Exercises on creationism

It can be said that creationism is characterized by the defense of the following argument:

a) all species of living beings have evolved over time, following the laws of natural selection.

b) life, the universe and all existing beings did not come into existence from nothing without a superior and eternal being who had intelligently conceived them.

c) the development of life and the great diversity of living beings is independent of something external to the materiality of existence.

d) no living thing can be considered a member of a species regardless of the laws of natural selection.

e) Richard Dawkins, a British zoologist, currently contributes to the endorsement of creationism, given that he believes in the existence of a supernatural logic in the course of life on Earth.

(UNESP) “The world would be too ordered, too harmonious, to be able to explain it without supposing, at its origin, a benevolent and organizing intelligence. How could chance create such a beautiful world? If a clock were found on any planet, no one could believe that it could be explained solely by the laws of nature, anyone would see in it the result of a deliberate and intelligent action. Now, any living being is infinitely more complex than the most sophisticated watch. There is no watch without a watchmaker, said Voltaire and Rousseau. But what a bad clock that contains earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts, carnivorous animals, countless diseases – and man! Natural history is not at all edifying. Neither does human history. What God after Darwin? What God after Auschwitz?” (André Comte-Sponville. Presentation of philosophy , 2002. Adapted.)

On the arguments made by the author, it is correct to say that the existence of God is:

a) defended through an argument of an aesthetic nature, in opposition to the ideological and alienating character of religious beliefs.

b) treated as a mainly metaphysical and theological problem, before which empirical and historical questions are irrelevant.

c) approached from a biblical-creationist point of view, as opposed to a romantic perspective peculiar to philosophical enlightenment.

d) problematized through an argument of a mechanistic-causal nature, in opposition to the ethical problem of the existence of evil.

e) treated as an issue concerning the free will of conscience, to the detriment of possible philosophical speculations.

Some creationists believe that the evolution of species, as developed by Charles Darwin (1809 to 1882), is not necessarily a hindrance to the idea that the world and living things were created by God. That's because:

a) Darwin also studied theology, so it was always his main objective to prove that God had created all species of living beings in existence.

b) religion and science are irreconcilable, so scientific assumptions do not need to be studied and understood by religious.

c) the doctrine of Creation does not ignore probable scientific postulates, it only rejects ideological and philosophical doctrines such as materialism and atheism.

d) Darwin conceived the theory of the evolution of species through a Divine Revelation.

e) none of the alternatives.

It is correct to say that, in addition to the Judeo-Christian tradition:

a) no other cultural tradition has conceived the idea that a single God created the world and life and gave man an immortal soul.

b) no other cultural tradition has conceived the idea of ​​a god or gods creating the world and life.

c) a part of the tradition of modern philosophy, scientism and materialism, also views the world and living beings as part of a supernatural Creation.

d) there is no other cultural tradition that challenges the evolutionary theses.

e) Greek philosophy, especially the work of Aristotle, contributed greatly to the evolutionary theses of Charles Darwin.

Letter B

Creationism, even though it has divergent currents within it, has as its basic assumption the existence of a superior and eternal being (God) who would have created ex nihil (out of nowhere) all existing reality, whether material, intuited by the senses and understood by consciousness, or spiritual.

Letter D

André Comte-Sponville is a notorious atheist philosopher and, in the text of the question, defends his point of view against religion and the possibility of a creator God, arguing that all the disorder that exists in the world, whether natural or human, it shouldn't exist if such a God did exist.

Letter C

Some defenders of creationism do not ignore the relevance of evolutionary hypotheses, but contest the ideological use made of them to disregard the existence of a spiritual reality.

Letter A

The Judeo-Christian tradition is not the only one that, in its religious and cosmological conceptions, conceives the idea that the world and life were created by one (or more, in the case of other religions) supernatural entity. However, it is the only one who believes that a single God is the father of all Creation and has given man the privilege of having an immortal soul.