11. DOES THIS MEAN DEADLOCK?
As i deliberated on my findings and the conclusions presented above, i came to some further conclusions which seem to me to be important.
One of these conclusions was that there appeared to me to be a very considerable amount of discussion around points which, as far as i could see, did not actually address what seemed to me to be the essence of the evolution versus creation debate. It seemed to me that perhaps eighty percent or more of the time and effort on both sides was being devoted to points that i think cannot prove creation or evolution.
The debate about the Bible and Bible based evidence seems to me to be such an example.
Since much of what i do in my work as a management and strategy consultant and in information technology relates to identifying the critical issues, the few key points that are central to any particular strategic objective, i found myself moving to this point of view without difficulty.
Since much of my experience over the past few decades supports my opinion that much of the time human beings spend their time discussing the things that are easy to get a "hold on" rather than the things that are challenging and more abstract, this conclusion was probably inevitable. Notwithstanding this, please consider putting aside any objections you may have and following through what follows.
A conclusion that i reached was that it increasingly seemed to me that in some respects "creation" and "evolution" are not on the same playing field. It seems to me that the essence of "creation" is the question of whether there is a creator or not. It seems to me that the essence of "evolution" is the process and steps whereby the current state of the universe and the planet earth and its inhabitants was achieved.
As stated before, it seems increasingly to me that believing in "evolution" does not require any particular belief about "creation". It seems to me that believing in the mechanism of evolution DOES require such a position. In other words, the essence of the dispute seems to be whether a creator created all these things (as i see it, in an evolutionary way) or whether they "happened" in some way that can be postulated but, as far as i can determine, not conclusively proved.
What i mean by "conclusively proved" is that i am not aware of any reproducible evidence that suggests that an explosion such as a "big bang" (2,370,000) can give rise to a state of order. I am not aware of any evidence that a mass of chemicals in a vacuum can develop an atmosphere and eventually life and thereafter human beings.
I hold that this is particularly the case when the core of the pile of chemicals is a molten mass that has supposedly cooled in a way that water and an atmosphere were able to form on the surface in a complete vacuum while other masses from the same source have turned into "suns" which have been burning for millions or billions of years.
For me, offering "argument from incredulity" in response to my objections does not help me to accept that there is NOT a creator. My reality is that i have practical evidence of the existence of a creator, rejecting this on the basis that i cannot demonstrate it or prove it seems to me to also be an "argument from incredulity".
This seems to leave me with a no win situation.
It seems that both sides can use "argument from incredulity" and both sides can use "reductio ad absurdum" in some way. As i experience both of these statements, they both indicate a judgment on the other side that is not pleasant and i don't experience as constructive.