How would you would respond to someone
who claims that they believe in evolution rather than God?Would you tell them that evolution points back in time to the creation of everything? Would you tell them that either God has always existed or the universe has always existed and it's not the universe. Would you point out Berra's Blunder? Would you tell them that "it just happened" isn't a scientific explanation for the arrival of the fittest (e.g. unpredictable, unrepeatable random mutations)? Would you cite examples of irreducible complexity? Would you point out the conflicts between Darwinian theory and the pervasive patterns of natural history? Would you point out the historical evidence for God's existence (e.g. Old Testaments prophecies or the eyewitnesses to Jesus' control over nature: healing the sick or raising the dead)? Would you point out that evolution allows us to think God's thoughts after him (much like the Corvettes in Berra's Blunder)? Would you ask them why God would completely reinvent the wheel with every new species?
Our judges selected Response 3 as our January winner. If you have something to add, please let us know. Write us at arn@arn.org.
February's question is "What do you say to someone when they claim that Intelligent Design is merely an appeal to a god-of-the-gaps?"
Send your answer to arn@arn.org.
Response 1: Evolution is not antithetical to Theism
Pensees
Either you believe in the eternity of spirit (deism/theism) or you believe in the eternity of matter (materialism).
I do not have enough faith to believe in evolution. Evolution is a cosmological myth, supported by atheists who cringe at the possibility that there exists something beyond their own feeble minds.
Faith in evolution is the direct result of mankind's inherent nature to rebel against authority; the inexorable consequence of hubris.
Theists believe life resulted from some thing or some force outside of time and space. Theists believe that God is unconfined to temporal and spatial limitations. But atheists must also justify their faith (and I mean the word "faith" literally) in the eternality of matter.
We must all choose between atoms and deities. Between the microscopical and the magisteral.
Evolutionary biologist, G.A. Kerkut, defined evolution as "the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form." But I must ask, from whence comes the inorganic form? Materialists tell us that matter is eternal. Science tells us otherwise. I do not subscribe to an anthropomorphic model of God. God exists apart from time, and apart from spatiality. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word became flesh. "Logos" is not limited. It is not tangible. It is thought and, as thought, it is a form of energy. And like energy, it can neither be created nor destroyed. It is eternal: ehyeh ašer ehyeh . The one who spoke and the world came into being, the one who spoke and all was. God simply exists. God simply "is".
Belief systems can neither be proven nor disproven. That is why they are "beliefs". "Belief" and "knowledge" are not synonymous. Belief entails the acceptance of doubt. The component of doubt involves faith. Hebrews 11:1 " Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see."
But there are also such concepts as unanswerable, incomprehensible, unprovable questions. One can no more expect to satsfactorily answer questions of PROOF of the nature and the existence or non-existence of a Supreme Being than one can satisfactorily answer a question such as "What is the name of the bachelor's wife?". Some questions can only be experienced.
This is not to say that the questions are not pertinent or relevant. It is to say that our ontological and epistemological frameworks do not afford a means of understanding. The inability to demonstrate materialistic answers does not preclude the existence of questions, nor of answers. It only demonstrates the limitations of our "selves".
In every sense of the word, atheism is "religious faith". Pernicious religious faith.
I have been asked, on several occasions, as to how I have come to the spiritual perspectives which I hold, and I've never failed to fail !!! The failures are due as much to my inadequacies as a mentor as to the complexities of the subject matter. It's been an “evolutionary process”. I will try to give a poor analogy: A jigsaw puzzle. You don't solve a jigsaw puzzle by endlessly tossing the box of pieces up in the air an infinite number of times and relying on hope, chance and time that the solution will miraculously appear...
What one needs to do is start with the easy pieces – the ones with the straight edges. There are, relatively speaking, a somewhat limited number of positions into which they may properly fit. It will still take time, but with an element of perspicacity, efforts may succeed. After the perimeter is secured, one may address similarities in shape, colour and shading between pieces at the perimeter and possibly contiguous pieces. Once again, time is essential, as is insight. One should proceed while bearing in mind the adage, he who endures shall find salvation. Such a perspective is quite relevant in approaching puzzles of both physical and metaphysical natures. The seeker may be fortunate enough to survive the incontrovertible vicissitudes of fortune, and the solution to the puzzle will become more and more evident. This is because the overall picture becomes clearer, and each piece of the puzzle which has been appropriately placed may afford multiple opportunities to give insight as to its neighbours. (If only I am granted time - - - Ut spero, ut.)
Religious faith ( or lack thereof ) is more a matter of volition than of intellectual acumen.
Darwin was wrong. Man did not evolve: The ethos of today’s world proves that man is DEvolving.
One needs to go no further than to the computer to realize the ludicrous belief system used by Darwinists.
Evolutionists would never accept that computers could come into being without intelligent designers. Yet they stubbornly cling to the myth that life, which is exponentially more complex than your computer, is the result of undesigned and undirected events of randomness and pure chance.
Albert Einstein did not believe in a personal God who answers prayers. But God, being God, will appear to each of us in a different manner: Including an appearance of non-appearance. The manner by which God makes Himself known is fitted to the individual needs of each of us.
EVOLUTION - Aphorisms
Metaphysical paradigm.
Non observable. Non-replicable. Non empirical.
Reassuring fairy tales for terrified atheists.
Couched in jargon designed to create an impression of erudition.
Vouched for and promulgated by "credentialed" acolytes.
Response 2: Darwinian evolution requires a plausible cause to the origin of life to even get started.
Is it even possible for the theory of evolution to be true?
With the discovery of DNA in the 1950s, a magnifying glass has been discovered that reveals many of the mysteries of life. It has been discovered that some of the DNA code specifies which amino acids and in what order will be used to make proteins within cells. Given that the proteins in humans have a median length of about 375 amino acids, the concept of random mutation in the theory of evolution presents a major problem to proponents of that theory. The article below shows that the probability of one small protein being formed randomly is literally astronomical. Given the above facts, many scientists are starting to think that random mutation and natural selection would never be “able to create” the complex forms of life that we observe on Earth today.
Doug Axe explains the chances of getting a functional protein by chance (05/18/2013 Wintery Knight)
I’ve talked about Doug Axe before when I described how to calculate the odds of getting functional proteins by chance.
Let’s calculate the odds of building a protein composed of a functional chain of 100 amino acids, by chance. (Think of a meaningful English sentence built with 100 scrabble letters, held together with glue)
Sub-problems:
BONDING: You need 99 peptide bonds between the 100 amino acids. The odds of getting a peptide bond is 50%. The probability of building a chain of one hundred amino acids in which all linkages involve peptide bonds is roughly (1/2)^99 or 1 chance in 10^30.
CHIRALITY: You need 100 left-handed amino acids. The odds of getting a left-handed amino acid is 50%. The probability of attaining at random only L–amino acids in a hypothetical peptide chain one hundred amino acids long is (1/2)^100 or again roughly 1 chance in 10^30.
SEQUENCE: You need to choose the correct amino acid for each of the 100 links. The odds of getting the right one are 1 in 20. Even if you allow for some variation, the odds of getting a functional sequence is (1/20)^100 or 1 in 10^65.
The final probability of getting a functional protein composed of 100 amino acids is 1 in 10^125. Even if you fill the universe with pre-biotic soup, and react amino acids at Planck time (very fast!) for 14 billion years, you are probably not going to get even 1 such protein. And you need at least 100 of them for minimal life functions, plus DNA and RNA.Research performed by Doug Axe at Cambridge University, and published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Molecular Biology, has shown that the number of functional amino acid sequences is tiny:
Doug Axe’s research likewise studies genes that it turns out show great evidence of design. Axe studied the sensitivities of protein function to mutations. In these “mutational sensitivity” tests, Dr. Axe mutated certain amino acids in various proteins, or studied the differences between similar proteins, to see how mutations or changes affected their ability to function properly. He found that protein function was highly sensitive to mutation, and that proteins are not very tolerant to changes in their amino acid sequences. In other words, when you mutate, tweak, or change these proteins slightly, they stopped working. In one of his papers, he thus concludes that “functional folds require highly extraordinary sequences,” and that functional protein folds “may be as low as 1 in 10^77.”
The problem of forming DNA by sequencing nucleotides faces similar difficulties. And remember, mutation and selection cannot explain the origin of the first sequence, because mutation and selection require replication, which does not exist until that first living cell is already in place.
But you can’t show that to your friends, you need to send them a video. And I have a video!
A video of Doug Axe explaining the calculation
Here’s a clip from Illustra Media’s new ID DVD “Darwin’s Dilemma”, which features Doug Axe and Stephen Meyer (both with Ph.Ds from Cambridge University).
I hope you all read Brian Auten’s review of Darwin’s Dilemma! It was awesome.
Related DVDs
Illustra also made two other great DVDs on intelligent design. The first two DVDs “Unlocking the Mystery of Life” and “The Privileged Planet” are must-buys, but you can watch them on Youtube if you want, for free.
Unlocking the Mystery of Life (12 videos in a playlist)
The Privileged Planet (12 videos in a playlist)I also recommend Coldwater Media’s “Icons of Evolution”. All three of these are available at Amazon.com.
Response 3: What do you mean by evolution?
First I would ask whether they mean chemical or biological evolution. Then I would ask them what they mean by evolution... I would say : "My hair colour has changed over time, thus it has evolved. Is that what you mean?" Then, assuming they mean large scale macroevolution, I would ask them about information, and do they understand that DNA is like computer code. Finally, I would ask them whether they believe as they do because of their upbringing and education, or whether they are personally convinced after looking at both sides.
Response 4: Read my book.
Response 5: Tell me what you mean by "evolution"
I run into many such people. My immediate response is always the same: "Tell me what you mean by 'evolution'."
That is the key question because after - and only after - I know what they understand by "evolution" am I able to direct my efforts (questions, arguments, evidences, etc.) in the right direction. Otherwise what I say to them could well be a totally wasted effort.
Response 6: Science or philosophical predisposition? (Response received after the January 31 deadline for the contest)
To respond to this question, I need to know if this “belief” is based on a philosophical predisposition or on what the individual sees as compelling scientific evidence.
If the answer is philosophical predisposition then we can discuss what convinced the person to arrive at this philosophical disposition. On what information/evidence did their worldview form? This could lead back to a discussion of scientific data and how the data is interpreted within a given worldview, including the issue as to whether belief in evolution precludes belief in God. It could also lead to a theological discussion where Scripture is fair game.
If the person holds this position based on what they see as compelling scientific evidence, then discussion can proceed to science (physics and fossils) where a compelling case for design can be made.