This is a response to Buzzfeed’s 22 Messages From Creationists To People Who Believe In Evolution. If you know the background to the post, you can skip the introduction and go straight to number 1.

On 4 February 2014, Bill Nye, a well-known US science advocate and TV personality, debated with Ken Ham, President of Answers in Genesis, a creationist propaganda organisation, at the latter’s “Creation Museum” in Kentucky. The full video of the debate can be watched here.

A Buzzfeed staffer called Matt Stopera went to the debate. While there, he asked creationist attendees to write questions and messages to Bill Nye and evolution/science supporters, and took photos of them with those messages. The full gallery is here.

The first time I read the creationists’ messages, I thought they were so stupid, I wanted to dismiss them all with rapid-fire answers. I imagined assembling all 22 people in a line, in order, and marching down it, pointing at each one, saying, “Yes, no, yes, no, the rotation of the earth relative to the sun…”

Later I realised it’s worth considering them in a bit more detail, though not because they have any validity, nor because a fuller response might persuade them. As Peter Boghossian argues in his book, A Manual for Creating Atheists, it’s no use arguing over facts and evidence with religious fundamentalists. They’ve already rejected ‘reasoning from evidence’ as a belief-forming mechanism. His approach is to try to understand humans as imperfectly rational, as suffering from psychological flaws which prevent them from understanding, or even trying to understand, the world around them – and then to find ways which pragmatically help to repair those flaws.

Therefore, in the spirit of trying to understand the reasons behind the 22 creationists’ messages, I’ve written 22 responses. They’re not short, and the whole thing was getting too long for a single post, so instead I’m going to post each one separately and link them from here as I progress.

1. “Bill Nye, Are you influencing the minds of children in a positive way?”

2. “Are you scared of a Divine Creator?”

3. “Is it completely illogical that the earth was created mature? i.e. trees created with rings… Adam created as an adult…”

4. “Does not the second law of thermodynamics disprove Evolution?”

5. “How do you explain a sunset if their is no God?”

6. “If the Big Bang Theory is true and taught as science along with evolution, why do the laws of thermodynamics debunk said theories?”

7. “WHAT ABOUT NOETICS?”

8. “Where do you derive objective meaning in life?”

9. “If God did not create everything, how did the first single-celled organism originate? By chance?”

10. “I believe in the Big Bang Theory… God said it and BANG it happened!”

11. “Why do evolutionists/secularists/huminists/non-God believing people reject the idea of their being a creator God but embrace the concept of inteligent design from aliens or other extra-terestrial sources?”

12. “There is no inbetween… the only one found has been Lucy and there are only a few pieces of the hundreds neccessary for an “official proof””

13. “Does metamorphosis help support evolution?”

14. “If Evolution is a Theory (like creationism or the Bible) why then is Evolution taught as fact.”

15. “Because science by definition is a “theory” – not testable, observable nor repeatable” why do you object to creationism or intelligent design being taught in school?”

16. “What mechanism has science discovered that evidences an increase of genetic information seen in any genetic mutation or evolutionary process?”

17. “What purpose do you think you are here for if you do not believe in salvation?”

18. “Why have we found only 1 “Lucy”, when we have found more than 1 of everything else?”

19. “Can you believe in “the big bang” without “faith”?”

20. “How can you look at the world and not believe someone created / thought of it? It’s Amazing!!!”

21. “Relating to the big bang theory…. Where did the exploding star come from?”

22. “If we came from monkeys then why are there still monkeys?”