“The Value of a Life”

An Apologetics view of NY S-240

About 15 years ago I began to speak and teach on the creation account found in Genesis chapters 1-11. It wasn’t a big deal back then, more of a topic I was just interested in. I would use it to get people thinking about the authority of God’s Word in a broader and more robust manner, and it was a lot of fun. In the past 7 or 8 years, it has taken on a much more critical role in my personal life and ministry. I teach on it as often as I can and will go anywhere I’m invited to talk with believers about the importance of Genesis 1-11 in our lives and faith. Unfortunately, many Christians just blow it off as a non-issue, or worse they begin to teach extra-biblical, or more to the point, secularized, compromised theories that try to marry certain theories on life’s origin with the Biblical timeline. This forces them to teach Genesis, as well as much of the Old Testament as fable, allegory, and metaphor, but certainly not as real history. Honestly, I am not sure which one is worse. For those of us within the creation ministry, there tends to be common reasoning that drives us to teach in this area. Our goal is to preserve and uphold the authority and integrity of the Word of God. The Word of God is plainly the foundation for all that we do and are. If we reduce God’s Word to a collection of “stories” and “metaphorical moral teachings,” as many denominations and individuals try to do on a regular basis, we also remove the authority of God’s Word in the minds of man.

This slow erosion of the authority of God’s Word has been taking place in the USA for decades and has found mountains of support in recent years. Not only from atheist groups who would love to see every shred of faith removed from our once blessed nation, but also from within the church itself. For instance, ministers like Andy Stanley proclaiming from his own pulpit that the Bible is not the source of our faith (look it up yourself, the video is available on YouTube and it’s not hard to find). Or Pat Robertson, who has said on the air that “you would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to think that the earth is only six thousand years old.” Another big name would be John Piper. He openly supports the anti-biblical group Bio-logos. This organization’s single goal is to help ministers make peace in rejecting the teachings of Genesis in favor of a Darwinian view of origins. The frightening part of this is the number of ministers who have joined without even questioning the paradigm. Not to mention the number of believers who have walked away from the faith because of the willful compromise of those lost shepherds. I cannot even think of the judgment that awaits them.

I am sure that for many people even hearing someone speaking on the topic of Biblical Creation causes an involuntary eye-roll. I understand why, but I would challenge you to ask yourself a straightforward question: have you really looked into it, or are you just believing what someone in a white lab coat has written in a textbook? In my experience most people scoff at anyone who seems to challenge modern science. How dare we be so arrogant. What is so often overlooked is the fact that no one is questioning the science itself. The issue is the interpretation of the data. Science is not a black and white field of study. Those within the field draw conclusions from experimental data. More often than they are willing to admit, the conclusions are framed by their personal worldview. For example, in 2005 a T-Rex bone was found with intact red blood cells, soft tissue, and other biological fragments that simply should not exist in a sample supposedly 69 million years old. When the data was published, the researcher was publicly ridiculed for publishing anything that questioned the age of dinosaurs. After multiple attempts to discredit the findings, an article was published stating that, through some currently unknown process that also violates all known standards of biology, red blood cells and soft tissue can survive in a completely open system for 69 million years. For anyone to say that questioning that decision making paradigm is anti-science is just preposterous. What I have found is that when people actually begin to do the research and learn to think critically, their eyes are opened to the bias within the published scientific community to suppress anything that questions the Darwinian viewpoint. As David Burlinski once said, “you have to question any paradigm that is so violently protected against scrutiny”.

God’s Word tells us that our existence has a purpose: that we are here, on this earth, in this life, intentionally. The Darwinian view wants you to believe that we are nothing more than a cosmic accident. Your life is nothing more than the result of a random chemical spill mixed with time and chance. Your existence has no purpose, no meaning, no future, and above all no value other than what you can produce in the service of society. If you invent something useful or rise to a great place of leadership, you have value. But, if you are just an unborn fetus, you have no value, and are infinitely expendable. The unborn are nothing more than a tax on already limited resources. As Ken Ham has said, “you get rid of spare cats, why not spare kids.”

What happens when a nation begins to believe that life is nothing more than chemistry? Existence becomes meaningless and death is without consequence, penalty, or judgment. Death is just the end result of a meaningless, undirected, chemical process of electrical impulse. You get a generation without conscience, without remorse, without a sense of self-worth, and that cares only for its own selfish pursuit of pleasure. If life is all there is, live it up while you can. As for the unborn, they become an inconvenience to the pursuit of happiness. They are the unfortunate side effect of the pursuit of sexual fulfillment. You can have a child if you want, but if you do not feel like you are ready, or change your mind in the middle, and now even at the end of the process, just abort. It’s not like the child was doing anything useful, and according to some in the medical sciences it’s not even a real person, so there is no reason to feel bad. If that makes your skin crawl you should look up the 2013 article from the “Journal of Medical Ethics” titled “After Birth Abortion.” It’s available online and I will place the full text on my FB ministry page, “First Five Ministries.”

The unborn rely on the rest of us to be their voice and protection. A responsibility that, sadly, we have not lived up to. The unborn in our nation have had a consistently diminishing voice for many decades. In the last five years, that voice has thankfully grown louder than ever across our nation. The problem is that our nation’s leadership has grown tired of that voice and now just refuses to listen. The majority have lost their voice and the minority opinion now rules our political system. A nation that has historically valued and protected life has now become a nation that values and protects the wants and desires of the most offended. Nowhere is this more apparent than in New York State’s recent passage S-240, which they are calling a “Women’s Healthcare Act.”

After reading the entire text of the new legislation, it is apparent that opportunity for the pursuit of happiness is being made for every person except the unborn child. Even the term “person” has been redefined in this new law as “A human being who has been born and is alive.” The key term being “who has been born.” If the birthing process is not allowed to conclude, then a child has not been born. Therefore, life has not been terminated because the fetus was not an actual person. The matter of fetal viability is not a factor in this equation. The law is disturbing at many levels, but not surprising. As I have said, when you reduce life to chemistry then life has no real value. As I was reading the law, I noticed a few things that I did find interesting. To become a person one must be born, but the process of birth has not been defined. Traditional birth is an obvious option, but what about a C-section. This is considered a medically assisted birth. In a manner of speaking you are not “born naturally”, a medical professional has to assist. This brings up the question of botched, late-term abortions where the child is actually alive after the abortion attempt. The new law allows for the child to be literally left to die, because that was the original intent of the procedure. Interestingly NYS homicide laws state that medical negligence resulting in the death of a person is murder. This is why the definition of “person” was adjusted for this law. Our state’s legal system has redefined what it is to be a person in order to justify murder by a failed abortion procedure and medical neglect. A procedure that no longer needs to be carried out by a licensed medical doctor.

The disturbing part of this is not that it happened in NY. Anyone who thought Cuomo would act in a moral, ethical, or in any way resembling the faith he claims to have, is fooling themselves. The part that bewilders me is the response I am seeing from around the state: anger and frustration from one side of the state to the other. I am sure that rallies and protests will come up to show our disapproval of this legal travesty and, in the end, they will accomplish nothing. People’s frustration will eventually fade and this law, just like many others, will become a regular part of life. I am always saddened by our willingness to protest what has already been done without giving a second thought to how we got here in the first place. How did we get to a place where life no longer has value? How did we get to a place where sex is viewed as a simple physical transaction? How did we get to a place where sexual fidelity has become a prison and immorality has become a personal freedom? How did we go from being a nation that cared about the sanctity of life, to becoming a nation that can turn a blind eye to the over 1 billion global abortions since 1980 alone? The answer is surprisingly simple. It begins in every public school in our nation around 5th grade. This is when your child begins to be taught that life is an accident. Taught that they are nothing more than complicated pond scum, the result of random chance. Taught that their life does not, and could not, have meaning or purpose. In a world where we allow our future generations to be taught a doctrine of hopelessness for 12 of the first 18 years of their life, what more should we expect? How can we be surprised by the immorality of our world and not examine how we got here in the first place.

Worldview Conflicts: Question #2 – Does My Life Have Meaning?

    Question Number 2 is not just a fascinating discussion topic it is a very clarifying question for all those who would call themselves believers. To address the issue, we have to clarify what we mean by “meaning.” Are we talking about lasting value in the lives of others, significant contributions to society, or are we merely wondering how quickly we will be forgotten when our life comes to an end? 

    Now, if you think back to our last post I asked the question: can a random cosmic accident ever have true meaning or purpose? The answer to this is a bit more complicated than a simple no, but no is the correct answer. The slightly longer answer is that from an evolutionary viewpoint life can have no true, lasting, meaning outside of its permanent societal benefits. So, if you haven’t done anything significant, then you haven’t really done anything other than use up resources that could have probably been put to better use. This is the plainly stated view of many Atheists like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, etc.  These are the same men who believe that unborn children who have genetic issues like Downs Syndrome should be aborted in order to maintain societal resources for the productive and useful. In their minds, meaning and purpose are directly tied to your ability to validate the number of resources you consume. This is a sad, but growing viewpoint in our world.

    Throughout my life, I have met many people from all walks of life, as most of us have. I have never met anyone who desires insignificant, meaningless, existence. I suppose that people like this do exist somewhere. My prayer for them is that they meet the risen savior and find their true purpose through Him. That being said, the vast majority of people want to know that their existence has some kind of meaning or purpose. The knowledge that their life has something more to it than existence, fear, pain, and death. 

    If we were to explore the conventional definitions of meaning and purpose we would find the following: 

Meaning: 

noun

– what is meant by a word, text, concept, or action

– implied or explicit significance

    – important or worthwhile quality; purpose

adjective [attributive]

– intended to communicate something that is not directly expressed

Purpose:

noun

– the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists

– a person’s sense of resolve or determination

– a particular requirement or consideration, typically one that is temporary or restricted in scope or extent

verb [with object] formal

– have as one’s intention or objective: God has allowed suffering, even purposed it.

I hope you will agree with me that these definitions are not much help when it comes to finding purpose and meaning in life. However, if we pay attention, they do direct us toward the answer. Notice some of their defining terms: meant, implied, intended – reason, created, requirement, objective. These are all terms that demand an external source from which true meaning and purpose in our existence are derived. This would imply an outside entity. This same entity is responsible for our existence. This entity would naturally be outside of our influence or control, and only through communion with this entity that the true meaning and purpose of our existence can be discovered. This is the foundational premise of Christianity. That is it only through a relationship with our creator that we find out why we are really here. More on that in another post. 

    Obviously, there will be those who deny this premise, and that is their prerogative. However, those who do will need to answer a few questions. The first is from which of the few remaining sources do they find meaning and purpose. If you are going to rest on the idea of life as a cosmic accident, then you only have two options. Do meaning and purpose come from societal approval or is it self-determination?

    If self-determination is the actual source of our meaning and purpose, then we have to deal with the standards, or morals, by which we judge a person’s actions. We will cover this in more detail in the next post. For now, consider what that would mean to history alone. If we go the route of self-determination then we have to acknowledge that men such as Hitler, Mao Tis Tung, Stalin, and Pol Pot, who together are responsible for the deaths of over 100 million people through the 20th century, were successful men who lived their life in full pursuit of self-determined meaning and purpose. Methods aside, they mostly accomplished what they set out to do, even though history chooses to remember them as cruel and horrible men. In a twisted way, you could also make the argument that they gave their lives for their causes. So, who are we to judge them so harshly. What about Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. Today she is heralded as a hero of women reproductive rights. History has chosen to lift her up as an example of greatness and courage. However, if you look into her own past, her reasons for starting an organization that has ended the life of more unborn children than every casualty, of every war in recorded history combined, you find a disturbing and often overlooked truth. Her goal was to provide a place where the races she determined to be unwanted, undesired, and unworthy to reproduce could be sterilized or reduced in population to a point where they could be controlled through the science of eugenics. Should we view her life as one of significant and lasting value just because she was able to bring her self-determined purpose into reality? History judged those men as tyrants because of the deaths they caused, yet holds her up as a hero in spite of the deaths she caused. If we went by numbers alone, those tyrants don’t hold a candle to Margaret Sanger. So apparently the self-determination path is not a valid one.

    If we allow ourselves to find meaning and purpose in society, then we must also agree that society as a whole must agree with and value our contribution. If what we do, or provide, is not agreed with or valued by society than our life was nothing more than a sad string of failures, and then we died. If that was not depressing enough, fear not, it gets better. The efforts and contributions that one segment of society sees as valuable can be viewed as harmful by a different segment of society. So, you can spend your entire life in service to one group of people only to find out that all the other groups couldn’t care less that you are even alive. Not to mention that what is valued in one generation may be vilified in the next. You could be loved and hated in a single lifetime. Does that mean that your life can have meaning while being meaningless? So, which segment of society do we follow, and from which segment do we allow our meaning and purpose to come from? The reality is that we will always support the segment of society that we most closely align with. This means that we are back to self-determination, and we already know that it does not work.        

    True, lasting, meaning and purpose is found in only one place. In a relationship with our creator, and savior. If you came from nothing, then your life will never really mean anything. But, if we are the result of a loving creator, then that creator had a purpose in our creation. As we draw near to Him, learn about and follow His word, we will not only find our true meaning and purpose. We will find salvation for our souls, forgiveness for our sins, and eternal life. Why would I pursue anything else?

Part Four: Worldview Conflicts

    Okay, so maybe my last post was a bit of a rant, but… it was a good rant…:0) Today I want to take a look at the topic I was supposed to look at in the last post before my frustrated mind found to how to control my fingers. How many in the scientific community believe that censoring, shunning, and intimidating those who promote ID or special Creation and their work, is in the best interest of scientific development. Many even believe that it is the only way to protect children from being indoctrinated by the religious superstitions of their parents. Bill Nye has actually as far as to say that teaching anything other than Darwinian evolution was a form of child abuse. A bit harsh to say the least. 

    The question that I want to address, over the next few posts, is not a technical one. There would be no practical way to direct all of the various arguments between the two opposing views in all the areas of scientific study in a single blog post. At least not one that anyone would actually read. The question that I want to examine is one of worldview. Most people spend little to no time ever considering their worldview or the impact it has on their thinking. However, understanding our worldview is foundational to the process of Biblical Apologetics, and essential to the process of ministering the Gospel in our present world. A person’s worldview is derived from four, fundamental, questions. At some point, like it or not, everyone answers these four questions. The hard part is making sure that your answers do not contradict the others. Sadly, this is all too common, even within the church. The four questions are as follows: 1 – Where do I come from? The question of Origin. 2 – Does my life have meaning? The question of purpose. 3 – How do I know right from wrong? The question of morality. 4 – What happens when I die? The question of destiny. So, Origin, purpose, destiny, and morality. Four topics that shape our worldview, and inevitably shape our lives, both mentally and physically.

    They seem simple enough. Maybe even too simple. However, once you begin to examine your answers, the challenges start to arise. Let’s take a look at the first of the four, the question of origin.

    This question, in my opinion, is the most important of the four. When we are contemplating the question “where did I come from?” there are only two possible answers. On one side of the aisle is the claim that you are the result of a random, meaningless, purposeless, cosmic accident. On the other side of the aisle, you are the result of intentional, purposeful, design. You will find people on both the ID – Creation side, as well as the Darwinian side of this debate who try to marry the two together with concepts like theistic evolution, the gap theory, etc. These ideas may be interesting to some, but they quickly fall apart as they fail to answer the real question. Is our existence the result of an accident, or intent. 

    For some people, this is not an issue that they take seriously, and from many pulpits, it is taught as a non-issue. Something that Christian should just not worry about because it is not a “Salvation Issue.” To be clear, they are correct. Our salvation and the forgiveness of sin is not based on our view of creation or evolution. It is based solely on faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior. That being said, where do we get the idea that Jesus is our Lord and Savior? We get it from the Bible, and we trust in the authority of scripture. That it is the true word of God. That it has been gifted to us by God, through the spirit of God working through the hands of His servants and prophets. The first five words of this great gift are “In The Beginning God Created.” We take our need for a savior seriously because the authority of scripture compels us to do so. How can we say on one side that the Bible should be believed and trusted in all things, for the eternal salvation of your soul, while simultaneously saying that the accounts in Genesis, as well as anytime anyone else the idea that God created, are wrong? How do we explain the need for a savior to restore the connection between creator and creation for a sin that, according to some, never really happened? In short, why would we trust our eternity to a book that starts out with a lie? 

    This is the main reason why the atheist community works so hard to keep ID – Creation science out of the classroom. It makes no difference to them if the science is sound or the quality of the research. Getting people to deny the authority of the Bible is the goal, not scientific advancement. When kids, plugin along in public school, are continually told one story of how life began; eventually they will start to question the authority of Gods word. That may seem oversimplified, but global statistics show it to be frighteningly accurate. 

    In the next post we will examine question 2 – Does my life have meaning? In the meantime I would ask you to consider this: Can a random, cosmic, accident ever have true meaning or purpose?

Part Two: Defining Evolution, looking at assumptions 

One of the big stumbling blocks in the evolutionary debate is that the term evolution has more than one definition. On one side it refers to “change that happens over time”. Anyone that denies that things change over time is ignoring the abundant evidence plainly visible throughout the natural world. Evolution in this sense is visible, trackable, and testable. We see it everyday in all aspects of life, culture, fashion, and technology just to name a few. On the other side it refers to “the common decent of all life on earth through a single common ancestor via undirected mutation and adaptation.” The problem here is that this process has no evidentiary support. The main underlying assumption is that non-living chemicals somehow managed to merge themselves together in perfect alignment to, accidentally, kickstart life’s basic building blocks, forming amino acids. Then, through an entirely separate accidental and undirected process, these amino acids combined to form proteins, molecules, cells, and so on. This can sound amazing, even poetic, but what is being left out are the multiple levels of complexity that exist within each of these steps. The difference between these two processes is so large that the terms needed to be additionally clarified. To aid in this the terms Micro and Macro were added to  keep the two processes separate. Macro-evolution references the Darwinian process of common decent, and undirected biochemical development leading to life as we know it. Micro-evolution is limited to observable processes involving things like genetic variability. It also includes the processes of natural selection, adaptation, and speciation. None of the Micro-evolutionary processes are debated by either the Creation or Intelligent Design movements. In fact, they are completely consistent with the Biblical account and the concept of design. The problem is that when you say design it naturally requires a designer. In our minds there is no other way to explain the levels of complex programming found within each successive contributing layer of life.

A simple example of this complexity can be found within the cell itself. If chemicals can come together on their own, by accident, to form amino acids, and amino acids can, on their own, by accident, form proteins, and so on up to the first living, self replicating cell. Then how complex could a cell be. Think about it like this: cells replicate by a process of division. They literally make a copy of themselves. The “plans” for making this happen are located within the cell in whats called the mitochondria. More specifically, the mitochondrial DNA. This is not the same DNA that builds people. Thats found in your 46 chromosomes, which are also located within the cell. This DNA is specifically programed with all the information needed to regulate its own operation, and make another cell. So, the “blue prints” for making a cell are in the cell. Written in a biochemical language that has only four letters. At the same time the reason that the cell knows how to read and understand the language of the DNA is because the DNA contains directions for building the very “biochemical machines” within the cell that read, understand, and implement the instructions within the DNA code. The question that the Creation and ID movements are asking is very simple. How do you go from random elements floating in a pond to immeasurably complex, multi layered, biochemical programming without the aid of intentional design, a mind? It has been said that the probability of this happening by accident is about as likely as a tornado blowing through a junk yard and accidentally assembling a fully functional Boeing 747.

This, along with a host of other questions are what fuel the Creation and ID movements. While various groups will make the claim that we are anti-science, in fact what we are pushing for is to have the science currently being blocked and censored brought into the classroom; placed on the table for open discussion and debate. The difficulty with making that happen in our current scientific climate is that those in power are unwilling to even consider it. They claim to be protecting the public from religious indoctrination of researchers who may deliberately put their religious views into their findings. A question that we need to answer is rather or not their view is valid. I will deal with that in the next post.  

A while ago I was listening to a song, done by Hillsong, called “So Will I”. I’ve heard it a hundred times on the radio and even thought about adding it to our churches worship song database. But, something about it just didn’t sit right with me and I could not put my finger on it. It has a pretty good melody, but a tad wordy for my personal taste. I was trying to look past all that because so many people around the world were enjoying the song.  What I didn’t like was the phrasing in the second chorus that says the stars were “Evolving in pursuit of what you said”. I just found that to be a very weird choice of lyrics. Shortly after that I ran into an article interviewing Joel Huston, the writer of the song. In it he was asked about some of the lines, as well as a post he put up on his twitter feed. His twitter post stated “Evolution is undeniable – created by God as a reflective means of displaying natures pattern of renewal in pursuance of Gods word”. It was at this point that I began to understand my hesitation. I can honestly say that I was deeply saddened to hear another global voice so willing to capitulate the authority of scripture to the deified ideas of Darwin. 

You might remember that in 2012 & 2014 another music artist, Mark Gungor, came out in favor of Darwin over Genesis. In several, very public, statements he wrote “I no longer have the ability to believe”… in either Adam and Eve, or the genesis flood. Even the TV preacher Pat Robertson, on his own show, made the statement that “people who believe in creation are deaf, dumb, and blind.” I find it very interesting that so many on the church are so willing to walk away from Genesis 1-11. Check out what we find in 2 Peter 3:3-6 3 “3 First, be aware of this: Scoffers will come in the last days to scoff, living according to their own desires, 4 saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? Ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they have been since the beginning of creation.” 5 They willfully ignore this: Long ago the heavens and the earth were brought about from water and through water by the word of God. 6 Through these waters the world of that time perished when it was flooded”(HCSB). We are warned that in the end times people within the church will begin to deny the accounts of creation and the flood. That may not seem like a horrible thing to some as a belief in a literal Genesis is not a requirement for the salvation of souls, or the forgiveness of sin. That authority lies with Christ alone. What so many in the church seem to overlook is that by walking away from Genesis, they also walk away from the authority of scripture. In essence they fail to consider some important questions. Such as, how to you get to Jesus without Genesis? How do we explain the need to be forgiven for the original sin of Adam and Eve if they are nothing more than fictional characters? How do you explain the genealogies that lead up to the real person of Jesus if those people never existed? More importantly, why would anyone place their faith in a book that begins with a fairy tale? This is all very troubling, and without a doubt, it will cause lasting problems for the church. As our Christian leaders around the world continue to yield the authority of Gods word in favor of the word of man we should expect nothing less than dwindling congregations, crumbling buildings, and increasing hopelessness. All of which we see throughout the “enlightened” world.   

It should be known as we continue that I am, unashamedly, a long time young earth creationist. I believe in the complete inerrancy of scripture and I fully believe that the natural world supports the word of God in all of its detail. It should also be stated that I did not come to this by means of my faith. I began to doubt the Darwinian concept while taking earth science in the 7th grade. I can remember clearly reading two contradictory statements about the age of rocks and fossils in the same chapter of my textbook, and both claimed to be fact. I have always had a love for all areas of science and the understanding of the natural world. Throughout high school I was fortunate enough to have science teachers willing to teach Darwinian evolution as it should be; a widely accepted theory that contains a host of problems, unfounded assumptions, and some plain old guess work that few in the scientific community are willing to acknowledge. To better understand what I mean by this I recommend Ben Stein’s movie “Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed”. It will help you begin to understand the degree of silence within the scientific community surrounding this topic. Even while I was in middle school I could see the contradictory nature of the “evidence” given, and the mountains of unanswered questions that are simply ignored or suppressed.

The problem is not, as some in the church have suggested, stupidity on the side of the scientific community. These are well educated individuals, with advanced degrees, and we should give them the respect that they deserve. Having said that, there is a very large problem that most people, in and out of the church, are not aware of. The problem is within the organizations controlling the funding, and publication, of scientific research information. For many decades any research that contradicts the Darwinian concept has been suppressed or censored. At the same time many of the researchers are being ridiculed and harassed. One of the largest culprits being the National Academy of Science. This group has control over much of the information taught in our public schools and universities. They have stated in their own publications that they will not support, in any way, research or papers, peer reviewed or not, that contradict Darwinian evolution. I am talking about documented research, catalogued, and peer reviewed for accuracy. If it in any way contradicts the Darwinian concept it finds itself academically ignored, or worse publicly ridiculed. If you doubt this statement I recommend the book “Slaughter of the Dissidents” by Dr. Jerry Bergman. It is available at the creation.com bookstore and Amazon.com. The problem is not that the evidence refuting Darwin does not exist. The problem is the unified effort to keep it out of the public consciousness. This should cause us to question the reasoning. If the evidence is so clear and overwhelming it should not have the need to be protected against scrutiny. 

Over the last 20-30 years great strides have been made in the areas of Creation Science, and Intelligent Design. Although the two are very similar on a foundational level, it should be understood that they are by no means the same thing. Creation Science is strictly geared toward the special creation, and global flood narratives, outlined in Genesis. The Intelligent Design movement, more commonly known as ID, in simple terms is geared toward the view that life is the result of intelligent causation. That the massive complexity within the genetic programing of even the simplest form of life could not have happened through a random chance process. The concept of ID is where my journey, as well as many others, began. For me it did not begin in the world of Theology or Doctrine, but in the observations of the natural world. Especially those which stand in stark contrast to the “Goo – to -you” theories.

Today, with so may resources available, is hard for me to believe that any serious seeker could take the Darwinian concept seriously. And that is where I find the source of the problem. Most people do not seek to understand on their own. As a society we tend to believe whatever a so called ‘expert’ tells us. So, like Mark Gungor, Joel Huston and others, if someone in a lab coat says we evolved from goo… then from goo we came… Then to make ourselves feel better we say that “God uses evolution” or that God “guided” evolution. What so many fail to do is ask the more difficult question: “do I fully understand what evolution is, and what its claims are?” The prevailing answer to this question throughout the modern church is a resounding “NO”! It makes me wonder how so many, can be so willing to walk away without a fight? When someone says that our Bible, Gods word, is wrong, we just give up and walk away without asking them to prove it? Is that really what is happening? It is extremely difficult to see it happening so fast, and so willfully. Especially when around the world we find researchers who are not only Christian, but Agnostic, and even Atheist who are standing against those forwarding the Darwinian process as only viable explanation for the origin of life on earth. 

How is it that so many Christians are willing to dismiss the word of God for a theory that a growing number of scientists around the world are walking away from? In my next post I will begin to walk through some of the apologetic problems that come with removing the Genesis account from our Biblical thinking. For now I would encourage you to do some preliminary reading. A few titles I recommend in addition to the ones listed above, and below, are “Darwins Doubt” by Steven C. Meyer, “Gods Not Dead” by Dr Rice Broocks, and “Replacing Darwin” by Dr Nathaniel Jeanson.

Here are a few quotes from some great books I recommend to anyone serious about looking into this topic.. 

Michael J. Behe, Darwins Black Box: the Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. 

“The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself – not from the sacred books or sectarian beliefs. Inferring that biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent is a humdrum process that requires no new principles of logic or science. It comes simply from the the hard work that biochemistry has done over the past forty years, combined with the consideration of the way in which we reach conclusions of design every day” 

David Berlinski, The Devils Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions 

“Has anyone provided proof of Gods inexistence? Not even close. Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here? Not even close. Have our sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life? Not even close. Are physicists and biologists willing to believe anything so long as it is not religious thought? Close enough. Has rationalism and moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good, what is right, and what is moral? Not close enough. Has secularism in the terrible 20th century been a force for good? Not even close, to being close. Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy in the sciences? Close enough. Does anything in the sciences or their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational? Not even in the ball park. Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt? Dead on.”