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"Finland School Shootings: The Sad Evolution Connection"

I'll pause to let you observe that heading for a second. This is the latest attack on evolution - AnswersInGenesis.org have asserted that Pekka-Eric Auvinen was not out of his mind, he was simply a Social Darwinist. Out of respect for the dead, I'm surprised they even tread near this topic, shamelessly using a tragedy to attempt to give evolution a bad name.

http://answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/11/08/finland-fruits-of-humanism

Before I criticise the article: could it ever be possible for both sides of this so-called debate to stop reasoning based on the heinous acts of historical figures, or even modern day people, who have simply got it wrong? Even if the inquisition was in the name of Christianity, or if Hitler was an atheist, they're both completely irrelevant. I'm no Christian myself, but I at least recognise that those who do believe in a god mostly have the best in mind, and do have sound moral principles. Similarly, atheists don't feel empty inside, or lacking something. But this is an entirely seperate discussion; the point is, if religion or atheism should be criticised, it should be on the basis on whether it is rational - or not - to believe in an all powerful entity.

As Christians who hold that people are made in the image of God ... there is a basis for the value of human life and for absolute morality

Firstly, everyone values human life, not just Christians. It's a nice way to separate themselves from any audience that isn't one of them. Absolute morality? I challenge anyone to solve this one with any absolute conviction: (from princeton.edu)

An enormously fat man stands next to a train track. Further on down the track are two young children playing on the track. A train is heading towards the children, you are standing next the fat man. If you do nothing, the train will kill the two children. If you push the fat man onto the track, you know with absolute certainty that the train will be stopped, the two children will be saved, and the fat man will die.

There is no such thing as absolute morality - and the concept itself ironically stands as a moral brick wall, preventing believers from rationally debating such topics.

During this time of healing, the debate over evolutionism ...

Evolutionism? The fact that they name it as if it were a belief is considerably ironic, considering they do this to discredit it - as if, god forbid, beliefs are not watertight?

Evolutionism denies that the Bible is God’s Word and that God is the final authority

The theory of evolution denies the Bible about as much as the modern laws which prevent us from stoning adulterers to death. Or the medicine which makes childbirth easier. Why pick and choose?

In such a religion, if God is left out, then the only other option for supreme authority is man. If that is the case, then each person can determine what is right and wrong in his or her own eyes.

That's why we're no longer in the garden of Eden. Please get over it. What could possibly be wrong with having the ability to determine our own moral values?

This student professed to be a 'Social Darwinist', which is a fancy way of saying he held to the religion of evolution

Please read up on Social Darwinism. It is not what you seem to think it is.

If evolutionists are upset about this tragedy in Finland (or any other school shooting), then on what basis could they make a case to condemn it? On the basis of their materialistic beliefs, what they just observed was a random set of chemicals reacting with another random set of chemicals. Do evolutionists get upset with baking soda reacting with vinegar?

Why do they continue to assume that it is only Creationists who have morals? They do humanity a huge injustice here; if it was suddenly, irrefutably proven tomorrow that there was no God (and there are many philosophical proofs) no non-believer would go out murdering, raping and stealing. Atheists don't need a god to give them a reason to conform to their own basic morality - and apparently Creationists do? Based on this, we are supposed to believe that Christians have superior ethics and morals. I hope they checked that none of the parents of the dead students accept evolution as truth - because apparently, if they do, they have no reason to feel upset.

In order for them to justify being outraged, they have borrowed from the Christian worldview to acknowledge that such things are wrong

Even if you do believe that Earth is only 6000 years old, that still leaves 4000 years before Christianity came into play. It must have been a harsh world before then, without anything to base our morality on.

There are more points which I could pick out - but please, read the article yourself. I appreciate that that majority of Christians wouldn't dream of associating themselves with this website - or, hopefully, Creationists in general. And there is more on that particular site, so much so that my soul despairs. That is, the soul I would have, if I accepted the literal version of an archaic book and discounted all rationality.