The commentary by Davidson, Hill, and Wolgemuth recommends that the way to persuade creationist believers to give up that belief is to use persuasion from those who understand science but prefer to remain Christian (“We Need a Paradigm Shift for Science Advocacy,” September/October 2018).
As a marketing strategy this is probably useful, on the basis that science with mild Christianity is less dangerous to society than is unadulterated creationism. But does the combination of science with mild Christianity produce a workable tool for this purpose? For someone who fails to understand the illogicality built into this combination it may work, as it has for many who were brought up in that belief. But does it work for someone with creationist beliefs? Even doing only this requires destroying creationist beliefs. Might it not be more effective to persuade by applying the incompatibility of religious belief with that of scientific knowledge? Thus doing the larger job but with a bigger weapon.
Destroying religious belief does not necessarily result in nihilism. A close relative of mine is trying to persuade me to start enjoying life by adopting her Catholicism and, it seems, adopting what she considers guilt. I wrote to her: