The Evolution Theory

Evolution - what a loaded subject? What is it? Should it be taught? If so, how? Are there alternatives that should be considered as an explanation of origins? Your input is welcome, but I suggest you first check out this article by David N. Menton Ph.D. on Teaching Origins.

My Testimony

This is my Family, as of Christmas 2008. Kylee (3rd from the left) is the newest member, an 8 month old granddaughter.

If you read the section titled "The Gospel Message", You will have a better understanding of what I mean by the "New Birth" or "conversion". I became a New born Christian shortly after my father's conversion in 1967. My father suggested I go to a Baptist summer camp he'd heard about on the radio named River Valley Ranch in Millers, MD. It was just before my 14th birthday. The Counselor that led me to faith in Christ was a Bible School Student from Germany named Harry Samboll. We still keep in touch now several times a year 41 years since that most important day in my life. I currently serve Christ as a member and Deacon at Pawling Independent Baptist Church in Phoenixville, PA. I am also active as current Vice President of the Chester County NE Camp of the Gideons International.

As a youngster, I pretty much accepted the evolutionary theory of origins packaged as it was in cleverly distorted pictures and carefully crafted deceptions. I have since become aware of the damage it has inflicted on society and on the value of human life. As a teacher, I am compelled by the need to explore all reasonable theories and not one to the exclusion of others. I don't seek to eliminate the teaching of Evolution altogether, simply to allow it to be examined in comparison to other plausible theories and scrutinized to the degree that any real scientific inquiry should be.

A year ago I was made aware of some of the potential for wikispaces at a teacher inservice on educational technology. I have since discovered, however that the wiki environment is not as accessible as I had hoped it would be. I got the idea for a blog from My daughter, and decided I'd give it a try. I am excited by the prospect of engaging teachers and students in an honest debate about whether theories of origin should be taught in public schools, and if so, which and how?

In the future, I hope to expand the scope of this blog to touch on other subjects such as: History, Politics, Economics and the Environment. Please share this blog with others who may be interested in adding their thoughtful, respectful input,

The Gospel Message

The Gospel Message is the "Good News" that God has decreed a way for fallen sinful man to enjoy forever a loving relationship with his Creator Father. The following is a tract that I wrote to share my testimony and the gospel on an intellectual level.
I Titled it
Something to Think About
As a young Child, I struggled to come to an understanding of truth. Like any thoughtful person, I wondered how all that exists came to be. I searched for purpose and meaning to life. I doubted whether there was a God who actually cared about this world, and whether there was any existence beyond this life. But “God has not left Himself without witness”, as the Scripture says in Psalms 19, “The heavens declare the Glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork … there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.” Often, the apostles reasoned from the scriptures with those they sought to win to Christ. Thus, God in His grace saw fit to open my understanding to His truth. And as any thoughtful person would, I came to understand certain obvious truths that changed my life forever.

The first obvious truth is that creation happened. For all but two hundred years of Earth history, creation by an all-powerful God had been considered the only rational, acceptable explanation of how the Universe came into existence. America’s founders boldly claimed that the “laws of nature and of Nature’s God” governed the world. They further asserted that all are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” and that we must rely on “Divine Providence” for protection. No one could observe an intricately designed devise such as a watch or a cellular phone and imagine that such a thing came about by a series of random accidents over a very long process of time. Such a notion would seem utterly ridiculous to any rational being. Yet, even the simplest life form is vastly more complex than a watch or a phone and some have proposed that life itself was the result of such an accidental process. I submit that such an idea is not worthy of serious consideration.

The second obvious truth is that the Creator of the Universe has the sole authority to rule over His creation. Only He can establish the rules whether natural or moral. And only to Him is all creation accountable. For a brief period in my life I entertained the notion that God either did not exist, or we could not know anything certain about Him. I felt this way because I was frustrated with my inability to live a “good” life. I knew that I often disappointed my parents and myself with my selfish, irresponsible actions. I knew that if there is a God, I must surely be a disappointment to Him as well. I thought that by refusing to acknowledge God, I might absolve myself of any responsibility to Him and His moral standards. I didn’t realize at the time that I was following the course of many who “even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;” (Rom. 1:28). I found my situation to be like that of any normal human being. I was a sinner “falling short of the glory of God”, but yearning to fill that God shaped void in my Life.

Then, I came to realize a third obvious truth – that God had intervened in Earth History in an extraordinary way. “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.”(Gal. 4:4, 5) I submit to the world that no Individual has made a greater impact throughout history than Jesus Christ. About one fifth of the world’s population consider themselves His followers. His birth is the focal point of our calendar and his teachings are universally accepted as a standard for righteousness. But Jesus Christ claimed to be no less than God Himself. Jesus said “"Verily, verily I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am!" (Jn. 8:58) and “I and My Father are one." (Jn. 10:30) Each of these statements had the same effect on those who heard. Some believed. Others took up stones to stone Him to death. But Christ would lay down His life in His time as “a ransom for all to be testified in due time”. (1 Tim. 2:6)
He, of whom John said, “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and that life was the Light of men.” (Jn. 1:3,4) This same Jesus, God of all creation, would willingly suffer the agony of crucifixion to redeem all who would believe.

Praise God for this final undeniable truth which all should consider. “But God hath raised Him up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.” (Acts 2:24) “who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification (Romans 4:25). Why do I consider the resurrection of Jesus Christ an undeniable truth? Because it is just that. No one living at the time of the apostles, ever credibly challenged their testimony nor that of the more than 400 others who witnessed the resurrected Christ. Simon Greenleaf, whose three volume Treatise on the Law of Evidence is considered “the greatest single authority on evidence in the entire literature of legal procedure” (Knott, The Dictionary of American Biography), said “Let [the Gospel’s] testimony be sifted as it were given in a court of justice on the side of the adverse party; the witness being subjected to a rigorous cross- examination. The result, it is confidently believed, will be an undoubting conviction of their integrity, ability and truth.

Friend, open your heart and your mind to the God of all creation. Let the love displayed at the Cross bring you to saving faith in Him. Rich Meister

The Genesis Account

I am unapologetically partial to the Genesis account for reasons I'll discuss in a page titled " The Gospel Message"

Credibility
How credible is the Genesis account? Why consider what the Bible has to say about origins or anything else to be factual, if it's just one of many religious books of inspiring myths and moral principals. First of all, it's not just one of many; It is without a doubt, the most read and most widely printed and distributed book of all time by a huge margin. That fact alone attests to its broad appeal as well as the intense scrutiny It has been subject to. The Bible claims to be an Historical account. And many of its historical details have been verified by archaeological findings, while none have ever been successfully refuted. The process by which the Bible was verified as authentic, tediously copied and preserved far surpasses any book from antiquity. It is the only book to be so bold as to foretell future events. Many of these events have already been fulfilled, including the course of the four world empires from Babylon to Rome and the rejection of the Messiah as predicted to the year by the prophet Daniel.

While the scripture should be considered eminently credible by any human standard, human judgement can not be the ultimate standard for the Bible. The Bible claims to be the very word of the living God; alive powerful Itself. I can attest to its saving and life transforming power in my own life. Jesus Christ, the Living Word and Creator Himself (John 1:1-14) affirmed the Genesis account as true in its literal details and authoritative. Those who Challenge Christ's authority, do so at their own peril.

For more information, check out THE AUTHORSHIP AND CREDIBILITY OF THE BIBLE. from The Bible Today Website. Also check out Is The Bible True

Where'd I Come From

Ken Ham of Answers In Genesis states "One of the ways I teach children to understand the philosophy of science is to teach them, based on Job 38:4 (when God asks Job, “where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth”) to ask “Were you there?�” Obviously, when talking about origins, no human being living in the present was there when it happened to write down an eyewitness account. In matters of history, we rely on those who were living in the past to remember their own history and pass it on orally until such time when their descendants develop a means of creating a permanent record. Apart from this scenario, we are reduced to proposing theories about the past based on the evidence we find in the present. If we begin with a presupposition of naturalism then we automatically assume that all that exists came into being through the natural processes we can observe in the present. Since we can't observe changes in the present that we assume must have happened to bring about the tremendous variety of complex living things from non living elements, the naturalist needs to assume that the present order needed an almost infinite amount of time to develop. This approach assumes a theoretical partner called uniformitarianism . This theory is inherently unscientific because it assumes things about the past that cannot be confirmed by experimenting in the present, and it ignores documented accounts of phenomenon which cannot be explained by ordinary processes, but may be explained by catastrophic events be they natural or supernatural.

If on the other hand, we presuppose that events can occur beyond the bounds of natural processes, then an explanation of origins need not be restricted in any sense by what we observe in the present. So we pose a theory of how things may have originated and we attempt to test those theories through application of the Scientific Method. "Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, there are features that distinguish scientific inquiry from other methods of developing knowledge. Scientific researchers propose specific hypotheses as explanations of natural phenomena, and design experimental studies that test these predictions for accuracy. Any hypothesis that cannot be subjected to a test is not considered to be scientific".

It should begin to become obvious to rational persons that neither of the aforementioned presuppositions in regard to origins, or their derivative theories can be adequately tested through experimental studies. However, we can take a rational look at each of the two presuppositions, namely: 1) Naturalism and 2) Supernatural Intervention, and propose what type of evidence we should expect discover if that presupposition was valid. Such suggestions of evidence have been proposed by scientists adhering to each of the two positions. I encourage you to submit your well reasoned response in support of either position.

My Father's World

This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world: I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father’s world, the birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass;
He speaks to me everywhere.

This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done:
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.

This is my Father’s world, dreaming, I see His face.
I ope my eyes, and in glad surprise cry, “The Lord is in this place.”
This is my Father’s world, from the shining courts above,
The Beloved One, His Only Son,
Came—a pledge of deathless love.

words by Malt­bie D. Bab­cock

Check out this Video

The purpose of this site is to encourage thoughtful discussion from teachers and students alike concerning the origin of the universe, our planet and all living things, and how these topics should be approached and/or taught in public school settings. I encourage all who have thoughtful opinions and can show through reason based argument why they hold those opinions to contribute. Since all discussion on this subject matter inevitably involves an underpinning world view, you may choose to identify your world view. However, I would ask that we limit our discussion about origins to academic inquiry.