The Debate

Maybe you're not out of it as badly as I am.  My head pretty much stays tucked in the sand, and I'm quite happy living in LaLa-Land, thank you.  So this morning I was surprised to hear that, last night, there was a debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye.

(By the way, I cannot spell Bill Nye's name without the backspace key.  It always comes out "Billy" before I go back and erase the "y.")

The debate is close to three hours long.  No small thing to fit into your day.  If you want to listen, it will be available "for several days" at debatelive.org.

I was not as impressed as I'd expected.

Ken Ham (the creationist) kept stressing that evolution is a belief system and not observable science.  That's definitely true, but I wish he'd given more to-the-point answers too.

Bill Nye (the evolutionist) kept repeating several points.  One could have been easily answered (but wasn't).  The earth has an apparent age that is older than creationists say it is.  Well, of course!  Adam wasn't created as a baby.  In the Garden of Eden, there were already full-grown fruit trees.  So also, rocks and stars would look like they too were "grown up" even when they were only minutes or days old.

Another of The Science Guy's major points was that America needs scientists to compete globally in technology.  Beats me what that has to do with defending evolution.

Another of Bill's claims was that evolution could be disproven by even one counter-example.  He claimed there were none.  Ever.  He said there is not one example anywhere in the fossil record of a species of a particular era being found alongside (in the same rock strata) a species of a supposedly different era.  So ... I remember in the past hearing about examples.  I guess if you're convinced that such fossils cannot exist, you'll discredit any fossils that do disprove your beliefs.

It was also interesting that both sides have unanswerable questions:  "We don't know how to explain that.  It's something we need to study more, to learn more about."  Granted, each side has an easy time explaining some of the other side's big mysteries.  But they both have spots where they say, "I don't know."  From my vantage point, that means neither side can say, "Ah HA!  Caught you!!  You can't explain thus-and-such!  Well, if you can't explain everything, that in itself says you're all wet."




One portion of the debate allowed for questions from the audience.  I thought an interesting question (directed toward the creationist) was, if hypothetically evolution was proven and creation was disproved, would the scientist then still hold to his religion, his Christian faith?  His answer was basically, "It can't be disproved because it's true."  

My answer would have been, "No."  I would then go on to explain that creation cannot be disproved because it is true.  But if we're going to be silly and play The Hypothetical Game, then my answer would be No.  Once upon a time, I sort of believed that evolution was true (because it's what I was unequivocally taught at school) AND that creation was true (because it's what God said).  So I do realize that there are Christians who believe in evolution, Christians who haven't realized the ramifications of what evolution does to theology.  And God, rich in grace, forgives us all for Jesus' sake -- not because we've got our heads on straight about how He made the world.

But when you realize what evolution says about death, and how it is not the result of sin;

and when you realize what evolution says about Adam and Eve, so that Jesus cannot be "the second Adam" (1 Cor 15:22);

and when you realize that God would be lying (and that Jesus would be mistaken -- Mark 10:6) if evolution were true,

then no, I could not be a Christian if I were shown that creationism were impossible.  If creationism were impossible, then the whole of the Christian faith would be unraveled.

And the devil knows that.
Thus his repeated attempts to promote evolution.

Why Theistic Evolution Is Impossible

In public school, they taught me about the Big Bang theory and about man evolving from apes. I believed it.

In Sunday school, they taught me about God's creation of the world in six days, Adam and Eve, and the fall into sin. I believed it.

At school, they told me that the story from the Bible was wrong. I didn't believe that. After all, what else would you expect them say?

But I don't think anybody ever told me that the evolutionary tale they taught me at school was wrong. My Sunday school teachers and parents and pastors told me what was right, but I don't think they ever told me that my school teachers were wrong.

Sometime in my late teens, the conflict between evolution and creation was pointed out to me. For a while I thought theistic evolution -- that God created the world through evolution -- might be a plausible theory. So I do realize that just because somebody believes in evolution does not mean they are damned to hell and standing outside the Church in rejection of Christ's atonement. Christians often live with inconsistencies in their theology and philosophy and worldview.

For a long time, "because the Bible said so" was reason enough to believe that God created the world in six days. And it is reason enough. Not exactly an evangelical, gospel-oriented reason. But definitely a good enough reason. But there was always that little, nagging voice that said, "How do you know for sure that God didn't create the world through evolution? And why does it matter, anyway?"

It matters because of what the Christian Church teaches about sin and grace.

The wages of sin is death.

If that is true, then there was no death before the Fall into sin. If there was no death before Adam sinned, then the whole evolutionary process could not have occurred. According to evolution, amoebas and worms and fish and birds and reptiles and mammals died for millions of years before that first person appeared on the scene.

If you want to believe in evolution, you can do that. It may fly in the face of fossil evidence. But people are free to believe what they believe.

But you cannot believe in theistic evolution and be a Christian. It's an impossibility. It's inherently self-contradictory. If you believe in the triune God who made man and grieved over His creation's turning from Him, then you believe in a God who took man's sin upon Himself and who died in the flesh to satisfy the Law's demand that "the soul that sins shall die."

To believe in so-called theistic evolution means that
you must accept death as a "natural" part of creation,
which would ultimately mean that death is not a result of man's sin,
which would mean the forgiveness of sins has nothing to do with restoring life and undoing "the wages of sin,"
which would make Christ's cross irrelevant and meaningless.

Theistic evolution may fit with some religions. But it cannot mesh with Christianity, where we believe in a God who died to atone for sin and to give life to those who plunged the world into death & decay.

I Believe!

My son-in-law sent me a link to an article that just makes your eyes pop out of your head. October was HOT! Global warming is coming to kill us all! Oh no! The proof is in the numbers! Look how hot it was!

Ooops. Small problem. For a large part of Russia (where it was unusually hot for the month of October) it turns out that the temperature data didn't come through properly. What to do? Hmmm. I know! We'll just take September's temperatures, and write 'em down for the days of October, and there ya go... data for the month of October.

And THAT is part of the "proof" that global warming is happening.

This is science??????

And yet, it fits perfectly with what's demonstrated in Expelled. There are certain things we believe: for some it's God's Word, and for others it's something else. Last week in Bible class, Pastor talked about how evolution is a belief system, not a portion of science. This is seen clearly in Expelled, too, especially in what the evolutionists themselves espouse.

What is most stunning in Expelled, though, is not the argument between evolution and intelligent design. What is most stunning is the fervent beliefs and the name-calling by those who deny Intelligent Design.

And here it pops up again, when we're talking about global warming, and inventing data for Russian temperatures.

And we're supposed to trust these scientists who are willing to use faked data, who are unwilling to present both sides of the issue, who are afraid to let the science and logic speak for themselves?

Cell Theory

Our biology song for the week is "Living Things." (This is not a "Christian" science program nor is it creationist.) The song teaches about the characteristics that make something alive (able to reproduce, move, grow, respond to a stimulus, carry on metabolic activity), the different levels of organization of life, and the different metabolic activities. The song also has the lines
Living things are made up of cells...
All cells come only from other living cells.
This is what's called the cell theory.

So Andrew asks, "What do the evolutionists think about the cell theory?" Well, the cell theory is one of the most basic theories of all biological science. You can't do ANYthing without its foundations. So of course evolutionists accept the cell theory.

But the cell theory says "all cells come only from other living cells."

Hmmmm.

So I did a little internet surfing. Surely NO scientist could deny the cell theory. Most websites just stated the cell theory as is; a few had the caveat that the cell theory has held solid "except for the first cell which originated from non-life." The website I found funny interesting was from Nature. It stated,
With the theory of evolution, the cell theory is the most important generalization in biology. There is, however, a missing link between these theories that prevents an even more general and unifying concept of life.

A missing link?
In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.
That's from John 1.
(And check out the verse preceding it too.)




Psalm 14: The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge?

Survival of the Fittest

After listening to some of the presentations yesterday on medical care for the handicapped, something became apparent. A huge irony.

There is one group of people in our society who promotes evolution. As much as possible, they ensure that "intelligent design" is not allowed in schools. They ridicule those who believe in creation. They talk about things that happened millions (or billions) of years ago. And yet, these are often the same people who suggest that the government [that is, the taxpayers] fund massively expensive programs to fund health care and social programs for those who are not the "fittest."

Now, I am not saying I'm against expensive surgery and cures. My mom, my aunt, and my daughter all benefited from medical technology that was not cheap nor simple. But it seems odd that those who believe in "the survival of the fittest" would also be the ones who want to fund programs to keep alive those who would've otherwise died. To be intellectually consistent, shouldn't they be wishing for the needy and the handicapped to be denied medical treatment, so as to "cleanse the gene pool"?

Ah, but I guess in some other countries, the liberals have already gotten to that point.

Evolution

There's the stark bald theory of evolution as it impacts the origin of the universe and where Man came from. But there are many corollaries to the theory of evolution. Whenever we read about the "invention" of writing, or the "invention" of farming, or the "invention" of metal tools, those ideas about ancient civilization have grown out of the idea that man evolves, that society evolves, that civilization improves and grows and advances.

Granted, there was a serious setback to technology when the Flood destroyed everything but those eight people and the animals on the ark. But as the people began to rebuild their civilization and their technology, they were not dummies "discovering" things, but smart people who were starting from scratch in a mess of a world.