Life. Where did it come from? What does it have in store for me? What can I expect after life on earth?
Don’t know. It depends. Decomposition.
Though I have no idea why, people seem very interested in why we are here. I believe more important than that, one should accept that they are here (regardless of origin) and ask “What am I to do with myself?” After all, it is you that guides yourself through this earth. Earth isn’t some Xbox 360 game where God is parading you about the land with the wiggle of a joystick.
But if you really want to dwell on the concept of life’s origins, there are two common schools of thought: creationism and evolution. In case you just crawled from beneath a rock, creationism is the idea that [[insert deity of choice]] willed Earth into existence and created life with an awesome power that can never be measured. Evolution is the study of the fossil record to show gradual changes in genetic information over time.
I will concede that both theories are full of holes, but let me expand. Creationism is full of holes in that for it to be an plausible theory, one must believe in an invisible man in the sky that can create something out of nothing. I picture this being done with crossed arms, a blink of both eyes and a quick, jerky nod (think I Dream of Jeannie.) Evolution is full of holes in a much different way. Consider this: DNA was first discovered by Drs. Watson, Wilkins and Crick in the 1960s; it even won them the Nobel Prize. At that time, even with a breakthrough as magnificent as theirs, the idea of mapping the entire human genome seemed a laughable feat. This was completed in 2003 with most of the work being done in the 4 years prior. My point with this analogy is that as science progresses, our knowledge increases on matters previously thought to be near impossible to comprehend. Religion has historically been there to fill in the gaps for people who just must have answers. In ancient Greece, everything from crops and the seasons to the rising and setting of the sun were due to direct action of gods and goddesses. Once science revealed to us things such as nitrogenous soil and the earth revolving around the sun, we no longer were able to attribute such acts to supreme beings.
In time, will the holes in evolution be filled? I do not know. But I know that it is more likely than there ever being proof of a divine creation. People like Kent Hovind (Dr. Dino), who maintain that the earth was created in exactly 6 days (as we know them) and that the Earth is approximately 6,000 years old have lost touch with reality. Hovind has offered a large sum of money to anyone that can show conclusive, testable evidence of evolution. Well I would like to extend that same wager to Mr. Hovind. So, Dr. Dino… Do you have any conclusive, testable evidence that shows evidence of creation? Of course you don’t. To believe in your theory, you must have faith, defined by Webster as “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” Mr. Pot, meet my friend kettle. He too is black.
Evolutionists look for empirical evidence to support evolution, whereas Creationists look for holes in evolution. If you wanted to know what color my shirt was, simply saying that “it isn’t white” doesn’t lend that it is black. Further questioning however would eventually lead to the correct answer. Creationists, instead of asking “is it green?” or “is it blue?”, would repeatedly tell you, in derogatory tones, “Well it isn’t white!”
The book, In Six Days: Why Fifty Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation, compiled by John F. Ashton, PhD is chock-full-of logical fallacies and presuppositions based on belief in the divine, including the following gem:
How do evolutionists respond to the zero likelihood of life arising by chance? The biochemistry text quoted above asks and then answers the question: “How then did life arise?” The answer, most probably is that it was guided according to the Darwinian principle of the suvival of the fittest as it applies at the molecular level. The key fact to note here is that natural selection simply cannot act unless there are fuctional, self-replication molecules present to act on. We have already seen that no such system could possibly appear by chance. Life in its totality must have been created in the beginning, just as God told us.
First, any scientist (or student of science for that matter), that has given slightly more than a cursory glance at a biology textbook knows that “survival of the fittest” is not from Darwin, but rather it was a claim made by Herbert Spencer. It kinda makes me lose any faith in the rest of the argument with such a glaring falsehood upfront. But I press on… Let me step back a little and touch on the term “zero likelihood.” Unless it violates one of the most fundamentally laws of space and time, nothing has a zero likelihood. I could say that there is a zero likelihood of a jet engine crashing through my roof and killing me, but there is a chance. This lack of logic further illustrates the creationist’s inability and unwillingness to diverge from “The Word” for even a moment to consider actual scientific findings. A mind is like a chimney flue, it only works when open. To comment on the rest of his dreck, I can only say that the author is making some very bold assumptions about the ability of variance to survive past multiple generations. Did you know that hospitals are some of best places in which to get sick? True. Clean as they are, the bacteria in hospitals grow immune to chemicals and antibacterial agents. The one or two out of every million that survive replicate to produce more bacteria, a large percentage of which will also be immune. Over the course of several generations, and in the presence of many more toxins, you can see how this would end up. The same is true for the random combination of nitrogenous bases to form amino proteins, you simple minded twit.
Evangelist Ken Ham smiled at the 2,300 elementary students packed into pews, their faces rapt. With dinosaur puppets and silly cartoons, he was training them to reject much of geology, paleontology and evolutionary biology as a sinister tangle of lies.
“Boys and girls,” Ham said. “If a teacher so much as mentions evolution, or the Big Bang, or an era when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, you put your hand up and you say, ‘Excuse me, were you there?’ Can you remember that?”
The children roared their assent.
“Sometimes people will answer, ‘No, but you weren’t there either,'” Ham told them. “Then you say, ‘No, I wasn’t, but I know someone who was, and I have his book about the history of the world.'” He waved his Bible in the air.
“Who’s the only one who’s always been there?” Ham asked.
“God!” the boys and girls shouted.
“Who’s the only one who knows everything?”
“God!”
“So who should you always trust, God or the scientists?”
The children answered with a thundering: “God!“
::sigh::