Today is the 200th “birthday” of Charles Darwin, or it would’ve been, had he been still alive. You know, it’s that weird “celebrate the birthday of somebody famous thing” our society does. So, happy birthday Darwin, and that was some nice science there.
…A lot of people I know, and hence a lot of my readers, were probably brought up as young earth creationists, so this post cannot end here. I really don’t feel like adding a whole lot of detail, and making this go on and on, but I just want to leave you with some questions:
Where in the Bible does it say evolution never happened? It really, really doesn’t, unless you take Genesis 1 as completely literal. Which, btw, it quite clearly isn’t. Go look outside. Don’t see it? Well, keep looking. It’s there.
How do you see God working in your life? Do you see Him doing lots of giant explosive blasts of diety-ness to suddenly change your life’s course, or do you see that He mostly just sets things up so they drive themselves right into His desired result? I don’t know about you, but I see very little of A (especially good evidence of A), but I see tons and tons of answer B. I see it almost daily. So, as it seems style B is the preferred method, doesn’t it make sense He’d do the whole universe that way too?
Did you ever notice the big bang theory states the universe, at least as we know, has a definite beginning?
Did you know Carbon 14 dating isn’t based on bad science, like you may have been told? But it’s not used for rocks either, it doesn’t work. There are other forms of dating for that tough. In fact, scientists sometimes use more than one on the same sample to make sure they are getting it right.
Young-earther’s love to quote Job 12:8 “Speak to the Earth…and it will teach you”. I just looked this up on Bible Gateway in the English Standard Version, and confirmed my suspicions that it was yet another verse taken out of context, and translated questionably. But what if instead of quoting this bit of out-of-contextness, we followed it’s advice? What if we went out and asked the Earth where it came from? That’s what Geologists went and did. They found bits of rocks 4.4 billion years old. There were metoerites that landed 4.6 billion years ago. They found far fewer radioactive isotopes than there should’ve been if they had only had a short time to decay.
So, I hope I gave you some things to think about. I also hope I helped get you out of the thinking that following Jesus and believing evolution are mutually exclusive. Evolution does not preclude a God. Darwin himself called the idea that it did “absurd”. Go out there, find your own answers. But remember, ask questions! Don’t accept “It just is, I’m smarter than you”. Always ask someone HOW THEY KNOW. Do they give you good evidence? Or do they give you interpretations of that evidence based on pre-made conclusions?
I have to say, I never would have thought you’d post something like this. However, I’m not all that surprised. I agree with you in that who’s to say that God didn’t create the earth 4.6 billion years ago?
Personally I believe that if God wanted to create the universe and all life in six days that He could – no doubt about it. As you’ve stated, science indicates this not to be the case. They cannot prove anything, but it seems to be that what science has found cannot be dis proven and therefore is what we must assume to be correct – until something more correct is discovered.
I’ve had people question me for my faith while being a science major in academia. I have no doubt that you’ll encounter this too. They’ll ask you how you can be a christian while also believing in science. I think that Sir Issac Newton said it best:
“The purpose of science is to better understand the mind of God.”
By: Josh on February 17, 2009
at 05:04pm