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I Went From a Believer to an Unbeliever ... in Evolution
by Robin Calamaio Evolution and Biblical Creationism are both faith-based systems. For me, a day came when it was easier to believe the Bible's creation account than to believe the theory of evolution. A critical factor to my unbelief lies in evolution's propensity to abandon its own faith principles when dealing with basic physical science. While I believe all longevity models, and their accompanying evolutionary theories, have many glaring problems, here are five massive ones. There are more. 1. Matter is Eternal Evolutionists believe everything comes from something - until everything is traced back to the first thing. "Matter," saith the Evolutionist, "is eternal." By halting their quest for origins at some incredibly dense blot of matter, they not only make a faith declaration, but also a stunning reversal in their science. This "blot" is the lone exception to material science - that all material has a precursor. Biblical Creationists believe there was a time matter did not exist. God spoke it into existence - out of nothing. "I, the Lord, am the maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by Myself, and spreading out the earth all alone ..." (Isa 44:24). "All things" include matter. "By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared (formed) by the word (rhema) of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible" (Heb 11:3). "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1:1). God is eternal - not matter. The faith of the Biblical Creationist simply takes one step past where the faith of the Evolutionist halts. The Creationist's faith is based upon Bible assertions while the Evolutionist's faith rests on a necessary violation of a basic tenet of their naturalistic system. Neither choice yields to logic. For anything (or Anyone) to just be there - is beyond comprehension. But to embrace inorganic material as eternal is not as threatening as the faith of the Biblical Creationist. That faith espouses a living, moral Being who knows everything (Isa 40:13,14,28), sees everything (Pr 15:3), and is a God "who cannot lie"(Tit 1:2). "Before Me, there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me .... I am God. Even from eternity, I am He .... I am the first and the last, and there is no God besides Me" (Isa 43:10b,12b, 13a.). 2. Spontaneous Generation Before considering the origin of life, we must take a moment to discuss the existence of our inorganic environment that supports life. This planet's position in space and its chemical constitution is absolutely astounding. While there is some tolerance for life to exist in varied chemical and environmental conditions, the windows are extremely narrow. For example, the earth's distance from the right kind of sun is absolutely critical. And just a bit of an elliptical orbit would still preclude any life. At one point of the ellipse, the water planet would be the boiling-water planet. Then, a few months later, it would be the block-of-ice planet. And this favorable orbit needed to be in place for what - the last billion years or so? Then, consider our atmosphere. It's density, composition, and temperature nurtures life - while many of our neighboring planets are surrounded by a toxic brew. Our skies even protect us from a life-giving sun that also produces lethal radiation. Now, at the surface of the earth, other physical requisites must be present for life to arise. For example, some creatures can live in salt water, but once the salt reaches a certain level, life ceases. Witness, the Dead Sea. But all this is just the start of the inorganic story. All the correct elements had to be here, too. If only metals were here, this would still be an inorganic world. The physical requisite for an environment to be capable of birthing life is astonishing. The point? To believe this physical environment "just happened" takes a great faith. Indeed, that belief requires a greater amount of faith than the Biblical Creationist needs for attributing this environment to the activity of God. That is much easier to believe. But let's grant that out of billions of stars our planet did randomly arise. Now comes the back breaker. How did inorganic elements give rise to living organisms? No element even hints at possessing any of the stuff we call, "life." Carbon is not alive. Iron is not alive. Calcium is not alive. Arsenic is not alive. Lead is not alive. None of the other 23 elements which compose us are alive. In fact, you can't even say they are dead. They are inorganic. Life is absolutely absent from each and every element in the known universe. The importance and gravity of this problem cannot be overemphasized. So, herein lies the real problem for the Evolutionist. They have always been, and are quite consistent in their assertion, that life does not spontaneously arise. All living things came from previous life forms. They consistently profess this belief for each present day life form as they trace each one back a billion years - until they come face to face with the first living "thing." It is at this critical moment, the moment of truth on the origin of life, the Evolutionist makes another stunning reversal - and spontaneous generation is embraced! And this is the lone exception to an otherwise universal rule! "Life," saith the Evolutionist, "spontaneously arose from nonliving matter - but only with that first living thing." Mother earth takes on a literal meaning. And, to add insult to injury, these new births must also have a fully operational reproductive system! To believe matter is eternal, and a Big Bang randomly created our inorganic ecosystem, and inorganics spontaneously gave birth to living matter, and those organics were birthed with a fully operational reproductive system (that could also accommodate modest positive changes so evolution actually occurs) - well, no religion requires a faith as massive. With a faith this immense I think Evolutionists can believe anything they want to believe - especially when they are so willing to abandon their science to hold to their faith! The faith of the Biblical Creationist is steadfastly consistent with itself, with no reversals to this point. God is eternal, He made matter, and He created an inorganic system capable of sustaining life. He then infused life into a collection of inorganic materials - even though the elements that make up the living organic mass are still inorganic in themselves. 3. A Hostile System of Degeneration How does life form in a system that is so hostile to it? Even now, inorganic forces are constantly attacking the fragile life on the supporting skin on this globe. Heat, cold, fire, floods - given enough time, some inorganic force will overcome each life-form - unless it is first eaten by another life-form! But even developed inorganics have "a life-span" - like our sun. Its "life" peaks as degeneration is king. But against all odds, the Evolutionist believes life (though still without adequate origins explanation) arose. Life swims upstream against a hostile environment, and "wins" for an exceedingly short season before being reclaimed by inorganics. The propensity of the observable universe argues against such an occurrence. Even in our current, relatively benevolent-to-life environment on earth, we find no pockets of spontaneous generation as the environment is still very hostile to life. But at least, on this point, Evolutionists have not made some kind of reversal in their science or principle. Their problem is that everything in their sciences speak against such a possibility. On the other hand, the Creation Account in Genesis says life was created in a totally benevolent-to-life environment. Life was fully here, and formed, before degeneracy (and death) entered the picture. It was imposed upon a benevolent creation and pulls life down. As a man of little faith, this is easier for me to believe. Let's now look at some of the life on our planet. I will wave two more red flags - but each of these flags have hundreds ... no, thousands ... no, millions of attendant red flags. In fact, the world may not have enough red cloth available to make all the needed flags. 4. Metamorphosis A basic evolutionary principle is that species progression occurs by incremental change through profitable mutation. Let's visit my garden in early June. On my tomato plant we find two caterpillars. They are slow moving, pudgy, little creatures. Their main defense is a very good camouflage and, except for the demolition of my tomato plant, they are harmless. When plucked from the plant, they roll up into a little ball - as if that could really help them. Once they rightly determine I'm not going to eat them, they unroll and start moving their multitudinous stubby little legs in a synchronized wave as they search for home. If we leave them for a day and come back - it is amazing how they have grown! They are obviously very successful creatures! They have secured a very lucrative ecological niche and act, and react, in that environment extremely well! But then, in the height of the growing season, they disappear! There is plenty more to eat - or did a bird eat them? Then we spot some strange "casings" hanging close by. As it turns out, they have entombed themselves! As the weeks pass, they never come out - and there is no exit hole anyway. By now, these hungry little fellas have surely starved to death. As curious investigators, we open one of the little coffins. There is no green caterpillar inside - just a glob of goo where our fat, evolutionarily successful creature once was. Why did this little guy entomb himself and disintegrate? This is a great mystery. Scratching our heads, we depart. In the meantime ... the other coffin ... is left alone. A few weeks later, when passing the remaining tomb - it moved ever so slightly. Then it moved again! There is something alive inside that tomb! In awe, we are glued to the unfolding scene. Something is desperately trying to get out! Then, the tomb splits and a haggard, moist creature pulls itself out! It soon dries out into a marvelous creature! But it is nothing like our green caterpillar. So, where did it come from? And how did it get in our green caterpillar's tomb? Is it an invader of some sort? Questions, questions, questions! Well, after some time of discovery and analysis, we figure out what happened - sort of. The caterpillar never did die. It did disintegrate, in a manner of speaking, but not with any rotting in view. It changed - it metamorphosed! Here is a partial list of what went in that "tomb" and what came out. ▸ The caterpillar had a head and twelve body "rings." The butterfly has three distinct body parts. ▸ The caterpillar had six eye spots. The butterfly has a phenomenally complex compound eye, with as many as 20,000 eyes close together! ▸ The caterpillar had mandibles and chewed plants for food. Plants would have run away from them if they could. But the butterfly cannot chew anything. It sucks nectar and is even a friend to plants. Plants want to attract the butterfly. The digestive systems of caterpillar and butterfly are radically different. ▸ The caterpillar had all kinds of stubby little legs. The butterfly has six long delicate legs. ▸ Our caterpillar had a bald little head. The butterfly has two antennae, and it turns out these are very sensitive sensory preceptors - possibly even radar capable! ▸ The caterpillar grew very rapidly. The butterfly never grows. ▸ The caterpillar regularly sheds its skin. The exoskeleton of the butterfly never changes. ▸ Oh, yeah. One other little observation. The butterfly - can fly! It changed from a slow lumbering creature to a nimble aerial artist. An incremental development, right? At this point, Evolutionists grab this stunning creature and pull it under the umbrella of Evolution. Hold on a minute! What happened to the fundamental teaching of incremental change? What is incremental about a creature completely transforming itself into an entirely different creature - in a matter of weeks?!? Both creatures act and react extremely well in completely different ecological niches. What could possibly possess the caterpillar to reinvent itself - and how could it anyway? It would be easier to learn how to lay eggs. But it "decided" on another route. "I've had enough of this life of Riley. I'm going to turn into a flying marvel - and get off this tomato plant!" This whole deal is bazaar. There are all kinds of worms who are happy to be worms, live as worms, and die as worms. Quite seriously, even though metamorphosis occurs "naturally" all over the globe, it is not natural. Evolution must jettison its foundational, incremental progression principle when attempting to deal with miraculous metamorphosis. If you are an Evolutionist, you need to take a second look at your beliefs. Have your leading advocates ever talked about their massive reversals in fundamental principles? Have they admitted these reversals are faith statements - that contradict original faith positions? Or do they even acknowledge the difference between faith statements and empirical science? But, I do have one more red flag I must wave. 5. The Bombardier Beetle - "But, wait! You can't use that example!" Well, let's see. The stink of a Bombardier Beetle is created by an extremely complex system. There are two separate storage chambers with a different chemical in each. When threatened, the beetle sends the chemical from each storage chamber into its own combustion tube. An enzyme is then added to each chemical. This creates an explosion in one tube and a terribly noxious smelling chemical in the other. A "mysterious inhibitor" is added to prevent oxidization. Both tubes open at the same time and an exploding gas is jettisoned at up to 212 degrees Fahrenheit - the boiling point of water! This requires perfectly timed muscular activity. Here is the point. Each part of this complex system is of no use until every part of it is developed and working together - with exact timing! No evolutionary principle can explain how such a system could be developed by increments. Intermediate beetles would have had to mutate, and then retain, parts of a system that gave them no advantage to any contemporaries. Something would have to be guiding the beetles in this progression - when no advantage would be seen until the entire system came on line! Honest anatomical studies on every species around us exposes systems that defy incremental development. Here, a defense mechanism, there, some component of the reproductive cycle, elsewhere, a radar capacity ... on and on infinitely. The exceedingly complex defense mechanism possessed by this insignificant little stink bug is but the top snowflake on an iceberg. These red flags are but the first of many. For example, how were dinosaur fossils made? Today, everything that dies in the tropics either rots or is eaten by scavengers. Or what is the mathematical possibility of amino acids randomly lining up to create a functioning protein - much less, a DNA molecule? And mutations seem to be overwhelmingly detrimental to the creature that develops them. Where have all the good ones gone? Maybe the real question is, "Have there ever even been any good ones?" Honestly, an Evolutionist puts his/her faith in scenarios that present day, objective observation just does not support! Now For the Evolutionist's Biggest Error - The Mother of All Errors Along with matter being eternal, Evolutionists also believe the earth and universe are very old. Some say our universe is twenty billion years old - and earth about five billion. Geologists measure the ages of rocks in millions of years. Astronomers believe the light they are seeing from far away stars is millions of years old. And it is true that many of the laws of the current age do support these beliefs. For example, light does travel - and "simple" mathematics confirms the light of a star that is a million light years away - is a million years old. But, herein lies the biggest error Evolutionists make - the Mother of all their errors. They assume the current laws of nature have always been in place! The Bible refutes this assumption. It teaches that our current natural laws began at Adam's Judgement. It is error to take current natural laws and impose them on the Creation Account because all the activity of the Creation Account occurred before the fall - and Judgements - of Adam! I address some of these changes in natural law elsewhere ("Death and the Bible" pgs 16-23), but for now, let's just look at a couple of things. For example, the "birth" of Adam. Was he born? As a Creation Account literalist, I do not believe he was. God formed him on the sixth day - as an adult. At one minute old, he probably looked thirty years old! When Eve was "born," she probably looked thirty, too. They both had an appearance of age - at "birth." This is also true of all the animals and all the plants in the original created order. They were created mature. This is sometimes referred to as Special Creation, and is called the Pro-chronic or Ideal Time theory. Concerning the stars, He says He made them "to give light on the earth" (Gen 1:15). That is the purpose for them. For Him to set them in varied places of the heavens with their light already here from the moment of creation - well, what's the big deal? In a totally consistent fashion, they, like Adam and Eve, had an appearance of age at "birth!" And the same goes for the rocks. We also may find that at the fall, time (in a degenerative sense) began. Half-lives began, along with all kinds of other scientific laws, that were not in the original created order. When this age concludes, we may find this has been the fatal flaw in current science: scientists assumed the natural laws of this order were eternal laws when they were actually temporal laws - coming into existence about ten thousand years ago. They began the exact moment God judged Adam. I am certain many of our scientific laws are peculiar only to this age and will eternally disappear when this order is closed. And one other thought. Maybe the "supernatural acts" (miracles) recorded in the Bible are actually exhibitions of the natural scientific laws of eternity. Miracles might be little insertions of the real laws operating outside this bubble of degeneration. They might be samples of what awaits us! I can't wait to study them! Yes, the natural laws of this fallen order may indeed be the aberrant "natural" laws. They, like death, are actually unnatural. Wow! Evolution is Dead At critical points, Evolutionists abandon principles they otherwise hold as universal constants. This creates self inflicted wounds. But, in fairness, these are unavoidable wounds as the alternative is to believe in some Creationism formula. Therefore, many an Evolutionist still clings to his/her faith in the face of these faith-killing evidences. Theories are easily released when contrary factual material arises. But faith positions are not. This is because the believer is emotionally vested. Belief in Evolution is a faith. At what point does a well intentioned, errant faith become relegated to the realm of a fairy tale? The Greek gods and goddesses crossed that line at some point. I wonder when Evolution will be recognized in the same manner? One of my first college courses was, "Introduction to Physical Anthropology." I believed in Evolution. I really did. I loved it. But I now see it as fairy tale. Error, in any realm, can only survive for a season. Eventually, it is exposed, and falls. Many believed the earth was flat. Many believed if man went a certain speed, he would explode. These beliefs had a season, but then went the way of the Greek gods. Evolution, being mathematically impossible and refuted by nature, has always been dead. While some may still consider Evolution to be metaphysically viable, as far as being scientifically viable - well, the life that some have tried to breathe into it never took. Evolutionists are indeed a people of the greatest of faiths, but I've always understood that a faith adhered to that is contradicted by facts is a call to - a blind faith. Copyright 2006 Whether you are looking for the Biblical position on Abortion ( http://www.freelygive-n.com/Abortion_Argument.html ) or a visual Gospel Presentation ( http://www.freelygive-n.com/Gospel_Presentation.html ), you can find these, or other FREE ebooks at http://www.freelygive-n.com . Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |