Why do creationists get so upset about evolution?
Instead of trying to prove Creationism, trying to gather all their theories into one harmonious whole that may be presented to the scientific community, creationists seem to spend an awful lot of time attacking the theory of evolution. They use the logical fallacy of the false dichotomy, saying that either the theory of evolution is true, or Biblical Creationism is true. Disproving one automatically proves the other. Because they cannot prove that Creationism is true, they try to indirectly prove it by attempting to show that evolution is false. One of the (many) major problems with this approach is that it is not a dichotomy at all. To say that the only possibly alternative to naturalistic evolution is Christian Creationism is bogus in the extreme. For example, you can have:
* Theistic evolution, where God uses evolution as a tool for creation.
* Last-Thursday-ism, where God created the universe last Thursday, but made creationists believe He created it six thousand years ago with Adam and Eve. All our memories are forgeries implanted by God a few days ago. After all, He doth worketh in mysterious ways...
* The Creation myths of a thousand other religions, each of which is a valid supernatural alternative to the supernatural Christian Creation myth. Why choose one over any of the others?
Ruling out evolution therefore does not rule in Biblical Creationism.
In a way, there is nothing wrong with people attacking the theory of evolution, and I am happy to encourage it. Science thrives on skeptical inquiry into new ideas. If not, it would never advance. When new theories are presented, scientists fall on them like a pack of ravenous hyenas, looking for weak spots and problems until the solid bones of the theory are laid bare (hmmm... time to brush up on my analogies, I think). Scientists are encouraged to look for problems with long-standing theories. This applies to evolution just as much as it applies to quantum theory, and evolution and all it's predictions should be, and are, tested on a daily basis. Unfortunately, most people who attack the theory of evolution (i.e. say that evolution simply does not happen) have an incomplete understanding of what the theory actually is, and end up criticising a wildly distorted view of the subject.
Creationists rarely seem to attack evolution from a scientific angle, relying instead on emotive pleas to a scientifically ignorant audience. They say that evolution is the only alternative to Biblical Creationism, and this is why they attack it so much (another tactic is to say that the theory of evolution is the cause of all our social problems, and only immoral people subscribe to it).
It seems to me that one of the real driving forces behind the way creationists think is all to do with Jesus (and of course the belief that the Bible is one hundred percent literal truth). Jesus is supposed to be the Saviour of humanity. Saving us from what? From Original Sin. Where does Original Sin come from? From Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Therefore, to truly believe that Christ is our Saviour, you need to also believe in Original Sin, the Garden of Eden, the Fall and pretty much the rest of Genesis. This is the root of the problem. If all creatures, humans included, were not Created (as it says in Genesis), but rather evolved over billions of years (as all available evidence suggests), then the Garden of Eden story is nothing more than... well, a story. In which case there is NO Original Sin, and Jesus' death has nothing to do with Original Sin.
There is then a direct conflict between evolution and the very basis of (fundamentalist) Christianity itself.
A second aspect of this is the idea that Jesus is Perfect. Jesus cannot lie. It is simply not possible, as far as the creationists are concerned, because he is perfect in every way, including morally. In Luke 17:26-27, Jesus refers to Noah and the Flood. Jesus said it, therefore it is simply true (if you accept the Bible as 100% literal truth, which many fundamentalists do), regardless of any evidence against it and lack of evidence for it.
I came across this on a message board recently :
HOWEVER, apparently, Jesus Christ KNEW the account to be true and related it to His Second Advent when speaking about the exact time of His return.
CONCLUSION: According to the Word of God: THERE WAS A FLOOD!
To the author of that, little more evidence was required. If the flood did not occur, exactly as stated in the Bible, then Jesus would be a liar (or at least mistaken) and that is utterly unacceptable to the creationist mind. If Jesus had said "Bananas are blue, highly intelligent and eat fish." then your can bet your boots someone from the ICR would be trying to prove it.
Basically, the Creationists think that if you accept evolution, then you cannot accept Jesus-As-Saviour. This is utterly unthinkable to a Christian Fundamentalist, therefore evolution MUST be false, no matter how overwhelming the evidence is. If they were to admit that evolution is true, they would be denying the sacrifice (and perfection) of Christ.
Robert G. Ingersoll put it very clearly:
"If the Bible is true, certainly Adam was the first man; consequently, we know, if the sacred volume be true, just how long man has lived and labored and suffered on this earth.
The church cannot and dare not give up the account of the creation of Adam from the dust of the earth, and of Eve from the rib of the man. The church cannot give up the story of the Garden of Eden -- the serpent -- the fall and the expulsion; these must be defended because they are vital. Without these absurdities, the system known as Christianity cannot exist. Without the fall, the atonement is a non sequitur. Facts bearing upon these questions were discovered and discussed by the greatest and most thoughtful of men. Lamarek, Humboldt, Haeckel, and above all, Darwin, not only asserted, but demonstrated, that man is not a special creation. If anything can be established by observation, by reason, then the fact has been established that man is related to all life below him -- that he has been slowly produced through countless years -- that the story of Eden is a childish myth -- that the fall of man is an infinite absurdity."
THE DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH ROBERT, G. INGERSOLL, 1888