Creationism Will Never Die

I used to think that fundamentalist Christians might one day realise that Creationism is a confidence trick perpetrated by evangelists, but now I discover that Creationists don't actually know what it is they believe in. There is no point showing them evidence that proves the falsity of Creationism, because they simply would not recognise it. Having seen the evidence they will casually declare that they don't understand any of it - and therefore Creationism is still true! But when you ask them what Creationism is, they just as casually declare, "I don't really know, but whatever it is, it is still true."


Following is part of an interview with Blake Griffin; an American Christian who plays basketball for the Los Angeles Clippers:

You guys grew up in a religious household, right?

Yeah. We went to church every Sunday—not every Sunday, but we went to church a lot of times. And I went to a religious school. So I was constantly around it.

Do you still go to church?

I haven't in a while. But I still—I go with my brother and his wife. They have a little Bible-study thing out here. What's great about now is, growing up and being in Oklahoma, I think the idea of people who are religious is they try to shove their religion on you, and they think that that's the only way. They're very judgmental. And I try to kind of take the approach of "Whatever it is you do, cool." Like, "Don't judge me for doing what I want to do. I'm not gonna judge you for doing what you want to do." And I think that's what's cool about out here.

Were you surprised at the reaction when you said recently that you believed in creationism?

Yeah, I was a little bit—just because, like, if you said you believe in evolution, I'm not gonna be like, "You fucking idiot!" [laughs] You know what I mean? I'm just gonna kind of be like, "That's whatever."

How does it feel to be widely criticized for a sincerely held view?

I think my previous four years of basketball, and being in this kind of thing, just prepared me for it, because I was like, "Oh, wow, people really cared that I said that." And then I just kind of let it go.

Do you believe in science?

I believe in science. I believe in all of that. I just... Honestly, when I'm at the beach and I'm looking at the ocean, I'm looking at the mountains and the sun is setting, I'm seeing people running up and down, laughing, having fun, I'm like, "This had to be created. This is created." And that's my personal thing.

So it's not an elaborate theory about, "Okay, man and dinosaurs were both here at the same time on this particular date...."

I might not have put thought into it, honestly. [laughs] I just kind of like, oh, yeah, creationism, that sounds good! But I guess I never really put so much thought into it, because I never thought that people would be pissed or really make me think twice about it. If you ask like 90 percent of the people in Oklahoma, they'd agree. And then when you get to coasts, it's very, very different. And a lot of people are very closed-minded when it comes to things like that, and don't—I don't want to say closed-minded, but it's their way or the highway. And it's unfortunate that people on both sides are very closed-minded about it. Because there are religious people who are very closed-minded to a lot of things that aren't necessarily right, in my opinion. So it's on both sides.

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/sports/201410/blake-griffin