Biblical Creationism presents a major roadblock to ecological thinking. It's often used as an excuse to trivialize nature and justify human greed. Many people mix Christianity with politics and force their rule on others. In America, this violates the Constitutional separation of Church and State but it happens all the time. Creationism undermines scientific literacy and disrupts higher education.
At the core of Creationists' beliefs is a book that originated several thousand years ago, espousing the radical idea (at that time) of one all-knowing god vs. many distinct idols. This was the brainchild of ideological rebels living around the land of Canaan; now known as Israel, Palestine and other small Middle-East nations. Christianity in its full context is just another invented sect that happened to gain global prominence. It could have remained geographically isolated were it not for missionary work. The idea that a band of desert dwellers understood the meaning of life for the entire planet is far-fetched by today's standards of scrutiny. Without the fog of time, the Bible might seem like Scientology. Many of its stories are just as fantastic.
The Bible was written by people who claim to have "spoken to God." The book only exists in Earthly form and is no different than any other book except for its contents. It doesn't glow in the dark, and people who open it are not propelled upward on a beam of light. It's just a book (albeit with some wise advice in it) and it's clearly figurative in many areas. Creationists use a ridiculous circular argument which states that the Bible is literal because the "Bible says so" (which it never actually does). Don't bother pointing out the absurdity of this argument, because they have as many rationalizations as there are verses in the Bible. And they are willing to change the context of scripture to whatever suits the argument at hand. If science proves that Jesus couldn't have walked on water, Creationists will claim that the water was frozen, and so on.
Another Creationist tactic is to claim that the Bible is an "historical document," as if bits and pieces of reality prove that everything else in the Bible is literal. Is the fact that the Bible correctly describes the location of Jerusalem proof that Moses parted a huge body of water, that men lived past the age of 900, that stars fell to the earth and that all life on the planet was slapped down in six days? These ideas would be laughed out of any courtroom but Creationists hide behind the notion that "anything is possible with God." They think this absolves them from the need to provide evidence through normal channels. It makes them impossible to reason with. The only thing that would give Creationism scientific validity is unbiased proof of a deity's existence. They've already had 2000 years to come up with something concrete.
The Bible offers vague, supernatural explanations for phenomena like weather and earthquakes because the authors of the Bible had no means of understanding otherwise. Why is the topic of human origins the only scientific discovery that's so hotly contested by fundamentalists? It's because the origins of Man are considered far more personal than the workings of a storm cloud. Fundamentalists are hypocrites for accepting the scientific method when it gives them cars, computers, DNA testing and life-saving medicine. So-called "scientific" Creationism is clearly a religious crusade.
Religion is generally passed down through families much the same way as speech patterns, mannerisms and the inclination to smoke or drink. One need only look at the geographical distribution of world beliefs to see this. If the Bible was a literal document containing universal truths, missionaries would not be needed to spread the gospel in foreign lands. The idea that all fundamentalists were "destined" to be believers is absurd. If there is truly one God watching over the entire planet, why are there so many different religions with multiple gods? How can fundamentalists know they're the chosen ones who've found the only way to live?
Creationism FAQs
Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species"
They call
this "research?"
Creation myths of various religions (no less
plausible than the Biblical fantasy)
The
Secular Web (a great resource for the non-religious)
TALK.ORIGINS newsgroup (fundamentalists
are debunked daily)
Radio talk show caller uses Creationism to ignore scarcity
MP3 clip that sums up fundamentalism*