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(2/6/2007)

Evolutionists Scared Into Calling for Truce with Creationists

By Bob Ellis

Dakota Voice

I used to believe a lot of this stuff. I used to believe that evolutionists had to be right. After all, there was all this evidence of an unfathomably ancient earth and universe, biological diversity that could be explained by evolution, etc.

But then I learned about the multitude of problems with evolution "science" and the "science" that says the earth is billions of years old, and I heard about scientific theories that not only fit within the framework of the Bible, they actually made more sense from a scientific standpoint.

And allow me to be clear on one personal point before I go any further. I have no interest in being wrong. About anything. In fact, I hate being wrong. I hate being wrong probably more than anything in the world. This means that if the Bible is a faerie tale, why would I want to believe it? Life would be easier in a lot of ways if it were just a fable. If the Bible's claims are fake, I would want to know that as soon as possible so I could STOP BEING WRONG. I'd rather admit I was wrong and change my way of thinking (which is exactly what I did when I abandoned my belief in evolution), than to pretend the emperors new clothes were just dandy (which is what many evolutionists are still doing).

Having said that, I want to point out a USA Today op/ed by Tom Krattenmaker which takes a frightened shot at the Answers In Genesis creation museum set to open soon in Kentucky. The piece repeats the flawed supposition that science and the Bible are at odds (they aren't, but naturalism and the Bible are), and the writer claims creationists are starting an "unnecessary" fight that could end up undermining their faith.

Excuse me, but has this guy had his head buried in the sand for decades? That fight was started a long time ago, even before Darwin, and until a few decades ago, creationists ran from it like a bunch of scared puppies because they didn't understand that evolution and "old earth" are a paper tiger.

No, the building of the AIG creation museum may just be akin to the Normandy Invasion. This multi-million dollar, top-notch facility threatens to drive a stake in the heart of evolution, and that's what has Krattenmaker and others like him quaking in their theoretical boots.

In comments published last fall by the Baptist Press news service, a consultant to the Creation Museum implies that the very foundation of Christian belief will crumble if believers don't disprove the scientific consensus that humans evolved into existence tens of thousands of years ago. Shouldn't it at the very least be required that evolutionists prove that humans evolved into existence tens of thousands of years ago? They have a lot of circumstantial evidence that, at first glance, could lend some credibility to that supposition. But once you scratch the surface, you quickly find that such a theory has more problems than it has solutions.

This consultant makes a correct analysis:

"If humans really date back that far, and Adam lived far enough in the past to be their ancestor, then the genealogical record of Genesis 5 is wrong, and thus the Bible and its author, God, are wrong."

He's absolutely right. If the supposition of evolutionists are true, then the Bible is the biggest lie that's yet been perpetrated on humanity. But evolutionists are no closer to proving their theory to be true than they were when Darwin mainlined the effort some 150 years ago. And if the Bible is right, and I believe the evidence is on its side, then EVOLUTION is one of the biggest lie that's yet been perpetrated on humanity.

How many Americans are ready to accept the proposition that science has made a colossal error interpreting the fossil and geological record and — more radical still — that the validity of Christianity depends on proving it?

Actually, the validity of Christianity doesn't depend on disproving the theory of evolution. The responsibility for PROVING the theory of evolution rests upon those who believe in it, not those who know it to be false. And sadly (for them), they've come up woefully short in doing so.

Nevertheless, the question frames a problem with the stance of the anti-science creationists that threatens not only their version of the world's origins, but also the credibility of their religion itself.

This statement alone reveals this writer's ignorant bias. Creationists aren't "anti-science." What evolutionists pose isn't science at all, but a theory based on some loosely formed and unverifiable facts that may or may not be as they believe (none of us was here millions of years ago--or even 6000 years ago--to know exactly what happened and how).

As the evangelical writer and religion professor Randall Balmer points out, confronting the public with objective evidence of the Bible's literal truth is misguided at its core. Writing about intelligent design (a counter to evolution that sees an unidentified "designer" behind the world's creation), Balmer says, "Paradoxically, when the Religious Right asserts intelligent design is science, it implies that faith in God is inadequate, that it needs the imprimatur of the scientific method."

This is another badly flawed assumption. On one hand, evolutionists claim creationists hate science, then almost in the same breath, claim creationists embrace it to prop up their faith? Does anyone else see a problem with such an argument? Included in this statement is the unrelated implication that since creationists believe the Bible, they shouldn't have any interest in science. Not only is this a narrow and obtuse argument, it ignores the fact that many of the great scientists of history believed in God (Newton, Einstein, Kepler, Copernicus , Galileo, Sir Francis Bacon, Gregor Mendel, William Thomson Kelvin, to name a few).

This assumption also shows its ignorance that as the creator of the universe and all the natural laws that govern it, God is the author of science. Science is basically creation and the laws of operation that govern it. It is a wonderful thing for us humans to try and peer into the creative mind of God by trying to figure out His science.

No, what is being called "science" here isn't science it all; it's the assumptions of someone who assumes there is no God and everything we see had to come into existence through random chance. What pop culture calls "science" these days is actually "naturalism." Naturalism basically says everything in the universe had "natural" causes ( i.e. causes that fall within the realm of the laws of nature as we observe them today).

This closed-minded approach completely ignores the logical idea that God, as creator of the laws of nature, would quite naturally (excuse the pun) be able to operate outside of and independent of those natural laws. In other words, God isn't bound by the natural laws that govern us and the universe we live in. Therefore, all those "miracles" in the Bible are "supernatural" because God makes them happen in ways which are impossible under the laws which govern our universe; remember, we, as natives of this universe, are bound by those laws, but He is not. Once you understand this, in a sense, miracles performed by God might almost become unremarkable, because it's really no feat for Him to heal the sick, raise someone from the dead, turn a river to blood, divide a sea, or flood a single tiny planet. If He had the power to create a universe some 156 billion light years wide and fill it with galaxies, stars and planets, these "miracles" I just mentioned wouldn't even cause Him to break a sweat.

All of this, of course, requires a belief in God in the first place. But that's one of the things that makes the whole creation/evolution debate so laughable, not to mention why I and many others say that evolution is a religion (because it takes a LOT of faith to believe in evolution's claims). With evolution (both the "theistic" and atheistic kind), you have to believe in an almost infinite series of "miracles" that violate the laws of nature (the Big Bang's "everything from nothing," outright and repeated violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, star formation, life from lifeless material, irreducible complexity, production of new genetic information, all the "just right and just at the right time" events to bring about evolutionary change [all these in aggregate are infinitely improbable in and of themselves], etc.)--yet without an agent such as God to provide the "cause" for these "effects." (For theistic evolutionists, the evolution account is completely contradictory to the Bible and vice versa, so you have to believe one or the other, but not both; but that's another discussion for another time).

Yet for the creationists, you only have to believe in God--after that, anything and everything is possible, and even no big deal. 

Finally, we come to what I find to be the funniest part of the piece:

A suggestion to creationists: Let science be science, and let religion prevail in the vast areas where science has little or nothing to offer. It's not as though science has an answer for everything of consequence. The purpose and meaning of life, the existence of good and evil and love and hate, the nature of a human soul and what becomes of it at death, the existence and will of the divine — these are questions that belong to ethics, philosophy and, of course, religion.

No, religion shouldn't be picking this particular fight with mainstream science. Can't the Bible literalists concede matters of empirical evidence and rational inquiry to science and devote themselves to the questions of ultimate meaning — the mighty questions that rightly occupy religion? Their religion doesn't need any scientific proof. Why should their own faith?

I think they call something like this a "peace proposal." I think Krattenmaker wants to call a truce before creationism blows his house down. Deep down, he knows it can, so he wants to draw the political lines on the map and say, "What's yours is yours, what's mine is mine."

But it was this very attitude adopted by Christians over 100 years ago that left us (until a few decades ago) locked in and relegated to complete irrelevancy. It's why Christianity has lost so much ground in the popular culture.

Because what good is a religion that has no bearing on the real world? Further, what good is a religion that lies to its adherents about the origins of the universe, and their own origins? I don't know about you, but I'd want to have nothing to do with such a false religion. It would be worse than worthless.

But that's exactly where evolutionists want Christianity to be: locked in a little box of irrelevancy where it can demand nothing of them and have no influence in the world.

This op/ed illustrates that more than ever, people who believe in creation should accept no terms short of victory. Evolutionists are starting to run scared because a few creationists like those at AIG aren't willing to stay in their box anymore. Some creationists aren't willing to allow the faerie tale of evolution to go unchallenged anymore.

It's time for all people who believe God and believe that science agrees with the Bible to reject Krattenmaker's proposed truce and push forward for the truth and victory. After Normandy, the Allies didn't stop until they reached Berlin, and neither should creationists.