Creation vs. Evolution

Creation vs. Evolution

When was the universe and the Eath created? When were humans created? Does science coflict with what the Bible says? Should creationism be taught in schools?

Introduction

Let me start with this topic by saying that this issue is different than the Existence of God. A complete atheist will not agree with creation nor evolution. They believe that life can appear without cause, and thus there is no God. However, anyone else will believe that life had a supernatural cause, and thus that is God. The rest of this article will assume you believe that God exists.

The creation vs. evolution debate is very prominent in politics. Unlike other religious topics, believing in one or the other can have a profound affect on how you live your life. For example, if child A is taught evolution in school, he or she may be more likely to pursue studies in math and science, and become an engineer or scientist. However, child B who is taught creationism may be more likely to pursue art or religious studies, and become a muscian or a pastor. Would having more scientists be better or worse for society? Can we really know? This debate goes in circles.

Problems

The major problem with this debate is that there is no “hard” science. Lets look at a few examples of why this is. One is the fossil records. Fossil records are not very reliable because they are not all preserved well, not all bones from the same animal survive equally, remote areas of the globe have not been searched, and there are limited fossils for certain species. This has caused gaps in the chain of evolution which are left up to interpretation.

Another problem is the extinction events. An extinction event is when there is a widespread and rapid decrease in the life on Earth. If you believe that he Earth is 14 billion years old, there has been at least 5 extinction events. The most recent is known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event which scientists believe to have occurred 66 million years ago. This is thought to be caused by an asteroid or comet about 6 miles in diameter, hitting what is now Mexico. This is what killed famous dinosaurs such as the Tyrannosaurus rex, the Velociraptor, and the Triceratops. This also caused major changes to many other plants and animals, which makes it extremely difficult for scientists to determine what life was like before the event. Therefore, evidence for the age of the Earth is very limited.

Other issues include assumptions such as natural selection, uniformitarianism, and naturalisim. Natural selection assumes that the “good” qualities would be passed on, while the “bad” qualities would not be. There is very little genetic evidence to back this up. Uniformitariniasm is the assumption that the same natural laws that exist now where we live, have always existed in the past and everywehere else in the universe. Naturalism is the view that nothing exists outside our curent laws of nature. In other words, there is nothing we don’t understand. All of these assumptions make it impossible to know for certain when the universe was created. However, what we can do is look at the theories and the pros and cons of each, which we will now go over.

Young Earth Creationism (YEC)

Young Earth Creationism is the belief that God created the universe, Earth, and humans 10,000 years ago. This is the most common belief in the world today. This view takes a strict literal interpretation of Genesis; which includes the six days of creation, Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and the global flood. The popularity of this belief is largely due to the book The Genesis Flood, written in 1961 by Whitcomb and Morris. This book argues that the global flood negates all current evidence including carbon dating, geological formations, ecological habits, and uniformitarianism. This view is certainly valid, but the global flood wiping out ALL evidence is a major assumption. Some notable figures that belief in YEC are/were John Calvin (Presbyterians), Martin Luther (Lutherans), Ken Ham, and John MacArthur.

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