Reasons to Believe Evolution or Creation: Mother Earth Academy
Noah’s Boys in the City of Mother Earth
stands in stark contrast to most popular works of fiction, in that it is based
in the worldview that man, and all of nature, was supernaturally created. But why should a thinking person accept that,
when our popular culture proclaims that “evolution is a proven fact,” and that
“the cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.”1
The fact that the issue is so contentious, and not simply
an obscure topic of dispassionate scientific curiosity, points to a sobering underlying
truth: evolution is the intellectual justification for two major worldviews (Secular
Humanism and Marxism-Leninism) that have brought death to at least 100 million
people during the past century.2,3
One complicating factor in this controversy is
that, while evolution has been touted as “scientific fact,” the actual fact is
that it is not actually even a theory, something that may be observed or
tested. The creation of the universe, or
the sudden appearance of the cosmos, happened in the past without human
observation, and it is not something happening that can be observed today. No new kinds of animals or plants spontaneously
came into being last year, or even in the past century. Rather, what has been observed is extinction,
whether of the dodo, or the West African Black Rhinoceros, which was declared
extinct in 2006.4
While neither macroevolution5 or
creation, then, are testable scientific theories, they may still be considered
working models, useful to the degree they reasonably explain things, or predict
what happens in the future.
So why should a person put their trust in either
model? Although thousands of articles
and books have been written on the subject, I would like to suggest the
following reasons, grouped into either emotional, or scientific/historical.
Emotional Reasons:
When Henry Morris, John Whitcomb, and others
introduced Scientific Creationism in the 1970’s, it soon led to a series of
debates between creationists and those promoting atheistic evolution. I had the privilege of witnessing one of
these debates, which included Dr. Duane Gish of the Institute of Creation
Research. The experience was illuminating, and I was greatly surprised, and even
disappointed, at the ease in which Dr. Gish demolished the shallow scientific
basis for Darwinian macroevolution. It
became apparent that evolution was not strictly scientific at all, as claimed,
but a belief system that cannot be proven, a dogma that cannot be refuted, and
an authoritarian system requiring unthinking acceptance.7 The
professor defending evolution ultimately became flustered, and said something
to the effect that, “everyone knows it is a proven fact, and if you don’t
believe it, you are an idiot.” I suppose
some people may be persuaded by insults, but that evening, the audience was
not. Since the 1980’s, however, such
debates have become rare, probably because the evolutionists almost always
lost.
So why does the evolution model still dominate our
culture and educational system? In my opinion, the most powerful reason for
belief in Darwinian macroevolution is emotional, as Noah’s boys found in Mother
Earth Academy. While Professor Adrammelech
brought up evidence in the remarkable similarities between animals and man, and
mentioned the spontaneous formation of life from stagnant water, the argument
that resonated the most with the students was his justification of immoral
pleasures. Without a Creator to face,
any kind of selfish behavior can be rationalized. The repeated denials of the biblical Creator
are a prominent feature of the Humanist Manifesto6, and are used to
justify every form of selfish pleasure, as well as abortion and euthanasia. I suspect that the frustration and extreme
anger frequently expressed by advocates of evolution largely has to do with their
guilty conscience, rather than their intellectual understanding of the
scientific facts. But are there emotional motivations to accept creation? These are harder to pin down, perhaps because
acknowledging an Almighty Creator is quite humbling, and it provides no
justification for the sinful things we do.
One compelling reason to believe in creation may be the desire to
show integrity in heart, mind, and behavior.
A Sampling of Historical and Scientific
Evidence7:
--Historical
Documents: The book of Genesis is not the only historical
document that asserts the creation of the world by God, and a worldwide flood. (Genesis
7)
--Fossil
Evidence: Darwin believed further discoveries would provide
countless intermediary forms between species.
Despite vast numbers of excavations and study in the last 150 years, not
one single uncontested intermediary fossil has ever been found! Huge gaps between species and kinds of
animals and plants are the rule, not the exception. Dr. Duane Gish concluded his study this way:
“Evolution: the Fossils Say No!”8
--Geological
Evidence: difficulty of dating rocks to determine age of the
earth, or the age of fossils; circular reasoning; inconsistent proportions of
radioactive isotopes, and more evidence for catastrophism than uniformitarianism
--Astrophysical
Evidence: earth’s
orbital decay may give insufficient time period (less than 200 million years)
of liquid water for evolution to have occurred
--Biochemical/Genetic
Evidence: the many similarities in animal proteins and
enzymes would seem to point to common origins.
Darwin’s idea of simple “protoplasm” has been replaced by a highly
complex cellular design.
--Laws
of Thermodynamics: the increasing complexity of DNA required
for evolution is in clear violation (or the only exception) of the 1st
and 2nd laws.
--Probability: the
probability of spontaneous formation of medium length DNA molecule (300 amino
acids) is 10600. The universe
contains only 1080 particles!
--Cause
and Effect: the
weakness of the “big bang” model: no “banger!”
--Scientific
Experiments to Provide “Proof of Principle”: While Stanley
Miller’s famous 1953 experiment9 to synthesize amino acids under
“primordial” conditions produced some organic compounds, the same conditions in
which they were created would have destroyed them, had they not been quickly
separated out. Now discredited as a proof of principle.
--Variation
and Selection: Charles Darwin10 believed that the
continual small variations observed between individuals of a species (today
called “microevolution”) would confer advantages in the struggle for existence,
but favorable mutations are very, very rare: no permanent ones have ever been
documented.
--Irreducible
Complexity of Living Systems: Michael Behe’s book Darwin’s Black Box11
details the irreducibly complex enzyme systems seen in the retina and elsewhere
in biological systems. This complexity poses
an insurmountable problem for evolution, which has no possible mechanism to
provide for increasing the information held in DNA .
In Conclusion:
The scientific
understanding of the biochemical and anatomic complexities of the living cell
has progressed vastly since Darwin published The Origin of Species and the
Descent of Man in 1859. Though his
model has dominated the cultural scene for at least a century, the evidence to
support it is thin, and more elusive than ever.
Today, the most compelling reasons to believe evolution are emotional
rather than scientific. Despite the
scoffing of our culture, the evidence for the traditional belief in biblical
creation is actually overwhelming. The worldview
of Noah’s Boys in the City of Mother Earth has solid ground.
Gregory Horning
References
1.
Carl Sagan.
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Thirteen part television mini-series,
September 28 to December 21, 1980
2.
David Noebel, Understanding the Times, 2nd
Ed, Summit Press, Manitou Springs, CO, 2006
3.
The Black Book of Communism, Stephane
Courtois, ed., Harvard University Press, 1997
4. 11
Extinct Animals We’ve Lost in our Lifetime, Julie Gerstein, 01 October 2015,
Popular Mechanics magazine. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/g201/recently-extinct-animals-list-470209/
5.
Macroevolution, the creation of entirely new
kinds of animals/plants, as opposed to microevolution, the development of
varieties, such as dog or cattle breeds.
6.
Humanist Manifestos I and II. Paul Kurtz, editor. Prometheus Books, New York, 1984.
7.
Morris, Henry M., Scientific Creationism, Master
Books, 26th printing, 2012.
8.
Gish, Duane T. Evolution: the fossils say
no! Creation Life Publishers, San Diego,
1979.
9.
Miller,
Stanley L. Production of amino acids
under possible primitive earth conditions.
Science 117 (1953): 528.
10.
Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species by means of natural
selection or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life and the
Descent of Man and selection in relation to sex. The Modern Library, Random House, New York.
1859 original publication.
Well said! I agree with your lines of reasoning! Thank you
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