Re-visiting evolution and creation

I had cause to talk to a friend yesterday about God.  One of the things that men like to pride ourselves about is that we are logical, and we operate on facts.  And men often say that's the reason why we can't accept faith in God.

So why then do I accept faith in God?  I too pride myself in being logical and demanding facts before I accept something as the truth.  But look back at that sentence.  See the word "pride"?  I don't think it's the lack of logic or facts that stops men from coming to God.  It's pride.  And I can totally empathise with that.  Believing in God ultimately involves surrender.  Not surrender of logic.  But surrender of will to the One who knows better.  There is a huge difference between the two, but it's convenient to confuse them.  Like you, I too want to hold on to my plans and desires, and when confronted with an alternative - God's alternative - we say, that's not logical, when really, we mean that's not what I want.  

So today, let me try to open your mind to a topic on logic, which many say that Christianity is being idiotic about - evolution.  I don't think anyone ever got argued into the kingdom of God by logic alone.  And let's be clear - the argument below is not exhaustive by any means - but I use this short piece just as one example, to open the mind of logical men to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, if we want to be honest, we haven't been quite as logical as we think.  And that the answers that we men hunt for at work, or even if you are a family guy, at home, are really found in God, who is true, and whom I have found and experienced, and whom I have seen is good.  Let me show you!

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Think about the bat.  If evolution had an "Exhibit A" perhaps the bat would be a good candidate.  It's got all these highly-specific adaptations - blind eyes, wings, voice box to emit those supersonic squeaks that act as echo-locators, big ears to hear those echoes, and a brain that understands radar.  And all these adaptations work beautifully together to make the bat a successful animal.

So, evolution right?  Hmm.  What is evolution?  In a nutshell, evolution is the idea is that organisms change over thousands and thousands of years, one small random mutation at a time. In other words, random mutations occur, and the organism which has a beneficial mutation survives, while the chaps who don't get the random mutation die out.  Put another way - survival of the fittest.

But look at the bat. Its adaptations have to work together.  In other words, it's no point having a supersonic voice-box if you haven't got the radar-like ears to receive them, or a brain to understand the echoes.  The point is this.  The mutations that evolution requires for the law of survival of the fittest to work, have to come together.  Otherwise the organism gains no evolutionary advantage.  A supersonic voicebox is not an evolutionary advantage.  It is only an advantage together with the big ears and the radar-ready brain.  This seems to be at odds with evolution, since evolution is about random mutations.  So for the bat, it means that it must randomly decide to mutate its voicebox, its ears and its brain at the same time.  Think about that.

Ready for the next point?  You don't randomly mutate special voice boxes and big ol' ears overnight.  According to evolution, it takes hundreds or thousands of years of small mutations and adaptations right?  So the bat would have needed multiple complementary mutations occuring randomly and repeatedly and in the same direction (e.g. consistently and increasingly bigger ears) over thousands of years.  

Look at the last sentence of the preceding paragraph - does that sound like random chance to you?  The equivalent would be you rolling a million-sided die, and getting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7... 1,000,000 in increasing sequence, while two friends next to you manage to do the same with their million-sided die.  That's not random.  The dice are fixed by conscious direction.

But put aside the issue of random chance for a minute.  Even more critical is this - during the interregnum (let's say 356,998 on the bat's million-sided die), the bat's half-baked voicebox and ears are completely useless, because half a sonar and half a radar is no sonar or radar at all.  Why would a half-blind, half-eared, half-voiced bat benefit from survival of the fittest?  It would die out.  Stop and think about this for a bit - this is critical.  The theory of evolution, with its long sequence of random gradated mutations, simply cannot explain the creation and continued survival of the beautifully designed, complex, multi-faceted bat.

Finally, let's move away from the bat and look at the bigger picture.  Let's suppose the bat managed, by repeatedly striking the lottery and doggedly surviving the evolutionary awkward adolescent years of having half a voice and half an ear and half a brain, to develop into the fine specimen that it is today. What are the odds that every other species, so amazingly fitted for its environment, won the lottery as well?  In other words, not only did you and your two friends survive the 500,000,000 year experience of rolling 1-1,000,000 in sequence, but so did everyone else on earth!

So to conclude, the only way that the bat could have arrived at its beautifully designed state is if all its complementary adaptations - voice, ears, brain etc - occurred together at the same point of time (because it's no use having a supersonic voice with no radar ears), and fully formed (i.e. an immediately working radar, not a useless half non-radar).  

And what does "fully formed, and altogether at the same point of time" look like to you?  

By definition?  Creation.

Ta-dah! :)

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