Creation

Creation

Cosmological Origins & Evolution

Cause

God was the Cause

For every effect, there is a cause. This argument is intuitively clear.

Evolution is not cosmology or asronomy - it makes no statement either way about how the universe began.

Origin

The universe was spoken into existence by God's Word.

Intuitive argument

As above; evolution does not deal with the origin of the universe.

Energy

We are devolving

Energy goes from a state of usable energy to less usable energy

Laws of Thermodynamics are not violated.

We are evolving biologically but universally entropy is increasing. Biological evolution is not happening in a closed system.

The Laws of Thermodynamics are not violated.

Space

Earth created first (day 1)

Stars came afterwards (day 4) with the sun and moon.As above; evolution makes no statement regarding space, the other planets, the sun or any other celestial object.

Earth's

Covering

Water, prior to God forming the earth out of chaos

Earth formed from the accretion disk of rocky material orbiting the young sun. Originally molten rock, cooled to provide solid suface and oceans can form.

Time Constraints

6 Days - The creation of the World was finished in six days and is no longer taking place. Based on faith in Biblical account.

Cosmic time-frame. Expansion 15 billion years ago; earth formed by natural processes 4.6 billion years ago. The world is in a continuous process of change. Based on interpretation of available evidence.

Quality

Very Good

Mysterious, Violent, Able to be manipulated and studied.

Planning of

Life

By design

Random processes combined with constraints of available materials and energies.

Origin of

Life

God

Life comes from life (intuitive and observable), no known exceptions.

Forces of Nature

It is possible for life to come from non-life (not observable outside of geological time-frames).

Time needed

for Life

2 Days (Faith based) - all animal/human life was created on day 5 and 6.

Undetermined time; at least millions of years. Process is not fully known but a matter of continued research. Evidence driven.

Species

Kind begets kind. This is intuitively sound.

Organisms can be modified significantly over time, genotypically and phenotypically. Conclusions derived from evidence

Animal Life

Birds first, then

Reptiles

Reptiles first, then

Birds

Human Life

Man was created on day six

Man is made in the image of God.

Mammalian life becomes dominant 65 mya. Primates appear >10 mya. Homo genus diverges 5 to 7 mya. Homo sapiensappears 200 tya.

Beginning

of Death

After Adam sinned, not a process of creation - it is a product of man's sin.

Always present, part of the natural process. What is not observable (condition after death) cannot be known.

Cause of

Death

Sin. There was no death before Adam sinned (plant life not included), the breath of life was breathed into animals but not plants.

Natural process, existed from the beginning of life

Spiritual

Death

Both physical and spiritual, you will give an account of your life after you die.

Physical only; accountability is of no account from perspective of natural science. Many scientists are deeply religious, from every possible faith. But questions of Spiritual death are not within the realm of natural science. No clash with creationism.

Sediment Layers,

Canyons

Form rapidly (liquefaction). Witnessed during Mt. St. Helens. Based on interpretation of selected evidence.

Form at various speeds, but generally slowly. Based on interpretation of selected evidence.

Fossil Creation

Catastrophic events, rapid burial in water.Catastrohpic events, rapid burial in water followed by silt cover. Encapsulation in amber, or submersion in tar or other hydrocarbons.

Marine fossils on

Mountains

Global flood, Genesis account

Rapid 40 day/night event

Springs of the deep broken up

All creation perished

All mountains covered by at least 20 ft.

About 200 legends from cultures all over the world.

Local floods, earth sinking into the ocean and rising again, or original mountain formation from ocean floors or tidal basins.

Trees through

layers

Fossilized trees spanning many layers indicates rapid burial by water, observable with Mt. St. Helens. Can be created in one week.

Over many years plant life died, sank into the earth, and coal formed. Based on interpretation of selected evidence.

Coal, Oil,

Petrified

Wood

Coal, Oil, Petrified Wood, can all be made in a matter of weeks.

Coal, Oil, Petrified Wood take millions of years to form in nature. This cannot occur naturally in weeks. Based on interpretation of selected evidence.

Biblical Day

Recognize that the Biblical day means 24 hours and accept it as fact

Hebrew word "Yom", in all cases, means short period of time

defined to be evening and morning

days are distinguished between seasons and years (Genesis 1:14)

God's own word (Exodus 10:11)

writing style of Genesis is narrative, not poetic

genealogy of human race given

Some believe that the Biblical day means 24 hours but consider biblical accounts to be literary and non-scientific. Those who reconcile science and creation interpret Biblical days to mean millions of years. The actual length of the day changes throughout the year. The 24 hour period defined as mean (average) solar day. Astronomical evidence strongly suggests that the earth is slowing down over time, and days were considerably shorter than 24 hours in the earliest days of the planet.

Evolution and Creationism (often called Intelligent Design or ID) are two separate hypotheses describing how the world began. Neither Creation nor Evolution has been directly observed. Proponents of ID insist that not enough time has elapsed for any naturalist theory to account for the variety of life that has existed on earth. They do not hold to the Young Earth ideas of scriptural fundamentalists, so they are open to an understanding that the earth and the universe may be billions of years old. Science is based on experimentation and on man's observations of the physical universe, and as such, elements of the theory can be experimentally ruled out, but the theory itself cannot be proven. Most fundamental theories of science cannot be proven beyond all doubt. Evolution must be judged against the best available evidence and its interpretation, what could be called naturalist faith. Creationism must ultimately be taken on religious faith.

Creationism is the belief that the world was created (made from nothing) by God. According to the Bible, He spoke the world and life (plants, animals, insects, etc.) on the earth into existence during the course of six days [for those who hold to the Young Earth concept, a concept held in contempt by ID scientists]. Creationism is the belief of many Christians and is based on the first two chapters of Genesis, which detail God's firsthand account of creation as given to Moses through divine inspiration.

Evolution is the theory that the world's living things, even many that appear too diverse from one another to be related, have descended from some common ancestors far in the past. Over many millions of years, current life forms developed by way of the impact of electrical, biochemical, genetic and enviromental forces. Evolution itself addresses the diversity of life forms on earth and not origins of life itself. Various branches of organic chemistry and biochemistry are combining with physics and evolution theorists to explore various pathways to the origins of life. The theory of evolution was introduced by Charles Darwin in his book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Evolution is currently the accepted theory of diversity by naturalists and humanists and by the great majority of scientists.

Choosing what to believe is often difficult. With little effort one may find information and 'proofs' on either side of the issue. This particular decision is further complicated by the fact that people from each position will examine the very same data and come to radically different conclusions from it. Creationists often challenge the methods used by field scientists in gathering dating or assembling of fossil and geological materials, and the ways of estimating the current age of the earth or of the universe.

Answer 2:

There are many who believe there is no clash between science and the Bible. If God created everything, including giving man the intellect to discover the sciences, then science and religion must agree or else one is in error. If each 'day' of creation in the Bible is viewed as a geological Age/Eon, there is NO conflict (with the exception of the sun, which appeared before the planet Earth).

More importantly, after 10 or 15 years there is no substantial history of professional research papers, peer reviewed, backing up any of their claims. There are many popular books that are successfully enticing the uninformed public into questioning a lot of science that requires more than a layman's grasp to understand. Yet these scientists continue to stir the public, more to gain political advantage rather than to advance science.

Writing books that claim to contain the author's laws of intelligent design, and that these laws should be considered by the scientific community as equal to the laws of thermodynamics, takes more than a little ego. Professional scientists would lose their careers for making such claims in the arena of actual replicatable research and professional peer review. But these materials are not written to or for professionals, and are not written in support of ID or Creationism as science. They are written to demolish current evolution-based theories in the minds of the public. Their conclusion is that if there are flaws in evolutionary theory, or biological theory in general, then the only alternative is creation by God. This is a serious logical fallacy. There are issues and problems in every single intellectual endeavor, including science. New understanding comes to light as a result of research-- that is what science is; that is how it operates.

The clash comes by way of ideology, and the essential desire of The Wedge to dominate public policy.

There are several arguments used against evolution; here are a few. Note that some of the material on this page is not accepted as factual by most scientists.

Opinion

There are none. There have been no viable, testable scientific alternatives to the Theory of Evolution suggested so far.

Opinion

The best argument against evolution is the one that states that if we all evolved from monkeys, why are monkeys still here. However that is only able to be stated by somebody who knows nothing about evolution because evolution does not state that we came from monkeys, merely that humans and monkeys evolved from a common ancestor.

One Answer

One set of arguments is:

1. There are no valid "missing links" either still extant or in the fossil record.

2. Genetically, a bacterium is more similar to a horse than to yeast (this is contrary to the theory of evolution).

3. Evolutionists believe it must have taken millions of years for layers of strata to form but they can also be caused by catastrophes (a huge amount of stratum was laid down at Mt. St. Helen in just five hours).

4. In the Cambrian strata (where evolutionist say only basic life forms existed) they found fossils of very complex animals.

5. Mutation never adds information to the genetic code, only subtracts from it.

6. Darwin, the founder of evolution himself, acknowledged that there were several "grave" problems with his new theory.

7. Natural selection prevents evolution from happening because the intermediate species would be unfit to survive.

8. Some mechanisms (such as the human eye) are irreducibly complex (meaning that one part could not exist without the other).

(Note: when "evolution" is mentioned it refers to macro evolution (evolving from one species to another) not micro evolution (fluctuation within species).

Another Answer:

Some say that that there is such a wide variety of animals and it is so unlikely for them to exist - there are trillions of cells in a human, and it is really unlikely for that to have happened without an intelligent creator.

Richard Dawkins battles the creationism and evolution landscape with many a lengthy book on the subjects or, presumably, clever article. The titles of his books are quite good, such as Climbing Mount Improbable or The Selfish Gene or River out of Eden or The Ancestor's Tale. I have no idea of any titles for you (obviously you can't use Dawkins' titles). I did once consider the title The Intelligent Design of Education, for an article on whether Intelligent Design was worthy to be taught alongside or instead of evolution in classes. The title was supposed to imply the 'intelligent design' of education and educational decrees in cases where they excluded such things as Intelligent Design and creationism. Of course, 'clever' titles on this topic are likely to amuse biologists and infuriate fundamentalists. On April the 1st of one year (probably a complete April Fool), it appeared that Scientific American (I think it was that) wrote an editorial saying things like we scientists should discard observation and experiment and embrace faith and creationism. One wonders how that went down. Still, as I say, a complete April Fool.

For your title, you can use plays on words, which are always clever. I sometimes rather like alliteration. Test your language. Look at the context and final product of your essay. Flip words this way and that. As I say, try puns and plays on words.

In a case where you defy or deny evolution, The Creation of Evolution could be the start of a title, followed by perhaps a derogatory ending that implies it incorrect or idiotic.

In the case in which you find holes in and dismiss creationism, try The Evolution of Creation, perhaps implying that creation is a made-up story that is imagined by creatures that are simply the product of evolution.

Oh well, good luck with your persuasive essay. Gather your facts well and good luck with the title.

The evidence for creationism is in the Bible alone. Needless to say, a story written more than two thousand years ago is of limited value as evidence, even if millions believe it. It is such slender evidence that even creationists can not agree on what the story means, splitting into various camps, such as 'Old-Earth Creationism' and 'Young-Earth Creationism'. Apart from the Bible, creationists also fall back on speculation, philosophical arguments and pseudo-science.

The evidence for evolution is extensive, in spite of pseudo-scientific attempts to deny it:

• The fossil evidence, which now includes extensive evidence of transitional species
• The fact that fossils are consistently found in just the right layers in what is known as the geological column, except where there is clear evidence of geological disturbance
• The geographic distribution of fossils such that we never find related species anywhere that is inconsistent with evolution
• DNA evidence, that enables scientists to map the divergence of species from parent species

There is also the fact that almost all qualified scientists believe that the Theory of Evolution is a good explanation for the evolution of species. Claims about the Second Law of Thermodynamics and increasing entropy requiring there to have been a Creator simply demonstrate a lack of scientific knowledge. Similar comments can be made about pseudo-scientific claims that radio-isotope dating methods are extraordinarily unreliable, or that there is too little salt in the sea or too little helium in the atmosphere. A very brief summary of the problems with these claims:

• The Second Law of Thermodynamics applies only to closed systems. Species, and particularly individuals within a species, are not closed systems.
  
• Radio-isotope dating methods are self-confirming, because different radio-isotopes can be used to arrive at approximately the same age for a specimen.
• The rate at which salt is deposited in the sea by rainwater runoff has increased with increasing porosity of land surfaces. In the first period, before about three billion years ago, the land surface consisted largely of hard, igneous rock, from which little salt leached. Now that porous soils and secondary rocks cover much of the earth's land surface, salt leaching is naturally greater. Young-Earth Creationist claims assume that scientists believe this rate has never altered. In addition to the increase in salt leaching, land upheavals have returned some salt from the seas back on to the land.
• Helium is a light element that gradually escapes from the upper atmosphere into outer space. Radioactivity replenishes the helium in the atmosphere, but this is balanced by atmospheric losses.