November 23, 2014
In a day and age when more and more scientists are challenging “why evolution is being taught in schools as science when there is not a shred of proof?”, the Pope’s statement has left creationists and believers in an all-powerful God angry and confused. In fact, when the Pope’s statement appeared for the first time, a lot of people were quite sure that the media had mangled his words. They simply would not believe that the Pope could have said something like that.
In a few days, it became clear that the Pope had indeed made the following statement:
“When we read in Genesis the account of Creation, we risk imagining God as a magician, with a magic wand able to make everything. But that is not so. He created beings and allowed them to develop according to the internal laws that He gave to each one, so that they were able to develop and arrive at their fullness of being. … And so creation continued for centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia, until it became which we know today, precisely because God is not a demiurge or conjurer, but the Creator who gives being to all things. The beginning of the world is not the work of chaos that owes its origin to another, but derives directly from a supreme Origin that creates out of love. The Big Bang, which nowadays is posited as the origin of the world, does not contradict the divine act of creating, but rather requires it. The evolution of nature does not contrast with the notion of Creation, as evolution presupposes the creation of beings that evolve.”
Of the many reactions I have read, this comment says a lot: “What the Pope did was continue the departure of Roman Catholicism from the true Christian faith.” Because the true Christian faith has always accepted the Genesis version of creation.
While this article mainly examines the fallacies in the theory of evolution, it also looks at certain questions that arise with the billions of years process. Since youngsters like scientific information to satiate their intellectual hunger, I am mainly using science to debunk the theory. The verses from the Holy Bible are quoted to show how science is actually proving the revelations made in this Book that was written by lay people. And since the authors of the Holy Bible were not scientists, it becomes even more evident that the verses had to be revealed by God through the Holy Spirit. I have no doubt that Christians will find this very interesting.
First, and since many people don’t even know exactly what the theory of evolution is, here is an outline of it:
1. All life forms (species) have developed from other species.
2. All living things are related to one another to varying degrees through common descent (share common ancestors).
3. All life on Earth has a common origin.
4. In other words, that in the distant past, there once existed an original life form and that this life form gave rise to all subsequent life forms.
5. The process by which one species evolves into another involves random heritable genetic mutations (changes), some of which are more likely to spread and persist in a gene pool than others.
6. Mutations that result in a survival advantage for organisms that possess them, are more likely to spread and persist than mutations that do not result in a survival advantage and/or that result in a survival disadvantage.
To explain how life began in the first place, the most preposterous argument is that everything started after the Big Bang. They say that as gases began to cool, somehow singled-celled organisms began to appear. Now imagine life coming from an explosion perhaps a hundred million times more powerful than the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Essentially, they say that life spontaneously generated from absolutely dead matter to single-celled life forms and then to millions of complex life forms, including us. (By the way, now some evolutionists are saying that the Big Bang was not an explosion, it was merely an expansion). The moment you pose a difficult question, they find a way to wriggle out of it.
Dinosaurs are often quoted to show that evolution is real. Interestingly, the Holy Bible clearly describes a creature that can only be a dinosaur, in the book of Job 40:15-19 (circa 1500 BC) - “Behold, Behemoth, which I made as I made you; he eats grass like an ox. Behold, his strength in his loins, and his power in the muscles of his belly. He makes his tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together. His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron. He is the first of rthe works of God; let him who made him bring near his sword!” The oldest book in the Bible is Genesis and the entire Christian world knows that it is no more than 6,000 years old – not millions of years old. If that is not enough, unfossilized dinosaur bones have been unearthed with red blood cells – clear evidence that dinosaurs did not live millions and millions of years ago but a few thousand years ago. Evolutionists have tried to explain away this creature as a hippo or an elephant – neither have tails “stiff like a cedar.” The description is used to show how big and strong the creature’s tail was.
The process of evolution – whether with God’s intervention (theistic evolution) or without (atheistic evolution) – necessarily requires billions of years and trillions (if you look at all present life forms) of transitional life forms. For example, a blue whale would have to go through a few million changes with each new birth to become a man. Now imagine a few million or even a few thousand changes for one creature to turn into another creature. Did you get it? Well, I don’t. Now, why would a man go back to become a blue whale (because you can still them in the oceans)? But, that’s another question and, by the way, I don’t get that either.
Louis Pasteur disproved this whole idea of spontaneous generation after death by a simple experiment. He boiled a rich broth in a flask and closed it with an airtight lid. He left it for months and found no microbial activity in it. No microbe has been found in space because it is a deadly vacuum – an environment where it is impossible to survive without life-support components. Much like the inside of an airtight flask.
So far, evolution has not met two criteria for it to be called a scientific fact: (a) it has not been observed in nature; and (b) it has not been experimentally proven.
Evolution, in the strictest sense, always has been something that happens randomly and spontaneously. Later, as creation began to look too sophisticatedly fine-tuned for it to happen by random chance, another view began to take root: evolution is real, but not without the hand of God. Here are the two types of evolution in a nutshell (credit: Werner Gitt):
The atheistic formula: Evolution = matter + evolutionary factors (chance and necessity + mutation + selection + isolation + death) + very long time periods.
The theistic formula: Evolution = matter + evolutionary factors (chance and necessity + mutation + selection + isolation + death) + very long time periods + God.
So, when did God begin to fit in? Of all the compelling scientific arguments for God’s existence, one of the strongest is the law of causality (there is no effect without a cause). And, this is why we have more believers in God than atheists because this law is really all about common sense. Ronald Reagan summed it up quite nicely when he said, “Sometimes when I'm faced with an atheist, I am tempted to invite him to the greatest gourmet dinner that one could ever serve, and when we have finished eating that magnificent dinner, to ask him if he believes there's a cook.” The truth is even a simple vegetable broth with salt and pepper needs a cook.
An all-powerful God can either create something from nothing or He cannot; He does not need the help of the mechanism of evolution.
Evolution pre-supposes that mutation is proof of continuous higher change. Genetic mutations of many forms occur in human beings - Down’s Syndrome, Polycystic Kidney Disease, Cystic Fibrosis, to name but a few. None of them are progressive.
What about change from one form to another through mutation? Take microbes - they mutate all the time, but they have remained microbes. There is a reason for it: genetic coding embedded in the DNA of every cell of any living organism pre-empts it from becoming another creature.
I am reproducing an excerpt from the article 'DNA: The Tiny Code That's Toppling Evolution': [ As scientists began to decode the human DNA molecule, they found something quite unexpected - an exquisite 'language' composed of some 3 billion genetic letters." One of the most extraordinary discoveries of the twentieth century," says Dr. Stephen Meyer, director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Washington, "was that DNA actually stores information - the detailed instructions for assembling proteins - in the form of a four-character digital code." It is hard to fathom, but the amount of information in human DNA is roughly equivalent to 12 sets of The Encyclopaedia Britannica - an incredible 384 volumes" worth of detailed information that would fill 48 feet of library shelves! Yet in their actual size - which is only two millionths of a millimeter thick - a teaspoon of DNA, according to molecular biologist Michael Denton, could contain all the information needed to build the proteins for all the species of organisms that have ever lived on the earth, and "there would still be enough room left for all the information in every book ever written". Who or what could miniaturize such information and place this enormous number of 'letters' in their proper sequence as a genetic instruction manual? Could evolution have gradually come up with a system like this? ]
Evolutionists have been trying hard to argue with some possible explanations for the complexity of life. But now, they are faced with this “information dilemma”. The question that they cannot answer is: how can meaningful, precise information be created by accident - by mutation and natural selection? None of these contain the mechanism of intelligence, a requirement for creating complex information such as that found in the genetic code.
Adaptation – which at times can also be mistaken for evolution – is only possible if the creature is inherently designed to adapt. For example, if human beings find themselves marooned by water with no way out, we may be able to swim for several hours at a time, hold our breath for a few minutes at a time, even catch fish; but, we will not be able to breathe underwater and our offspring will certainly not be born with gills or fins. With all our intellect, we cannot make it happen.
Evolutionists jump quickly to conclusions when they see microbes in hot vents. They proclaim that over millions of years those microbes have evolved to live in hot vents. Any microbe that falls in hot water will die and it even seems silly that one has to say this. So, how can a microbe evolve after dying into a microbe that survives hot water?
As for creatures that we can see, the common argument is: but it has taken billions of years. So, why are scientists only looking for one missing link? Life forms would have to go through millions and millions of changes (transitions), which means the entire earth – according to one scientist – would be covered in six feet of transitional fossils. In other words, we would not have to dig for any fossils. Caught in such dilemma, some evolutionists will tell you that change was quite rapid. Here again, there is a problem because no one has seen a bird or a half-bird come out of a lizard’s egg.
Interestingly, Charles Darwin himself had confessed that his theory of evolution posed a problem. This is what he had to say, "Firstly, why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?" The complete absence of transitional life forms, or fossils, is – as one scientist put it - absolutely fatal to the theory of evolution. In fact, fossils have only shown that life forms were just clearly and distinctly set apart from each other as they are today.
Here is another difficult one for evolutionists: did the male and female of all species of life forms evolve together, or did the male (or female) had to wait a few billion years for a female (or male) to come along? If the answer is ‘yes’ to both these questions, then evolutionists are also people of blind faith because no male creature can will and bring forth a female partner, or vice versa. A male or female offspring of any species would have to have male and female parents. And that is possible only if both male and female were part of creation (not evolution) from the beginning. Jesus Christ says in Mark 10:6 “But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female.” The law of gender manifests in all things as masculine and feminine. It is this law that governs what we know as creation.
Now, consider this verse: In the book of Romans 1:20, the Apostle Paul says of God, “For His invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” Kindness, goodness, love, power, are just a few of God’s attributes. To perceive is to have the ability to recognize, to sense, and even if we are a product of theistic evolution then what the Apostle Paul is saying that even single cells perceived God’s attributes. But, Paul cannot be saying that because God has sought a personal relationship with human beings. And in choosing to live a good life, perception was not a precondition for cells, it was a precondition for human beings.
What we can also make out from the Apostle Paul’s revelation of God is that life has not started billions of years ago. If you believe that the ability to perceive would be given by God to cells, then the earth is 3.7 billion years old (the entire universe approximately 14 billion years old); if you believe that the power to perceive was given ‘ever since the creation of the world’ – which includes man and woman - then the earth is very, very young. There is NO PURPOSE for God to give cells the ability to perceive His attributes. Further, it has not been proven that the earth is billions of years old.
Talking about perception, I am reminded of Dr. Francis Collins. He served as Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute between 1993 and 2008 - some call it the most prestigious scientific job in the U.S. Collins had led the effort to decode human DNA. Even in his twenties, he was described as an obnoxious atheist. While still in college, he went to see a priest and began to bombard him with questions. The priest handed him a copy of the book ‘Mere Christianity’ by C.S. Lewis, who interestingly was also an atheist and a late-comer to Christ. After reading the book, Dr. Collins became a believer in God.
He was asked which was the most compelling arguments for God that he found in C.S. Lewis’ book. This is what Dr. Collins had to say, “…the one that I think was most surprising, most earth-shattering, and most life-changing — is the argument about the existence of the moral law. How is it that we, and all other members of our species, unique in the animal kingdom, know what's right and what's wrong? In every culture one looks at, that knowledge is there. Where did that come from? I reject the idea that that is an evolutionary consequence, because that moral law sometimes tells us that the right thing to do is very self-destructive. If I'm walking down the riverbank, and a man is drowning, even if I don't know how to swim very well, I feel this urge that the right thing to do is to try to save that person. Evolution would tell me exactly the opposite: preserve your DNA. Who cares about the guy who's drowning? He's one of the weaker ones, let him go. It's your DNA that needs to survive. And yet that's not what's written within me.”
In stating that the process has taken centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia (suggesting billions, or even millions, of years), the Pope has posed another scientific problem for himself and all who believe it. If the first man and woman did arrive even a few million years ago through the process of evolution, then where is everyone? Here is what would have happened if the first man and woman had started populating the earth a few million years ago: the earth would have been grossly overpopulated and its resources would have been ravaged a very long time ago. No complex life forms would have existed – a horrifying picture, indeed – totally in contrast with what we presently see. Today, more and more scientists believe in a young earth, not an earth that is billions of years old, because of these problems.
In the early eighties, some scientists had predicted that in a few decades children would be born with larger heads (to accommodate larger brains). And where did they get this “scientific” idea from? They explained that larger brains would be required to accommodate and store vast amounts of knowledge as we were set to enter the information age and that through mutation we would have larger brains. No such thing has happened. Today, it is almost common knowledge that our brain is big enough to hold any amount of information. In fact, now they say we don’t use it enough. With all the problems our world is facing, who can argue with that?
Creating anything from nothing requires more than a magic trick. In that sense, there is no greater magician than God. Does a god that can bring the universe into existence from nothing need billions and billions of years to create something? If you cannot believe that God is all powerful, then how can anyone believe that He is in existence from billions of years?
If anything looks like a magician’s trick, then it would be the changing of water into wine by Jesus Christ, the miraculous multiplication by Him of a few loaves of bread and fish that satiated the hunger of a crowd of thousands, His bringing of Lazarus back to life, and the healing of hundreds and hundreds of people. And, yet, these were no tricks. These miracles happened, were witnessed and have been recorded in the Holy Bible. Creation from nothing cannot count amongst tricks, because we have not seen it happening; or, as a magician does, made to look like it is happening. Whereas, miracles are happening even today. None can be explained naturally. In fact, not everything can be explained through natural science.
For a moment, let us set aside the entire creation of the universe. A god that has no super-powers will be in a quandary if we were to ask him to create just one cell. Today, scientists have concluded that the working and complexity of an entire city like New York City, pales in comparison to the chemistry, working and complexity of a single cell. Such complexity alone is proof that there is a superior entity that has designed and created everything, not just a cell.
Molecular biologist Michael Denton states, "Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10-12 gram, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machinery built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world.”
A minimal cell needs several hundred proteins. Even if every atom in the universe were an experiment with all the correct amino acids present for every possible molecular vibration in the supposed evolutionary age of the universe, not even one average-sized functional protein would form. So how did life with hundreds of proteins originate just by chemistry without intelligent design?
Evolutionist Professor Paul Davies admitted, “Nobody knows how a mixture of lifeless chemicals spontaneously organized themselves into the first living cell.”
If one cell is so complex, consider the microscopic zygote in a woman’s womb and how it begins to divide. Trillions upon trillions of cells are formed, each cell type “knowing” what it is supposed to become, each cell containing hundreds of proteins, enzymes and what not, each working with unimaginable precision and timing, each having a self-repair system, and after about nine months a fully developed baby emerges. If the creation of the universe is on a grand scale, the creation of a baby from a microscopic cell in the mother’s womb is no less grand. Such harmonious symphony of complex chemicals can only be the work of a Creator beyond anyone’s imagination.
Irreducible complexity ensures that one cell cannot work without the other and the only environment in which the cells can at all even work is inside a woman’s womb. I submit that God does not need a magic wand to achieve something like this, He only needs to speak the word. No wonder the Holy Bible says in Psalms 139:14 “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
The compromise stance on evolution taken by the Roman Catholic Church has happened a few decades ago. The early church fathers did not have a problem believing every single revelation made in the Holy Bible. In fact, St. Peter, who is considered the church’s first Pope, believed every word.
Many Christians (including priests) believe that the Great Flood during the time of Noah did not occur. Here’s the problem: Jesus Christ Himself spoke of it. Similarly, if Adam and Eve are also stories, then Christians have a serious problem because the book of Luke in the Holy Bible gives Jesus Christ’s genealogy and it is traced to Adam on earth. If even one line in the Holy Bible is not true, how can we believe anything about Jesus Christ? And, we are talking about the God of history, whose life, the miracles He performed, His death and resurrection, all of which have been accounted for by historians and eye witnesses.
Here is the problem for Christians and Christianity put in the words of atheist Bozarth Richard, “Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of god. It takes away the meaning of his death. If Jesus was not the redeemer who died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing.” Like it or not, this atheist is very clear and his understanding of the matter is far better than many compromising Christians.
Here’s the logic put forth by Jesus Christ in John 3:12 “I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?
People, especially those entrusted with the matters of the propagation of faith, should not get carried away by unproven statements made by some scientists, when there is so much compelling scientific data out there today to confirm the revelations made in the Holy Bible? Would we accept it if we called a carpenter and he comes without a hammer and asserts, “I don’t need a hammer.”
I was talking to a priest on the subject and he told me so many youth come to him with questions on the subject. He added that the church simply could not afford to look the other way. Youth are hardly seen in churches in western countries. Are we learning anything from it? It is believed that in 15 years or so, churches in India will only see a handful of youth.
Science buffs will quickly argue that science has progressed more in the last 50 years than before and that new research is throwing more light on evolution. In reality, the opposite is true. There was a time when evolutionists got away with anything they said. Fortunately, today there are hundreds of Christian scientists who defend their faith with ease. More and more scientists are drawn to the idea of a Creator responsible for creation because the theory of evolution is full of potholes.
As for the Holy Bible, even some other scientific revelations made in this wonderful book are worth looking into and with each passing decade more and more are being proven by science. It appears that as science (that does not make sense) and science (that makes sense) battle it out, the Holy Bible confirms the latter version.
The earth was long thought to be supported by mega-beasts. The revelation, “He suspends the earth over nothing,” is found in the book of Job 26:7 written circa 1500 BC. Science has confirmed that the earth is indeed suspended in space.
Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the earth in 1715 AD and prove that the earth is round, while all along this fact has been sitting in the Holy Bible, “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth…” Isaiah 40:22 (circa 600 BC)
Written circa 600 BC, the book of Jeremiah 33:32 declares, “…so that it will be as impossible to count them as it is to count the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the seashore.” Today, astronomers estimate that there are a 100 billion galaxies, each with a 100 billion stars.
Today primary students know how rain is formed. Interestingly, the water cycle again appears in the book of Job 36:27-28, “For he maketh small the drops of water; they pour down rain according to the vapour thereof; which the clouds do drop and distill upon man abundantly.”
It was only in the 20th century that high-powered telescopes peering into the night sky observed that the universe is expanding. Amazingly, this was revealed by Isaiah in 42:5 “God created the heavens and stretched them out.” If you think this is poetry and by some fluke it contains an accurate, proven, scientific statement, then let me tell you that similar statements appear in the Holy Bible more than 10 times.
Earth, scientists have claimed, was formed through a cooling process after it came hurtling through space in a great ball of fire and gas. Science has still not been able to come up with a satisfactory answer to the question: How and from where did earth’s life-sustaining properties (the right mixture of gases, rivers, lakes, seas, waves, clouds, rain, wind, micro-organisms, major life forms, the sun and the moon’s exact distancing from it, its tilt, its weathers, its rotation/revolution) come? To believe that the earth and everything about it has come by random chance is also a matter of faith because it is mathematically impossible for all factors to come together. I will believe it if one can throw the colours of the Indian flag from a building, all mixed up, and show me a perfect flag laid out on the ground – even though we are only talking about three colours.
Look at the spinning of the earth. No known object can spin without application of some form of energy. We can spin a round object for some seconds, but anything beyond that would need an apparatus attached to a motor. The earth and other objects in our known solar system have been spinning for thousands of years. How is it even possible for them to (a) spin on their own; and (b) remain in their own orbit? Interestingly, at the same time, there are stationary objects as well in space. The Holy Bible says that God “is upholding all things by the word of His power.” Hebrew 1:3
Further, if it has happened by random chance, why is earth the only planet with life, why not a few thousand nearby? Consider what appears in the Holy Bible, “Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: ‘I am Yahweh, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself.’” (Isaiah 44:24)
I believe what Lord Kelvin has said to be so true, “If you study science deep enough and long enough it will force you to believe in God.”
Consider what John Clayton, a former atheist had to say, “I tried my best to find scientific inaccuracies in the Bible, but I could not.” Mind you, this is after thorough research. There are many like Clayton who started with the goal of tearing the Holy Bible apart believing that they will find inaccuracies, but have turned to God instead. Knowledge is one way of coming to God. Some are drawn to God through their own life’s experiences.
It is increasingly becoming difficult in western countries to talk about God in schools and colleges. I was thinking it would be great to include some lessons on creation in the catechism books before the one-sided idea of evolution gets deeply entrenched in young minds. It is only fair that we study both views. Perhaps I was hoping for too much because – as it now appears – the Christian leadership itself has openly embraced a compromise position.
Richard Dawkins – a hard-core atheist and a well-known God-hater - has spent his life travelling and giving talks to disprove the existence of God. He has so much hatred towards believers that he once said, “It is arguable that sexual molestation is less damaging to children than religious training.” This very guy has admitted that: The origin of life is a complete mystery and the origin of consciousness is the biggest puzzle.
I do see a silver lining in the controversy that the Pope’s statement has generated. If people read what he has said, including the comments from numerous creationists, it will help them open their minds. Atleast that is what I hope will happen.
On the sidelines, someone I know – who has stopped going to church – recently asked me, “With all the controversies and with all the things we hear, don’t you think we should just stop going to church?”
First of all, who does everything right? There are problems with leaders of all faiths because human beings will be human beings. I am at times concerned that somewhere, somehow, priorities with some of the people in the Church may have gotten lost – but, again, this is my opinion. I like what the great composer Yanni said, “As our population increases, our planet becomes smaller and smaller. It’s therefore very important that we learn how to love and accept each other. Whenever that’s not possible, let us at least learn how to tolerate one another.”
The truth is: the Holy Bible has stood all tests. Many, many have tried to prove it wrong, but without success.
In no way I am suggesting that the Pope is deliberately trying to question the Holy Bible. Like so many believers, we have a tendency to get carried away with anything that is offered in the name of science. For instance, I was recently discussing the various techniques used for dating fossils and I told my friend how science was now questioning the very dating methods that they claim proves that fossils are millions and millions of years old. My friend was very offended by the idea that science could be wrong. It was as if I was questioning something holy the scientists had said.
Yes, the crusaders may have killed in the name of God, the Pope may say something outlandish, the priests may do something wrong, His followers may do something stupid, but how is Jesus Christ responsible for any of it? He is not.
I can never understand why a Christian should stop going to Church because he or she has a problem with someone. It is immature.
The bad news, if you think you are holy, is that He loves sinners. The good news, if you know you are not holy, is that He loves you, too. I thank Him for the Good News.
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