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by Steve Risner

Nearly half of Americans polled reject the idea of universal common descent, aka Darwinism, aka “evolution.” This is fairly encouraging, although I'm not really sure what's up with the other 50%. Of those who do accept the humanist origins myth, only 15% believe God had nothing to do with it. Nearly a third believe a mixture—that God somehow directed the process. I'd like to explore a few things related to this topic over the next few weeks.

I've written extensively on the topic of theistic evolution—the idea that God directed evolution for eons of time. In fact, I wrote a nearly 40 blog post series on it a year or two ago. You can search the archives for that if you like. Suffice it to say, universal common descent is totally incompatible with the Word of God. No Christian with any understanding of their basic theology should believe such heresy. Melding Christianity with humanism (which is exactly what theistic evolution is) is not Christianity any longer.

What is a bit of an irritation to me is that evolutionists (atheistic or theistic) tend to think themselves smarter than the rest of us—the majority of Americans who believe God created humans (and, I suppose it means all life in general) in its current form. This is evidenced by the fact that very often in discussions or in online articles or even in books you will find it suggested that creationists don't understand evolution, hence their rejection of it. This, to me, shows how easily someone will hand wave another person's beliefs so they don't have to debate it. I believe this sort of response to the stance that creation as written in the Word of God is the truth is rooted in fear, primarily, but also in arrogance and ignorance. Let me just say that these three things are terribly dangerous when combined.

Unfortunately, many of those who suggest I don't understand evolution and that's why I reject it haven't the slightest idea what I believe or why. This is even true of those “former creationists” who are now either theistic evolutionists or atheists. I can say this with confidence because it is rare (rare enough I can't think of an example of it) for a non-creationist to represent my beliefs on origins well. The irony is that they are frequently ignorant of something they probably don't even want to understand and are rejecting it while accusing me of doing that very thing. So, as a result of this basic argument against the creationist view, over the next few weeks I would like to explore some ideas frequently presented as dead giveaways that you don't understand evolution. These are reasons often cited in online groups or forums and in conversation.

Now, let me say here that I do believe that there are many Christians (and non-Christian creationists) who don't understand the ins and outs of universal common descent (which is the idea that life evolved from non-living chemicals into the first simple life form which, due to multiple series of mutations over very long periods of time, has given us the biodiversity we see today, both extant and extinct). Many of them have no interest in it and most of them don't discuss it with believers in Darwinism at all. That's fine. I think if you don't care about a topic, it's perfectly fine if you're not going to be debating it. However, many atheists, and unfortunately some Christians who are ignorant, want to attack followers of Christ for taking the Bible for what it says. This is a strange realm where neither side can boast a monopoly on facts or science, but both often want to proclaim the truth based on facts and science. I do believe that creationists can quite easily support their claims from a variety of angles, while evolutionists rarely have an actual factual basis for their beliefs. I'm sure that statement will upset some zealots for Darwin, but let's be honest: the vast majority of evidence for evolution from a single common ancestor exists only in the minds of believers in it.

Dr. Colin Patterson, no friend to creationism, after asking many scientists the question, “Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing . . . that is true?” realized, because of the lack of response that there is nothing actually known about this farce at all. He didn't ask high school students or dimwitted church goers. He asked scientists from various prestigious schools and organizations who were considered experts in the field of evolution or closely associated fields. Dr. Patterson, again not a creationist, said, “One of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view, or let’s call it a non-evolutionary view, was last year I had a sudden realization that for over twenty years I had thought I was working on evolution in some way. One morning I woke up and something had happened in the night, and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for twenty years and there was not one thing I knew about it. That’s quite a shock to learn that one can be so misled for so long.” So here we have a lifelong evolutionist who studied it to greater depths than most who has no idea if there's anything to it or not. That's marvelous!

To further explain the void of actual science/facts in favor or evolution, we can see that Dr. Gail Kennedy thinks, “The problem with those who are unable to see evolution, I think, is they don’t have imaginations.”

That's it! Evolution is found only in the imagination. It's not found in the fossil record. It's not found in the real world. It's not found anywhere, actually, because it's a religious proposition (a false one) and nothing more.

I look forward to getting into more alleged reasons why people don't believe in evolution. But that's just it, right? It's a belief. I plan to explore a few of the common complaints of skeptics in the debate of evolution and creation, or some combination of the two. Thank you for reading.

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