Creationism vs Evolution

Does modern science disprove God? Not really, though the anti-science panic of creationists lends credit to this notion. The truth lies within only one of the following possibilities:

It could be that we have abiogenesis and biological evolution and that there is no supernatural deity.

It is also possible that the physicochemical mechanisms that demonstrably govern the natural world, and which brought about abiogenesis and biological evolution, could themselves have come about through some supernatural agency. (This is the reason that some creationists focus their attacks on the Big Bang - otherwise recognized as the expansion of space-time that left its traces in microwave background radiation).

It is equally possible that the physicochemical mechanisms that underlay abiogenesis operated independently of a supernatural agency that does operate postmortem. The emotional advantages of believing in salvation and eternal life are so obvious as to obviate discussion.

Equally obvious is the impossibility, by definition, of temporal acquaintance with the reality or unreality of any form of life after death. Unless, that is, one insists upon the possibility of equally unsubstantiable claims of reincarnation.

Regardless of unlikelihoods, it is not outside the laws of logic to accept the fact of biological evolution while holding emotionally-attractive religious beliefs. It is outside the laws of logic, however, to believe that discrediting evolutionary theory (if such were possible by such arguments) could prove the existence of a Christian, or any other, deity. To believe so is to embrace the fallacious argument of 'false dichotomy' since, as addressed above, there are more than two possible explanations for the natural world.

Examining the question of God versus modern science, there are several possible alternatives and more gradations between the alternatives:
1. God is the Creator, and, like Descartes' demon or the Piltdown perpetrator, He planted fossil evidence, and biological evolution does not occur,
2. God exists, created the physicochemical laws that led to abiogenesis and biological evolution, yet modern science is incorrect in its formulations,
3. God exists, created the physicochemical laws that led to abiogenesis and biological evolution, and modern science is a) approaching understanding, or b) correct in its formulations, or c) totally incorrect in its formulations,
4. God exists, did not create the physicochemical laws that led to abiogenesis and biological evolution, and modern science is a) approaching understanding, or b) correct in its formulations, or c) totally incorrect in its formulations,
5. God does not exist, physicochemical laws that led to abiogenesis and biological evolution, and modern science is a) approaching understanding, or b) correct in its formulations, or c) totally incorrect in its formulations.

The point is that to believe that attacking the content of scientific understanding – modern formulations of theories of biological evolution – is to create a false dichotomy, a black-white, right-wrong argument that does not recognize all the logical alternative explanations. However, the task of science is to explain the operations of the physical world. Religion posits a non-testable connection between the supernatural and the physical.

The discoveries of science are more difficult to comprehend than the simplistic explanation of creation by a supernatural agent, and this may underlie some of the obvious connection between religiosity and lack of scientific education.

While many scientists do not believe in God, many scientists do hold religious beliefs, and neither of these facts is an argument against or for the existence of God. It is not within the mandates of science, which examines the physical world, to determine the existence or non-existence of a supernatural deity. While creationists do take the versus evolution position, science cannot disprove the existence of the supernatural, it can merely make supernatural interpretations appear the least likely explanation for the observable.

The most reasonable interpretation of the observed facts of biological evolution and of the myth laden history of Christian thought leads to the obvious conclusion that humans are not a special creation and that Genesis is merely another anthropogenic creation myth – this is a version of 5a.