Why Otherwise Intelligent People Become Creationists

This puzzling phenomenon is explained by Bora Zivkovic (seen via Respectful Insolence). He explains it, not by analyzing Creationists properly, but by exemplifying what they're afraid of. We have here someone who ties evolution to left-wing bullsh!t.

For example, my usual response to Creationists who claim evolution is a religion is to argue that, if it were a religion, we would not see evolutionists who believe in other religions. For some reason, they don't seem impressed. Now, thanks to Bora Zivkovic, we see why they might object to theist evolution:

Christian theology postulates a God who is omnipresent (i.e., aspatial) and atemporal. God is not just everywhere, He is also everywhen. Christian God does not travel in time with us, from past through present to the future. When God created the Universe, he did not create just its beginning, he created ALL of it, including the whole HISTORY of the Universe, much of it is still in the future from our perspective, but can be seen all at once by God. When God is looking on his Creation, he is SIMULTANEOUSLY seeing the primordial soup, Galileo's trial, bomb exploding in Hiroshima, you praying, and your great-great-grandchildren going on a school field-trip to Mars. Why would He make changes in his Perfect Creation just because someone is praying for something? A little tweak of the fabric located just after the act of the prayer? Why? Our future has already been created for us long time ago, and that future is exactly what God wanted all along. No free will. No reward. No punishment.

First of all, an atemporal God could quite easily make changes at the beginning of time in response to somebody's sins or virtues. Second, the fact that God can see what we will do does not subtract from free will. There is a difference between watching someone do something and causing that someone to do something. Third, there is nothing specifically Christian about this. Most important of all, when Creationists hear “theist evolution,” they figure it's something similar to the above. It's the equivalent of telling them “You can have your religion, but only if it's on our terms.”

I'll have to come back to this site later for a more extended fisking. It's noteworthy for assuming the viewpoint of the Berkeley psychology department and analyzing everything in those terms.