Starting the new school year with Creation vs. Evolution
This post (from my other blog that I still occasionally add posts to: Heather's Garden and Home) doesn't have anything to do with Calvinism, but it does very much have to do with faith. Nobody else has to see it the way I do, but I am adding this here because it's important to consider where you stand on this issue, an issue many of us put on the back burner. I bet part of the reason our churches are in such a mess is because we Christians have compromised God's Word from the very beginning, choosing to believe that God didn't mean what He said the way He said it in Genesis, altering God's Word to fit and incorporate men's ideas, thereby making man the authority on truth, over God. No wonder our churches are so lukewarm and compromising and lost today!
And I don't know about you, but I could use a little boost to encourage and strengthen my faith, considering what a hopeless mess this world is right now. So here it is (and once again, I'm not starting this blog up again. But I may have one more post on Calvinism coming after this sometime, since it was already in my "drafts" folder.)...
If there's one thing I would go back and change if I could when homeschooling my older two children (grown and graduated now), it would be that I would have them watch more great educational videos online, instead of focusing mostly on textbooks.
(And I would let them have more time to pursue something they were passionate about. I'd rather have a kid who was passionate about something, anything - studying bugs, piano, building, classical literature, writing stories, etc. - than have a kid who did all the boring bookwork but never developed a passion in any one area.)
Sometimes, for some people, watching things is more inspiring and memorable than reading about it. It brings things to life more, helping you feel more and remember more. My boys would have really enjoyed and benefitted from more educational videos. There are so many interesting, good ones out there; what a shame we missed out on them.
So this year as I start school with my younger two, we are going to add some good videos, maybe starting our morning with them while the kids are still too groggy for reading. And we are starting right from the beginning, with videos on creation. God's Word and creationism has been under such attack in recent decades, and I want my boys to understand that science affirms - not contradicts - the Bible and a biblical worldview of creation. I want to give them reasons now to believe it, before the world tears their faith down (which it attempts to do at every turn).
You know what? The world criticizes Christians for their faith, for having faith in something they cannot see or conclusively prove. But remember that evolution is a theory which is also about something it cannot see, and it cannot be proven beyond doubt either. No one has pictures or videos of what happened at the beginning. No one has a first-hand account of the Big Bang. No one can reproduce the conditions in the beginning to see if nothing can grow into something, if primordial ooze can become a walking, talking, thinking, complicated being.
(And even if scientists could cause life to grow from molecules and dust, they'd still be starting with the materials that God made. It's like the old joke where an evolutionist conducts experiments on a pile of dust until, one day, it shows signs of life. And the evolutionist raises his hands in victory and shouts out "Ha, look! I created life, proving that life can happen without God!" And God says "Wow, good job. Now do it again, but this time create your own dust first.")
All that evolutionists can do is look at the things we can see today and apply it backwards, making their best guesses about what happened in the way distant past, about things that cannot be tested, observed, repeated, or proven.
And for the record, the second law of thermodynamics - which essentially states that things degrade over time under normal conditions - contradicts evolution which insists that things got better, more complex, more intricate, more functional, and more "alive" over time.
Question: Do chromosomal abnormalities ever really make any being better or more improved? I mean, think about it, really. If you ever hear of some person or animal with an extra or missing chromosome, does it make their lives better/longer or worse/shorter? It's practically always worse/shorter. I mean, really ... do cats with two heads go on to live full lives, mating with other cats, passing those genes on? If someone is born with a third leg, is it a functioning leg, an improvement?
And yet we're supposed to believe that chromosomal changes over billions of years made creatures better? And that these beings with abnormalities lived long enough to find mates who also had these same rare genetic abnormalities, and that they mated and passed these "improvements" onto the next generation?
Darwin's very idea of "survival of the fittest" works against his theory of evolution, because if an animal was born with some sort of trans-species chromosomal change - let's say it's a fish but it was born with wings, not fins - then it would be suited neither for the water nor the air. It would be neither the strongest fish nor the strongest bird, making it the easiest prey for any other animal. And if it was going to pass these supposedly "superior" genes on, it would have to find another fish-bird who evolved at the same rate so that they could mate and who survived being eaten by other animals despite the fact that it was the worst fish and the worst bird.
Insane! And yet people think Christians are crazy for believing God made animals just the way they are!
[We've been led to believe that "natural selection" and "Darwinian evolution" are the same thing. They're not. Natural selection is about losing genetic characteristics, about making the genes we have more specialized to become the best we can be, while Darwinian evolution is about adding new trans-species genetic characteristics to become something we're not. Natural selection is about the strongest animals - the ones with the body that best fits the environment in which they live - surviving more easily than those who are weaker or who can't handle the climate well. And so those weaker ones die off while the stronger ones reproduce offspring who are even more capable of surviving. If we dropped a bunch of different types of dogs into the Antarctic, the ones least fit for that environment would die off while the ones most fit would survive and reproduce, mating with each other, even with a different kind of dog if necessary, creating more specialized, more fit, dogs. But they would all still be dogs. This is losing genetic material, not gaining it or changing into something completely different. Whereas Darwinian evolution is about a species adding new genetic material and creating new characteristics until it becomes a different species altogether, such as having a fish who used to "breathe" water and swim with fins slowly adding new genetic characteristics until it becomes a frog that can breathe air and walk on land, which becomes a lizard, which becomes an ape, which becomes a man, blah, blah, blah. This is far different than mere natural selection. So don't let evolutionists trick you into thinking that to believe in natural selection is to believe in Darwinian evolution. That's just how they trap you. Changes within a species are nowhere near the same thing as changes between species.]
And since we're on the topic, the first law of thermodynamics contradicts evolution too. It basically states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only converted. Therefore, under normal, natural conditions, we can't get something from nothing. If there was nothing in the beginning, as evolution states, it can't magically turn into something. It remains nothing. Under natural circumstances and according to natural processes, nothing cannot lead to increasing energy that leads to a Big Bang that leads to ooze that leads to life. No! In order for nothing to lead to something, we needed something supernatural to happen. We needed God to step in and override the natural order of things.
And ... just to show even more how unscientific evolution really is ... the law of biogenesis contradicts evolution. This scientific law says that living things can only come from living things, not from non-living material. This also contradicts the idea that life magically came from nothing according to evolutionary processes.
And if that isn't enough to make you wonder ...
The laws of gases (which says that gases expand and spread out from higher density to lower density, that they do not condense and pack tighter together if there are more open areas to spread to) contradicts the theory scientists use to explain how stars formed, which is that gases pulled together into tighter and tighter balls of gas until one day they became stars. In space, with all that open area, gases would simply keep expanding and moving away from each other, not closer to each other into tighter balls of gas.
And if there was a Big Bang which shot out a bunch of gas ... then according to Newton's first law of motion (the law of inertia which says that unless acted on by outside forces, objects at rest stay at rest and objects in motion stay in motion, continuing on in the direction they are headed and with the same speed), those gases should have kept moving away from the location point of the Big Bang, forever expanding and spreading out. They should never have stopped to organize themselves into balls of gas/matter that supposedly eventually became planets - because there was nothing else in the universe, no other outside force to act upon them to make them stop, organize, condense, and change.
In so many ways, evolution is actually contradicted by - not supported by - the scientific laws.
[Did you know that in the 1990's, it was discovered that the expansion of the universe was speeding up, not slowing down as expected? This surprised scientists because they expected that after the initial explosion of the Big Bang, things would slow down - kinda like how if you explode a confetti cannon, at first it would be a rapid burst but then the confetti would begin to slow down as the air pushes against it. But instead, they found that the universe is actually speeding up, which contradicts their understanding of the Big Bang. And so to explain this phenomenon while keeping the Big Bang, scientists came up with the idea of dark energy - an invisible force that they can't understand, harness, or test that is pushing the universe apart faster, causing unexpected, "unnatural" things to happen. Isn't it funny that scientists will believe in "dark energy," an invisible, unnatural force they cannot see (but whose effects they can "see"), cannot understand, cannot harness, and cannot test ... and yet they accuse Christians of being unreasonable for believing in God, an invisible, supernatural Being we cannot see (but whose effects we can see), cannot understand fully, cannot harness, and cannot test? Ironic. Hypocritical.]
Even "the scientific method" contradicts evolution as a science, because the scientific method involves making a hypothesis and then carrying out experiments under controlled conditions to prove or disprove the hypothesis. But no one can reproduce the Big Bang in order to study it. No hypothesis about evolution can be tested under controlled, repeatable conditions. So it can never be proven.
And not to mention that true, good, reliable scientific research does not start with a bias, but it leaves all options open and lets the results lead them to the correct answer. However, most worldly scientists start from the premise that "there is no God," and so they do all their research from and interpret all the data from that preconception. Basically, atheistic evolutionists set out from the beginning to explain how everything was created without a God. And so if there is a God, they'll never be able to see it and will never let the evidence point in that direction. They don't let the evidence lead them to an answer, but they have decided what the answer is from the beginning and then they force the evidence to fit. Not very scientific!
[One of the "evidences" Darwin used to support his idea that one animal changed to another is the different beaks he observed in finches. Because finches had different beaks, he assumed it was proof of evolution. But guess what? They're all still finches. They're all still birds. Just because there are changes within a species (microevolution) does not in any way mean that one species can change to another (macroevolution). Along these lines, I watched a documentary once where people studied the beaks of hummingbirds on an island, and they decided that the birds evolved longer beaks over many years to fit the long flowers that grew on the island. If they hadn't been so preprogrammed to believe in evolution and millions/billions of years, they might have realized the more obvious, logical answer: that the birds with the longer beaks were drawn to the longer flowers because they fit their beaks.]
Evolution is not so much "science" as it is a belief system, a theology where they take their views of God (that there isn't one) and interpret everything in light of it and try to force it on others. So don't mock Christians for having faith. Atheistic evolutionists have faith too: faith that everything is accidental and ultimately meaningless and hopeless, and that there is no God watching over all, no God whom we are all accountable to and will answer to in the end.
The truth is, we all have faith in something. We all bet our eternal souls on something. Evolutionists have faith in their best guesses about things that can't be tested, repeated, or observed. They have faith that they are interpreting the "evidence" correctly, while they refuse to consider all the options. And atheists have faith in humanity. (How's that working out for them these days, when everything is falling apart and everyone is at odds and full of hate?) They have faith in nothing, in no one to save them or help them or make things better in the end. They put their faith in the idea that we are pointless cosmic accidents, that we are ultimately meaningless, valueless, helpless, and hopeless.
I'll take faith in God any day over faith in nothing, because at least it gives me hope that people matter, that someday things will be better, that this painful broken life isn't all there is. And not to mention, Christianity is not a blind faith but a very rational, well-supported, logical faith, with lots of historical, archeological, logical evidence to back it up, to support the validity of the Bible. And if you don't see it, it's because you don't want to or because you aren't looking.
[Some questions to consider: If God used evolution to create the world – theistic evolution – then when did an ape become “man enough” to be held accountable for disobeying God by eating the forbidden fruit? Why, if there were millions of years of death and disease before mankind came along, would God call creation “very good” when man showed up? If man is nothing more than an animal, an advanced ape, then did God become an animal when He became man? If God died for man but not animals, where does God draw the line? How advanced does an ape have to be to be offered salvation?]
And so here are several of the creation science videos we are starting with this school year. If anything, maybe they will make you think a little deeper about the questions that really matter:
Six Days, the Age of the Earth, and the Authority of Scripture
Science Confirms Noah's Ark and the Flood
Here's the Ken Ham vs Bill Nye Debate. But remember that debates are a terrible way to "prove" anything because there is not enough time to fully explore the issues or to answer the things that are brought up. And so here is a brief analysis by Creation Ministries International of the debate and the scientific problems with Bill Nye's arguments. And here is a reflection on the debate by Ken Ham.
[Notice that Bill Nye refuses to acknowledge that there's a difference between the kind of science that leads to today's inventions and the kind of historical "science" that uses present data/evidence to make guesses about what happened billions of years ago, guesses that cannot be tested, repeated, observed, or proven. But by lumping these two sciences together (today's observational, testable science and yesterday's historical, untestable "science"), he tries to convince you that you have to believe in evolution if you accept the technological/inventive science of today, as if it's all the same thing. It's manipulating people by making them feel that if they reject evolutionary science - which cannot be tested, repeated, observed, proven - then they reject all science, even today's technological and medical inventions/advancements which can be tested, repeated, observed, proven. Don't fall for it! These two types of science are not the same thing.
Also, apparently, Nye is a self-proclaimed Agnostic, which means he thinks we can't know for sure if God exists or not, which means he should allow for the possibility of God, creationism, an Intelligent Designer. Yet he argues as an atheist, as though there is no way God could have created the universe. His "scientific" evolutionary position belies his religious position, and vice versa, making him self-contradicting and inconsistent.
(If you are an agnostic who says we can't know for sure if God exists or not, wouldn't it be wiser to err on the side of caution by living as if God exists? I mean, if He doesn't really exist, there's no ultimate, eternal harm in believing He does. But if He does exist, there's great eternal harm in believing He doesn't. How foolish for agnostics to think it's possible that God exists but to choose to live like He doesn't. At least atheists are more consistent: living as if He doesn't exist because they believe He doesn't exist.)
Also, may I point out, if someone such as Bill Nye denies that God is the ultimate authority, they are essentially saying that man is the ultimate authority. And so if man is the ultimate authority, then why can't it be that Ken Ham's creation view is correct over Bill Nye's evolution view? To make man the ultimate authority opens the door to any man being the ultimate authority, to any man's views being the right ones.
In atheistic evolution, who is there above man to determine which man's views are right and which are wrong? No one! There is no ultimate, supreme standard outside of man to judge man against. Therefore, any man can be right, even Ken Ham. And so to be consistent, Bill Nye should acknowledge this, that Ken Ham's view is possibly the correct one.
"But," you might ask, "not just any man can be correct. But only if most people agree with it. The majority of people get to decide what's true and what's not."
So if man is the ultimate authority and the majority gets to decide what's true, then since most of Germany agreed with and followed Hitler, it must mean Hitler's Nazi views were correct, right? At least for Germany?
"But," you say, "that was just one country. Most of the world united against Hitler, showing that Hitler was wrong?"
So, then, it's a matter of how many people agree with someone? Where is the line then? How many people does it take to make a view "right"? Does truth shift depending on how many people continue to add their opinion to the issue? Is Nazism correct if we focus only on the German population in the 40's, but if we expand the population to the world and the timing to include later years, Nazism suddenly becomes incorrect? If truth is a matter of popular vote, then the idea that the earth is round should never have taken hold as truth because when Pythagoras first speculated that the earth was round, most people still believed the earth was flat. Is truth determined by who has the loudest voice and by how many people agree with it?]
And here's the Answers in Genesis website for many more videos.
See my posts "Maybe 'millions of years' is actually just 40 days!" and "Though they have eyes, they will not see" and "If it's not natural, maybe it's ..."
And in a different direction, also to help confirm the Bible, we watched Lee Strobel's documentary The Case for Christ, about his journalistic efforts to disprove Jesus's resurrection - which ultimately led to him believing in Jesus's resurrection and accepting Jesus as his Lord and Savior.
Good stuff! And so important in this hopeless, upside-down world.
And so I ask: What are you putting your faith in? What are you betting your soul on? (I think the time to decide your final answer is running out. Don't wait too long.)
[Speaking of atheism, see my post "Atheism, World Religions, and Christianity".
[And I might add some more links as we watch them. Here are a couple more:
Evidence for a World-Wide Flood - Operation Wisconsin Dells from Creation Today (Notice how the young male "scientist" wants to consider any other explanation for what he sees than a world-wide flood. And notice around the 41-minute mark how he says "reality is based on perspective" and calls his ideas "my reality" and says "I decide...," as if our beliefs determine what's real and what's not. This is what students are being taught nowadays. But is reality really reality if it can change based on someone's beliefs? One person believes a world-wide flood happened; one person believes it didn't happen. Can both be true? Are both reality? Does our belief about what happened make it so? Is there anything such as "reality" anymore if reality can shift as we want it to? And can "reality is based on perspective" and science really go together anyway? Wouldn't that be the exact opposite of science? But this is what scientists are being taught nowadays. God help our society! I can see now how we got medical "professionals" and scientists who claim there is no such thing as male and female. It's an upside-down world. Ridiculous. Very Alice-in-Wonderlandy.)
From Search for the Truth Ministries (I'm really enjoying these!):
Let us introduce ourselves ... (A 56-minute video totally worth watching. The social experiment in the eye doctor's office near the end had me completely giggling. Even later in the day as I thought about it again.)
The Rocks Cry Out Lesson 1 (Science testifies to Creation)
The Rocks Cry Out Lesson 2 (the Red Record)
The Rocks Cry Out Lesson 3 (Design testifies to Creation)
The Rocks Cry Out Lesson 4 (Noah's Flood and Geology)
The Rocks Cry Out Lesson 5 (Dragons and Dinosaurs)
(You can find the rest of the lessons on their website.)
And speaking of educational videos: My 13-year-old told me the other day that he wants to live in Greenland, that it would be a great place to live.
I said "Greenland? No, not Greenland. Maybe Iceland, but not Greenland." (No offense to those in Greenland; I just know what he likes and doesn't like and what he can and can't tolerate.)
And since he kept insisting "yes, Greenland," we just watched a documentary on life in Greenland and one on life in Iceland.
The verdict from my 13-year-old: "Yeah, I accidentally got them mixed up. I meant Iceland."
I knew it! 😎
