• Full Title: Foundational Falsehoods Of Creationism
• Authors: Aron Ra
• Year: 2016
• Genre: Nonfiction, Science, Creationism
• Publisher: Pitchstone Publishing
• ISBN 978-1-63431-078-9 (trade paperback)
• Author’s Wikipedia Page

 

Summary

As Ra says in the preface, this book arose from a series of YouTube videos he created, which had the same title as this book. He says he was encouraged by a publisher to “convert those videos into text”. This book then, is the result of that effort. In the book, Ra lists fifteen Fundamental Falsehoods Of Creationism, and each chapter is named after one of them. Note that these aren’t strawmen: each time Ra quotes a creationist or refers to their arguments, it is something I was taught as a youngster growing up in church.

I became aware of Aron Ra during either 2014 or 2015, very near the time I “came out” as an atheist, when I began frequenting online spaces where atheists congregate. Ra had a good-size following, but nearly everything I heard about him referred to his YouTube videos, which I have never viewed. (I highly prefer reading text over watching videos, especially if the video is just a person facing the camera and talking. Unfortunately, many atheist discussion boards consist of “watch this YouTube video”.) So I was curious when I heard in 2016 or 2017 that Ra had finally put his words into book form, and I bought the book in 2017.

Ra is a fellow Texan, and ran for state senate recently. He is currently director of the Phylogeny Explorer Project, and has worked with both Atheist Alliance International and American Atheists.

 

What I Liked Least About It

Immediately I noticed the lack of citations. A book like this — with multiple quotations, lists of facts, scientific explanations, and references to apologetic writing and theological concepts — is begging for at least a source-list, if not inline citations. Meant as an overwhelming pile of facts and logic that wipes the floor with creationism (and it does), it needs documentation. Granted, Ra often provides names of websites or books where he got the information, but this isn’t the same as a citation; and most of the time no source is listed. Don’t misunderstand; I’m not accusing Ra of making up any of these facts. I’m certain he looked them up before writing them (and all the ones I independently checked are accurate). But part of what makes this kind of book more reliable and convincing is listing source material.

The further I read, the more I was bugged by the book’s organizational structure. The general outline (the fifteen falsehoods) is clear, but within each chapter it often seems the thoughts are randomly thrown together. Again, don’t misunderstand. The thoughts themselves are well formulated; the sentences and paragraphs are well-written. But it felt like each paragraph was written separately and randomly shuffled into the final order. Transitions between one thought and another are typically weak. (This varies throughout the book; some chapters are better choreographed than others.)

As an example, the first chapter is supposed to be about the assertion that “Evolution = Atheism”, but Ra spends most of the chapter detailing an online debate he organized and participated in, related to proposed changes in Texas public school texts. That story, while fascinating, and truly an important part of educational history in the United States, could have been told in a chapter of its own. The falsehood itself (as well as many of the others) could have been dealt with in two or three pages, without being inserted in slices between pieces of the debate story.

Note that these are critiques of the style and form of the book, not of its actual contents. And, for all I know, Ra had good reasons to forego listing sources (publisher didn’t want to?) and organizing it the way he did (following the format of his videos)?

 

What I Liked Most About It

I rarely comment on the physical quality of a book, but this one is sturdy for a paperback. It is well made (so, kudos to Pitchstone Publishing), uses an easily readable font at a normal size — it’s amazing how few books these days accomplish this, what should be a very simple task. It’s heavier than I prefer, but not significantly so.

Clearly, Ra knows what he’s talking about. I grew up in the Young Earth Creationist culture and spent quite a bit of time educating myself out of it, so I was already familiar with most of his arguments and I couldn’t find any point at which he went off the rails. He also has made the effort to be a public advocate for science and reason when he had no real incentive to do so (he wasn’t getting paid for it). Both of these work together to make this book enjoyable. With admirable motives and a solid knowledge base, he indeed accomplishes the task set out for him. It helps that these falsehoods are easy to debunk. (As with other works on similar topics, I am curious as to what I would have thought about them 30 years ago. Would I have even read this book as a fanatic Christian teen? If so, would it have dislodged any of the lies I’d been indoctrinated with?)

Another thing Ra does well is know his audience. He knows the great majority of people who read this book aren’t going to be die-hard creationists; they’re going to be primarily people who already follow him on YouTube or other social media, and secondarily, people like me who heard of him third-hand and are (probably) already convinced that creationism is ridiculous. He does allow for a third type of reader, the person who hasn’t really given it a lot of thought and might need a nudge to get off the fence.

The writing style isn’t meant for scientists or academia, but for a layperson at least somewhat interested in the topic.

It’s also always good to learn something, and I did learn from this book. As noted above, I was familiar with all of the creationist assertions, and most of the counter-arguments, but Ra mentions one on pages 310-311 that I hadn’t considered before. First, you have to be aware that creationists tend to use “kind” instead of species or other taxonomic jargon, because “kind” is found in the Bible. Additionally, they refuse to admit that all of life on Earth is related — they do (typically) admit that all the species within a “kind” are related (for example, zebras, donkeys, and horses), but won’t admit that these are related to a similar “kind” (say, tapirs and rhinoceroses, which belong to the same taxonomic order as equines). Ra asks: at what point up the taxonomic ladder do things stop being related to one another? And why? (He calls it the “phylogeny challenge”.) It’s a question creationists can’t answer logically; their only recourse here is to say there must be a hard separation between “kinds”, because the Bible says the kinds were individually created.

 

The Fifteen Falsehoods

This isn’t a spoiler (because all this has been on YouTube for years), but I want to list the 15 falsehoods Ra attacks in the book. These are things asserted by creationists (people who pretend to be “scientists’ but instead believe without evidence that the creation account in the Bible is literally true). All of these are false. I don’t think the order matters, but this is the order they appear in Ra’s book.

1. Evolution = atheism
2. Scriptures are the word of God
3. Various human interpretations of scripture count as absolute truth
4. Belief is knowledge
5. Evolution is the religion of atheism
6. Evolution must explain the origin of life, the universe, and everything
7. Evolution is random
8. There are no beneficial mutations
9. No transitional species have ever been found
10. The evolutionary “tree of life” is not implied in biology or the fossil record
11. Macroevolution has never been observed
12. Creationism is science
13. Evolution is a fraud
14. Creation is evident
15. Evolution is a theory, not a fact

 

Quotation

Many parts of the book are quotable. Here is a sample:

“The first insurmountable problem I had with the Bible was that every part of it was so weirdly illogical and grotesquely immoral that it was obviously not inspired by any superior being. The Bible is written remarkably badly, especially for something that was so revered... I was told that the Bible was the ‘word of God’. That meant that if I read it, I would find a level of wisdom, morality, and understanding far beyond the scope of the most brilliant or compassionate man. That is what I fully expected when I cracked open that book. Of course what I found instead were only the insane ravings of superstitious primitives apparently trying to justify their own inhuman atrocities by pretending to speak for heir god, thereby claiming ultimate authority. The Bible is a deeply repugnant tome that celebrates evil, promotes gnorance, and punishes wisdom as an ababominable sin. No deity worthy of worship would want to be associated with that despicable compilation of the worst that men can be.”

— pg. 84

 

Conclusion

If you haven’t spent a lot of time around creationists, or weren’t raised in a fundamentalist Christian sect like I was, you might have a hard time believing how insidious these ideas can be. I assure you that Ra’s depictions of their ideas and assertions in this book are entirely accurate. These are exactly the things they say and do in order to squeeze their ideology into public schools. (And that battle still rages in the one-party state of Texas.)

I won’t make a general recommendation of the book because it’s kind of a niche thing; I realize that not everyone is going to take an interest. If you were raised, like I was, with a strict, literal interpretation of the Bible, but are now having doubts or questions, I do recommend reading this. Ignore if you can when Ra uses disparaging language and focus on the facts he presents. If not this book, maybe any popular science writing on the topic of evolution or cosmology. Get that indoctrination out of your head before you inadvertently pass it on to another generation of unsuspecting youngsters.

 

 

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