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Sunday 19 February 2012

Answer To An Evolutionist

On the fifth of February 2012 I published on this website the article:
Our Eternal Home. In the comments thread which follows it, I received a severe rebuke from one believing in Evolution on why, as a Creationist, I disregarded the work of many scientists who devoted their lives to the work of Charles Darwin's theories. Also in that blog, I dwelt on John's vision of the New Jerusalem described in Revelation chapters 21 and 22, and using maths based on the density of the population in the UK, made a guess on how many of the saved will live within its walls. The commentator, after pointing out that I was arrogant to make such an estimation, then concluded that because there is a moderating system in place, that I would reject his contributions.

But I was willing to pass his comments for publication. The moderation system is not there to dissuade discussion. It is in place to deter advertising. Rather, if my blogging stirs controversy, first it shows that somebody is reading my contributions. Secondly, I quite enjoy a discussion! One reason being that it enables me to look deeper into the topic referred to and to brush up on any gaps in my knowledge or understanding of the subject at hand. But most important of all, that such a debate allows me to stand up for the Lord Jesus Christ and his revelation of salvation to us, such written revelations collected into one volume we call the Bible.

I take the Bible literally as the inerrant Word of God. What it says I believe and bow the knee to. Now if the Bible hints that Man and Dinosaurs co-existed within the same time frame, then who am I to say otherwise? How could I even dare make such an assumption, and in effect, calling God a liar? Yet that was exactly what this commentator was aiming at, basically sidelining my beliefs and opinions into the realm of the lunatic fringe.

But reading the first two chapters of Genesis does give a strong impression that all species of land animals walked past Adam as he gave each of them names. And he also noticed that with every species there was a male with its female mate. And many of these species must have included those we refer to as Dinosaurs today. It was then that Adam realised that he had no mate of his own. He could not pair himself up with any of the animals that he named. That was when God, who made every life form, knew that it was not good for Adam to be on his own. Therefore God then performed history's first surgical operation, under what we now call anaesthesia, to remove a rib with which God created Eve - Adam's lifelong mate. It is a beautiful story, but very real, not a fairy-tale. After all, today's top surgeons use exactly the same method of induced sleep to perform life-saving operations!

For many centuries since the beginning of the Church Age, here in the UK and for the rest of Europe, Genesis was seen as the authoritative record of all life's origins. Great men such as Martin Luther and John Calvin as well as Jerome, all believed in the historicity of Genesis for our origins. Our church founders, the twelve Apostles believed in it, as all the early church fathers. But most important of all, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ - God incarnate - not only believed in Genesis as history but quoted it as authoritative. Such examples of this include Matthew 19:3-6, where Jesus himself endorsed the sanctity of marriage. Peter, too also confirms the Noachian Deluge as history (2 Peter 2:5-8, 3:3-6) In fact, the apostle actually prophesied that in the latter days "scoffers" will arise who will question the historicity of the Flood and deny catastrophism altogether.

So are you, the reader, married? If so, then you are confirming the historicity of Genesis. And do you have a respite from work at weekends? Then this too, stems from Genesis. (2:1-3). And the hospital operating theatre? The idea of induced sleep by means of anaesthetics - yep - Genesis again (2:20-25). If Jesus Christ and his Apostles endorsed our origins as history, then it is sheer arrogance on our part to deny this or think otherwise.

Much of British history was centred upon the Bible being the authoritative revelation of God, right up to the 18th Century. Sure, the churches went through very turbulent times, mainly due to the Catholic/Protestant debates. But all believed in the history of Genesis, as well as all the Bible with its record of all supernatural miracles left without question or doubt.

But Peter's prophecy stood, as in defiance of the universal belief in Creationism and the Flood. It was if, despite the universal belief by both clerical and the public alike - the schooled and the ignorant - right across the known Christian world, God knew that the tide of times would eventually change.

The first person to question the authority of Genesis and the young Earth theory was George Buffon (1707-1788), who in 1767 wrote: The Epochs of Nature, after observing a cliff of stratified rock layers, and decided that the Earth must be more than 6,000 years old for this to have formed.

The Grand Canyon provides a good example of Stratified rock layers

Then Scottish Geologist James Hutton (1726-1797) who studied Buffon's observations and produced his own thesis, Theory of the Earth (1788), and coined up the word Uniformitarianism which meant that instead of catastrophism, as the Bible implies, the Earth evolved by slow gentle depositing of sediments by means of shallow seas, river estuaries, and lakes to form the stratified rocks we see today, over a much wider period of time. This is a very important turn of events, as this is the beginning of the true departure from the truthfulness of scripture, just as Peter prophesied some 1,700 years earlier.

The works of Buffon and Hutton provided the bedrock from the geological thesis to the biological theory of evolution. French Biologist Jean Baptiste Lamarck, (1744-1829) a strong atheist who had a contempt for Christianity, wrote in 1809; Philosophie Zoologique which theorised that all living organisms came about by means of evolution by mutation (a word meaning change). He believed that as migrating lifeforms encountered different environments, its offspring had a slight change in its body structure adapted to suit the new environment in which it had found itself. Examples of this included fishes which gradually developed legs and lungs as they began to leave its watery environment to migrate on land. Thus from fishes, amphibians and then reptiles evolved.

The result of the studies done by these brilliant minds was that the theory of Uniformitarian Geology and its bedfellow, Evolution by mutation, began to spread particularly among the academics, while belief in the authority of the Scripture, particularly Genesis, began to wane.

It was then French Anatomist Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) who wished to give some credibility to Scripture by retaining the historicity of the Genesis Flood. But at the same time, after observing the stratified rock strata, hit upon the idea of multiple-flood theory. He wrote, Research of the Fossil Bones of Quadrupeds (1812). Cuvier refuted the works of Buffon and Hutton, and advocated that the geological history of the Earth consisted a series of universal floods which were responsible for the layers of rock strata with their fossil content so frequently found. The danger of his theory was that the Noachian Deluge of Genesis was stripped of much, if not all, of geological influence. In other words, the Flood of Genesis, although acknowledged by Cuvier as the final universal flood in history, it had little or no impact on present geological stratum.

But Buffon and Hutton were to have another follower to arise, who refuted Cuvier's multi-catastrophic theory. He was Scottish Geologist Charles Lyell (1797-1875) who wrote, Principles of Geology in 1833. Lyell became the chief spokesman for Uniformitarian Geology and his work became the bedrock for thinking behind Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1892).

Charles Robert Darwin

Between 1831 and 1836, Darwin sailed around the world in a merchant ship HMS Beagle. When the ship moored at Galapagos Islands, in the Pacific west of South America, the rich diversity of wildlife became the source of his studies. He noted on how one group of finches was diverse from those of another group as a result of a natural barrier such as a mountain range or stretch of sea or ocean preventing the two groups from interbreeding. Darwin concluded that the inability to interbreed allowed the two groups of finches to diverse to the point when they were no longer able to interbreed, therefore two separate species arose from what might have been the arrival of just one original pair of birds to the islands. Darwin summoned his observations in his now famous book: On the Origins of Species by means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Races in the Struggle for Life (1859), a title now shortened to Origin of Species.

Darwin's book became the classic on which the author is regarded as the discoverer of Evolution. Darwin's theory is somewhat different from Lamarck's as where the Frenchman's idea was evolution by mutation - a theory based on the rise of each species due to the slight change of the offspring's body structure to suit the new environment. Darwin's theory, in turn, was that new species branched off as a result of a natural barrier preventing the original species to interbreed. Darwin's theory became the standard yardstick for the theory of Evolution to this day.

While all this was going on, the Noachian Deluge recorded in Genesis suffered a loss of potential in shaping the Earth's surface in geological terms.

With Cuvier's theory of multiple floods, the Genesis account was already under threat of loss of geological impact. Here we can ask whether these developments were really the result of scientific research - or bias against Scripture. Although Darwin did profess a belief in God, his predecessor, Jean Lamarck, was a staunch atheist. So was English scientist Thomas Huxley (1825-1895) who lived about the same time as Darwin, was another atheist who fully supported Darwin's theory - not so much of substantiation by scientific proof as was his own hostility to Scripture.

Cuvier had a follower, William Buckland, a Professor of Geology at Oxford University, who wrote in 1820, The Connection between Geology and Religion Explained, and again in 1823 wrote, Relics of the Flood, which were both essentially Cuvier's theory of multiple floods.

In fact Cuvier himself gave credit to Buckland's work in his later book, Discours sur les Revolutions de la surfaie du Globe (1826).

Then also in 1826, Scottish minister John Fleming coined the Tranquil Flood Theory. This means that the universal flood recorded in Genesis was so tranquil in nature, that the waters rose to drown a corrupt race of men without harming a single tree, let alone causing any geological upheaval.
But this idea was realised that it could not be supported by physics, especially hydraulics, as it was observed that even a minor flood caused havoc to the environment it affected. Thus the Tranquil Flood theory went to oblivion as quick as it was thought up.

Then, at last the Local Flood Theory was put forward by English theologian John Pye Smith (1774-1851). He wrote, On the Relation Between Holy Scriptures and Some Parts of Geological Science, (1839). It is interesting, going by the dating, that this book was completed twenty years before Darwin wrote his Origin of Species. If all the dating is true, then it shows that the forces bent in destroying the credibility of the Genesis Flood was well underway when Charles Lyell was researching for his book which was to be the basis of Darwin's work.

John Pye Smith advocated the theory that the Flood of Genesis covered only the Mesopotamian Basin, and insisted that the antediluvian population was small enough to be confined to that area. There are many problems with the local Flood theory, I am not able to cover them here. But one major problem was how a flood could gain enough depth to cover Mt Ararat without covering a much larger territory. It would take several blogs to deal with this objection alone. But Pye Smith had many followers who were keen to admit the possibility of a flood which purpose was to destroy mankind without it interfering with Uniformitarian Geology. Biblical scholars began writing books supporting the local-Flood theory, the following are just few of many:

E.F. Kevan, The New Bible Commentary (1953).
Fred Wight, Highlights of Archaeology in Bible Lands (1955).
Werner Keller, The Bible as History (1956).
Nelson Keynes, Story of the Bible World (1959).

Today, as the commentator so demonstrated on one of my earlier blogs, the Genesis accounts of Creation and the Deluge has gone from historic to the level of legend, now even further to the level of complete nonsense in the face of Science. Academics as well as the general public who claims to possess common sense now confines true believers of the Bible's historicity as on the lunatic fringe.

In my next blog I will show something that will shatter the entire theory of Uniformitarianism, on which organic evolution rests. Watch this space.

9 comments:

  1. A great answer to a necessary inquiry. Well done in fulfilling Peter's command in 1st Peter 3:15. We'll keep you in prayer.

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  2. I’m curious as to what the purpose of your latest blog is for. I don’t believe the post was an answer to anything regarding evolution. If anything, it was merely a history lesson. Anybody that has taken an intro to a biology course should be familiar with the origins of evolution.

    Taking the bible as the inerrant word of god is a dangerous precedent. First of all, how exactly is it known that it is god’s word? Wasn’t the bible written by a variety of people that are loosely associated with Jesus? Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I am under the impression that the bible’s authors did not have an open form of communication with god.

    You admit that you bow down to everything stated in the bible. My question is why? How is it so easy for you to trust in a book written thousands of years ago? I’ve read portions of the bible, I understand the messages it conveys; but how can you blindly trust in everything in it?

    The bible is extremely vague, and your so called ‘hint’ that dinosaurs and man lived simultaneously is you just latching onto nothing. As far as I understand, that so called ‘hint’ is a reference to the word ‘behemoth,’ is it not? Maybe it’s easy for you to infer that behemoth is a reference to a dinosaur, but to me it looks like you’re just grasping at straws, trying to link the two ideas together to try and prove that the bible is history. There are no references to names, or even descriptions as giant lizards.

    I actually laughed out loud when you said that god performed the first surgical operation. The whole paragraph about god creating all the animals, male and female, then doubling back to make Eve because Adam was all alone just felt… off, something just isn’t clicking. You’re telling me that god, by the snap of his fingers, created all the species of animals on Earth seen today. One moment Earth is empty and barren; then all of a sudden, ‘POOF,’ life is everywhere.

    Now god, in his infinite wisdom and glory, realizes that Adam will be all alone. So, now, god puts Adam on the operating table and anesthetizes him? He literally performs surgery, with anesthetics and all, to create a partner for Adam by removing a rib? The same Adam he created with the snap of a finger?

    The idea that god performed surgery after magically creating everything else is just silly. I bring the inconsistency of the story up not to laugh and giggle at how silly it sounds. I bring it up to illustrate another point.

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  3. The idea that god performed surgery after magically creating everything else is just silly. I bring the inconsistency of the story up not to laugh and giggle at how silly it sounds. I bring it up to illustrate another point.

    Before you get into your long diatribe about the history of evolution, you write about our origins being direct results of took place in genesis. What you have done is you have linked arbitrary facts together, with the intent to prove a meaningless point. You have linked behaviors that exist today, that as well as existed back 2,000 years ago and say “Hey, since people get married today, and marriage is talked about in the bible… so that means everything in the bible is true!”

    Just because marriage is referenced in genesis doesn’t mean it’s all factual. Weekends likely existed long before the writing of the bible. And the poor attempt at suggesting anesthetics were referenced in genesis as well? That is just beyond silly. You are simply stretching and forcing yourself to believe what’s not really there. How does the idea of surgery make any sense in genesis when everything god creates is by snapping of fingers and instantaneously produced?

    The luxury that creationists have for building your arguments is that you are convinced about how life came to be. You believe that god made us, so you know what the answer is. Since you know the answer, filling in the ‘how we got here’ is much easier.

    Evolution is our answer to our ‘how.’ The only difference is that we aren’t 100% certain of ‘how we got here.’ We believe evolution to be the ‘how,’ since a lot of science and analysis supports our understanding.

    In the real world, in the scientific world, evolutionists use a model analogous to an equation that looks like a+b=c. ‘C’ is what we want to know (how life began), and we support our answer of ‘c’ by using information and evidence supported by ‘a’ and ‘b.’ That is that ‘c’ is dependent on what ‘a’ and ‘b’ provide for us. This allows for a dynamic process, where science is used to its greatest potential.

    Religion, and especially creationism claims looks at the same equation and claims that it can be subject to the scientific method as evolution can be. The problem is that creationists claim that they know what ‘c’ is, so ‘c’ is always static, not dynamic. Thus, unlike in science where ‘a’ and ‘b’ are used to support ‘c’, creationism manipulates ‘a’ and ‘b’ so that it fits with their description of what ‘c’ is. Creationism cannot be subject to science because of the fact that you already believe you know the answer.

    And that is exactly what you were doing in your paragraph suggesting marriage and weekends and anesthetics proves that genesis is historically accurate, you are trying to make our world fit into the confines of what you think our origins are.

    How about you discuss the things that do occur in the bible, that DON’T occur in real life. How about the fact that animals don’t talk? (Talking snake). Or how about that it is physically impossible to transform water into wine. Or that it is impossible to resurrect a body once it’s dead. If Jesus came back alive, then he would be a zombie, and I’m sure being a zombie would be a sin.

    The only thing I learned from your latest post is how desperate creationists really are. I had never experienced anybody reaching so far. I have never seen attempts at correlations like you have made. You answered nothing about evolution. You gave me a history lesson I already knew, except you believe that Lamarck was right about evolution. Read up on him and you’ll realize that he was wrong about his understanding. Lamarck believed traits developed over a species lifetime were passed on to offspring. Examples like if you were to be a body builder and developed large amounts of muscle. Under Lamarckian evolution, large muscles would be passed on to offspring, but that has been proven to be untrue. Read up on your evolution history while you’re at it. And I can’t wait for your indisputable proof that will destroy evolution… I can’t wait.

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    Replies
    1. Dear Bryce,
      Again, thank you for your two comments (actually one comment in two parts, as the website puts a limit on number of characters allowed).
      I have no idea of your background, whether you are a scientist, a university student or graduate, or for that matter, a truck driver. But you appear to know well what you are saying, and I commend you for using your time to put your views across.
      But let me put some things into perspective. (Maybe I still need to improve on communicating.)
      When I raised the issue on anaesthetics, I was of course, referring to the induced sleep. Of course God did not use such substances on Adam! Rather I was referring to the induced sleep brought about supernaturally as being of the same essence for painlessness as in modern surgery.
      Then in the same area, I was not referring to the behemoth found in Job 40:15-24. I was referring to all the land animals filing past Adam as he named them, no doubt including the behemoth, and perhaps the leviathan too. We don't know what those creatures were, but the idea of Dinosaur (meaning "Terrible Lizard") being included in the line up does not appear to be nonsense. After all, the Australian saltie, a crocodile that can eat humans, can also be classed as a "terrible lizard" - hence a Dinosaur, the proper meaning of the word.
      But my main objection to your comment is that I'm not clutching at straws to support my arguement, neither am I desparate. Rather I tend to believe that you are, but not because of lack of scientific evidence. Your desparation is due to your concern that there might be some truth in the Bible after all.
      What is the Bible really about? About the existance of God who made us, and therefore we are accountable to him. It also tells of our fallen nature, our natural bent towards evil, God's judgement on this, our eternal seperation from him in Hell, and also of his record on how he can save us from such a dire situation. The Bible has a knack of convicting you of your sin.
      Hence, in your desparation, you run away from its truth under the guise that it is all a fairytale.

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  4. I think that more people need to begin addressing the problems of evolution. First of all, many people are ignorant about it and simply assume it's true. They don't do actually thinking or researching. Second, many reputable scientists believe that there are many problems with it. http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660 This is a list of respected university professors and scientists who publicly claimed (by signature) that they believe Evolution has unsolved scientific issues and is not a fact.

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  5. A really well-written and thought provoking post Frank; you've been thorough in your research and presented your case well. There are so many ways of looking at these issues, but the real litmus test if you like is whether you believe in Creation, intelligent design by a loving Creator, or whether you believe in evolution, that life is just a glorious accident with no real purpose or cause.

    I am not sure of some things and I am certain that we don't all agree on some points here and there, but when you walk with God on a daily and on-going basis, and take Him at His Word, you will find that God is more than a cosy figure people sing about in church on Sundays, He is the very reason for our existence!

    I look forward to your next post on this topic.

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  6. So many blindly accept the idea that these "experts" have proven their claims that they never even examine the basis for the claims, much less the scientific evidence. Scientifically, a speculation cannot even be considered a valid hypothesis without corroborating evidence. It cannot be considered a valid theory as long as there is any contradictory evidence.

    Great post.

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  7. Hey Frank! Thank you for your comment on my blog. I so look forward to them. Praise the Lord for His intervention in your business! God is soooo Good! I know it is hard to have patience and to wait on the Lord. I doubt if there is a person alive who NEVER wonders at times. That is our human side. We just have to do as you did, and remind ourselves how good Heavenly Father is. I really enjoyed your post today and I admire you for "bowing down to everything in the Bible. That is an awesome feat to be able to do that. I try, but it's like my brain can't adhere to all of the commandments at once. LOL! Especially since there are A LOT more than ten if we take God at His Word. Maybe I look at things differently, but it seems to me, if He were "making suggestions", or asking us to do something there would be question marks at the end of His sentences rather than periods. He says "if you love me you will keep my commandments. Well, for example Acts 2:38 Repent, be baptized everyone of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

    Granted the people were asking Peter what they needed to do to be saved, but he didn't say "if you want to", or he didn't say one way to do this is.... He was emphatic about it. Therefore it was a commandment from God. There are many other instances but that is my favorite example.

    Anyway, I think your blog is awesome, and I also like the fact that you seem very knowledgeable. WE CAN ALWAYS LEARN SOMETHING. Especially from "history". Don't let negativity get you down. I believe for every one negative person who doesn't believe in God or the Bible, there are 10 that do.

    My hubby believes in God, but he says he doesn't really believe in the Bible because it was written by man. I have tried to explain to him a hundred times that while it may have been "penned by man", it was inspired and authored by God. Some people just don't understand that concept or believing it in by faith. I do. Anyway, God Bless and congratulations on your new client. I will definitely keep you in my prayers.

    PJ

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  8. SO good and all of them as well

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