Well, that’s interesting. I was looking over my blog, and I noticed that each article has a “posted at:” time at the bottom. I also noticed that they are all wrong.
I wasn’t lying when I said that it was almost 4 in the morning, Blogger, and I don’t appreciate your attempts to assassinate my character!
It would be really stupid to lie about how late I stay up writing my blog. I wouldn’t do that. The time represented is actually two hours slow.
I’m not a liar.
Anywho, part 2:
That rhymes.
This post is too long. I'm sorry.
I’d like to clarify that I’m definitely NOT saying that you can’t be a Christian, and accept evolution.
Millions of Christians believe there is room in a non-literal interpretation of the creation story for evolution. I do not mean to imply that these people are lost.
I am writing these posts because I think that the majority of those Christians believe it because they think they have to; because with what we know of science, there is no other option.
Not true.
Evolution is a theory. Only a theory. It has never been proven, and that’s a fact. It has, however, been accepted. In the mind of an evolutionist scientist, it is not a theory, but a fact; a truth. When he discovers a new fossilized species, he sets out immediately to find what it evolved from, and what may have evolved from it. He compares it to similar finds from “earlier” periods, and notes the differences--the advancements--and draws a conclusion of what he believes caused the changes over the course of time. He then writes them down in a paper, which if well received, will eventually be adapted into textbooks and taught as fact. Why? Because it’s plain as day:
“How do you know evolution is true?”
“It’s simple. The fossil record clearly shows a progression of change in early species.”
“Really? How do you know it’s not just showing a bunch of different species?”
“The similarities between the older and younger fossils indicate ancestry.”
“How do you know which ones are older?”
“Fossils are commonly dated by the layer of strata in which they are found.”
“How do you know certain layers of rock are so much older than others?”
“Layers of strata were initially dated by the fossils contained. This was later affirmed by radiometric dating.”
“Wait. So you theorized on how old they were, and then found a method to prove it? How do you know your findings weren’t influenced by what you already believed?”
“You’re clearly an idiot. This conversation is over.”
Evolution is true because evolution is true. All the logic one employs in “proving” it is based in a universe where it’s already proven. If you really believe in an all-powerful creator, the theory makes no sense. At all.
Why would an omnipotent God require millions of years to create the species? How could a God who cannot lie do so, and then tell us a false story of how he did it in 7 days? How could God use natural selection in a world without death? How did species go extinct in a world without death? Why would God make millions of species just to kill them off before Man arrived? Were Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon also made in God’s image? Did the rest of evolving mankind die off to leave only Adam and Eve? Ooh, here’s one: if the fossil record is the product of millions of years, where is the evidence of Noah’s global flood? (A cataclysmic event, said by the Bible to have altered the very landscape of the entire planet less than 5,000 years ago.)
Even if you’re a proponent of the Gap Theory, which uses the story of Satan’s fall to explain (kinda) the age of the earth and the extinction of the dinosaurs in an attempt to “reconcile God and Science”, Darwin’s theory blatantly conflicts with the Bible. How anyone could think they’re compatible is beyond me.
(For my thoughts on radiometric dating, see the comments on my last post)
Evolution can only make sense if the Bible isn’t true, but then, it doesn’t really, does it? If you accept the theory and DON’T believe the Bible, well, I have a few questions for you too.
Hehe
I’m going to skip right over the spontaneous generation of life. I already know they can’t answer that one. This is another example of simply pushing back the question. Some like to push it back even further, and theorize that life was brought to earth from an extraterrestrial source.
That’s right, ladies and gentlemen! This is science! Life on earth all came from one common ancestor which came from...somewhere else...or here...maybe...we’re done, right?
Secular science has no idea where that first spark of life came from. They admit it. If it happened the way they think it might have happened, the mathematical probability is absurd. The simplest one-celled organism is no simple thing, and for it to generate randomly because the conditions are just right? Ha. They don’t even know what life is. But hypothetically, let’s say that it did.
Let’s say that in this primordial soup, where the conditions are just right, lightning strikes (or whatever) and that single-celled organism is born. Let’s call him Freddy.
Freddy’s all alone. Or if not, he’s with a million other Freddies that spawned with him, all swimming around in the soup they call home. It’s nice. It’s warm. There is plenty to eat; Freddy’s happy.
...But Freddy isn’t happy. He doesn’t have a brain, but he knows that if he doesn’t figure out how to reproduce, his species will die!
HOWWWW!?!?!
Not only did Freddy spawn into existence with a fully functioning body, he also is randomly gifted a well-rounded set of instincts! What is to stop that first species from dying out after the first generation? The “force of evolution”, that’s what! That’s totally a real thing!
Seriously, where does the survival instinct come from? Certainly not in this case from generations of being eaten.
If life consists only of randomly assembled bio-circuitry, isn’t it a little too convenient how it was programmed to sustain itself? It seems to me that if life were to simply generate, a far more likely result would have the organism living only a matter of seconds: unable to metabolize food, or even locomote (move). (Yes, I could have simply said ‘move’ but... leave me alone.)
But let’s say we got past even that.
Luckily, Freddy was able to figure out cellular mitosis just in time, and more Freddies were born, fully capable of reproduction! PARTAY! And all the Freddies were happy!
But Freddy wasn’t happy for long. The landscape of earth was changing, and food was becoming more and more scarce. He would have to adapt to survive...
Ok, let’s just think for a moment. What happens when you uproot a creature, and place it in an environment where it’s not equipped to survive? It adapts, right? Becomes a new species? No? What happens then?
Oh, yeah. It dies.
This is probably the one thing about evolution that puzzles me the most. How do these creatures survive long enough to adapt? For a clearer example, let’s take a look at Freddy’s great-to-the -568th-power grandson, Frankie the fish.
Frankie has a problem. The sea is becoming a hostile place for a fish like him; predators are everywhere, and it seems every day he shifts lower in the food chain. It’s time for a change. It’s time to push for the high ground. It’s time to push for the DRY ground.
Finally one day, after a serious psych-up session, he finds the courage and throws himself out of the water, and onto the beach.
GASP!
Can’t...breathe!
That is terrible! Obviously this isn’t going to work out right now. It’s time to start lung-growing exercises! Henceforth all of Frankie’s descendants will try to breathe air twice a day until lungs develop!
How does that make any sense? Keep in mind that the adaptation is said to take place over hundreds of thousands if not millions of years. Are we to believe that Frankie suffocated for a million years? And until that first breath of air, Frankie’s grandkids are carrying around an entirely useless organ, and living in the same intolerable conditions.
If Frankie can’t survive without lungs, how could he survive long enough to grow them? And if he can survive, why bother? There’s that force of evolution again. Strange how intelligent it is...
People have run all sorts of negative stimulation test on animals. One of two things happen. One, the animal learns to avoid the painful stimulus, or two, the animal is killed or injured by it. That’s what we’ve seen. That’s science. Animals do adapt to alien environments; they learn to avoid them.
Another example is how bats are believed to have evolved from a rat like creature.
Explain to me how a species that keeps trying to fly survives. Did they just hop around a lot? I dare you to explain to me how a species of rat survives for thousands of years--or even half a year--with its forelegs stretched into 70% of a bat wing! Just think about it.
It’s a funny thing, looking around at all the known animals, alive and extinct. They all look like complete creatures to me.
If I were to ask you to show me a missing link between a fish and a land creature, you might point to a lungfish. It has gills and lungs (Kinda). Naturally, a step between the two. Right?
But here’s the thing: lungfish are still around. Why? Because they’re perfectly suited to the environment they live in. They’re a complete creature, just as likely created by God to live in those conditions as adapted to them.
No, when I ask for a missing link, I want a missing link. I want to see something useless. I want to a half-developed lung. I want to see a half leg-half wing. (And I don’t mean a fully functioning gliding system like that of the flying squirrel) For that matter, show me what human beings are currently evolving! Why can’t I turn half invisible? Where are the signs of my eyes developing the ability to see a greater light spectrum? Why isn’t evolution happening anymore? Is it just that nobody’s uncomfortable enough?
Also, if the environment changed so that frankie would need lungs, what would happen if it changed back? Would he keep evolving them, propelled by the all-knowing force of evolution? Or would they wither away, now unneeded, cancelled as easily as commissioned by adaptation.
Why isn’t this happening everywhere?
Alright, last one. Let’s jump down another 16 million generations to a chimpanzee named...Herman.
Herman is three times stronger, MUCH more agile, and much better protected than Homo Sapiens, which almighty evolution has determined is his goal.
Last question: How do we make sense in evolution?
In a system based on survival of the strongest, why would Herman the Chimp want to become Herman the Human? Why on earth would he start to lose his insulating layer of fur? Why would he sacrifice his low, fast build just to have to duck under tree limbs? Why would evolution teach him to use tools, when his powerful jaws work just fine for all manner of foods? Why lose the incredibly useful opposing digits on his feet? Why sharpen his mind and give him a thirst for understanding? Does understanding aid survival?
Of course. Look at all mankind has accomplished! We’ve absolutely dominated this planet in a way unprecedented. We’ve gained the ability to utterly destroy it.
But how did the blind force of evolution know that? How did it know that making the weakest animal on the planet would make the greatest on the planet?
Tell me if you know!
If you can answer these questions, go ahead. Leave a comment, and tell me all the reasons why I’m wrong. I’d like that. In the meantime, here’s what makes sense to me:
Animals are similar because they have a common creator, not a common ancestor. They’re suited to their environments because they were designed for them.
We are not suited to our environment because we’re not animals.
Any questions?
It took me a while to fully read and understand all of the information that you have put here in this post. It's a lot, but I think I'll take it piece by piece. Now, I'd like to mention that I am just as much a believer in a creator who is God and who created everything with the power of His words.
ReplyDeleteDarwin talked about the complexation of organisms and how they started off simple and began to become more and more complex and more and more different. How do I see this fit into God's seven days of Creation?
Well, there are two ways. One, every day, something was created in its perfectly final state. OR, two, the beginnings of something was created on that day in a state that had to grow and mature to a final state. It would explain away how plants could thrive without pollination for millennia if they were simply mitochondria for the longest time first off.
But I believe that the real idea behind evolution- the one Darwin studied in the first place- was how animals better adapt to their surroundings and put that trait in their offspring. You are right, if you dropped an armadillo in the middle of the rainforest, it would most likely die.
However, if, say the natural habitat of the armadillo is point A and it's a desert. But over the course of 1000 years, the air becomes more damp and more fauna appear in the area. It may develop a set of molars to chew the leaves it couldn't eat before. Over 1000 more years, the area may become more dense and it begins to flood more and more each decade. Well, it may need to learn to climb and begin developing claws. Etc. etc. etc. Is this not something God can do? Can he not see that his animals are in a dire situation and guide them to survival?
You ask, why would an omnipotent God need millions of years to create an animal? Good question. But he had to believe and shape and form all of these things. Maybe he gave those things free will as well. I don't know. But did God lie to us and tell us it happened in seven days? It says in the Bible that days in Heaven are massive spans of time on Earth. Maybe a single day in heaven is millennia on Earth? We simply do not know and can not tell. But how could God use natural selection in a world without death? When Satan fell, there WAS death. And therefore, the lion began to eat the lamb. Things killed and attacked and survived.
Continued from other comment...
ReplyDeleteSurvival went from a thought that was nonexistent to the most important thought in all of creation. Survive. That was the point of life for all animals. Not humans, but animals and plants and atoms and everything else.
But with Frankie, yes. If his condition went from tolerable to intolerable over night, he most certainly will die off. But in a real world, conditions change very slowly over time. And therefore allow for adaptation and evolution.
And how does a rat turn into a bat? No, I do not have a definite answer, but I do know that I can come up with an idea. Rats are for the most part carnivores and always have been. Now, imagine that your food starts to crawl up higher and higher into the tree. Well, you develop claws to climb up. But then, your food begins to fly as a defense mechanism. Not even real flying, but just gliding along in the air. Well, you start to develop the same thing as them. The skin under your arms grows thicker and thicker and your bones get lighter until you can glide and catch them. Well, they keep developing until you almost never even need to be on the ground any more.
That's a theory, as you said. No one can tell because it does happen ridiculously slowly over a long, long time.
And there is no all knowing force of evolution. The whole idea of evolution is that it's a very right now, instinctual, in the moment, survival thing. No future. Just survival.
And how have humans evolved? Well, probably not from monkeys, but skin grew lighter as less and less work happened in the arid desert heat, brains grew more and more dense and compact to allow greater knowledge, and, of course, left handers developed as the naturally occurring higher species of human.
Just saying. But you are right, they do have a common creator and their common ancestor is what was on that Ark. Whose flood probably happened when the Ice Age ended some 15,000 years ago and the ice melted rapidly enough to cause a temporary worldwide flood. Anyway.
Those are simply some speculations and Devil's Advocacy that I have. Have fun!