THE EFFECTS OF EVOLUTION
Evolution is probably one of the most important subjects facing us today because of the world view and lifestyle that it breeds. A person’s belief that he is a creation of God involves a particular world view that will make him live a certain way. If he believes that he is a creation of chance, that there is no God, then that will produce a lifestyle or world view that will have certain consequences on his life.
Who cares anyway? Why is this subject so important?
I’d like to begin by saying that the subject is very dear to my heart. I’m both glad and sad to be able to discuss the topic of creation/evolution in the Bible. I’m glad because I love the Bible and the God of the Bible and I’m honored to be able to share my faith in God’s incredible book. I’m glad because we have freedom in this country that allows us to discuss topics like this. Many other countries do not even allow a discussion on this subject. You have to accept the state opinion. America is headed that way, I fear. But I’m glad that right now in America we have the freedom to discuss the contradictory or conflicting religions of creation and evolution. I’m glad because discussions of this type will force people to take a stand on the issue. You either believe one side or the other. There is no middle ground in this case.
But I am very sad because many other countries don’t allow this type of discussion on creation and evolution. Many millions of my brothers in the faith have given their lives and fortunes for the Blessed Book, the Bible. I’m sad because it looks like many more will have to do the same in the next few years, the way things are going. I’m also sad because those who reject the words of this Blessed Book are missing the greatest Joy known to man, fellowship with God. They are also missing the real reason and purpose of life. If the words of the time-tested Book are true, those who reject them and the forgiveness they offer are doomed to face God and give an account of their sin before their Creator. God will be their judge, on that day, whereas He will be my Father on that day. This topic is personal for me; it’s not just academic. If someone says that the Bible is a myth and is not true, or that the doctrine of evolution is true, and the Genesis account of creation is false, they are attacking the very foundation of my faith. Jesus said that the creation of Adam and Eve was “the beginning.” (Matt. 19:4) It would be like saying that my Father is a liar. Calling Genesis a myth, or creation a myth is like saying slanderous things about my mom or dad or wife or family. It will be hard for me not to get emotionally involved in this topic.
We need to remember Aristole’s dictum. Aristotle said
If a document is being questioned, the benefit of the doubt is given to the document itself, not arrogated by the critic to himself. One must listen to the claims of the document under analysis and not assume fraud or error unless the author disqualifies himself by contradictions or known factual inerrancies.
There are basically two choices in this argument. Choice number one is that the material universe that we see made itself out of nothing for no reason- Then, through a
long process of evolution the different animals and man developed as we see them today.
Choice number two is that there is an infinite, all-powerful, all-wise God who created this universe that we see for some special reasons. There are those who try to make a middle ground position called theistic-evolution. This says that God created the matter and helped evolution along at critical points like the origin of life and things like that. That is an indefensible position.
The choices are either the universe made itself or God made it. Both are in the realm of religion. People that believe in evolution want to make you think that what they believe is a scientific fact. Nothing could be farther from the truth. These people are either extremely optimistic or just bold-faced liars. Evolution is not a scientific fact. It actually is not even a good theory. It is just a hypothesis.
Actually, evolution fits into the realm of religion. Webster’s definition of religion says “belief in a divine or super-human power to be obeyed and worshiped as the creator and ruler of the universe.” If this process of evolution created and rules the universe, then that is the super-human power that the evolutionists worship. Many people down through the years have admitted that evolution is just a religion. Some still won’t today because they don’t understand the subject. For instance, Sir Arthur Keith, the British biologist, said “Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.” L. H. Matthews, the man who wrote the preface to the 1971 edition of Charles Darwin’s book, The Origin of Species, said, “The belief in the theory of evolution was exactly parallel to belief in special creation, with evolution merely a satisfactory faith on which to base our interpretation of nature.” It is a faith. Pierre Grasse, a French biologist, said, “Scientists should destroy the myth of evolution.” The British physicist, L. H. Lipsome, said, “In fact, evolution became in a sense, a scientific religion. Almost all scientists have accepted it, and many are prepared to bend their observations to fit in with it.” Evolutionists can rant and rave all they want and say that evolution is a proven fact, when actually there is not one bit of scientific evidence to back up macro-evolution. By that I mean major changes between kinds of animals.
Micro-evolution is small little changes where there is no change from one kind of organism to another. Actually, evolution would be a bad term to use. Micro-evolution is only variations within the kind. It proves foresight of the Creator in providing His creatures with the ability to adapt–within limits–to their environment. I don’t question that variation exists, I just interpret the evidence as part of God’s design.
I’ll give you just one example to help you understand the difference. Let’s suppose we let loose five hundred canaries on an island. The only food for the canaries to eat on that island are nuts with a relatively tough shell around them. Only the canaries that had a tough beak would be able to eat the nuts and survive. The others would starve to death. Therefore, those that had the tougher beaks would be able to reproduce the next generation. If we came back to that island in about two hundred years, we would find that all of the canaries on the island have tough beaks. That is not evolution. That is simply variation. You would still have canaries. The trait of having a tough beak was in the genetic structure to begin with. Nothing new has been added. We have only selected a certain portion of the population to survive. That is variation, not evolution. Those canaries will never, given all the time you want, will never change into elephants, or dinosaurs, or trees, or tomatoes. If they did, that would be macro-evolution. Micro-evolution is small little variations between the species that have been in the genetic structure by. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the terms that are used today about evolution.
Let me quote Just a few more things here. In Scientific America. May, 1984, Allen Goode said,
The inflationary model of the universe provides a possible mechanism by which the observable universe could have evolved from an infinitesimal region. It is then tempting to go one step further and speculate that the entire universe evolved from literally nothing.
You can “speculate” and say that it’s possible all you want, but that is a religion. That’s your faith. Don’t tell ma that is science. You cannot prove that. If you want to believe that, that is fine. This is America. You can believe whatever you want to believe, but don’t tell me that is science, and don’t use my tax dollars to teach other kids in the public schools that that is science. That’s nonsense. If you think that it is really important to teach evolution to the young people, then go start yourself a private school, charge tuition, and teach evolution to those who want to pay to come and learn it. But it is deceitful, wrong, and wicked to use the public’s tax money to promote this religion of evolution in our public schools. We’ve got to put a stop to it.
Let me quote just a few more here. David Kits, in “Paleontology and Evolutionary Thought” magazine, said, “Evolution, at least in the sense that Darwin speaks of it, cannot be detected within the life time of a single observer.” It cannot be detected. It is not part of science. It is just a religion. Here is a quote from Myer’s book Systematic and Origin of Species. “Darwin never really did discuss the origin of species in his On the Origin of Species”. Collin Patterson, the curator at the British museum of natural history said, “No one has ever produced a species by mechanisms of natural selection. No one has gotten near it.”
The mechanisms for evolution that they try to tell us works so well are mutations and natural selection. No one has ever produced a new species by those means.
Evolution is a religion. If evolutionists want to believe it, that is fine. But that is just their faith. I want to believe that God created it and that is my faith, and I readily admit it.
Many say “We can’t mix religion and the public schools.” In the first place, that is a faulty argument. The public schools desperately need some religion. They were started by religious institutions. There is nothing wrong with putting our religion in the public schools.
The second argument that many people say is “Well, you can’t mix church and state.” That is not found anywhere in the constitution. That is in Jefferson’s writings, “The Separation of Church and State.” The constitution says that the government can make no law respecting an establishment of a religion or hindering the free exercise thereof. Teaching our young people that we evolved from monkeys in hindering the religion of Christianity. It’s causing them to doubt their faith, and it needs to be eliminated- The first amendment goes against the teaching of evolution. It is a hindrance to religious activity. Evolution is just a religion. We must establish early in the discussion that the creation/evolution question cannot be scientifically resolved because both are religious faiths. They are dogmas. They are what you believe.
People come in to this argument having already decided what they want to believe based on their lifestyle. If a person has a wicked lifestyle and wants to get rid of God some how, then it is only natural that he would choose the evolutionary idea to try to leave God out.
By way of giving just a little more fact that evolution is just a religion, and not scientific, Steven J. Gould, a noted evolutionist, said in
The fossil record with its abrupt transitions, offers no support for gradual change. All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms. Transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt. (KJV: GET BOOK TITLE)
Evolution is their faith; they believe it because that is what they want to believe. In Newsweek magazine, “Is Man a Subtle Accident?”, (Nov. 3, 1980),
The missing link between man and ape, whose absence has comforted fundamentalists since the days of Darwin, is merely the most glamorous of a whole hierarchy of phantom creatures. The more scientists have searched for the transitional forms that lie between species, the more they have been frustrated.
There are no transitional forms between species because that is not the way we got here. Gould and Eldridge in Paleobiography (KJV; GET TITLE), said,
At the higher level of evolutionary transition between basic morphological design, gradualism has always been in trouble. Though it remains the official position of most western evolutionists, smooth intermissions between different animals are almost impossible to construct. Even in thought experiments, there is certainly no evidence for them in the fossil record. Curious mosaics like Archaeopteryx do not count.
In his review of Steven Stanley’s book Macro-evolution D. S. Woodruff, said, “Fossil species remain unchanged throughout most of their history and the record fails to contain a single example of a significant transition.” There aren’t any examples.
Don’t fall for the statement that evolution is a proven fact. It is absolutely not. It is their religion versus my religion. I will quickly admit that what I have is a faith. I cannot prove creation and you cannot prove evolution. If we approach it on the common ground that both ideas are religious, it will make a lot more sense. It is not science versus religion. Don’t let them use that phrase when they talk about the controversy of creation versus evolution. It is not science versus religion; it is religion versus religion. Both of them are simply religious beliefs.
The effect of these religious beliefs has always been of interest to me. If we teach our kids in public schools that they are merely animals, then they will act like animals. Me should not be surprised. If we teach kids in school that they are a creation of God, that God is their creator, and will some day be their judge, we can expect their behavior to be different because of their basic philosophy.
The teaching of evolution is important because, number one, it affects our society. Many people down through history in the name of evolution, have had some dramatic effects on our society. Adolf Hitler, for instance, was an avid evolutionist. In order to comprehend Hitler’s reasoning, one must go back to evolution to understand why he did the things that he did, and thought the way he thought. Hitler slaughtered the Jews and hated the blacks because he was an evolutionist. He thought it was his duty to aid evolution in improving the human race. He taught and believed that each of the different races in the world were actually different species of man, and that it was the job of the superior species (Germany) to annihilate the inferior species. In the name of evolution, Hitler closed down the Christian schools in Germany in the early 1930’s. He began indoctrinating the people heavily with the idea of the “German superior race”, saying the because of evolution they had evolved further and it was their duty to rule the world.
Let me give you a quote here. Sir Arthur Keith, in his book Evolution and Ethics. (1947), page 10, said,
The leader of Germany is an evolutionist, not only in theory, but as millions know to their costs, in the rigor of its practice. For him, the national “front” of Europe is only the evolutionary “front;” he regards himself, and is regarded, as the incarnation of the will of Germany, the purpose of that will being to guide the evolutionary destiny of its people.
Hitler was an evolutionist and it was the crazy doctrine of evolution that is fundamentally responsible for World War II.
In Japan, the same thing was going on with the Shintu religion. This teaches that the Japanese people evolved from gods and it was their destiny to rule the world. Japan and Germany got together and we had an awful time in World War II.
Yes, the controversy and debate of evolution and creation has a tremendous influence on our society.
Joseph Stalin was another evolutionist. I quote here from the Impact article, published by the Institute for Creation Research in El Cajon, California, October, 1987, Impact article #172, entitled “Stalin’s Brutal Faith.”
One of the men that had a profound impact on Joseph Stalin when he was Just a young person was the man Charles Darwin and his book The Origin of Species. At a very early age, while still a pupil in the ecclesiastical school, Comrade Stalin developed a critical mind and revolutionary sentiments. He began to read Darwin and became an atheist.
G. Glurdjidze, a friend of Stalin’s relates, “I began to speak of God. Joseph heard me out, and after a moment of silence, he said, “You know, they are fooling us. There is no god.”
I was astonished at these words. I had never heard anything like it before.
“How can you say such things so-so!” I exclaimed.
“‘I’ll lend you a book to read; it will show you that the world and all living things are quite different from what you imagined, and you will see that all of this talk about God is sheer nonsense,’ Joseph said.
‘”What book is that?’ I enquired.
“‘Darwin. You must read it,’ Joseph impressed on me.
A few pages later, another individual was reflecting on Stalin’s youthful pursuits, and he added the following,
…In order to disabuse the minds of our seminary students of the myth that the world was created in six days, we had to acquaint ourselves with the geological origin and the age of the earth and be able to prove them in argument. We had to familiarize ourselves with Darwin’s writings.
Joseph Stalin, in the name of evolution and to help purify the Russian race, was responsible for killing sixty million of his own people during his reign of terror. We are still digging up mass graves of people that were slaughtered by Stalin.
Communism also has its roots in evolution. Let me quote some more here from the Impact article, 172, “Stalin’s Brutal Faith,” “As early as December 12, 1859, only two months after the Origin of Species was published, Frederick Engles wrote to Karl Marx, “Darwin, whom I am just now reading, is splendid.” About a year later, December 19, 1860, Karl Marx, the father of communism responded, “During my time of trial these last few weeks, I have read all sorts of things, among others, Darwin’s book of natural selection. Although it is developed in the crude English style, this is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our view.” To one Ferdinand LaSalle, he wrote on January 16, 1861, “Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as the basis in natural science for the class struggle in history.” Zirkle that Marx wanted to dedicate “Das Capital” to Darwin. Harvard’s Stephen J. Gould, an intense and modern spokesman for evolution, corroborates that he saw Darwin’s copy of Marx’s first copy inscribed by Marx, describing himself as a sincere admirer of the English naturalist, Darwin. Someone credits Vladimar Lenin with the following commentary on Darwin, “Darwin put an end to the belief that the animal/vegetable species bare no relation to one another except by chance and that they were created by God and are hence immutable.” Communism has its roots in evolution.
The effects that evolution has had on our society, just with the three that I’ve mentioned here, Hitler, Stalin, and Communism, are incredible. The human lives that have been lost cannot be calculated. Nor can the money that has been spent fighting communism and Nazism be calculated. It staggers the imagination to think of the effects that evolution has had on our society. Creation versus evolution is an extremely important discussion and debate. We are setting the trap for young people by teaching them evolution in school. Me are destroying cur own future by presenting this ridiculous doctrine as a scientific fact. The effect on society alone is tremendous.
The philosophy of origins that a person chooses also has an effect on many other decisions he or she makes. The people that are divided on whether they believe that abortion is right or wrong are generally divided into the same groups that form over the issue of creation and evolution. If a person believes that we are a creation of God, then of course, abortion is wrong. If a person believes that evolution is true, that we Just evolved with blind chance, then abortion would be fine. The abortion issue really needs to be argued on creation/evolution ground first. The same could be said for many other issues of life like euthanasia, drugs, teen sex, homosexuality, etc.
Secondly, I think evolution not only affects our society, it affects our modern science. One of the things that we try to teach students is what is called the “scientific method.” There are basically four steps involved in the scientific method. There are basically four steps in the scientific method: observation, experimentation, classification of data, and conclusion. It is extremely important that scientists learn to use the “scientific method,” particularly observation and experimentation. They need to learn how to be good scientists.
We take our science classes and try to teach them the unobservable thing of evolution. Evolution has never been observed in the present; it has never been observed in the past. There is no record in the fossil record for evolution. There is no observation for this doctrine and it does not belong in science. It is part of a religion. There is no experimentation for evolution. Do an experiment, show me evolution happening. All they have been able to show so far are genetic changes that have been neutral or negative. There has never been an increase in genetic matter or genetic structure.
We have developed, for instance, through the fruit fly experiment, that went for many years, flies with no eyes, flies with red eyes, flies with rumpled wings, flies with no wings, but never anything but another fly. It was always a fly that was less likely to survive in the wild. How well could a fly that couldn’t fly survive?
Evolution teaches that things gradually increase, and yet there is no experimentation to back it up. No one has ever done one experiment to prove any phase of macro-evolution at all.
The effect that evolution has on science, I think is devastating. America is rapidly losing ground in the world market in our science students. We are turning out
students that many other countries are able to beat in academic scores and academic knowledge because we waste so much class time and textbook time on this dumb idea of evolution. It cannot be proved. There is no observation. There is no experimentation. It does not belong in the science classroom. It has a tremendous effect on our scientific program. It hinders right thinking. We teach students, “Hey, you are going to be a scientist. Now only believe what you can observe.” But yet we teach them evolution, which we cannot observe. That is absurd. We waste a tremendous amount of money trying to prove evolution.
On the trip to the moon, they were so concerned that there might be some type of bacteria life on the moon. They spent extra money to isolate the moon-rocks when they got them in the spacecraft, and when they got them back on earth. They will do the same with all the other planets. They will say, “Oh, there might be life there. We need to protect those rocks.” One of the astronauts offered to eat some of the moon dust on the way back to prove that there was no life on it and that it was perfectly sterile. Bring back a Mars rock or a Jupiter rock, I’ll eat it or lick it. There is no life on the other planet. Life doesn’t evolve. There is no evidence for evolution and it wastes a lot of our money because they’ve got the wrong thinking. They thought the moon was millions of years old, so they put giant landing pads on the spacecraft. They wasted a lot of money because they thought the cosmic dust would be so deep on the moon. The cosmic dust layer indicated that the moon was only six or seven thousand years old. We will discuss this in further detail later in the book.
Christians need to stand up for what is right. I believe God’s Word is the truth, and all real scientific evidence validates it.