I spent some time this afternoon perusing the internet, reading various arguments for and against creationism. It seems that young earth creationists base a large portion of their argument on the idea that there are holes in modern scientific theory.

When we deal with something as vast as the formation of the universe, our planet, and the evolution of life, we are bound to encounter many holes… many things that are currently beyond our ability to understand or prove. Although these holes give us cause to cautiously examine our theories, they do not prove creationism.

It seems that many folks out there can’t quite seem to grasp this point, so I have provided a delightful little allegorical tale to illustrate it.

Mrs. Smith arrives home from a short visit to the store, only to find that the delicious chocolate chip cookies she had just baked have gone missing. Perplexed, she calls little Johnny down from his room for an explanation.

Johnny comes downstairs, his mouth and fingers covered in chocolate. He tells his mother that he his stomach hurts. There are cookie crumbs all over his shirt.

His mother accuses him of eating all of the cookies, and he quickly denies it. Two investigators are called in to get to the bottom of the case.

The first investigator enters the house and claims he immediately knows what happened.

“Mrs. Smith, the answer is clear. In your absence, an elite team of Hobbit commandos parachuted onto your roof. They slid down the chimney and quickly secured the house. They proceeded to tie your son to an altar in the living room, preparing him as a sacrifice to the Dark God Cthulhu. It is a customary part of this ritual to cover the mouth and fingers of the victim with chocolate, spread crumbs on his shirt, and punch him in the stomach. Their plans were thwarted when the heard your car entering the driveway. They quickly placed your son back in his bedroom, erased his memory, cleaned up the evidence, and escaped back up the chimney. Oh, I almost forgot…. they were hungry so they stole the cookies for the ride home in their magic invisible helicopter.”

They second man, who had carefully examined the evidence, reacted with disbelief.

“I have no idea where you came up with any of that! It is quite obvious what happened here. Johnny waited for his mom to leave and ate all of the cookies. That’s why he’s covered in chocolate. That’s why his stomach hurts. That’s why he was hiding in his room.”

The first investigator chuckled and said, “Oh, right. Likely story! Tell me, Mr. Scientist… if your story is true then why can’t I find a videotape of the entire thing? Where is it? There’s a huge hole in your theory! If you can’t produce a videotape, then we must assume that my version of events is true!”

Thus, a disclaimer was added to all criminology texts stating that all crimes are the result of Hobbit Necromancer Commandos. We can only pray that some liberal activist judge does not order the disclaimer removed.