I've never felt compelled to explain why I believe that God made the world in six days (and rested on the seventh). That's not what this particular blog entry is about.
I've also never been able to put my finger on why I think the evolutionists are fabricating things, but I do. There's something in my gut that just tells me everytime that they're pulling the wool over peoples' eyes. That is what this particular blog entry is about.
I think some of it must have to do with my sense of where I belong in the world. I'm perfectly content to believe that God, in His infinite and incomprehensible wisdom, made me (and everyone else) and everything I can see (and cannot see). It's never occurred to me that I might be the center of the universe, or that I might somehow be the top of the line in an abstract evolutionary cycle, or that my own ego would ever swell to a size that would leave no room for the existence of God.
It's not that I'm uneducated. I have a good brain and I study constantly. I've read many things about evolution and it just seems fake. False. Untrue.
Don't get me wrong: I understand the whole billions of years hypotheses and all that goes with it. I understand that observable changes in cell structure happen all the time. I know that species go extinct all the time, whether by human intervention or by natural selection. I know that many scientists say that evolution is indisputable, proven, and beyond doubt.
That's really not the point, is it?
The point is that evolution doesn't really explain the very real facets of living that really matter. Evolution has no satisfactory explanation for why men and women fall in love. Evolution has no system of identifying the innate, intangible aspects of life: wisdom, understanding, grief, pentitence, gratitude, etc. These experiences are the real 'substance' of life.
Scientists create models and systems that are, in a word, self-auditing. With no one to answer to but themselves, those who believe in evolution check the development of the species against data that they create themselves. It's like letting the students determine their own grading scale.
How old is that fossil? "Dating methods" say a million years.
Oh? And how were the dating methods derived? "Well, we collected the data and analyzed it and compared it to processes we are able to calculate in a laboratory."
And how were the processes determined? "Well, you see, we believe that it must have taken this much time for that particular reaction to occur, based on our mathmatical calculations."
And who came up with the math? "The best university scholars available."
Doesn't this seem fishy to anyone else? Am I the only one to question this?
This self-presumptive evaluation process has, in less than 200 years, postured itself to be beyond question. "No one" questions evolution any more and the millions of Americans (and others arond the world) who do not, are presumed by the self-presumptives to be less than informed, a little dull, or, simply ignorant.
In such a way, evolution has become like the stone idols of yesteryear, who reign without answering. Evolution's indifference to intelligent dialog is just one more wood-carved Asherah pole on the hillside. God invites seekers . . . why is evolution immune from questioning?
All of the systems and models of evolution try to explain biological and geological functions, without approaching any meaningful understanding of anything to do with the spirit.
To me, this is the great and significant flaw in evolution. To those who believe in it, life is merely the collective biological experience of plants, animals, and humans. They are not merely wrong on this: they are dead wrong.
What difference does it make how old the rocks are if we can't understand the part of a man that makes him want to take up arms against his neighbor?
What good is the science that doesn't comprehend the idylls of poetry, the lofty airs of good music, or the warm affection of an embrace?
Is science worth a stitch if it doesn't find value in redemption of souls, forgiveness of sins, or reconciliation of adversaries?
Another significant error, consistent with many evolutionists, is their denial of a Being that is larger than human experience. Very often, atheism and evolution walk hand-in-hand. (I know this isn't universally true, but it is very often the case.)
It's not so much denial as it is 'dancing around'. In every book I've read, every film I've seen, every TV show I've watched on the subject - and even those that deal with evolution on the periphery - they make statements like this:
"After 10 million years living in the swampland, the species developed feathers and flew to the trees."
"The species developed"? How do they do that? Corporately? Through trial and error? After careful analysis of the situation? Voting?
Of course, this also depends on whether the aforementioned swampland remains the same over that same 10 million year period, which, according to evolutionists, would be very unlikely. It depends on the lifespan of the species in question. And, for example, if it were the lifespan of some [imagined] precursor to the cat, it would still take 500,000 generations of cats to make this change . . . 500,000 generations of an animal that is unable to communicate memory or history beyond its own immediate circumstances.
Is there some greater force at work? Something that guides those species to adapt?
Well, that can't be, if there is no God, can it?
Yet, according to the evolutionists, this is somehow magically able to happen. I'm not sure how if there is no supernatural, and since evolution is beyond question, I dare not ask.
To me, it's easier - and more believable - to understand that God made the universe in six days. No explanation required. It's a matter of faith.
But faith is one of those things that science can't explain, either. :-)
1 comment:
I just happened to come across this piece and thought I'd pass a comment or two. I was brought up by literalist fundamental missionaries (Plymouth Brethren) but my father was a scientist who acknowledged the logic behind Darwinism.
He explained away the timescale problem by linguistic differences, pointing out that the scientific order of the formation of the present Earth was as described in Genesis, but the "days" were much longer periods. One justification for this was that, in the initial stages of creation, Earth days could not exist, so what was meant by a biblical "day" was indeterminate.
He believed that God used evolution as the method to create the Earth and its biosphere, but that God took a special interest in the creation of Man from lower animals. The reason for this was that Man is much more advanced than animals.
This approach also allowed one type of Man, Adam and Eve, to evolve into the many Human races we see today. Genesis tells us that the sons of Adam took wives, which must have been from an earlier humanoid species, and also that early Humans were very variable in type.
We know from genetics the all current Humans are descended from a very small genepool. Europeans are descended from only seven original females who migrated from Africa and were therefore most likely dark skinned.
As the Ice Age receded, Humans spread across the Northern continents and evolved pale skins due to the reduced sunlight. The Bible is very short of information on most of our ethnic groups and has no information on how they have evolved from the original descendents of Adam and Eve.
I was originally warned in Sunday School about the "God of the Gaps", but this concept has become very useful. There have been many ideas about an extra-terrestrial being or beings with higher powers, and for the time being this is is a comforting concept to fill in the gaps than Science does not yet explain.
I think we can deduce the nature of a Creator of the Human species. This creation is a highly flawed one with a huge appetite for killing, including each other. As custodians of a natural world we have spectacularly failed and are no in the process of destroying our own life support system.
I was brought up in the Third World and have travelled widely over the Globe, and have seen sights of poverty and misery I could not have imagined.
I have just started a blog on Climate Change
climatechangestowford.blogger.com
in which I will describe how we have become accustomed to megadeaths (millions of deaths) and I predict that the current Century will see gigadeaths (billions of deaths from one cause).
To keep ourselves in luxury, we need many more poor to support us and we are now at a stage when at least Third World infant mortality and short life spans are approaching gigadeaths. What keeps us in cars, domestic goods, raw materials and energy is the eighty percent of the Human population who earn less than $20 a day.
On the whole I tend to put the blame for this on faulty evolution rather than on a Benevolent God.
David
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