(Tier 1) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education XXXII: Wherein We Experience Cosmic Fail

At the end of our last edition, the Earth Science Fourth Edition authors promised us the Bible explains all about why the universe is the way it is. I don’t know about that, but okay. Lay it on us! Surely the fine folks at BJU Press can now explain all that stuff the nebular hypothesis was supposedly helpless to explain (although it mostly can). Tell us why Uranus is on its side, and Venus spins backwards, and why Uranus and Neptune exist, and why the earth doesn’t wobble!

What’s your explanatory cross-box got to say about it, ES4?

The existence of most of the strange things observed in our solar system, like the tilted planets, weird magnetic fields, and planets that give off more energy than they absorb from the sun, can be explained by biblical Creation.

Yes? Great! Let’s get on with it, then.

Even when secular theories fail to account for these features, scientists will criticize biblical creationists for falling back on a “God-of-the-gaps,” or seeking a supernatural explanation where a natural one cannot be found. But such an approach isn’t necessary if one believes that everything, including the scientific laws that govern the universe, ultimately came from God.

Well, okay, fine. So explain! Explain why God made some stuff all wonky, rather than create the solar system all orderly-like. Why does Venus rotate backward? Why did God tip Uranus on its side? Why did he bother with Neptune at all, since we couldn’t see it before the invention of the telescope? Why did he bother with wee little moons around other planets which he never put human life on? Did he intend Pluto to be a planet or not? He made the scientific laws – so what are the scientific laws he made that cause those things to happen? And what are his reasons? How does your model explain the things you were picking on us for (supposedly) not being able to explain?

I turn the page, and….

Nothing.

There’s literally nothing. None of the questions they raise are answered.

Not. One.

You know, I rather think the creationists who started modern science because dthey were so certain God was good, that he was the best craftsman, that he would have created a universe whose rules made sense, who wasn’t arbitrary or capricious and who intended for the pinnacle of his creation to be able to read his book of nature… I rather think they would be bitterly disappointed in you. Because you’ve just stopped. You don’t know what it means to explain something. You think saying it’s that way because that’s how God made it explains, but it doesn’t. Not a bit. It has no power. No majesty. It reveals nothing. It sheds no light, brings no understanding. It murders discovery and leaves it in the rain to rot. It reduces the whole of the cosmos to caprice and whim.

Image is a demotivational poster showing a circle of arrows on a background of blue sky. In the center of the arrows is a wormhole leading to a black hole. The topmost arrow is: "The Bible is the word of God. "But how can you be sure it's the word of God?" The next arrow says, "Because the Bible tells us so." "But why believe the Bible?" Next arrow is, "The Bible is infallible." "But how do you know it's infallible?" Which leads back to the first arrow, "The Bible is the word of God." Beneath the image is the caption, "Creationist logic. It is the equivalent of dividing by zero."

Listen.

I’m not a believer in any sort of deity, but I am a writer. I have created worlds. I’ve delighted in people reading my stories. But it’s a vicious let-down when people take those rich story-worlds that I spent so much time, so much blood-sweat-toil-tears-and-anguish to get right, for granted. People who shrugged, and would have said, if asked, that it’s that way because that’s the way Dana made it.

That’s not honoring a writer or their creation. That’s a lazy cop-out.

And if your God exists, and went to all this effort to create this enormous and unimaginably incredible cosmos just for you, there’s no way he could be satisfied with people who say, “It’s that way because that’s how God made it.”

What a miserable way to show your appreciation.

Also: that isn’t science. That’s the kind of attitude completely antithetical to science. It stops knowledge cold. There is no progress to be made using your methods.

You play at being scientists, but you have no science. You nurture your own ignorance. You tie a blindfold on and crow about how well you can see.

Were I your god, I’d be awfully ashamed of you.

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(Tier 1) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education XXXII: Wherein We Experience Cosmic Fail
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