So I've been married to Ben for two months on July 5th, and during this amount of time, we haven't been that employed (some part time jobs), so we've spent a lot of time together (which has been absolutely wonderful. :)). One of Ben's hobbies is learning about Creationism, watching Ken Ham speak (answersingenesis.org), and watching debates between old earth and young earth creationists, and creationists and evolutionists. So naturally I've been watching them with him.
Now, for those of you who knew me at the beginning of my EMU college years (2009-2010), you might recall I was a self defined liberal. As I look back, I recall that there were many questions I had about Genesis, and Jonah, and all of the other crazy amazing things that God did in the Old and New Testament. I didn't have the answers, and nor did I have the time to pursue them. You know how I filled the gaps? I plugged in "Oh, we're not supposed to take the Bible literally." and "You know, I believe that God had the power to do that, but I'm not sure it happened." And I plugged in evolution. How did God create the world in just six literal 24 hour days? "Oh, a day can mean a thousand years according to God's word. I don't think day really means day in this context. I mean, I think that God could have done it, but in reality, that's not what I really think. I think that Darwin's theory of evolution definitely was how the world was created. Over a long period of time."
Little did I know about evolution. . . and this "theory". Darwin's theory exemplifies micro-evolution. There is so much variation within a species. Think of wolves to poodles (yes, that is a KenHam reference. Get over it). Lions can breed with tigers. Donkeys can breed with horses.
The fact is: Darwin's observational science points out natural selection, and micro-evolution to the T. These are clear. We see them all the time. But when it comes to macro evolution, (change from one species to another, the evidence stops. If the evidence existed, we would see transitional animals in the fossils, in the present! But presently, there are no transitional fossils.
And if we talk biochemistry, getting down to the nitty gritty of DNA, evolutionists can pull the "mutation" card. But the truth is, they can't find any mutations that have occurred that have added to the genomes, or have benefitted them. Mutations remove genetic material (which is what has been happening for thousands of years since the animals got off the ark. Thus why poodles exist (that, and artificial selection by humans. . . do you think those animals would survive in the wild?)
Dating methods: evolutionists will also argue that their radioactive decay and dating methods are sound, and that's evidence enough for an old earth. But of the dating methods, these are fallible, especially the ones that they use. . . How could a dinosaur bone be 20 million years old and still have connective tissue? (Look it up!) They also took the layers created by the lava layers (just laid and cooled) by Mt. Saint Helens and said that those layers, according to their technique, were millions of years old.
Could science be fallible? Who said humans had it right? Why did the question of God creating the earth even come up? Could it be because sin entered the world.
One of the biggest problems with the Old-Earth, but God still created it view is that it would mean that death, thorns, and cancer all existed before the fall of man. The literal view of the Bible states that these things came into play after humans sinned. If they came before sin, that would mean that God created them and said they were good. Does God think that death, suffering, and cancer are good? No! God is just! (see Ezekiel 18), but also think of how much he labored about having to kill the whole world with a flood, and Sodom and Gomorrah. The Bible says that God is a loving God, slow to anger and rich in love. But if we take Genesis figuratively, then we take the entire Bible figuratively.
The Flood. So this is one of those highly debated things, and we never hear about it in a science classroom (more likely in a history classroom as a story). But instead of the billions of years plot, laying rock layers, plate tectonics, animals dying year after year, the various periods of dinosaur times, could it be that dinosaurs lived with humans? There is evidence of this! Cave drawings, stories passed down from generations. Where do you think dragons came into play? And could it be that those layers were caused by a global flood, burying animals and plants in silt and fossilizing them? That would be a much simpler way of putting them. But humans have to be complex. We have to be smarter than the previous generation.
Do you want to know why the word dinosaur isn't in the Bible? Because the word wasn't created until the 1800s (at the discovery of dinosaur bones). In the King James Bible, they use the word 'dragon', but modern translations change it to "jackal". Don't ask me why. The Bible states, in many locations, that there were flying and swimming serpents (at least in the King James, they do change them in translation for modern times (NIV, ESV).
I could go on and on, because I have been learning a lot, and honestly, I find it more sound than many other discussions. Have you ever watched a debate between an evolutionist and a creationist? There is a lot of information that is out there that isn't discussed much, (and there's also a lot of dissing from evolutionists and atheists, rather than sound debating). I think there is much to learn.
Another issue that has come up is that all this information, all this discussion... is it necessary for the kingdom of God? Some say no. And that's because they are not sound in their own beliefs in this area. Isn't God's Word stronger than any double edged sword? So shouldn't we let it be our sword to fight against the evil one? Why diss the Bible, limit God's sovereignty, and praise humans, and with that our secular world by saying evolution is true? If we don't believe a piece of the Bible, doesn't that give people the right to argumenatively rip it out of our hands? If we don't let God's word be Truth in our lives, then we might as well not even read the book, or follow it, because we don't let it be our guide in this way. We might use it for morality, but hey, someone might try to argue that away too.
I encourage you to do your own research. There is a vast amount of ambiguous research by evolutionists that is easily reachable through the internet, but if you need to find some information that counters that the start painting the picture of creationism as a possibility and reality, check out answersingenesis.org.
I once heard a person say, I'd rather be on the right side of wrong than the wrong side of wrong. Meaning, I would prefer to believe something that God did, rather than saying that He didn't do it, and I get to heaven and He did. I think this is true for this case. How serious are you abour your faith? How much of your life is focused around following God, and His word, seeking His kingdom, and how much of it is centered around doing the things you want to do, with the money that you earned, and with the people that you want to be friends with? Isn't that too comfortable?
So, my disclaimer for this entire post is that, if I want people to read it, I'm not going to get into references, or search for quotations. Most of this information has been learned from various videos and articles on the Answers in Genesis website (which, by the way, are written by people with PhDs in all of the different levels of science). I am also not a scientist. I am a learner, and these are tidbits of what I've been learning. If you seek to debate, do your research.
I've heard it said that you need more faith to believe in evolution than in Jesus Christ. There's more evidence for Jesus than evolution? Hallelujah.
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