I first wrote this as a contribution to a friend's book idea which she titled 'Dear Daughter'. The idea was to compile a collection of advice people would give to their daughter, real or, in my case, imagined. What I wrote was: "If you find yourself arguing with a
religiously-minded person about creationism/intelligent design and evolution, stop and change
tack. Here are some ideas about how to avoid getting dragged into a futile
debate with someone who has already made up their mind on the issue:
1. Ask them why they assume that only one entity was responsible for the design of the earth and all the living things in
it. Take a single thing that we know for sure has been intelligently designed
e.g. a Ferrari. How many people down the centuries have been involved in the
perfection of a modern day Ferrari? Don’t forget to include the invention of
the wheel and its development into an alloy construction with tubeless
low-profile tyres.
2. Ask them where the evidence is of God
practising, since no intelligent person I’ve ever met got good at anything
without practice.
3. Ask them to explain how assuming an
almighty creator can help to evolve human society in a moral rather than merely
material direction. If you get a sensible answer, please pass it on.
4. Ask them to explain how the creator
might have been created.
5. Ask them why pronouns for God always
have capital letters and why He created people, like me, who find it intensely
annoying.
6. Ask them whether God is responsible for
the development, by seemingly intelligent people, of carbon dating techniques.
7. Ask them if they accept that the idea of
an intelligent designer is based on observations of intelligent design by
humans. Then ask them if they think human society may one day evolve a new almighty
designer who will this time leave written records and allow future humans to
avoid wasting time on futile discussion of imponderables."
Since then I have had an experience that has changed my advice somewhat. I was sat on Cottesloe beach in Western Australia enjoying a beer and watching the sunset, as is my wont while on holiday. A man of God came up to me and demanded my opinion on this topic. I asked him most of the above questions and he just brushed them off, his technique when faced with something he couldn't possibly give a reasonable answer to being to chuck a non sequitur at me. His favourite brickbat was "the first thousand years in hell with soften you up". I realised later that such a conversation feels like being stoned (in the biblical sense). So here's the thing dear daughter: people who do not share basic assumptions can never really get beyond mudslinging when debating. Therefore there really is only one question to ask, Do you agree that scientific inquiry is a legitimate way to go about knowing who we are and how we and the world we live in came to be here and that, because of it, we know far more about the nature of things now than was known by (western) humans when all the major (western) religions were invented? If you are not satisfied with the answer you get, bid your evangeliser a polite good night and get back to watching the sunset. After all, however it came to be, it would be a crime against the creator to waste it.
