I realize that many people who visit this site are not quite sure about the whole creation/evolution debate and some are definite skeptics of creation and the Bible in general.
While it is true that the majority of this site is geared toward those who are sympathetic to the existence of God and the inspiration of the Bible, I wanted to save this space for a message to all others.
First of all, I want to say that I am sincerely honored that you have chosen to spend some of your valuable time to browse this site.
You most likely consider yourself a fairly logical person and feel that believing in the Bible and Christianity would cause you to violate your sense of reasoning. I can understand that. I myself am a very logical person and love science. That’s the main reason why I got my degrees in Physics and Engineering Technology. It’s interesting that while you have used your reasoning and logic to remain skeptical of the claims of the Bible, I have used my reasoning and logic to strengthen my belief in the claims of the Bible. That being the case, there must be more to this issue than just reason and logic alone.
I believe the main difference is summed-up in something we call a “worldview” (or presuppositions, or more simply put, our “bias”).
It would probably make us feel good to state that we don’t have any biases, but in reality, it is virtually impossible not to be biased in one way or another. We may feel that in some minor areas we have no bias, but for most of life’s significant questions, we are either directly or indirectly biased, which in turn colors how we view the world around us. This would be considered our “worldview”. In reality, there’s nothing inherently wrong with having a bias. The more important issue is “what is your bias based on?” Another way of phrasing the question is “What is the ultimate basis for your ‘truth claims’?”
At the most basic level, there are really only two major worldviews:
1) Everything came into existence all by itself.
2) Everything did not come into existence all by itself.
All other worldviews would be considered “sub-sets” of these two. If we stick with logic, which one makes more sense… that everything came from nothing, or that everything came from something?
If we stick with science, which one is better supported by the laws we work with every day? Thermodynamics has a lot to say about this situation, mainly that “you can’t get something from nothing” (the 1st Law of Thermodynamics).
It is not my intention to launch into an extensive defense of biblical creation at this point, but I do wish to address just a few issues in the remaining few paragraphs.
The Origin of the Universe
| What we are taught: | Everything came from nothing billions of years ago, all on its own. |
| What science indicates: | Matter and energy cannot be created out of nothing (1st Law of Thermodynamics). |
The Origin of Life
| What we are taught: | Life arose spontaneously on its own, from non-living chemicals, billions of years ago. |
| What science indicates: | Life only comes from pre-existing life, and always from the same kind of life (Law of Biogenesis). All experiments since Stanley Miller (1950’s) have failed to give positive evidence for the chemical evolution of life. We are actually further away from a solution than we were when we began our quest 50 years ago. |
The Origin of the Species
| What we are taught: | All forms of life today have descended accidentally from a common ancestor that existed billions of years ago, through the processes of mutation and natural selection. |
| What science indicates: | Natural selection (aka “Survival of the Fittest”) is a concept that was developed long before Darwin, by a scientist who was a creationist (Edward Blyth). It only describes the phenomenon that those creatures which are suited to their environment tend to survive to produce more offspring, and those that aren’t, tend to die off. It explains only “the survival of the fittest”, but not the “arrival of the fittest” – i.e. how did they become adapted? It holds no creative power. Mutations are accidental copying mistakes in the DNA. They do produce change, but not the kind of change that is required by evolution. These changes can only work with what already exists. They are incapable of producing new information. They can only rearrange or damage existing information. |
The Origin of Mankind
| What we are taught: | Modern man has descended from ape-like creatures that lived a few million years ago. |
| What science indicates: | All examples of alleged “ape-men” fall into one of 3 categories: (1) An ape that was made to look more “human-like”. (2) A human that was made to look more “ape-like”. (3) A fraudulent or accidental mix of ape bones and human bones. |
This is just a sampling of some of the significant challenges facing the evolutionary worldview. It is certainly not accurate to say that evolution is foregone conclusion, wholly supported by all areas of science. On the contrary, it is a belief (worldview) that is held largely in spite of the evidence, rather than because of the evidence, as indicated in the quote by Professor Richard Lewontin:
‘We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.’ [Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997.]
The series of lectures that we give go into much more detail, regarding what science actually indicates. If you are interested in knowing more, please Contact Us for further information.
