+CR

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THEN GOD SAID, "LET THERE BE LIGHT"; AND THERE WAS LIGHT. AND GOD SAW THAT THE LIGHT WAS GOOD; AND GOD SEPARATED THE LIGHT FROM THE DARKNESS. GOD

CALLED THE LIGHT DAY, AND THE DARKNESS HE CALLED NIGHT. AND THERE WAS

EVENING AND THERE WAS MORNING, THE FIRST DAY.

Genesis 1:3-5Creationism - The be all and end all

iii.

-noun

creationism

Creationism is the religious belief that human-ity, life, the Earth, and the universe were created in some form by a supernatural being or beings, commonly a single deity. In a broad sense, it covers a wide range of interpreta-

tions of beliefs that a supernatural force such as a deity intervenes, or has intervened, directly in the natural world. In relation to the creation-evolution controversy the term creationism is commonly used to refer to religiously moti-vated rejection of natural biological processes, in particu-lar evolution as an explanation accounting for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth. In the West such creationism is usually based on a literal reading of Genesis 1-2 but other religions have other deity led creation myths which may be quite different.

In many countries, belief in creationism has decreased as scientific theories have been presented that support more naturalistic explanations for the universe and for the life within, though not necessarily the basic tenets of their religion. Whilst some have tried to refute these theories, others believe in types of creationism that do not exclude all of these theories. When mainstream scientific research produces conclusions which contradict a strict creationist interpretation of scripture some will reject the conclusions of the research[citation needed] and/or its underlying sci-entific theories and/or its methodology. The most notable disputes concern the effects of evolution on the develop-ment of living organisms, the idea of common descent the geologic history of the earth, the formation of the solar system and the origin of the universe.

Creationism - The be all and end all Chapter 1

Creationism is the religious belief that human-ity, life, the Earth, and the universe were created in some form by a supernatural being or beings, commonly a single deity. In a broad sense, it covers a wide range of interpreta-

tions of beliefs that a supernatural force such as a deity intervenes, or has intervened, directly in the natural world. In relation to the creation-evolution controversy the term creationism is commonly used to refer to religiously moti-vated rejection of natural biological processes, in particu-lar evolution as an explanation accounting for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth. In the West such creationism is usually based on a literal reading of Genesis 1-2 but other religions have other deity led creation myths which may be quite different. In many countries, belief in creationism has decreased as scientific theories have been presented that support more naturalistic explanations for the universe and for the life within, though not necessarily the basic tenets of their religion. Whilst some have tried to refute these theories, others believe in types of creationism that do not exclude all of these theories. When mainstream scientific research produces conclusions which contradict a strict creationist interpretation of scripture some will reject the conclusions of the research and/or its underlying scientific theories and/or its methodology. The most notable disputes concern the effects of evolution on the development of

vi.

DAVID QUAMMEN ON CREATIONISM

Creationism - The be all and end allChapter 2

living organisms, the idea of common descent the geologic history of the earth, the formation of the solar system and the origin of the universe.

Faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. For example, the word “faith” can refer to a religion itself or to religion in general. As with “trust”, faith involves a concept of future events or outcomes, and is used conversely for a belief “not resting on logical proof or material evidence.” Informal usage of the word “faith” can be quite broad, and may be used in place of “trust” or “belief.” Faith is often used in a religious context, as in theology, where it almost universally refers to a trusting belief in a transcen-dent reality, or else in a Supreme Being and/or said being’s role in the order of transcendent, spiritual things. Faith is in general the persuasion of the mind that a certain statement is true. It is the belief and the assent of the mind to the truth of what is declared by another, based on his or her authority and truthfulness. The English word faith is dated from 1200–50, from the Latin fidem, or fids, meaning trust, akin to fdere to trust. Evolution by natural selection, the central concept of the life’s work of Charles Darwin, is a theory. It’s a theory about the origin of adaptation, complexity, and diversity among Earth’s living creatures. If you are skeptical by nature, unfamiliar with the terminology of science, and unaware of the overwhelming evidence, you might even be

GOD CREATED “THE 8,400,000 SPECIES OF LIFE FROM THE VERY BEGINNING,” ALTHOUGH SOULS ASCEND, THE SPECIES THEMSELVES DON’T CHANGE.

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tempted to say that it’s “just” a theory. In the same sense, relativity as described by Albert Einstein is “just” a theory. The notion that Earth orbits around the sun rather than vice versa, offered by Copernicus in 1543, is a theory. Continental drift is a theory. The existence, structure, and dynamics of atoms? Atomic theory. Even electricity is a theoretical construct, involving electrons, which are tiny units of charged mass that no one has ever seen. Each of these theories is an explanation that has been confirmed to such a degree, by observation and experiment, that knowl-edgeable experts accept it as fact. That’s what scientists mean when they talk about a theory: not a dreamy and unreliable speculation, but an explanatory statement that fits the evidence. They embrace such an explanation con-fidently but provisionally—taking it as their best available view of reality, at least until some severely conflicting data or some better explanation might come along. The rest of us generally agree. We plug our televisions into little wall sockets, measure a year by the length of Earth’s orbit, and in many other ways live our lives based on the trusted reality of those theories. Evolutionary theory, though, is a bit different. It’s such a dangerously wonderful and far-reaching view of life that some people find it unacceptable, despite the vast body of supporting evidence. As applied to our own species, Homo sapiens, it can seem more threatening still. Many fundamentalist Christians and ultra-orthodox

Creationism - The be all and end all Chapter 2

Jews take alarm at the thought that human descent from earlier primates contradicts a strict reading of the Book of Genesis. Their discomfort is paralleled by Islamic cre-ationists such as Harun Yahya, author of a recent volume titled The Evolution Deceit, who points to the six-day creation story in the Koran as literal truth and calls the theory of evolution “nothing but a deception imposed on us by the dominators of the world system.” The late Srila Prabhupada, of the Hare Krishna movement, ex-plained that God created “the 8,400,000 species of life from the very beginning,” in order to establish multiple tiers of reincarnation for rising souls. Although souls ascend, the species themselves don’t change, he insisted, dismissing “Darwin’s nonsensical theory.” The statistical breakdown hasn’t changed much in two decades. Gallup interviewers posed exactly the same choices in 1982, 1993, 1997, and 1999. The creationist conviction—that God alone, and not evolution, pro-duced humans—has never drawn less than 44 percent. In other words, nearly half the American populace prefers to believe that Charles Darwin was wrong where it mat-tered most.

x.

Creationism - The be all and end allChapter 2

THE HEVENS AND LIFE ON EARTH WERE CREATED BY

DIRECT ACTS OF GOD DURING A SHORT TIME,

SOMETIME BETWEEN 6,000 AND 10,000 YEARS AGO. CHRISTIANS AND JEWS

BELIEVE THAT GOD CREATED THE EARTH IN SIX 24-HOUR DAYS, TAKING THE HEBREW

TEXT OF GENESIS AS A LITERAL ACCOUNT.

GOD: THE CREATOR.THE TRUE STORY OF

THE EARTHS CREATION

xii.

Before the beginning there was silence. There was no song. No whisper. There were no hues of blues and greens, no blends of color, no child’s laughter and no aromas, no yellow flowers, no buzzing black bumble bees, not

even red sky at dawn. There was no fire and there were no rhythms. There was no work, no ice cold drink on a hot day, no flow to the center, no far and no near, for there was nothing to be measured. There was no structure, no system, no birth and no moonlight dancing on the evening tide. There was no bitter and no sweet and there was no breeze on the face. There was no texture, no form and no early morning fog. The darkness was not black for there was no color. But there was hope. Hovering there in the silence was the One. The One was Spirit. He was the Uncreated. He was in the silence not for one day, nor for one trillion years. The Uncreated Spirit simply was. He was in the silence of the endless deep. The Uncreat-ed Spirit knew his own solitude. He was without another to listen to the voice of his heart. He was without a pool to reflect his passion back into his eyes. He was without a heart friend to passionately love and be loved by. His passion drifted into eternity past. There were no echoes for there was no other spirit to listen to his magnifi-cent solitude. The Uncreated wept for he knew he was alone. Evil was born in the moment that the Uncreated Spirit wept. All space and time beyond him became the place of evil for it violated his passionate longing to love

Creationism - The be all and end allChapter 3

and be loved, to know and be known. The Uncreated Spirit passionately longed to know something rather than nothing. He felt the urge to replace nowhere with somewhere. He longed to embrace someone rather than no one. Yet the silence defied his passion. The empty silence was the first problem, the original injustice. The Uncreated Spirit looked around and saw the emptiness. He longed to set fire to the silence. He felt the urge to unleash his breath of life into the darkness. Within the heart of the Uncreated Spirit, the passion of the Artist to paint the empty canvas around him exploded into life. The urgency to design was activated. The will to shape was launched. The tune was heard in the composer’s heart. The poetic impulse emerged. A movement of the heart to blaze the three colors of light into the darkness was advanced. It was the urge to carve life out of the dark, to blend shapes and colors, to replace formlessness with beauty. The Spirit lifted his head and though his eyes only saw darkness his heart imagined what would be. He shouted with elation. His mind saw beauty and his heart embraced form. Imagination was ignited in his mind and his unbridled ideas gave way to dreams as they swirled and danced through his heart and transformed into vi-sion as they moved toward his throat. Faces emerged in his dreams and he knew them and talked with them and loved them. He measured space and time. He saw it all teeming with the creative expressions of his heart. The Uncreated Spirit smiled and then he laughed out loud.

He laughed with shining moist eyes. His laughter rose like a waterfall of joy. The Uncreated Creator opened his mouth. He parted his lips. He unleashed the mighty primal shout. His words poured out from within. They advanced into the waiting silence like a mighty consum-ing fire. This was the ancient command that shook into existence the universe. The Uncreated Spirit shouted with triumph as he watched this Consuming Fire, this brilliant Light, this expression of his Passion, this Word that was emerging from him. He rejoiced for he saw that what was sent out from him was overpowering the evil, dark emptiness with radiant light. For a moment he was silent and he closed his eyes and listened to the music around him erupt with fresh and delicious life. He breathed in the tantalizing aromas of his creation. He wept again, this time with pure delight, for he saw that all he had formed was good. He knelt down and caressed one of his dazzling sprays of yellow tulips on a mountain pass. He waded into a pool of spring water, catching sight of his own reflection. Then he reached his hands down into the deep, rich, life giving black mud. He grasped a handful and lifted it to his face and breathed in the delightful smell. In exhilaration he paused to drink in the moment. His moment for friendship had come. From this dirt he would create another. Another like him. In his own image he would shape them from this glori-ous mud. He reached down into the mud and played joyfully up to his elbows and knees. He smiled for he

Creationism - The be all and end all Chapter 3

xiii.

xiv.

an electroencephalogram, we are measuring salt flow and electrical activity within the human brain. We cannot so much as even locate the human mind. Yet we watch as human carcasses run about, making order of disorder, conscious decisions according to subconscious criteria. We see the design and complexity that result from the operation of the brain through the invisible realm known as the mind. Thus, we know with certainty that the human mind exists. Therefore, it’s absolutely logical for Creationists to postulate the existence of a Creator based upon the same “evidence.” The design we see all around us came from one, grand concept, and such a concept can only come from a complex Mind.

was embracing the highest and most dizzying adventure of creation. He called forth the waters and he sum-moned fire to burst through their bodies. Then he placed his mouth over their mouths and from his own breath he ignited life within this crowning masterpiece of his creation, his heart friends. Man and woman, he created them. They lifted their sparkling eyes. The Uncreated Spirit extended his strong hands, he wrapped his arms around them and lifted them up. His voice was warm and tender. “Come with me, my beloved friends. Walk with me. Create with me. Take my hands and share my life with me. Know that my passion is for you.” They listened to the Creator’s joyful song and they danced to the Creator’s tune and they slept to the Creator’s lullaby. We propose that the burden of evidence should be upon the Evolutionists, since Creation has been the historic and inherent default throughout virtually all cultures and religions until roughly the last 200 years. Of course, Evolutionists, who view themselves as the only “scientists” in the debate, insist that the burden of evi-dence be upon the Creationists. Evolutionists reason, we cannot see the Creator, we cannot hear the Creator, and we cannot touch, taste or smell the Creator. Therefore, we are unable to test for the Creator with any form of scientific equipment developed thus far. Creationists re-tort, we cannot see, hear, touch, taste, or smell the human mind. We cannot test for the human mind with any form of scientific equipment developed thus far. When we run

Creationism - The be all and end allChapter 3

65% of Americans agree the bible answers a

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ifes

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28% of these believeers say they rarely or nev

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ead

the

bib

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THE ODDS AGAINST THE CONDITIONS BEING SUITABLE FOR THE

FORMATION OF STARS - A NECESSITY FOR PLANETS AND

THUS LIFE - IS A ONE FOLLOWED BY AT LEAST A BILLION BILLION ZEROES.

Creationism - The be all and end all Chapter 4

COLLINS: WHY THIS SCIENTIST

BELIEVES IN GOD

xiii.

Dr. Francis Collins is a scientist and a believer, and he finds no conflict between those world views. As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the

3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the informa-tion molecule of all living things, as God’s language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God’s plan. I did not always embrace these perspectives. As a graduate student in physical chemistry in the 1970s, I was an atheist, finding no reason to postulate the existence of any truths outside of mathematics, physics and chemistry. But then I went to medical school, and encountered life and death issues at the bedsides of my patients. Challenged by one of those patients, who asked “What do you believe, doctor?”, I began searching for answers. I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as “What is the meaning of life?” “Why am I here?” “Why does math-ematics work, anyway?” “If the universe had a beginning, who created it?” “Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of com-plex life forms?” “Why do humans have a moral sense?” “What happens after we die?” I had always assumed that faith was based on purely emotional and irrational arguments, and was astounded

Creationism - The be all and end all Chapter 4

to discover, initially in the writings of the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis and subsequently from many other sources, that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds. My earlier atheist’s assertion that “I know there is no God” emerged as the least defensible. As the British writer G.K. Chesterton famously remarked, “Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative.” But reason alone cannot prove the existence of God. Faith is reason plus revelation, and the revelation part requires one to think with the spirit as well as with the mind. You have to hear the music, not just read the notes on the page. Ultimately, a leap of faith is required. For me, that leap came in my 27th year, after a search to learn more about God’s character led me to the person of Jesus Christ. Here was a person with remark-ably strong historical evidence of his life, who made astounding statements about loving your neighbor, and whose claims about being God’s son seemed to demand a decision about whether he was deluded or the real thing. After resisting for nearly two years, I found it impos-sible to go on living in such a state of uncertainty, and I became a follower of Jesus. So, some have asked, doesn’t your brain explode? Can you both pursue an understand-ing of how life works using the tools of genetics and molecular biology, and worship a creator God? Aren’t evolution and faith in God incompatible? Can a scientist believe in miracles like the resurrection?

xvi.

Actually, I find no conflict here, and neither appar-ently do the 40 percent of working scientists who claim to be believers. Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relat-edness to all other living things. But why couldn’t this be God’s plan for creation? True, this is incompatible with an ultra-literal interpreta-tion of Genesis, but long before Darwin, there were many thoughtful interpreters like St. Augustine, who found it impossible to be exactly sure what the meaning of that amazing creation story was supposed to be. So attach-ing oneself to such literal interpretations in the face of compelling scientific evidence pointing to the ancient age of Earth and the relatedness of living things by evolution seems neither wise nor necessary for the believer. I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigat-ing God’s majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.

Creationism - The be all and end allChapter 4

AREN’T EVOLUTION AND FAITH IN GOD INCOMPATIBLE? CAN A SCI-ENTIST BELIEVE IN MIRACLES LIKE THE RESURRECTION?

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Creationism - The be all and end all Chapter 4

I BELIEVE IN CHRISTIANITY AS I

BELIEVE THAT THE SUN HAS RISEN: NOT ONLY BECAUSE I SEE IT, BUT BECAUSE BY IT I SEE

EVERYTHING ELSE.

- C. S. LEWIS

Creationism - The be all and end all Chapter 4