Disproof of one theory does not validate another.

This is a common logical fallacy committed by Christians, Creationists and other religions the world over. Disproving an aspect(or attempting to disprove) of someone else's theory does not suddenly give yours more credence. This is the fallacy of the False Dichotomy- the idea that there are only two choices. This usually goes hand in hand with the idea that two things are inseperably related - "Are you a patriot and do you support the war, or are you a terrorist and you are against it?" is a common theme, but there are others. "Do you reject God's Teachings and believe in evolution or are you a righteous person and reject evolution?" is another.
These are loaded questions and serve no purpose other than to confuse the listener into believing the proposition.

Tearing down someone else's argument does not validate your own- for all you have actually done is proven them wrong. This does not mean your idea has any validity- proving that one religion is false does not prove that yours is true, nor does attacking evolution create a case for creationism.

Many people believe Creationism is the "default" and that evolution is the one who must bear the burden of proof, when this is not the case. Creationism has no proof behind it- there is no evidince of design or forethought to any genetic structure or to any creature's actual biological structure. Even if evolution were to be torn down and discarded as a theory, creationism couldn't be accepted on these grounds as they have offered no proof of their own.

Because of this, the current "Teach the Controversy" method of getting Christianity in the classroom will fail because it lends itself to this falacy. Upon giving precedent to theories not accpeted by mainstream science being taught in the classroom things will certainly go very arwy for science classes, as equal time must be given to other unaccepted theories.

As you can see, this kind of thinking is dangerous because it does not take into account any kind of diversity of thought at all, as well as having the unfortunate tendancy to lump people into categories they would not typically fit into.

implications != truth value

This is a symptom of people who either do not think critically or people who hold off on thinking critically about certain aspects of their lives.
You know the people I am talking about- people who refuse to believe something or even consider it because of "what it would mean".
This is such a strong cultural phenomenon that it has become a common plot point and aspect of stereotypical characters.

The problem with this argument is that no matter what the consequences of something being true are, they do not make it any less true.
For a bad example, holocaust deniers are not always white supremacists- sometimes they are people who are simply nieve. People who don't want to believe the horrible things that happened because that would simply mean that horrible things have happened in the past- unimaginably horrible things.
For a more realistic example, most western Christians deny a lot of things to themselves, but one strikes me as particularly offensive. That Atheists have morals that are equal to or even better than their own, and that they follow them. That can't be, because that would mean they either aren't morally superior, or that they don't have a monopoly on morality, or that morals are a conclusion you can come to on your own, without God's intercession.
This idea is so frightening that it is more often than not shut completely out of their thoughts, dismissed as an impossibility.
Another disturbing example is one of creationism- people taking the oversimplification of it too far and then being offended that they may share a common ancestry with many modern primates today or "that my grandma was a monkey".
Or that we are not "any different than the animals"(of course, larger brains and better adaptability, as well as culture and language makes us completely the same as animals.) and thusly not "special".
This kind of thinking is infantile at best, and destructive at worst.
The scary part is that they are allowed to teach this to their children.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics(the question of odds)

A very common argument creationists make is the one of odds. Do you know what the odds of this happening are?
Well, the odds of it happening if they think you are "undecided" or less educated than they are are 1:1 - it is their standard go-to argument.
I have many complaints about this.

First, the odds are usually false, or pulled completely out of thin air. The odds of a cell forming randomly out of nothing are the same as a hurricane assembling a perfectly functional 747 out of random metal scraps it picks up off the beach.

This is typical oversimplification. A related tactic is to compare evolution to saying "we came from goo" or "from a monkey". Or to say "one day a monkey gave birth to a human".

The fundamental problem with BOTH of these claims is that they demonstrate nothing more than a serious lack of understanding.

I of course could attempt to educate you here but I suspect that the main people who will read this blog are people who know me and people on the far end of either side of the "debate"- in which case you either already know or don't care to educate yourself. Or a strange combination of the two.

I will instead delve into the(perceived) reasoning behind such arguments.

The main reason these arguments come about is because someone leading the masses makes them up. Most, if not all of the arguments of creationism are not original, but come from a single source and are endlessly repeated over and over again by followers that say "wow that sounds really good! I'm going to use that! That will stump those Atheists!" - which brings me to the point and main flaw behind creationism.
It is the same problem we get when a horrible travesty occurs and everyone overwhelmingly and unequivocally takes ONE SIDE of an argument. This is illustrated here.
The idea is this(if you didn't click the link above)- someone does something really horrible and everyone else in the world judges them for it. Everyone takes part in the judging because it makes them feel superior and because they need someone to be better, or smarter, or more morally sound than. They have to be RIGHT.
The need to be right is very strong within people. It's strong within me, and within you- and within your dear old grandmother sitting at home knitting and watching jeopardy.
This is the reason why, to me, Christians seem insincere. It is the reason the Pro-choice argument seems less than genuous and the right-wing seems to be full of falsehoods.
It seems that they don't believe their own arguments to some, but I sense a deeper, darker moral problem in society. The cancer of superiority.

The idea is this. If you believed that Hell was a real place, that the unsaved would go there after death and be tortured for all eternity never to see the light of god or their families again- and that there was ANY chance that people you knew, or even people you CARED ABOUT might have to go there to suffer for eternity and you would never see them unless they believed your story or went through a baptism or whatever criteria you believed was required for them to avoid this fate- what would you do?
I for one would be in a crazed-terror state that robbed me of the ability to do anything productive until I brought these people to salvation. And in my mind salvation it would be.
Have you seen the movies where people risk their lives, their jobs and the lives of possibly someone they care about to save many people? Or to warn someone about an impending doom? People that would stop at nothing to save the world or the country or whatever group of people they happened to be with from the utter annihilation they were most certainly faced with?

Why so, do Christians do this? Why do they resign themselves? They might make a fuss when they find out the first time but if they see the train coming why don't they tackle you to make you get out of the way? And why get so angry at people who don't believe? Even to go so far as to wish death upon them? I would hold them safe in a room with no sharp bits or dangerous things nearby until I could talk them into safety. I would do this with everyone.

The reason is that they aren't sure. They strongly believe, but they are not completely sure. The seeds of doubt are in all of them(all of the ones who don't follow you home) and they are simply not sure if they have the right answer. They think the train tracks you've built your home on are still active but they're not ready to set fire to your house to smoke you out of it because they just aren't sure.

Similarly with pro-choice- if you even suspected a child was going to be killed somewhere and you knew where? I would very literally commit crimes much worse than that of the nutjob who murdered George Tiller in front of his family. But the thing is- that man was absolutely sure. Absolutely sure he was killing babies. Obviously I don't condone it or anything like it(and am vehemently opposed.. I'll post about it later.) but I do know that he was one of the few anti-abortionists who did not see a distinction between children born or unborn, and believed that the life of the mother was less sacrosanct than the life of the child.

But Christians and other pro-lifers are very happy to just call you a baby-killer. I mean, nothing they have ever done is as bad as killing babies. They are happy to condemn you and even vandalize your practice- but no one of them would actually do something to put a stop to it, especially if one of their own lives were in danger.

The same thing with hell. Christians, generally older Christians who have had their fill of arguing with atheists and uppity kids, will calmly tell you that they are praying for you- or that "you'll see" at the end, that they were right.

Would they really be so happy to just let you die and burn forever? Could you be happy in a heaven when you knew people were suffering for eternity?

Which brings me back to creationism(remember the original topic?). The main idea of creationism is that people want to be right about something. They want to be right about the bible and genesis so bad that they are willing to lie about it. They are willing to mine quotes, make up statistics and attempt to debunk rational science with fallacious arguments that they are unwilling to see as fallacious because that would admit that one of the fundamental tenants of their faith might be wrong. And some of the worst embarrassment in the world comes from being wrong.