Accepting Evolution is perceived by many as being smart, knowledgeable, scientific and objective. They assume they are taking the "higher ground" and have a more lofty position than those who through faith and belief, stand on the teachings of Creation and religion.
What these people need to understand is that adherence to Evolution is equivalent to adherence to Religion. It is also a position of faith, albeit I will argue, an illogical and less favorable position.
Merriam-Webster defines religion (#4) as "a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith". It then lists antonyms to Religion as "atheism, godlessness". However once it is understood that Evolution is unproven and conceptual, then it will be shown that those who adhere to it do so on the basis of faith. So contrary to conventional thinking, believers in Evolution are not "without religion" as they cling arduously to their belief system (sometimes even more so!), and they have actually bought into the religion of atheism and by it, rejection of God.
Here are 3 points to realize that Evolution is unproven and is inferior to the teaching of Creation.
[Click the links in blue to access references, articles, etc.]
1. The teachings on Evolution are the output of Historical Science, and not Operational Science. What does this mean? Basically, that Evolution is a line of thinking that has been drawn up, conceptually, to explain evidence, artifacts, observations in the present. The historical event cannot be repeated, replicated in a laboratory, or recreated. Therefore Evolution is a story pieced together with the best effort of sincere people, to try to explain present-day observations within a naturalistic framework. What does "naturalistic" mean? It basically means the evolutionary scientists don't take God as a causal factor. They look for causes and explanations that remove God from the picture. Therefore their findings result to the conclusion that there were mechanisms that account for all their observations, without any participation or even a presence of God. Of course! There's no surprise in that conclusion, as that was their presupposition! That was their foundational framework! They refused to take God's testimony and eye-witness account as recorded in the Bible! And being sincere doesn't equate to being right, as a person can be sincerely wrong! Think of well-meaning doctors who were operating on mothers giving birth and who refused to sanitize and wash their hands in running water because they had no concept of infections and microbiology, prior to Louis Pasteur's discoveries? The practice resulted to the death of many mothers who placed their faith and their lives into these doctors' hands. If the doctors had only followed the Bibles' instructions on washing with running water, the mothers would have been saved (see point 13)!. Or think of those religious and scientific leaders who opposed Copernicus' concept of a sun-centered system as they upheld a flat Earth and an Earth-centered system, for lack of knowledge and understanding of what the Bible was saying (see points 4 and 14). So being sincere, sincerely thinking there is no God or even sincerely thinking one has understood the Bible correctly, or being in a leadership or authoritative position, doesn't equate to one being in the right. If the supposed "knowledge" is not aligned with ultimate truth and reality, particularly with what God has revealed as truth in His Word, then such "knowledge" is futile!
"Isn't Evolution proven scientifically?", you might ask. Perhaps you were convinced of that in university. You might even argue how dinosaur fossils are actual evidence, obtained through operational science. Or that radiometric dating tests on rock samples are laboratory tests with repeatable results. What you need to distinguish here is that fossils and laboratory test results are just data. The INTERPRETATION of the data is what matters. Is a fossil dinosaur bone 200 million years old, formed as dinosaurs died and were slowly covered with sediments over the course of millions of years? Or are they just a few thousand years old, engulfed in sedimentary rock that formed around the global catastrophic flood of Noah's day? Why would T Rex bones have detectable red blood cells if they were millions of years old? Are rock strata and their ages clearly understood through radiometric dating? If radiometric tests and their assumptions for dating rocks are accurate, then why would rocks recently produced in recorded volcanic eruptions already be dated at billions of years old? These discordant data are not publicized since evolutionary scientists censor results and agree on which rock "ages" are correct, based on their evolutionary frameworks. If radiometric dates were all reliable, then why would coal samples and diamonds, believed to be millions or billions of years old, show readings from carbon dating showing they are much younger than what is commonly believed and taught in schools as part of evolutionary indoctrination?
Watch this highly interesting video on Evolution vs. God.
You cannot prove evolution - the kind that would supposedly create life from non-life, that would create complex creatures from single-cell organisms. It has never been observed, and it cannot be reproduced in a laboratory. Therefore in reality, it must be recognized that belief in Evolution can only be accepted by faith, AGAINST the evidence of operational science. It is a faith-based belief system.
There is thus a false dichotomy being promoted by evolutionists and atheists that if you accept science, you would accept Evolution and reject Creation and the Biblical account. This is an untruth! As I have pointed out, the science that teaches Evolution is Historical science and not Operational science. The latter science is the kind that produces high tech electronic products and cutting edge luxury goods that we enjoy today. So as is clearly seen by following the links I have provided here, if you accept the findings of Operational science, you would accept Creation as the more sound, more logical, more plausible framework.
2. The fossil evidence overwhelmingly points to special creation and not evolution.
(A) Missing links - Where are the missing links in the fossil record? These missing links are well recognized by scientists, but aren't talked about until a fossil is found that evolutionists believe can fill the gap. Once fossils believed to be missing links are discovered, evolutionists go crazy in reporting this to media, claiming confirmation of molecules-to-man evolution. And when these fossils are later proven to be hoaxes or poor evidence for the story of evolution, no one really hears apologies or recanting of wrong scientific statements. Certainly the disproven facts are never told in school! Examples here are the disproven human ancestors like Piltdown man, and archaeopteryx which is claimed to be a dinosaur in transition to a bird.
(B) Polystrate fossils - fossils of trees that punctuate several rock strata that are supposedly tens of millions of years apart (see 7.7) - are totally inconceivable if evolutionary mechanisms and timescales were true. How can a tree fossil have its tree root and its tree trunk in different geologic ages?! On the other hand, the occurrence of upright trees getting embedded in sediment layers has been clearly documented from the Mt, Saint Helens eruption and the fossilization of trees has been proven and validated in laboratory tests. In both cases, the timescale involved is only months and years, and not millions of years! See my contemporary article on fossilized trees that ties much info together.
(C) Living Fossils - these are organisms that have remained unchanged over the supposed millions of years from the point fossil specimens were locked in time, until today. Popular examples are the coelacanth, once thought extinct, and because of the shape of the fins and where it's fossils were located and had disappeared in the geologic strata, this fish was believed to be a precursor of amphibians, a fish on its way to developing legs. That was, until it was discovered in modern times, alive and well, and still very much a fish. Other examples are the Wollemi pine, horseshoe crabs, modern crabs, dragonflies, wasps and much more. If these organisms evolved into new, better, more advanced creatures, then why are they still around, alive and well, unchanged, and apparently not having had any need to evolve to survive and thrive? These are hard for the evolutionist to explain. But the abundance of "living fossils" poses no difficulty for the creationist, as they fit well with the young creation framework
Lucy images in two artistic renditions, showing how it can be painted more ape-like or more human-like, depending on the scientists' and artists' interpretation of the evidence. Read more Lucy articles from Answers in Genesis.
(D) Interpretation of fossils - further on fossils being tagged as a transition form, e.g. Archaeopteryx a dinosaur "becoming a bird" or coelacanth a fish "becoming an amphibian", how could you really tell when you are looking at something static, something dead? It is a picture in time, not a moving picture, so you can't really make a conclusion, just a hypothesis. You can take a photo of a chicken egg and theorize that it will become a Bantam chicken, or a White Leg Horn, or a duck. But unless you had more information, or you had a long running movie, you wouldn't really know. If you had a fossilized 2000 BMW 318, would you say it was turning into a 2009 BMW 318? Or into a 2012 BMW 318? If you had a fossilized deck of cards, would you say the Two of Hearts was on its way to becoming a Five of Hearts? Or into the Queen of Hearts? If there were fossils of the platypus and they had gone extinct a thousand years ago, would the fossil discoveries be taken as proof positive that beavers turned into ducks? Or that a line of wetland bids evolved into mammals? So we see that it is the interpretation that tags one fossil as a precursor of another, even in the absence of conclusive evidence.
This is the same case with various ape fossils being taken as early humans or human ancestors in the face of a wealth of contradictory findings, and where it is the interpretation that paints them as being human, even in the absence of good, conclusive scientific evidence. See this book on "Apemen" to understand the subject better, and be aware of all the fraud and lack of good operational science to push the story that man evolved from ape-like creatures. Even Lucy, touted as the poster child for ape-to-human evolution, is simply given that image through evolutionists interpretations!
3. There is no viable mechanism for Darwinian, molecules-to-man and cross-species Evolution to happen.
This can be clearly understood when one considers the requirements for Evolution, where creatures supposedly became more and more complex. As an example, think of the early, fully manual film cameras. Could a rangefinder camera become an SLR all on its own? Then a manual exposure SLR become an auto-exposure SLR with several auto and programmed modes? Can a manual film-advance camera become an auto film-advance camera on it's own? Can a manual-focus SLR become an auto-focus SLR by itself? Then a film camera become a digital camera? Just think of the very early forays into auto film advance, auto-focus and digital media. The early models were huge and bulky! It took significant research, development and engineering to transform and miniaturize the designs until they became practical and efficient. And evolutionists would have us believe that creatures became more and more complex on their own? For example the human eye, whose broad range and speed of focus and depth of light perception is always being copied by photographic equipment, or a hawk's eye that can see a needle drop miles away, or a snakes eye with infra-red capability to see in the dark, all developed on their own? What about a bat's echolocation ability, or a pigeon's 3-dimensional magnetic navigation capabilities?
Remember those monster cameras for auto film-advance and bulk film storage? Remember the early digital cameras that would write directly onto a floppy disk (what's a floppy disk, the younger ones may ask!)? Would you believe one of these could turn into my highly sophisticated, compact, auto-exposure, auto almost-everything, digital Leica D-Lux 5 all by itself? Believing naturalistic evolution is akin to believing that! Photo from Mir.com.my.
You might argue that cameras can't change since they're not alive! Well firstly, cameras are a good analogy because complicated as they are, they are so much simpler than living organisms. They're made by men, and man has never invented a living organism! So if you posit that cameras aren't a valid example since they are not living, then you should accept that no way can a collection of dead, static elements combine into living proteins and cells all by themselves! How could carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, iron, magnesium, zinc, etc., combine to form living cells? Living cells were once thought to be very simple. But now their complexity is well understood, that they have "machinery" to synthesize food, to distribute nutrition within itself, to collect and dispose various waste products, to replicate, etc. How can people who understand this today still believe living cells formed all on their own? That takes exceedingly great faith, don't you think? Faith in the face of absurd challenges. This point becomes even more of an insurmountable hurdle when you understand the real-world challenges and statistical impossibility of creating even one protein. Evolutionists have in the past hidden behind the millions and billions of years to explain that over long periods of time, the impossible becomes possible, the improbable, a certainty. But for one who understands the statistics, e.g, one chance in ten raised to fourteen thousand to form one cell (not a living organism composed of millions of different cells) you'd understand that the supposed Earth history of 15 billion years (ten raised to ten) is absurdly small and practically nothing and doesn't in any way help make Evolution viable (Read the links to understand the probabilities better).
And if you think of cells as hardware, e.g. to process food, well where did the instructions on how to operate come from? If a cell can create DNA that will transfer information to reproduce, and other cells can read the information and carry out the instructions to reproduce, well where did the information, the software come from? And why do parts of cells and whole cells function the way they do? Where did the intentionality come from? When we see information and programming today, we clearly recognize that there is a writer, an encoder, a programmer, a designer. Are we to believe that complex coding in DNA, equivalent to dozens of volumes of encyclopedia, arose all on their own? Again, it takes exceedingly great faith to be an atheist and believe in Evolution!
Here is another interesting point. Darwin's finches, peppered moths, and drug resistance in micro organisms are commonly used to claim that Evolution can be observed in nature. And there are a wealth of articles to explain that these are examples of survival of the fittest, speciation based on pre-existing genetic information, or devolution which results to loss of genetic information however, in a Podcast on Creation vs. Evolution (Part 19), Dr. William Lane Craig explained how these examples (plus malaria and HIV mutations) are not merely unsupportive of the teachings of naturalistic Evolution, they are actually great demonstrations of the severe limitations of Evolution to create any cross-species transformation from simple cells to plants and animals or to animals of any kind. Actually Dr. Craig believes in theistic progressive evolution mixed wit ex-nihilo creation (creation from nothing), though he has stated that he holds this position loosely, and is open to further investigation. I do pray that as he studies more of the research around historical and operational science, that his eyes become more open to the soundness of young Earth creation. What is clear though is that he truly loves the Lord and is a brother in Christ and staunchly defends God's hand in creation. He has clearly shown that any atheistic or naturalistic position is completely untenable and illogical (e.g the Cosmological Argument, the Teleological Arguement), the Moral Argument, and so it is well worth listening to his Defenders podcasts.
Many atheists argue that if you cannot prove the existence of God, then you must agree that God doesn't exist. He sets-up a false premise that the burden of proof rests on the Christian alone to prove that there is a God. This is false because inasmuch as he claims to know that there is no God, then he himself has the burden of proof to show this! And no atheist can prove that there is no God! (Listen to the podcast on Objections to belief in God by Dr. Craig for more on this.) Indeed, how can you claim there in no transcendent being, without being transcendent to have full knowledge of everything, everywhere, at all times? Thus the atheistic position is highly presumptuous, while the Christian on the other hand has his house built on very many independently strong foundation stones, the chief cornerstone of which is Jesus Christ.
I've often pointed people to Answers In Genesis for technical and layman articles to better understand the points I raise above. I sincerely believe that anyone with an open and objective mind, one who is earnestly seeking the truth, will recognize the inability of the theory of Evolution to provide adequate, reasonable and consistent explanations for evidences that abound in nature. In contrast the Bible and Creationist views provide scientifically sound and consistent explanations for the evidences in nature. Understanding this liberates a person to freedom and significance in God, to light and blessedness, versus the cloud of darkness, deceit, death, meaninglessness and purposelessness that are a necessary accompaniment of the doctrines of Evolution.
At one time the president of the company where I worked, a personable and charismatic leader, very intelligent and a good strategic thinker, was incredulous at me that a logical, pragmatic and insightful person could take the Bible and creation seriously. He was, quite apparently at that point, an atheist who had much regard for the writings of Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins. I gave him a glimpse of the scientific justifications on why belief in God and the Bible was actually more reasonable and more logical than its counter - atheism and belief that the universe came out of nothing, for no particular reason (part of the Big Bang theory), and that got him thinking and doing some research. He was not privy to the vast scientific research (operational science, plus Christian and historical science, not aesthetic historical science the world at large is taught)) that confirms the Bible, and had no idea whatsoever that such extensive bodies of knowledge existed! You however, if you take this article of mine and read it intently with an open mind, peruse the links, attached articles and podcasts, then you will find it overwhelmingly more reasonable, more logical, more plausible to believe in God and His Word, rather than the counter-arguments.
Let me state that I don't advocate Religion. Jesus Christ never asked anyone to join a religion and in fact, unabashedly opposed and exposed hypocritical religious leaders. What Jesus did was to call people into a relationship with Him, as Savior to His Church, as groom to his bride, and as loving Father to his beloved sons and daughters. It's not about religion, but relationship! To get a better glimpse of this, start reading the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Bible. This could lead you to the path of finding significance and eternal life in Christ!
I hope this blog entry opens not just a few eyes, minds and hearts.
PS, if you are a fan of Richard Dawkins and the Unbelievers Movie (podcasts parts. 1 to 3) or Stephen Hawking, you need to listen to these podcasts that shed more light on the atheistic teachings being espoused and the weak grounds for these. You are laying your life on the line here. Don't be ignorant of the unseen spiritual world, like those child-bearing mothers who put their faith in doctors who were ignorant of the unseen microbiological world and very effectively killed them. Don't get eternally killed by putting your faith blindly on unexamined "truths".
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
What these people need to understand is that adherence to Evolution is equivalent to adherence to Religion. It is also a position of faith, albeit I will argue, an illogical and less favorable position.
Merriam-Webster defines religion (#4) as "a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith". It then lists antonyms to Religion as "atheism, godlessness". However once it is understood that Evolution is unproven and conceptual, then it will be shown that those who adhere to it do so on the basis of faith. So contrary to conventional thinking, believers in Evolution are not "without religion" as they cling arduously to their belief system (sometimes even more so!), and they have actually bought into the religion of atheism and by it, rejection of God.
Here are 3 points to realize that Evolution is unproven and is inferior to the teaching of Creation.
[Click the links in blue to access references, articles, etc.]
1. The teachings on Evolution are the output of Historical Science, and not Operational Science. What does this mean? Basically, that Evolution is a line of thinking that has been drawn up, conceptually, to explain evidence, artifacts, observations in the present. The historical event cannot be repeated, replicated in a laboratory, or recreated. Therefore Evolution is a story pieced together with the best effort of sincere people, to try to explain present-day observations within a naturalistic framework. What does "naturalistic" mean? It basically means the evolutionary scientists don't take God as a causal factor. They look for causes and explanations that remove God from the picture. Therefore their findings result to the conclusion that there were mechanisms that account for all their observations, without any participation or even a presence of God. Of course! There's no surprise in that conclusion, as that was their presupposition! That was their foundational framework! They refused to take God's testimony and eye-witness account as recorded in the Bible! And being sincere doesn't equate to being right, as a person can be sincerely wrong! Think of well-meaning doctors who were operating on mothers giving birth and who refused to sanitize and wash their hands in running water because they had no concept of infections and microbiology, prior to Louis Pasteur's discoveries? The practice resulted to the death of many mothers who placed their faith and their lives into these doctors' hands. If the doctors had only followed the Bibles' instructions on washing with running water, the mothers would have been saved (see point 13)!. Or think of those religious and scientific leaders who opposed Copernicus' concept of a sun-centered system as they upheld a flat Earth and an Earth-centered system, for lack of knowledge and understanding of what the Bible was saying (see points 4 and 14). So being sincere, sincerely thinking there is no God or even sincerely thinking one has understood the Bible correctly, or being in a leadership or authoritative position, doesn't equate to one being in the right. If the supposed "knowledge" is not aligned with ultimate truth and reality, particularly with what God has revealed as truth in His Word, then such "knowledge" is futile!
"Isn't Evolution proven scientifically?", you might ask. Perhaps you were convinced of that in university. You might even argue how dinosaur fossils are actual evidence, obtained through operational science. Or that radiometric dating tests on rock samples are laboratory tests with repeatable results. What you need to distinguish here is that fossils and laboratory test results are just data. The INTERPRETATION of the data is what matters. Is a fossil dinosaur bone 200 million years old, formed as dinosaurs died and were slowly covered with sediments over the course of millions of years? Or are they just a few thousand years old, engulfed in sedimentary rock that formed around the global catastrophic flood of Noah's day? Why would T Rex bones have detectable red blood cells if they were millions of years old? Are rock strata and their ages clearly understood through radiometric dating? If radiometric tests and their assumptions for dating rocks are accurate, then why would rocks recently produced in recorded volcanic eruptions already be dated at billions of years old? These discordant data are not publicized since evolutionary scientists censor results and agree on which rock "ages" are correct, based on their evolutionary frameworks. If radiometric dates were all reliable, then why would coal samples and diamonds, believed to be millions or billions of years old, show readings from carbon dating showing they are much younger than what is commonly believed and taught in schools as part of evolutionary indoctrination?
Watch this highly interesting video on Evolution vs. God.
You cannot prove evolution - the kind that would supposedly create life from non-life, that would create complex creatures from single-cell organisms. It has never been observed, and it cannot be reproduced in a laboratory. Therefore in reality, it must be recognized that belief in Evolution can only be accepted by faith, AGAINST the evidence of operational science. It is a faith-based belief system.
There is thus a false dichotomy being promoted by evolutionists and atheists that if you accept science, you would accept Evolution and reject Creation and the Biblical account. This is an untruth! As I have pointed out, the science that teaches Evolution is Historical science and not Operational science. The latter science is the kind that produces high tech electronic products and cutting edge luxury goods that we enjoy today. So as is clearly seen by following the links I have provided here, if you accept the findings of Operational science, you would accept Creation as the more sound, more logical, more plausible framework.
2. The fossil evidence overwhelmingly points to special creation and not evolution.
(A) Missing links - Where are the missing links in the fossil record? These missing links are well recognized by scientists, but aren't talked about until a fossil is found that evolutionists believe can fill the gap. Once fossils believed to be missing links are discovered, evolutionists go crazy in reporting this to media, claiming confirmation of molecules-to-man evolution. And when these fossils are later proven to be hoaxes or poor evidence for the story of evolution, no one really hears apologies or recanting of wrong scientific statements. Certainly the disproven facts are never told in school! Examples here are the disproven human ancestors like Piltdown man, and archaeopteryx which is claimed to be a dinosaur in transition to a bird.
(B) Polystrate fossils - fossils of trees that punctuate several rock strata that are supposedly tens of millions of years apart (see 7.7) - are totally inconceivable if evolutionary mechanisms and timescales were true. How can a tree fossil have its tree root and its tree trunk in different geologic ages?! On the other hand, the occurrence of upright trees getting embedded in sediment layers has been clearly documented from the Mt, Saint Helens eruption and the fossilization of trees has been proven and validated in laboratory tests. In both cases, the timescale involved is only months and years, and not millions of years! See my contemporary article on fossilized trees that ties much info together.
(C) Living Fossils - these are organisms that have remained unchanged over the supposed millions of years from the point fossil specimens were locked in time, until today. Popular examples are the coelacanth, once thought extinct, and because of the shape of the fins and where it's fossils were located and had disappeared in the geologic strata, this fish was believed to be a precursor of amphibians, a fish on its way to developing legs. That was, until it was discovered in modern times, alive and well, and still very much a fish. Other examples are the Wollemi pine, horseshoe crabs, modern crabs, dragonflies, wasps and much more. If these organisms evolved into new, better, more advanced creatures, then why are they still around, alive and well, unchanged, and apparently not having had any need to evolve to survive and thrive? These are hard for the evolutionist to explain. But the abundance of "living fossils" poses no difficulty for the creationist, as they fit well with the young creation framework
Lucy images in two artistic renditions, showing how it can be painted more ape-like or more human-like, depending on the scientists' and artists' interpretation of the evidence. Read more Lucy articles from Answers in Genesis.
(D) Interpretation of fossils - further on fossils being tagged as a transition form, e.g. Archaeopteryx a dinosaur "becoming a bird" or coelacanth a fish "becoming an amphibian", how could you really tell when you are looking at something static, something dead? It is a picture in time, not a moving picture, so you can't really make a conclusion, just a hypothesis. You can take a photo of a chicken egg and theorize that it will become a Bantam chicken, or a White Leg Horn, or a duck. But unless you had more information, or you had a long running movie, you wouldn't really know. If you had a fossilized 2000 BMW 318, would you say it was turning into a 2009 BMW 318? Or into a 2012 BMW 318? If you had a fossilized deck of cards, would you say the Two of Hearts was on its way to becoming a Five of Hearts? Or into the Queen of Hearts? If there were fossils of the platypus and they had gone extinct a thousand years ago, would the fossil discoveries be taken as proof positive that beavers turned into ducks? Or that a line of wetland bids evolved into mammals? So we see that it is the interpretation that tags one fossil as a precursor of another, even in the absence of conclusive evidence.
This is the same case with various ape fossils being taken as early humans or human ancestors in the face of a wealth of contradictory findings, and where it is the interpretation that paints them as being human, even in the absence of good, conclusive scientific evidence. See this book on "Apemen" to understand the subject better, and be aware of all the fraud and lack of good operational science to push the story that man evolved from ape-like creatures. Even Lucy, touted as the poster child for ape-to-human evolution, is simply given that image through evolutionists interpretations!
3. There is no viable mechanism for Darwinian, molecules-to-man and cross-species Evolution to happen.
This can be clearly understood when one considers the requirements for Evolution, where creatures supposedly became more and more complex. As an example, think of the early, fully manual film cameras. Could a rangefinder camera become an SLR all on its own? Then a manual exposure SLR become an auto-exposure SLR with several auto and programmed modes? Can a manual film-advance camera become an auto film-advance camera on it's own? Can a manual-focus SLR become an auto-focus SLR by itself? Then a film camera become a digital camera? Just think of the very early forays into auto film advance, auto-focus and digital media. The early models were huge and bulky! It took significant research, development and engineering to transform and miniaturize the designs until they became practical and efficient. And evolutionists would have us believe that creatures became more and more complex on their own? For example the human eye, whose broad range and speed of focus and depth of light perception is always being copied by photographic equipment, or a hawk's eye that can see a needle drop miles away, or a snakes eye with infra-red capability to see in the dark, all developed on their own? What about a bat's echolocation ability, or a pigeon's 3-dimensional magnetic navigation capabilities?
Remember those monster cameras for auto film-advance and bulk film storage? Remember the early digital cameras that would write directly onto a floppy disk (what's a floppy disk, the younger ones may ask!)? Would you believe one of these could turn into my highly sophisticated, compact, auto-exposure, auto almost-everything, digital Leica D-Lux 5 all by itself? Believing naturalistic evolution is akin to believing that! Photo from Mir.com.my.
You might argue that cameras can't change since they're not alive! Well firstly, cameras are a good analogy because complicated as they are, they are so much simpler than living organisms. They're made by men, and man has never invented a living organism! So if you posit that cameras aren't a valid example since they are not living, then you should accept that no way can a collection of dead, static elements combine into living proteins and cells all by themselves! How could carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, iron, magnesium, zinc, etc., combine to form living cells? Living cells were once thought to be very simple. But now their complexity is well understood, that they have "machinery" to synthesize food, to distribute nutrition within itself, to collect and dispose various waste products, to replicate, etc. How can people who understand this today still believe living cells formed all on their own? That takes exceedingly great faith, don't you think? Faith in the face of absurd challenges. This point becomes even more of an insurmountable hurdle when you understand the real-world challenges and statistical impossibility of creating even one protein. Evolutionists have in the past hidden behind the millions and billions of years to explain that over long periods of time, the impossible becomes possible, the improbable, a certainty. But for one who understands the statistics, e.g, one chance in ten raised to fourteen thousand to form one cell (not a living organism composed of millions of different cells) you'd understand that the supposed Earth history of 15 billion years (ten raised to ten) is absurdly small and practically nothing and doesn't in any way help make Evolution viable (Read the links to understand the probabilities better).
And if you think of cells as hardware, e.g. to process food, well where did the instructions on how to operate come from? If a cell can create DNA that will transfer information to reproduce, and other cells can read the information and carry out the instructions to reproduce, well where did the information, the software come from? And why do parts of cells and whole cells function the way they do? Where did the intentionality come from? When we see information and programming today, we clearly recognize that there is a writer, an encoder, a programmer, a designer. Are we to believe that complex coding in DNA, equivalent to dozens of volumes of encyclopedia, arose all on their own? Again, it takes exceedingly great faith to be an atheist and believe in Evolution!
Here is another interesting point. Darwin's finches, peppered moths, and drug resistance in micro organisms are commonly used to claim that Evolution can be observed in nature. And there are a wealth of articles to explain that these are examples of survival of the fittest, speciation based on pre-existing genetic information, or devolution which results to loss of genetic information however, in a Podcast on Creation vs. Evolution (Part 19), Dr. William Lane Craig explained how these examples (plus malaria and HIV mutations) are not merely unsupportive of the teachings of naturalistic Evolution, they are actually great demonstrations of the severe limitations of Evolution to create any cross-species transformation from simple cells to plants and animals or to animals of any kind. Actually Dr. Craig believes in theistic progressive evolution mixed wit ex-nihilo creation (creation from nothing), though he has stated that he holds this position loosely, and is open to further investigation. I do pray that as he studies more of the research around historical and operational science, that his eyes become more open to the soundness of young Earth creation. What is clear though is that he truly loves the Lord and is a brother in Christ and staunchly defends God's hand in creation. He has clearly shown that any atheistic or naturalistic position is completely untenable and illogical (e.g the Cosmological Argument, the Teleological Arguement), the Moral Argument, and so it is well worth listening to his Defenders podcasts.
Many atheists argue that if you cannot prove the existence of God, then you must agree that God doesn't exist. He sets-up a false premise that the burden of proof rests on the Christian alone to prove that there is a God. This is false because inasmuch as he claims to know that there is no God, then he himself has the burden of proof to show this! And no atheist can prove that there is no God! (Listen to the podcast on Objections to belief in God by Dr. Craig for more on this.) Indeed, how can you claim there in no transcendent being, without being transcendent to have full knowledge of everything, everywhere, at all times? Thus the atheistic position is highly presumptuous, while the Christian on the other hand has his house built on very many independently strong foundation stones, the chief cornerstone of which is Jesus Christ.
I've often pointed people to Answers In Genesis for technical and layman articles to better understand the points I raise above. I sincerely believe that anyone with an open and objective mind, one who is earnestly seeking the truth, will recognize the inability of the theory of Evolution to provide adequate, reasonable and consistent explanations for evidences that abound in nature. In contrast the Bible and Creationist views provide scientifically sound and consistent explanations for the evidences in nature. Understanding this liberates a person to freedom and significance in God, to light and blessedness, versus the cloud of darkness, deceit, death, meaninglessness and purposelessness that are a necessary accompaniment of the doctrines of Evolution.
At one time the president of the company where I worked, a personable and charismatic leader, very intelligent and a good strategic thinker, was incredulous at me that a logical, pragmatic and insightful person could take the Bible and creation seriously. He was, quite apparently at that point, an atheist who had much regard for the writings of Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins. I gave him a glimpse of the scientific justifications on why belief in God and the Bible was actually more reasonable and more logical than its counter - atheism and belief that the universe came out of nothing, for no particular reason (part of the Big Bang theory), and that got him thinking and doing some research. He was not privy to the vast scientific research (operational science, plus Christian and historical science, not aesthetic historical science the world at large is taught)) that confirms the Bible, and had no idea whatsoever that such extensive bodies of knowledge existed! You however, if you take this article of mine and read it intently with an open mind, peruse the links, attached articles and podcasts, then you will find it overwhelmingly more reasonable, more logical, more plausible to believe in God and His Word, rather than the counter-arguments.
Let me state that I don't advocate Religion. Jesus Christ never asked anyone to join a religion and in fact, unabashedly opposed and exposed hypocritical religious leaders. What Jesus did was to call people into a relationship with Him, as Savior to His Church, as groom to his bride, and as loving Father to his beloved sons and daughters. It's not about religion, but relationship! To get a better glimpse of this, start reading the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Bible. This could lead you to the path of finding significance and eternal life in Christ!
I hope this blog entry opens not just a few eyes, minds and hearts.
PS, if you are a fan of Richard Dawkins and the Unbelievers Movie (podcasts parts. 1 to 3) or Stephen Hawking, you need to listen to these podcasts that shed more light on the atheistic teachings being espoused and the weak grounds for these. You are laying your life on the line here. Don't be ignorant of the unseen spiritual world, like those child-bearing mothers who put their faith in doctors who were ignorant of the unseen microbiological world and very effectively killed them. Don't get eternally killed by putting your faith blindly on unexamined "truths".
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