Truth Really Matters

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This is the first in a series of articles exploring the antagonistic views of creation and evolution from the perspectives of science and the Bible. Within this series, I suggest a “Top 10” list of reasons to discredit evolution from a science-based point of view. Before we get into the details, however, we have some foundations to build. Let’s start with a little history.

The 19th Century saw the birth of a mechanized industrial revolution and the beginnings of telecommunications. I believe that Satan — being an extremely smart entity — anticipated much of the technological, societal, and political upheavals of the 20th Century. So he laid some groundwork to oppress multitudes of people politically, hindering the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He also established the beginnings of scientific and educational cultures that reject God. As the Lord wrote (through Paul) in Romans 1:25,

“Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.”

Satan also worked hard to undermine the faith of Christians by attacking God’s word.

These three avenues of attack are tied to three dates of infamy in the mid to late 1800s:

1848 — Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto. Marxism / Socialism is still alive and well in China, Europe, Latin America, and a few other countries – most notably the USA, with our federal government being taken over completely by Marxists in the election of 2008. As it thrives, it destroys liberty, wealth, and hinders the spread of the Gospel. Marxism will certainly be the form of government embraced by the antichrist when he takes power.

1859 — Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species. We’ll deal with Darwinism and the modern variants extensively in this series.

1881 — The English Revised Version of the Bible was published. Fenton Hort and Brooke Westcott — both unbelievers — were instrumental in deceiving the British government and the Anglican Church by producing a new version which was not just the promised “modernization” of the English of the 1611 King James Version. They rejected the Old Testament Hebrew manuscripts preserved through the ages by the Jews and discarded the Received Text of the New Testament preserved by the churches through the centuries, replacing them with corrupted texts. Hort and Westcott introduced tens of thousands of real changes in the Bible, setting a precedent which continues to this day, wherein we have a hundred different versions of the Bible — each different in significant ways. The result is watered down doctrine, destruction of confidence in the inerrancy of Scripture, and lack of power in the lives of Christians.

These three elements are interrelated, of course. Marxist countries mandate evolution as the state “religion.” America, more socialist than ever before, mandates evolution as the foundation of science education. Christians, who have lost interest in the Bible, and are not sure that you can believe it from Genesis to Revelation, are intimidated by so-called intellectuals and run in fear from the creation/evolution controversy. Worse, most so-called Christian denominations have embraced forms of theistic evolution.

I like the way a preacher I know once put it: “I don’t just believe the Bible from cover to cover. I believe the cover! My cover says ‘Holy Bible.’ ‘Holy’ means sanctified — set apart. The Bible is set apart by God from all other books.”

And so it is. The Christian’s foundation is the Bible. Just believe it. If there are details you want to investigate that go beyond the information within — details of creation, for example — then go ahead and investigate. The ‘book’ will never let you down. This is pre-suppositional apologetics. Stand on the foundation of the word of God and apply it to life and your analysis of everything in this world system. The Bible makes sense of everything of any importance. Every other worldview results in contradictions and hopeless mysteries.

Grab your King James version and read Colossians, Chapter 1. (The NIV has warped the passage enough so that the point is diluted.) There is a marvelous principle here that I recently discovered. The chapter is filled with nuggets on the wonderful subjects of grace, truth, love, prayer, wisdom, fruitful living, joy, redemption, the blood of Jesus, the Creator, Satanic forces, the church, and others. The passage used to irritate me a bit, however, because these “nuggets” resist being pulled out of the passage’s granite.

Here’s what I mean. Look at how many of the verses begin with a “connective” — a word that demands you look to the previous verse for clarification. These “first words” include the following:

Since
For — several times
Which
As
Who — several times
That
In Whom
And — several times

Why did the Author do this? I believe it was to emphasize that all of these nuggets — these doctrines — are inextricably intertwined! You can’t have fruitful living without salvation. You can’t have salvation without a Savior. You can’t call on the Savior without knowing that He is Jesus and that Jesus is the Creator, “and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.” You don’t get to pick one doctrine to believe without embracing all. You can’t choose to believe Paul’s epistles on grace without believing Moses’ account of Genesis.

It’s all or nothing. Accept it or reject it — God doesn’t leave room for compromise.

As I write this (the original version in the year 2000) the presidential primary campaigns are underway. The controversy between creation and evolution continues to make news. Vice President Al Gore positions himself as a strong advocate of scientific education. But he tries to walk the fence for political purposes. His campaign’s official position is that he favors teaching evolution, but believes that local authorities have the right to teach creation as well.

In response to this, Eugenie Scott, the executive director of the National Center for Science Education, said: “My God, that’s appalling! I understand politicians like to compromise and that faced with one group who say that two plus two equals four and another group that says two plus two equals six, will tend to arrive at a position that says two plus two equals five. Unfortunately, sometimes the answer has to be four and this is one of those times.”

It’s interesting that she appeals to God for help to support her anti-God position. More interesting is that she sees the issue as one that’s equivalent to mathematical analysis. Well, so be it. If evolution can survive rigorous logic, scientific methodology, and quantitative analysis, then it should be considered as part of the universe’s “truth.” But evolution cannot survive a serious analysis. It is the evolutionist who claims that two plus two equals six. Actually, as we’ll see, his claim is closer to “two plus two equals a billion.”

The Christian has a firm foundation – the word of God. We humans can foolishly choose to judge God’s word or wisely let God’s word judge us and guide our lives. The Bible is unambiguous regarding creation as a special series of acts of the Almighty. God didn’t use evolution as his method. He spoke and the worlds came into being. God’s word also says that we can see the evidence of that by simple observation.

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.” — Psalm 19:1-3

Even primitive cultures know that the marvelous works of nature are the handiwork of a Creator. Throughout most of the history of science, the profession has centered on revealing the mysteries of God’s creation. Modern astronomy was founded on the work of creationists – Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton.

The scope of “science” has been warped in the last century, however. An arbitrary constraint has been levied – science must now be divorced from any consideration of a Creator. To be “scientific,” one must be entirely “materialistic”, and everything under the sun MUST be explainable by purely natural processes. If natural processes aren’t sufficient to explain the facts, well then . . . there is no Plan B. Truth is subjugated to a naturalist dogma. The “supernatural” is rejected as heresy against the dogma of “science.” Opposition is to be squashed by political maneuvering, name-calling, and pseudo-intellectual intimidation.

Many Christians try to find a middle road on this issue, called “theistic evolution.” They would like to keep their faith in God, but choose to bow to conventional “wisdom” by saying that God must have “used evolution” as His method. These compromisers are trying to stay on the good side of the scientific establishment and the “educated elite.” But they don’t succeed. Serious evolutionists have nothing but disrespect for Christians. Christians get the same disrespect from the political left. For example — Jesse Ventura, when governor of Minnesota, once opined that religion is a crutch for the weak-minded.

The theistic evolutionist insults God and acquires no credit from the atheists. Consider the perspective of committed and renowned evolutionists from a (small) sampling of quotes, gleaned from Gish’s book, Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics:

“Darwinism removed the whole idea of God as the creator of organisms from the sphere of rational discussion . . .we can dismiss entirely all ideas of a supernatural overriding mind being responsible for the evolutionary process.” — Julian Huxley

“A religion is essentially an attitude to the world as a whole. Thus evolution, for example, may prove as powerful a principle to coordinate man’s beliefs and hopes as God was in the past.” — Julian Huxley & Jacob Bronowski

“Suddenly the study of evolution was in all the schools. The culture of the dominant class had triumphed, and traditional religious values, the only vestige of control that rural people had over their own lives and the lives of their families, had been taken from them.” — Richard Lewontin

“Meantime, let me say that the conclusion I have come to is this: the law of Christ is incompatible with the law of evolution — as far as the law of evolution has worked hitherto. Nay, the two laws are at war with each other; the law of Christ can never prevail until the law of evolution is destroyed.” — Sir Arthur Keith

“Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of God. If Jesus was not the redeemer who died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing.” — G. Richard Bozarth

“(Natural) selection is the blindest, and most cruel way of evolving new species, and more and more complex and refined organisms . . . The struggle for life and elimination of the weakest is a horrible process, against which our whole modern ethics revolts. And ideal society is a non-selective society, one where the weak is protected; which is exactly the reverse of the so-called natural law. I am surprised that a Christian would defend the idea that this is the process which God more or less set up in order to have evolution.” — Jacque Monod

“I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level — preschool day care center or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new — the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism . . . It will undoubtedly be a long, arduous, painful struggle replete with much sorrow and many tears, but humanism will emerge triumphant. It must if the family of humankind is to survive.” — John Dunphy

“One reason education undoes belief is its teaching of evolution; Darwin’s own drift from orthodoxy to agnosticism was symptomatic. Martin Lings is probably right in saying that ‘more cases of loss of religious faith are to be traced to the theory of evolution . . . than to anything else.'” — Huston Smith

So . . . If you’re a Christian, is this the crowd that you want to run with — the crowd you want some morsels of respect from? GET OVER IT!!

Furthermore, there is no reason — scientifically — to compromise with evolution. The evidence against it is overwhelming.

I can’t respect theistic evolutionists at all. However, I marvel at evolutionists in one thing – they stick to their fantasy in the face of ridiculous improbability, lack of evidence, and considerable countervailing evidence. As a Christian, I have plenty of spiritual, faith-based, cultural, and scientific reasons to discount evolution. Evolutionists, however, love the assumption, admire the assertion, and are singularly devoted to name-calling. I despise their tactics. Shouldn’t evolutionists be eager to examine their “theory” according to principles of logic, mathematics, and scientific methodologies? Shouldn’t they be honest about the implications of their worldview for the conduct of one’s life? How about implications for society, politics, education, commerce, and morality? Also, what’s the point of life if death ends it all? At least face up to the implications if you’re going to believe the impossible!

Evolution does not warrant the term “theory.” American school children are taught that the scientific method includes at least the following key elements:

1. Observation – What phenomena are occurring in nature?
2. Analysis – Are there patterns and can they be quantified?
3. Hypothesis – A preliminary explanation that fits the facts is constructed that can be tested. Alternative hypotheses are desirable, just as alternative designs in engineering are useful for comparison.
4. Testing and Experiment – Experiments must be constructed that can validate the hypothesis. The experiments also must also allow for data to show that the hypothesis is false. A hypothesis that is not “falsifiable” has no scientific predictive value.
5. Theory – A hypothesis that stands up to experiment under a multitude of conditions can attain the status of theory.

Even evolutionists admit that the subject of origins is not subject to real-time observation and analysis. At best, the topic is akin to detective work – which includes techniques of forensic science to attempt interpretation of whatever residual effects are left behind from previous events.

Evolutionists are wholly devoted to materialism — insisting that all of nature and its history are entirely explainable through natural forces, operating on natural resources, that can be observed in the universe today. They are not devoted to truth regarding origins. You see . . . truth might just require some supernatural component. Evolutionists define “science” to be totally divorced from God and the supernatural. This would be a shocking point of view to the God-loving scientists of previous centuries who were eager to learn of God’s brilliant creative powers. But this century has seen a perversion of man’s views on nature.

Regarding origins as “detective work” — Imagine a pair of police detectives who are committed to a philosophy of “accidentalism.” Joe Bob and Bubba cannot conceive that a death could be caused willfully by an acting, intelligent human being. They are confident that all sudden deaths can be explained by accidental causes.

One day, Joe Bob and Bubba are called in to investigate a particularly vexing case. A young man is found dead in his kitchen. Evidently, death was caused by several gunshot and knife wounds, with bullet entries at several different angles. A novice policeman at the scene suggests to our heroes that someone must have brutally murdered the victim. But Joe Bob and Bubba scoff at such a suggestion. They quickly develop a “theory” as follows:

“A loaded handgun must have been precariously perched atop a kitchen cabinet. An earth tremor caused the gun to fall to a counter top, resulting in the first gunshot, with the victim unluckily in the line of fire. The recoil kicked the gun against a dish drainer, causing several knives to fly (unfortunately) in the direction of the victim’s abdomen. The gun continued to bounce around the counter and to the floor due to the mechanical energy imparted by the recoil, with gunshots resulting from each collision with a new surface. Amazingly, most of the shots found their way into the victim. It is undetermined what became of the gun and knives — that is a bit of a mystery — but we are confident that further research will settle that issue.”

If the detectives are committed to accidentalism, they will not fail to generate “theories,” no matter how unreasonable. Similarly, those committed to materialism will never be deterred by reason or data from developing materialistic explanations for origins.

A U. of California, Irvine, geneticist, Francisco Ayala, said that the continued debate about creation and evolution was making the United States a laughing stock in the world. “If we don’t teach our kids good science, they will be handicapped later in a world that depends on science and technology. I am disturbed at this political trend. It is potentially terribly damaging to our children,” he proclaimed.

But is evolution really a science akin to physics and chemistry? Is it a science that forms the basis of significant fields useful to society like Electrical Engineering? If it is a science then it must be subject to rigid mathematical analysis and painstaking reviews of evidence and logic. Evolution fails miserably, however, in any honest attempt to equate itself to the established sciences. Many biologists like to say that evolution is the foundation of their science. But thousands of research papers on the form, function, biochemistry, physiology, reproduction, and other characteristics of living creatures are published with no consideration of evolution.

In fact, many evolutionary speculations have set back biological science time and again. Modern biologists have thoroughly discredited the silly notion of “embryological recapitulation” — an idea that held sway for the first half of the 20th century. The idea was that the development of an embryo parallels the evolutionary development of its species. The notion was promoted in the 19th Century by a German evolutionist named Ernst Haeckel, who was exposed and kicked out of his university when it was discovered that he falsified evidence and created fictitious drawings to support his ideas. Amazingly, this ridiculous idea is still found in some high school texts on biology.

Evolution falls far short of “theory” status because it is not subject to meaningful experiments. Evolutionists typically insult their critics by comparing their faith with the theory of gravity. Creationists that dispute the “fact” of evolution may as well fight against Newtonian or Einsteinian gravity, or quantum theory, or relativity. And our precious little school children – if they dare to entertain doubts about the wonderful, unifying, all-encompassing theory of evolution – how can they possibly learn science and engineering and compete in the global marketplace?!!?

If someone disputes accepted gravitational theory, though, experiments can be quickly designed and executed to check it out. More compellingly, zillions of experiments have already been done and documented. I recall performing a few, myself, in both high school and college!

So – if not a legitimate “theory,” does evolution merit the status of “hypothesis”? Alas, it is an “explanation” that doesn’t fit the facts. Worse, it travails against a myriad of contradicting facts. Not only is evidence lacking, but application of simple mathematics demonstrates the impossibility of evolution’s foundations. It’s not just a matter of not finding compelling evidence to support their “theory.” Evolutionists cannot even imagine how to overcome the barriers in their beliefs. If this were about writing fiction, we could not plausibly award the category of “science fiction” to evolutionary dramatizations. When science fact and mathematical plausibility are vacant and the difficulties are brushed aside, the fictional category is termed “fantasy.” The most fitting term for the construct of evolution, therefore, is “fantasy” — akin to tales of wizards and elves and centaurs.

The origin of life is an enormous subject. More dangerously, it is an emotional and politically charged subject. The discussion in the articles to follow is intended primarily to equip a novice creationist with a few facts and points of logic to engage in a heart-to-heart discussion with someone who has bet his eternity on the evolutionary fantasy. Excluding that small cadre of professional evolutionary biologists, most people that accept evolution don’t know why they believe it. Ask someone. Be polite. Try to get someone to explain the foundation of his evolutionary faith. You’ll have to work at being exceptionally polite, because most folks – in frustration – will get angry to cover up the realization that they don’t know why they believe it. I’m not going to give professional biologists a pass, of course. I’d love to hear one address the essays in this section head-on.

Let’s back up to the “big picture.” There are many reasons to address this subject. One simple one is this: Since the evolutionary fantasy has acquired a monopoly on our public education, literal and functional atheism has multiplied. There is little respect for the Bible and, consequently, morality has disintegrated. Christians are weak in defense of their faith because they have been intimidated by the “consensus of brilliant scientists” who speak of the “fact of evolution.” America is spiraling downward and the doctrine of evolution is a significant contributing factor. In short, if we’re all a bunch of animals, what’s the point of morality and why restrain anyone from hedonism? Natural selection certainly seems to favor self-centeredness and cowardice. Abortion is just removal of inconvenient tissue. What is the meaning of life if even our thought patterns and our drives and aspirations are just the result of random chemical processes?

Consider the rich man in the parable below. If he were an evolutionist, his lifestyle made perfect sense. But he was a fool. No matter how much he was determined to ignore God, judgment awaits:

“And he spake a parable unto them saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou has must goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” – Luke 12:16-21

. . . The next essay in the “Short Course” section of this site is Probabilities vs. Impossibilities, which provides a simple, but slam dunk mathematical argument against the fantasy of evolution.

http://servuclean.com/store References:

Duane T. Gish, Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics, Institute for Creation Research, 1993.