I have just found out about this page on the Rational Wiki (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/101_evidences_for_a_young_age_of_the_Earth_and_the_universe)
Its a point by point refutation of a post on creation.com giving, as the title suggests, 101 reasons for believing creationism.
I’ve not been through it all, there is a lot of stuff there if you read about all 101 points, but I am putting it here to add my little bit to the publicity machine.
Related articles
- Rebutting creationist arguments for a young earth (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
- The “Center for Unintelligent Design” and How ID-Creationists Shoot Themselves in the Foot (skepticalteacher.wordpress.com)
- What one atheist learned from hanging out with creationists (oup.com)
- Creationists May Find Working with Scientists Difficult (theatlanticwire.com)
- Oh Those Silly Creationists (fullfurybar.wordpress.com)
- Are Mythicist Sceptics Hypocritical for Attacking Creationists? (vridar.wordpress.com)
Confessions Of A YEC - Featuring Still Unbelievable! 
Glad you liked it 🙂 I just spent four hours going through and proofreading it against the current version of the creation.com article (they’ve edited it a bit … this is why RW does screen captures, for archival purposes). We want to make it as good as we can, good enough for external readers who aren’t snarky skeptics like RW is in general.
I’d be interested to know what you think of the detail, and what you would have thought of it as a believer – would it have done any good? what bits would you have stopped reading at? etc. The intended target audience is YECs who were taught creationism by people they trusted, but are capable of thought if given the materials.
Hi David,
I will read that wiki entry and likely make a further post about it when I do, or comment to the wiki. I think it is a very valuable thing to do.
With regards to your question, on a general level, no single web page or conversation was ever solely responsible for my acceptance of evolution. It should never be assumed that a single conversation or page of information will do that. My acceptance of evolution was a gradual thing as I understood some concepts, and then others started to make sense too.
One of the problems I had to battle with on a personal level was when the science of evolution was explained and I understood what was said and I could see the logic behind the conclusion and I could see that my creationist rebuttal didn’t overthrow the argument. This caused me genuine anguish, it was real emotional pain, it hurt and until I was able to recover composure, no argument, no matter how good, was able to get through. I needed time after these events to sort my thoughts and return to the subject, often days or weeks later.
My opinion is that Creationists need to be inspired to investigate evolution, to question it and to challenge it and to see where it works and how it works. This is what helped me greatly.
A bullet list of reasons why creationism is wrong would have had limited value with me. I would have read the list and ticked them off against my counter apologetic items. This kind of thing would more likely help the fringe than those like me who swallowed it whole.
Again, I haven’t actually been through the list yet, this is my initial gut feel.
A list like this needs to do more than just explain why a creationist claim is false, it needs to inspire a desire to learn more about evolution. The reader needs to know that evolution is not something to fear because it challenges their beliefs, they need to see it as the beautiful and awesome thing that it is.
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