The Irrationality of the Rationalists!

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The Irrationality of the Rationalists! By Geoff Chapman

August 21, 2012

THOSE of us who are involved in the creation movement have become accustomed to being ridiculed and verbally abused by people who call themselves “rationalists.” Here is one definition of rationalism: “An approach to life based on reason and evidence…. Rationalism encourages people to think for themselves, to look at the evidence before them and to come to their own conclusions. ” (BBC Religion website).

SOMETHING FROM NOTHING

These people are fond of accusing believers, especially creationists, of being irrational. Peo- ple who believe in Intelligent Design (ID) are nick-named IDiots, and creationists are often called cretans. Although they regard the belief that the universe was created “at God’s command” (Hebrews 11: 3) as unscientific, rationalists often make very irrational statements, especially where it relates to origins. Consider these quotations about the origin of the universe:-

"Perhaps in an infinite sea of nothingness, globs of positive and negative energy in equal-sized pairs are constantly forming, and after passing through evolutionary changes, combining once more and vanishing. We are in one of these globs in the period of time between nothing and nothing, and wondering about it.”1

“The big bang was the abrupt creation of the Universe from literally nothing: no space, no time, no matter. This is a quite extraordinary conclusion to arrive at — a picture of the entire physical Universe simply popping into existence from nothing.”2

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch, or so the saying goes, but that may not be true on the grandest, cosmic scale. Many physicists now believe that the universe arose out of nothingess during the Big Bang, which means that nothing must have somehow turned into something.”3 So please can we have an explanation? “To the average person it might seem obvious that nothing can happen in nothing. But to a quantum physicist, nothing is, in fact, something..... Quantum theory also holds that a vacuum, like atoms, is subject to quantum uncertainties. This means that things can materialize out of the vacuum, although they tend to vanish back into it quickly.... this phenomenon has never been observed directly.”4 Really?

ANTI-SUPERNATURAL BIAS

On the matter of life’s origin, the anti-super- natural bias of some scientists leads to them making some extremely irrational statements, even admitting that they believe the impossible. For example: “I do not want to believe in God. Therefore I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation leading to evolution.”5

"Evolution itself is accepted by zoologists, not because it has been observed to occur... or can be proved by logical coherent evidence, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible."6

Famous Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin let the cat out of the bag when he wrote: “We have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism… we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”7 So did Scott Todd: “Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.” 8

‘GORILLA TECHNOLOGY’

When a gorilla was observed using a stick to help it wade across a pond, one evolutionist went right over the top. “What we are seeing here is the birth of gorilla technology. It may only be a first step on a journey on which we humans have advanced a million miles…”9  So did he believe that, given enough time, gorillas would evolve the ability to design computers and fly to the moon? All this really proved is that gorillas some- times use sticks when they wade through ponds — and it may be nothing new.

Of course, human beings “must have” evolved, even if we can’t explain how! “Humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin’s proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."10 Finally, a revealing quote from Prof. Richard Dawkins: “Even if there were no actual evidence in favour of the Darwinian theory, we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories.” 11

So is it really irrational to believe that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1: 1)? Compared with some of the statements we have quoted — and we could have quoted many more — the creation explanation is totally logical. Only an almighty God can do the impossible, and make something from nothing!

1. Prof. Issac Asimov, Science Digest, Vol. 69, p.69. 2. Paul Davies & Jeremy Gribben, ‘The Matter Myth’, 1992, p. 123 .
2. New Scientist TV 28th July 2011. 4. Discover, April 2002.