Evolution: My opinion. Take it or leave it

[before i begin, please realize that I am not writing this blog necessarily to try to prove anyone wrong. honestly, i don't think my words can do that. i am also not writing this to create any tension between friends or between christians because of all things that is NOT what i want to do. I am writing this for myself. i'm an over-thinker kind of person and this has been on my mind so much lately that i know i won't be able to move on and think about other things until i get it out. also, before, i never believed in evolution but i never had a real reason why. now, i have taken the time to study it a little more and find for myself what i believe and why i believe it. thanks!]

Before I jump into this oh-so-controversial topic, I would like to begin with a verse that I am basing a lot of what I say on. "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy 3:16-17
Therefore, I believe that the word of God is infallible and should not be changed, twisted, or altered in anyway. Not that I'm accusing anyone of doing that, I'm just going to throw that out there.

Now, where do I begin? The first thing I do not understand about the whole evolution theory is this: If evolution is so much more believable than the 6-day creation story, then why didn't God just tell us about evolution in the Bible? It seems to me that he could have simply stated that mankind evolved from other animals after millions of years. He wouldn't have to go into any scientific detail and turn the Bible into a science book, but the theory of evolution could have been simply stated. But He doesn't. Instead, He tells us day-by-day exactly how the world came about. Of course, I cannot undermine what God thinks and in no way am I trying to do that, but I cannot comprehend why he would tell us the story in a completely different way than it happened.

That leads me to my next point. One of the major arguments being made is that the creation story was a symbolic and metaphorical poem, not meant to be taken literally. If the creation story really is symbolic, then what is it symbolic of? Nobody has quite given me that answer yet. I know that I've written numerous paper for school where I had to discuss symbolism in a book. If I turned in a paper just stating that a certain number, color, word, etc. was symbolic then I would fail. I have to say why it is symbolic and what it is symbolic of. If the first two chapters of Genesis is poetic, then obviously it is meant to be read metaphorically and by interpreting symbolism. If evolution is really the way God created the world, then there had to be some symbolic reason why God tells us the 6-day creation story instead. I have yet to find that reason. Matt said that you can tell the first two chapters are poetry because it is written to look like a poem, with indentations. But in my Bible, it is written as any other book of the Bible. Other than a few small sections where it does look like poetry, most of it is written in standard paragraph form. How, then, do you determine whether or not it is poetry? It looks and sounds the same as the rest of the Bible.

Now, as I have said before, I do believe that the Bible does contain a lot of symbolism. And I do believe that a lot of things are meant to be read poetically. And I do believe that a lot of things are poetic. Heck, the book of Psalms is full of it! An example of this in Genesis is in 2:24: "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." Of course I don't believe that man and woman will literally unite together as one. It is completely symbolic. God says that when a man and woman gets married it should be as if they were one body. Also, Jesus was constantly using parables as metaphors of how we should live our life. But I do not find the creation story as a parable or as anything metaphorical at all.

Now comes the part I really don't want to talk about. Science. I hate science and it is something that is pretty hard for me to understand, but I am going to at least try. As many of you already know, I have been raised in Christian education. Last year in my biology class, we had a section in our book that explained scientifically how evolution is not true. So I looked back through that chapter, and it helped a lot. (you know your a dork when you re-read stuff from last years Biology) As I said before, I'm not the kind of person who is going to throw out any science if it is not in the Bible. However, if I believe it contradicts the Bible then I do. I think that science and God's word together is an amazing tool. First off, there are two different kinds of evolution: microevolution and macroevolution. In case you don't already know what these are, I will try to explain these complicated issues in simplest terms I can.

• Microevolution: The theory that an organism, over time, can transform into a more specialized species of that SAME organism.
• Macroevolution: The hypothesis that over a very long period of time, an organism can change into a completely DIFFERENT organism.

Microevolution, on one hand, can be explained scientifically and without contradicting the Bible. God created plants and animals with much variability. As they reproduce, the genetic codes intermix, therefore producing different species of different animals. It is almost the same as having a blue-eyed blond haired mother and a green-eyed brown haired father producing a blue-eyed brown haired child. Microevolution has passed a lot of tests to the point that it is now a theory, which is I think one step shy of a scientific law.

Macroevolution, on the other hand, is a different story. Notice that while micro is a theory, macro is still a hypothesis. In order for macroevolution to exist, organisms must first have an unlimited supply of different genes. Of course, this is impossible. So in order to get an unlimited amount, genes must be ADDED to the genetic code. Darwinists explain this through mutation. The reason this does not work is because mutation results in a LOSS of information, instead of the increase they were looking for. While the mutations do increase the survival advantage, it does not add information to the genetic code. This contradicts the original statement.

Another thing to point out is that changes are constantly being made in macroevolution. Its almost like the scientists realize they are wrong so they come up with a way to cover it up. Years after Darwin's time, scientists came up with the idea of neo-darwinism and punctuated equilibrium. Macroevolution seems to be very contradictory of itself, and the scientists who believe it seem to be a little hypocritical because they are always altering it. There is no data that provides proof for the hypothesis, yet there is a lot of data contradicting it. (i.e. geological column, fossil records, etc...)

I find it a little odd how macroevolution is forced to be taught in public schools and colleges. It seems to me that we should be given the right to consider alternate ideas. Every time a school tries to do this, they are slammed with law suits. If these scientists are so sure that their data can be proven, then why are they so afraid of other ideas being brought to the table? Also, I find it interesting how if a student challenges their professor on the issue, often times, they are publicly ridiculed and humiliated instead of being shown the reasoning behind it.

I think that the reason many scientists today accept the idea of evolution is because it has become the main system in science. If a new scientist takes the time to explore the issue for himself, then it slows him down tremendously in his career path. Instead, they just accept the idea and move on.

Matt made the argument that scientists come to the table with nothing, such as the Bible, to base what they're looking for off of. To a certain extent I think this is true, but not entirely. I think the idea of evolution came up because somewhere along the way, somebody wanted another alternative besides the Bible. In a way, I think they were purposely looking for something to contradict the Bible, so in a way they did have something to base what they were looking for off of.

Whether or not Darwin recanted his theory on his deathbed, I do not know. I'm not going to make a claim one way or the other. The book I got a lot of my information from, which is Christian based and against macro, says that it is a myth. He says that his wife or somebody like that made it up because she was ashamed of what he had done. To me, that is beside the point. Charles Darwin wasn't the only man who studied this stuff.

So my conclusion is that while microevolution has a lot of proven scientific data and does not contradict the Bible in any way(at least that I have found), macroevolution is at best an unconfirmed hypothesis that does contradict the Bible. In order for this idea to be true, it would have taken millions of years for man to evolve. The Bible specifically tells me that man was created on the 6th day.

Now I will go back to my original statement in my first comment on Matt's blog. It is hard for me to put all of my trust in something, like science, that is constantly changing. Dr. Wyle, scientist and the author of my book, said pretty much this exact same thing. "Science is limited and is constantly changing. What we thought were scientific laws less than a century ago are now known to be wrong...You simply cannot put your faith in something as limited and subject to change as science."

I know this was really long, and probably complicated at parts but if you read it then thanks. Feel free to leave me your opinions. Whether you agree or disagree. Unless you are a jerk about it, your disagreements will not offend me in any way.

~*Elizabeth