Creationism vs Evolution: a Contentious Debate

If there was ever a subject that caused more discord among people than the one generated between those who believe in evolution and those who believe in creation, it would be hard to find. The only two subjects I could think of off the top of my head that would be close would be Socialism versus Capitalism or Republicans versus Democrats. Creationism vs Evolution has probably been at the top of the list of all subjects for total acrimony and misunderstanding.

While this paper is not meant to be an exhaustive treatise on the subject there is definitely a point I wish to make, the answer being something that has totally changed my view of life and I how I see things.

Why I wanted to learn about Creationism vs Evolution

As a child I loved rocks, fossils and petrified wood samples.

When I grew up I want to be a geologist. I loved rocks. I had a nice little rock collection and my grandparents would always bring me rocks from around their travels in the West. My great-grandfather was a hard rock miner and even had some claims for mines in various areas of my home state of Nevada. I loved nature and I loved rocks.

I was first introduced to the concept of evolution during the 1970s at Sparks High School. My favorite class was the Earth Science class and it was probably the only one during my depressive teenage years that I worked real hard to get an “A” in. I loved that class. Even though some of the things didn’t seem to make a lot of sense regarding the teaching of evolution, it didn’t really matter that much to me.

When I turned 19 years old I went on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints and served in Washington and Idaho. This was a wonderful time of my life and I grew to love the Scriptures as I taught them to people interested in the Gospel helping them to find God in this crazy mixed up world. I have read my Scriptures almost every day since that time and they have become an important spiritual compass to my daily thoughts and activities.

After my mission I attended BYU and it was during one of the required classes called BioAg 100 that I was again exposed to the theory of evolution in its fullest form. This time it confused me and I did not understand why they were teaching something that did not appear that way in the Scriptures. But I wasn’t going to be a geologist anymore, I was going to be a designer of graphics and logos so I did what was needed for my class and left the subject of creationism vs evolution alone.

After graduation I returned home and married my dear fiance Betsy. Our first children were twins and soon afterwards I was called to be a seminary teacher where every morning I would teach very tired, bored and mostly uninterested high schoolers about religion before they went to school. If they weren’t sleeping through the class they were usually talking with her friends. Only a very few paid much attention to what I was saying.

But the question came up again during this class as to what was the correct way to view our existence: creationism vs evolution? Frankly I did not know the full and technical answer as to how creationism vs evolution all fit together, but now, all of a sudden, it was very important that I know because I am teaching the future leaders and parents of our society and I didn’t want to lead them astray. I wanted to teach the truth, so I dove into the subject head long and never came up for air for over 10 years. It consumed my life and the more I studied creationism vs evolution, the more interesting it became. It enveloped all of my thoughts and conversations and my wife got sick of hearing about it. I read books, watch videos, attended museums, made phone calls and did all of this in the effort to find an answer.

And the answer I found regarding Creationism vs Evolution astounded me.

One of the things I thought was most interesting was that neither side, the evolutionists or the creationists, really had any concrete and viable answers. In fact some of their materials and their hypotheses stated some incredibly outrageous “facts” that we were supposed to believe and accept. Both sides had equally embarrassing answers to the questions that were raised. I need not rehearse them here but anyone with half a brain reading some of these things would conclude that most of them are out of their minds. They postulate things that are so outrageous that they are impossible to believe in. Some of the things they state are SO incredulous that you wonder where in the world, or all the Universe for that matter, did they come up with this stuff?

The brain is fantastic at imagining anything it desires, but these ideas regarding creationism vs evolution are beyond the greatest of science fiction! I cannot repeat most of them here because they are so embarrassing. How can people who claim to be scientists accept such drivel? Just because it was written by someone who has a Ph.D at the end of their name doesn’t mean they are smart or logical. The subject of Creationism vs Evolution has both invigorated and blinded the masses and the truth needs to be told.

Blindness, skepticism and cynicism abound when discussing the principles in creation and evolution.

Now in making that claim that our imaginations can run wild, there will be some who read what I am about to say and will claim the same thoughts as being fantastic and unbelievable. I suppose that’s the risk I have to take, but I do so in the hope that I may wake somebody up and realize what’s really going on.

First off I have to make you aware that I believe in God. I have believed in God from my earliest memories and have had very distinct impressions and experiences over all of these years. I know that God lives. Whether you believe that He lives or not will depend upon a number of things but mostly on one thing-how well do you follow His commandments? I have found by personal experience and the teachings of those authorized to proclaim his word that when I am doing all I can to draw close to him and feel His presence, he will reward that effort in ways that only He can. I have also found from personal experience that when I do something wrong, it seems that God is somehow extremely distant, but the question always comes up, “who moved?” The answer is that I did because of my disobedience.

If God exists and He is the source of all this light and good and right, then there must be someone to oppose him. You cannot have light without dark, up without down, yin without yang, good without evil. There must be opposition in all things otherwise nothing could be brought to pass. So because God exists there must also be an adversary, and he is called Satan or Lucifer. Because I’m the one that moved in my previous example away from God’s spirit, of necessity this means that I must be under the influence to a greater degree of this adversary.

When I mentioned above that I found an answer that astounded me I mean it hit me like a ton of bricks falling off 100 story building. I now need to enter into a difficult portion of this discussion, one that has brought discord within my own family and people close to me. When someone goes to school and gets post graduate degrees after 18 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans, they are not easily swayed by someone with a bachelor’s degree in graphic design regarding the subject of Creationism vs Evolution. When someone tries to postulate the idea that what they have taught thousands of students in college over the past 40 years is incorrect, they don’t offer to say thank you for this newfound information.

But this is exactly what has happened to me. I have found something that has so awakened my view of life that I have wanted to share it with everyone I found. Amazingly, I have changed very few minds nor brought very many people to see what I see. I may have changed a few peoples point of view but so far I haven’t received many letters in the mail with gift certificates to my favorite restaurant as gratitude, and this I freely admit.

Whenever you talk about creationism vs evolution, you are talking about dangerous things that may challenge long-held beliefs, things that are not easily changed.

When a child is taught something at an early age he tends to believe that the rest of his life. As Proverbs says “train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” This is good as long as they are taught the truth, but it is not good when they are taught false ideas. Most of the troubles we see in society today are because of a lack of understanding regarding this principle. Not only are they taught incorrect ideas they are not taught to be open-minded about new ideas, nor are they taught how to learn.

One of the most amazing things I have found is that through modern prophets, who have the same authority as Abraham, Moses or Isaiah when they teach the Word of God (something that he wants us to know at this time) is a sure thing that we can be blessed through this knowledge. It’s like turning on a light in dark cave to help us be able to see for the first time our surroundings. I’m here to tell you that I now see things in a far different light than what I had understood or even taught over the years. And with that understanding comes a great deal of urgency because of the damage that comes from following a different path.

Darwin became an Atheist (or at least an Agnostic)

Evolutionists seem to have an innate desire to remove any mention of God or Purpose in our existence. I’m not saying all of them do this but it is my opinion that most of them do. Even Charles Darwin himself, the great propagator of the theory of evolution, became an atheist in his later years. He once started out as a devout Christian and even wanted to be part of the Ministry but as time went on, his thoughts turned away from God. So do most people who follow his teachings. Christ himself said that by their fruits ye shall know them. This “fruit” alone is testimony to me that evolution is incorrect.

Another damaging fruit of evolutionists is the absolute crazy ideas that they have proposed that we believe in and the fact that they are foisted upon us every single day of our lives. I issue you a challenge: count how many times per day you are accosted by the theory of evolution. It will amaze you once you see what I’m talking about. On some days it is well over 30 times a day. I am not kidding.

The creationists also get themselves in trouble mostly because they don’t have anything more to go on than two chapters of Genesis. They try to force things into a six-day, 24-hour-per-day timeframe that clearly did not happen that way. Most also claim that God created everything we see from nothing. They have embarrassed themselves and tarnished the creationists ideal by purporting such nonsensical “facts”. Although I do mostly side with the creationists I urge them to view the teachings of modern prophets and apostles to expand their understanding and open their eyes to some amazing things that have been revealed to the world.

Both sides of the issue in creationism vs evolution have made claims that just aren’t true.

So with all of that as a background that may give you a couple of things I have learned that must be answered before any real discussion can take place.

1. Evolutionists like to show some long detailed family tree to trace all life back to a single cell. The fact is that there is no transitory species in the fossil record to support this theory! We have the cells that are at the beginning and we have a multitude of species at the other end and nothing in between. Why are we supposed to believe something that has no proof to back it up?
2. Astronomers and biologists alike all want us to believe that everything evolved over billions of years time. When the Hubble space telescope first came out one of its first missions was to find out how far it could see. The Hubble Deep Field became a landmark photograph showing that even by looking at a dark speck of space, trillions of stars could be seen in tens of thousands of galaxies. Yet a footnote to every single one of those photos shown states that, “Now we can see clear back to the beginning of the Big Bang”. They don’t get it. The universe is infinite. It has no beginning and no end. There never was a big bang and never will be.
3. Nothing in the Universe can create itself. Everything formed, designed or created requires a designer and a production system.
4. The amount of ENERGY required to create this earth is never even discussed, yet it is an astounding amount that I don’t even know how to show the number or the equation to come up with it.
5. This earth and all life upon it could not have happened by chance. Everything is far too perfect for that and testify of someone being in charge and directing the results.

I am certain that these questions will produce a defensible answer with no real desire to understand where I’m coming from. I’m sorry to be pessimistic here but I have tried to talk to many people about these issues and they always come up with something and then shrug me off. If it goes against what they were taught as a child or paid for in school, they quickly dismiss it and rarely consider it.

What I wish to do here is to show one thing that is extremely important to understand regarding Creationism vs Evolution. While you may be able to answer and shrug off the questions above there is one profound truth that changes everything and whether you believe it or not, I am here to tell you it is true:

The most important thing you must realize is that the earth was not created here in this solar system. It was created somewhere else and placed here by God, the grand designer. All of the planets that are part of our solar system were created in a similar fashion and are given to us for our edification, for signs and for education. God organized this wonderful little Solar System for His purposes and provided a way for us to gain this physical body.

You see, this statement, which is true, completely destroys almost everything that evolutionists believe in. It also answers a great deal of questions although it certainly proposes a few more. Here are a few more things to consider and many of them may be entirely new to you. Please don’t instantly toss them out just because you haven’t heard them before:

1. The earth was created in 14 periods of “Time” in a dimension where time does not exist or is even understandable to our current existence. 7 periods of “spiritual creation” and 7 periods of “physical creation” were required to create it. Two of those periods were “rest” periods where nothing was created.
2. This earth replaced the existence and orbit of another earth that had been swirling around the solar system and gone on to its eternal destination. When it says there will be a new heaven and a new earth, there are multiple meanings to that statement. When our earth dies, it will be resurrected and celestialized and go on to its eternal existence where another earth will be placed in the same path to go through the same experiences.
3. Adam and Eve were born just as you and I were born except from heavenly parents. There is no connection whatsoever to apes or any other creatures in their ancestry as they (Adam and Eve) are direct children of God. For some reason, some people don’t like this idea but would rather have an orangutan or chimpanzee as an ancestor.
4. The partaking of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil caused the change in the spiritual fluid of their bodies to become blood and thereby thrust them out of the presence of God, because it caused death to be introduced to the world. This “fall of Adam” caused the earth to be placed in its current state and location and all was according to the foreknowledge and plan of God.

Some people would rather have a Chimpanzee as an ancestor than Adam and Eve, children of God.

I do not have time to address more of these issues here. If anyone was really serious about learning the truth about this subject, what I have given them above would take years to understand. I don’t just automatically accept any theory of man proposed by anyone that claims they know the truth, because most are not true. I must now judge whether they are true to what the parameters the Lord has given so we may not stray from His teachings and be able to return to Him again someday.

But our adversary would lead us along a different path and since my discovery of the truths listed above, I now understand that the purpose of evolution is fivefold:

1. To destroy the authority and authenticity of the Bible.
2. To destroy the fall of Adam and thus remove the need for Jesus Christ as our Savior
3. To destroy any belief in God
4. To make man as the ultimate judge and authority of what is right and wrong.
5. To make man as the pinnacle of everything before him.

This is exactly what God’s adversary desires! The purpose of evolution is not to teach the truth but to teach the theories of man to lead them away from God. Creationism vs Evolution has caused endless discord among mankind just to lead them away from the truth and to keep them from the true way of how to be happy. Through the teaching of evolution at an early age children are introduced to theories and ideas that will never bring them happiness or peace. People who believe and tout the theory of evolution destroy hope and faith and remove an important bit of understanding that everyone must have in order to understand who they are, where they came from, why they are here and where they are going after they die.

In my opinion the theory of evolution is one of the most damaging of all theories foisted upon mankind throughout all of history and requires us to have the most blind faith ever imaginable. We are expected to believe that somehow through the process of a “Big Bang”, all of these stars, planets and galaxies have magically formed over billions of years of time and in reality started from nothing. We are expected to believe that life somehow found a way to create itself and that all of the incredibly intricate and complex parts of the human anatomy are there because of mutations and mistakes. We’re expected to believe that something that is so perfectly designed magically created itself and there was no designer involved in the process!

Now here is another bold statement that may offend many: The theory of evolution is nothing but modern idolatry and as they scoff at some of the things done in the name of Idol worship in past history, they swallow hook line and sinker this theory and reject all other plausible suggestions. Many people go astray with all kinds of things in relation to God, such as the movie “The Secret” and I have written about that too but at least that produces some desire to turn to Him, even though a bit misguided.

While I may not change your mind regarding your view of creationism vs evolution I urge you to do one thing, get on your knees and pray that God will reveal the truth of these things to you. I have given you 4 very powerful things to search for the answers for and there are lots more. We are children of God and descended from Him. He created this earth and placed all of the animal life that exists on it. He placed man and woman on this earth so that we can gain these physical bodies that are so important for our progress.

Not only do I not believe in evolution, I do not believe it works at all. It is 100% wrong in relation to any kind of inter-species change.

One of the best books ever written that answers this charge is The Book of Mormon. There is a purpose to your life and God has tremendous blessings waiting for you if you will but turn to him. Please go here for further information: http://www.LDS.org. It can help you make decisions and lead to a better life, closer to God. Jesus Christ is the Savior of those who wish to be saved from a world of sin and darkness and I invite everyone to come unto Him and feel his spirit and learn to discern between good and evil.

Thanks for reading this. I hope it was helpful in some small way to bringing you the truth regarding creationism vs evolution.