, we need to keep refuting them.  Especially when 39% of US adults believe it’s ‘definitely true’ that ”God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.”

update:  you can watch Intelligent Design on Trial (h/t Jim Emerson)

update 2:  new gallop poll on evolution

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