Seven ways that fossils are evidence for the Flood

According to the Bible, there was a worldwide deluge that destroyed all terrestrial life. Genesis 7:18-24 describes the effects of the Flood this way:

And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

This passage is unambiguous. All land-dwelling, air-breathing creatures that were outside of the Ark were buried beneath water and mud. This event, known commonly as Noah's Flood, would have radically changed the earth's topography and is believed by creationists to have created most of the fossils we find in the so called, “geological column.”

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A popular meme used by evolutionists has the caption, “We have the fossils. We win.” The truth is that fossils are best explained as being products of the Flood. Following are seven ways that fossils are better interpreted from the perspective of a global flood.

#1: Abundance

Evolutionists advance the idea that fossils are created gradually as creatures die, are buried, and their bones become mineralized over millions of years. The reality is that fossilization is normally an extremely rare event. When a creature dies, its carcass is usually gone in a matter of weeks or maybe days, the result of scavenging and decay. There is very seldom enough carcass left to even become a fossil.

The best chance for an animal's remains to become fossilized is if the poor critter is buried immediately. As we observe the world, we see there are literally trillions of fossils buried everywhere. You can hardly turn over a shovel of dirt without finding one. Seeing that there are so many fossils everywhere and knowing that virtually none are being created now, our observations fit well with the idea that the creatures were buried in the catastrophic flood described in the Bible.

#2: Sudden Burials

Numerous examples have been found of animals fossils in the middle of the act of doing something. For example, the Creation Museum, in Petersburg, KY, has a fossil on display that clearly shows a fish eating another fish! An ichthyosaur has been found in the act of giving birth. These fossils and others further attest to the fact that these creatures were buried suddenly in some disaster – even before having time to swallow – and preserved as fossils.

#3: Polystrate Fossils

The common evolutionary assumption is that rock layers are laid down gradually with each stratum representing some amount of time, similar to the rings of a tree. The lower the layer, the older the fossils in it are believed to be. Often, though, we will find fossils that intrude through several layers. Fossil tree trunks are a common example, where a trunk, several feet tall, stands upright through several strata. Obviously, the tree could not have stood upright for millions of years while sediment was deposited around it. Neither could it have been driven down into the rock like a nail. The more reasonable explanation is that the successive layers were laid down rapidly before the trunk had time to decompose.

Trying doing a Google search for 'polystrate fossils' and see how many examples you can find from all over the world. Go ahead, do it now. I dare you!

#4: Preserved Details

Completely intact, larger animals are more scarce in the fossil record. However, an abundance of smaller fossils exist. Something striking about many are the exquisite details that have been preserved – the fragile wings of insects, the scales of fish, leaves (which begin to wilt almost immediately after falling from the tree), and even the soft bodies of jellyfish have all been preserved. Since all of these things would begin to shrivel and decay within hours, the remarkable details could have only been made if the creature was buried immediately upon death. Again, this fits well with the biblical flood.

#5: Ubiquitous Marine Animals

If you've ever found a fossil, I'll bet I can guess what it was. //RKBentley thinks hard// It was a shell!! Am I right? It's not hard to guess, really, because nearly the entire fossil record (some 95%) is comprised of marine animals, primarily shellfish. Most of what is left are plants and algae. Insects make up about .25% of all fossils. Only the tiniest fraction of fossils are of terrestrial vertebrates.

Every fossil ever found is found in the same layers as marine fossils. Always! Even dinosaur and primate fossils are found with marine fossils. There are marine fossils found from top to bottom in the geological column. Marine fossils cover nearly the entire earth's surface including the tops of the highest mountains. The fossil record does not show a history of simple to complex; a more accurate description would be marine animals, amphibians with marine animals, plants with marine animals, reptiles with marine animals, dinosaurs with marine animals, and birds and mammals with marine animals. It is entirely consistent with a worldwide flood.

#6: Out of Sequence Fossils

Richard Dawkins once told a great lie when he said, “Evolution could so easily be disproved if just a single fossil turned up in the wrong date order. Evolution has passed this test with flying colours.”

Live Science once reported about some “controversial footprints” found in Mexico. The fossil prints looked distinctly human but were believed to be about 40,000 years old which would have been much earlier than when humans were believed to have existed there. When they performed radiometric dating on the ash where the footprints were found, it came back as 1.3 million years old! Needless to say, this wasn't compatible with secular theories of human evolution. What would they do? From the article, “After visiting the site, Renne believes the markings are not really human footprints at all, but rather impressions left by machines or animals that have passed through the quarry in recent times.” But what kind of machine or animal might leave tracks that look like a human human footprints? "You have to remember this is a public area," Renne said in a telephone interview. "Vehicles drive across it, you can see tire tracks on the surface. There are cows and other animals grazing nearby." Cows? Cars? I'm not even kidding – they actually said that!

Several years ago, The Atlantic reported a remarkable find of “dinosaur feathers found in amber.” Amber is fossilized tree sap. The researchers admitted, “They can't determine which feathers belonged to birds or dinosaurs yet.” Here's a thought, maybe none of them belonged to dinosaurs! Any way, many of the feathers found, “are nearly identical to those of modern birds.” If dinosaurs are supposed to have evolved to become birds, don't they see a problem with modern bird feathers existing at the same time as their supposed ancestors?!

We find out of sequence fossils all the time. Just Google the words, “fossil redraws evolution” and see how many results you get. Dawkins said just one would disprove evolution!

Creationists believe the order in the fossil record depicts better where the creatures lived rather than when they lived. In a universal flood, the bottom-dwelling sea creatures would be buried first, then swimming marine creatures, amphibians and reptiles further up, with mammals and birds at the top. That's roughly what we observe. “Out of place” fossils are only a problem for the evolutionary theory which claims the creatures were separated by eons rather than environments.

# 7: The Dinosaur Death Pose

When scientists are lucky enough to find the complete skeleton of a dinosaur, there's a good chance it will have its head thrown backward and its tail arched upward. The position is so common, it has earned its own name, the “opisthotonic death pose.” What causes the pose has been much speculated. An enduring opinion had been that the pose is the result of the dying creature's death throes.

An article from New Scientist reports how a team from Brigham Young University attempted to recreate the condition. Leaving the carcasses of plucked chickens on a bed of sand for three months did not produce the muscle contortions. However, when the scientists placed seven chickens in cool, fresh water, their head was thrown back in seconds. The article ends saying, “Cutler has confidence in her freshwater study: "Although the roads to the opisthotonic death pose are many, immersion in water is the simplest explanation.”

These results seem to support the creationists' model. It could be that the dinosaurs were immersed in water (the Flood), their muscles contorted as did the chickens, then they were buried rapidly in sediment – forever preserving their grim posture. And since the pose is so usual and is found everywhere in the world, it suggests the cause was global. I like NewScientist's opening line, “Recreating the spectacular pose many dinosaurs adopted in death might involve following the simplest of instructions: just add water.” That should be on the mind of every scientist as they examine the world around us. As they consider why the world is as it is, they need to add water to the equation. They need to add the Flood!

Why do we even teach evolution?

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I don't have anything against education. As a matter of fact, if I won the lottery and didn't have to work anymore, I'd be a professional student for the rest of my life. I love learning. Some people like to study very narrow subjects – something like Russian literature. These might not be very practical degrees to have when you look for a job but, if you like Russian literature, then go for it. Studying evolution is sort of like studying Russian literature. No, it's actually more like studying Big Foot. There's no practical use to it, really, but if you're interested in pseudo-science, then the theory of evolution is for you. I won't stop you – not that I could anyway – but I do object to the way evolution is being taught in many public schools now.

Some years back, I read a New York Times article that cited a supposed dilemma faced by a FL biology teacher. Read the dramatic narrative:

ORANGE PARK, Fla. — David Campbell switched on the overhead projector and wrote “Evolution” in the rectangle of light on the screen.
He scanned the faces of the sophomores in his Biology I class. Many of them, he knew from years of teaching high school in this Jacksonville suburb, had been raised to take the biblical creation story as fact. His gaze rested for a moment on Bryce Haas, a football player who attended the 6 a.m. prayer meetings of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in the school gymnasium.
“If I do this wrong,” Mr. Campbell remembers thinking on that humid spring morning, “I’ll lose him.”

My first thought is the Constitutional concern that a public employee sees it as his personal mission to rid his students of a religiously held belief. What exactly does this teacher mean by “lose him”? It sounds to me like he wants to convince young Bryce that evolution is a fact and if he can't do that, Bryce will be lost!

What I've struggled with for so long is this idea that believing evolution is critical to understanding science. Bill Nye, my arch-nemesis (at least, he would be my arch-nemesis if he knew I existed), is on record for saying the following (NY Times):

[T]here are more people in the world — another billion people all trying to use the world’s resources. And the threat and consequences of climate change are more serious than ever, so we need as many people engaged in how we’re going to deal with that as possible.... My biggest concern about creationist kids is that they’re compelled to suppress their common sense, to suppress their critical thinking skills at a time in human history when we need them more than ever.... There are just things about evolution that we should all be aware of, the way we’re aware of where electricity comes from.

It's just puzzling to claim a student can't understand technology or science unless he believes in evolution. I've seen no evidence, anywhere, to support the idea that people who believe in creation suffer academically (except perhaps being discriminated against by teachers). Furthermore, I've never seen a compelling example of how a belief in evolution is critical to any other field of study.

Jerry Bergman, Ph.D., tackled the myth that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. He noted that a survey of college text books showed that most barely discuss evolution. The anatomy and physiology text books examined didn't mention evolution at all. Of the colleges surveyed in Ohio and Michigan, biology majors were required to only take one class in evolution.

From Bergman's article, we read this:

National Academy of Science Member and renown carbene chemist, Professor emeritus Dr. Philip Skell of Pennsylvania State University (see Lewis, 1992), did a survey of his colleagues that were “engaged in non-historical biology research, related to their ongoing research projects.” He found that the “Darwinist researchers” he interviewed, in answer to the question, “Would you have done the work any differently if you believed Darwin's theory was wrong?” that “for the large number” of persons he questioned, “differing only in the amount of hemming and hawing” was “in my work it would have made no difference.”

If colleges are supposed to be equipping scientists in their various fields of research, they must not think evolution is very important, considering it's barely mentioned. And you can see that even people who work in biology have admitted that evolution isn't really relevant to their research. Consider this too: can anyone name a single invention or technological advance in the last century that hinged upon an understanding of evolution? Maybe somebody could name one but that is dwarfed by the virtual explosion of technology we've seen in the last 100 years that didn't depend on evolution at all!

Scientists will all swear that everything has evolved even though they are a little “fuzzy” about the details of how, where, and when. Please tell me how practical any theory is to science when many of the details are still “fuzzy.” Nye said, “There are just things about evolution that we should all be aware of, the way we’re aware of where electricity comes from.” Really, Nye? You want us to think we can understand evolution the way we understand electricity? “Science” isn't settled over how, where, and when things evolved. If we had that same lack of precision in how we understand electricity, we'd still be reading by candlelight.

But even if there were complete harmony among all scientists about every point in evolution, it has still not been demonstrated how that contributes to inventing life improving technologies. What would happen if everyone was in agreement about evolution, then suddenly a new fossil – like a rabbit found in the Cambrian – overturned it all? Would airplanes start falling from the sky? Would buildings collapse? Would bridges crumble? These are the kinds of things that could happen if we were dead wrong in a real science like physics. But what about evolution? What would happen if evolutionists were shown to be 100% wrong on some point in their theory. I'll tell you what would happen – a bunch of biologists would drop everything and start running around, redrawing their cherished, nested hierarchy. In the meantime, the rest of science might pause for a moment in healthy curiosity but then would resume its work improving people's lives. The average person wouldn't even notice. Evolution is just that unimportant.

I happen to live in Kentucky. Kentucky, of course, is known for horse racing. Imagine, for a moment, that KY law required schools to teach students the name of every winner of the Kentucky Derby. Kids would have to memorize things like race times, jockey's names, lifetime earnings, etc. What use is any of that in preparing students for life after high school? It's trivia and isn't really applicable to any field of work except maybe a tour guide at the Churchill Downs Museum. Many parents would rightfully object to using precious classroom time to teach something so useless. What's more, some parents might object to learning about horse racing on the grounds that it could promote gambling. Not only would learning about the Derby be insignificant – it would also be controversial. Why would KY do such a thing? The short answer is they don't and they wouldn't. It would be stupid.

That's how I see the teaching of evolution. If evolution is so ancillary to science, if there is no study linking understanding evolution to improved test scores, if evolution is something that kids learn in school but never use again, then why is there this grim determination that students still must learn evolution? We're facing an education crisis where kids lack proficiency in critical skills like reading, math, and history. Why are we wasting time and resources teaching them a skill that is so useless yet still so controversial? Why force public schools into court to defend a sticker in a text book or to remove a teacher who mentions creation? It's obvious that this is less about education and more about indoctrination. Let's just stop the controversies altogether. I'm not saying, “give equal time to creation.” I'm not saying, “teach the difficulties.” I'm saying stop teaching evolution!

Epicurus and the problem of evil

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One reason people reject God is they believe, if He existed, then bad things shouldn't happen. A Greek philosopher named, Epicurus, penned a famous riddle about evil. It goes like this:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Being Greek, and having lived before Christ, Epicurus certainly wasn't talking about Christianity, but his same arguments have been used to attack the God of the Bible. It's a series of questions meant to highlight the “problem of evil” and create some sort of dilemma for Christians: if God is good and omnipotent, why does He allow evil? The conclusion the critic wants us to draw is that God doesn't stop evil because there really is no god. As is always the case, any opinion that is not founded on the rock of Christ is founded on sand and cannot bear scrutiny. I see a few failings with this argument.

If an unbeliever wants to leverage evil to prove the nonexistence of God, he must first explain what he means by “evil.” As simple as that might sound, this is a real problem for unbelievers. If there were no god, then there is no greater being who administers justice. The universe would be all there is and the universe doesn't care what happens. An apple falling from a tree, a lion eating a zebra, one man killing another man, are just inconsequential events that happen while an indifferent cosmos just chugs along for billions of years.

A star 1 billion light-years away goes nova and destroys a solar system? The universe doesn't care.

A meteor strikes the earth 60 million years ago and kills all the dinosaurs? The universe doesn't care.

A tsunami hits the coast of Japan and kills tens of thousands of people? The universe doesn't care.

A man pushes an old lady down and steals her purse? The universe doesn't care.

Of course, some things affect us more than others. I might not care about the rabbit fleeing from a wolf or a distant star going nova. However, I do care about a tsunami or an old lady being assaulted. What makes some things evil and not others? Does “evil” mean only “things we don't like”? Without an objective, transcendent standard of what makes a thing “evil,” Epicurus might as well have asked, “Why does God allow things I don't like?” Of course, that doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?

I once heard Denish D'Souza give a great definition for, “wrong.” He said, “wrong means it's not the way it ought to be.” If there were no god, then there is no way the universe “ought to be.” There's only the way it is. Genesis 1:31, though, tells us, “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” You see, the universe was good because God made it the way it ought to be. Right and wrong exist only because God exists! Unbelievers regularly display a sort of schizophrenia. They claim to believe there is no god, yet still live their lives as though there were. It's like a deluded person who claims not to believe in gravity but still knows better than to step off a building. You cannot question God about the existence of evil without first acknowledging that there is a such thing as evil. Yet evil can only exist if God exists, so to even claim there is “evil” is to tacitly acknowledge there must be a God.

Let's concede, for the sake of argument, that evil is just a term we use to describe anything that affects the greater good of humanity. Something like stealing, for example, might be called evil because it helps one person but harms another. Never mind that it's not evil when a lion steals a zebra that a cheetah has killed. We can all agree that it's wrong for one human to steal from another... unless maybe it's to help someone. I mean, what if I stole a loaf of bread from a rich person so that I could feed my poor, starving family for a day? Does the skeptic believe God should not allow me to do this? A quick thinking skeptic might point out that, if God is willing and able to do good, then my family shouldn't be starving. I raise this point only to say that there is a spectrum of what we consider right and wrong.

Is rape wrong? Is pedophilia wrong? Is incest wrong? Is homosexuality wrong? Is adultery wrong? Is premarital sex wrong? Is viewing pornography wrong? Since the skeptic has no transcendent standard that says what is right and what is wrong, where to draw the line is somewhat subjective. Different people will draw the line at different places and who is to say which is the correct place? Many will say there is nothing wrong with looking at porn even though the Bible equates lust with adultery. So, does the skeptic mean God should not allow pornography? Should He not allow premarital sex? Which of his own sins does the skeptic expect God to punish him for? You see, most people who would use this argument really only mean for God to stop the really bad people but let the unbeliever practice his own pet sin. Anyone can justify his own sin by saying someone else is worse but if you expect God to deal with sin, be prepared for Him to deal with your sins as well!

I've watched several videos made by Ray Comfort where he asks people on the street to judge themselves. He asks them, for example, is it wrong to lie? Most people will say, yes. Of course, these same people will all admit to telling many lies. In fact, every one of us has broken all of God's commandments and so are guilty before God. You want God to do something about sin? OK, since we're all guilty, how would you feel if God just destroyed the world now? That would be just. It's certainly within His right. The fact that He allows evil to continue for a while is not because He is uncaring but rather because He is merciful. God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). God wants you to be saved. He even wants the really, really bad people to be saved. The Bible says that God will have mercy on whoever He chooses to have mercy (Romans 9:15). If God has made salvation available to anyone on the condition that the person believe in His Son, then who are we to attach strings? “God, I know that person accepted Christ but let me tell you how bad he's been....” Really? If you really think some people can be forgiven but not others, then you are endorsing a type of salvation by works. You're essentially saying, “This person has been good enough to deserve Christ's forgiveness but this other person hasn't.”

At the bottom line, no one deserves God's mercy. Indeed, if it is deserved, then it's not “mercy,” is it? We all have broken God's commandments and we all are deserving of hell. The Father has made salvation available through the Son. Jesus is the Lamb of God, the one who takes away the sin of the world. Please do not mock God by saying some sin is more than His blood can cover!

We sometimes expect God to act a certain way. When Jesus came into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the people praised Him saying, “Save us, Son of David.” They thought Jesus would be a conqueror who would deliver them from Roman tyranny. They were looking for the Lion of Judah. They didn't understand that Jesus first had come to be a Lamb. In a very real sense, He did come to save them – just not they way they expected.

God has a different plan, a better plan, for dealing with sin. He took on flesh, became a man, lived a perfect life – one undeserving of death, and then shed His blood on the Cross as the payment for our sin. If we repent of our sins and believe in Him, we pass from death unto life. One day soon, the worries of this world will seem like a fleeting moment, the blink of an eye that is over as we go on to live an eternity in a paradise He has prepared for us. God is not only willing and able to deal with evil, He has already done it!!

If you ask me, it is unbelief that is truly a riddle. People want to deny God. They want to mock the sacrifice of His Son. They want to flout the Law and live their lives however they want, indulging the most base desires of their flesh. Then they have the nerve to ask why God allows bad things to happen to them?! Incredible!

Galatians 6:7, Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Evidence for biblical creation: The stasis of kinds

People have asked me, “What is the evidence for biblical creation?” That's a difficult question because there is often a misunderstanding about what “evidence” is. Evidence is neutral – that is, it isn't truly for any theory. Rather, theories are invented in order to explain the evidence. A theory might seem to explain the evidence rather well but then later, the theory could still be rejected in favor of a new theory. As theories come and go, the evidence is always the same. The universe just keeps chugging along like it always has and nothing has changed except the theory.

After having said that evidence isn't really for any theory, I still feel there are some things better explained by biblical creation than by secular theories. I'm not saying secular theories have no explanation for any of things things (well, I guess in some cases they don't), but that biblical creation has the most reasonable explanation and, so, is more likely the correct explanation. I'm not going to make a series of posts with the best evidence, but will make this a recurring topic that I post from time to time, with similar headings. You can find all the posts related to this topic by clicking on “Evidence for creation” in the label cloud on the left.

The Stasis of Kinds

The Bible says God created the plants and animals “after their kind” (Genesis 1:24, et al). If I use these verses as a guide, a kind would be defined as a group of creatures originally created by God that would reproduce creatures similar to themselves and would include all of the various species that are descended from the original group. Think bears for a moment: a hypothetical ursa-kind might include polar bears, grizzly bears, black bears, panda bears, and sun bears. However, the bear-kind would never give rise to something like a cow because there are traits that cows possess that bears don't – like a divided stomach. Evolution, on the other hand, proposes that creatures have changed from one kind to another, as in dinosaurs becoming birds.

For evolution to be possible, populations would have to acquire novel traits. To turn a dinosaur into a bird, it would have to gain feathers. To turn a reptile into a mammal, it would have to acquire hair. For a molecule to turn into a man, it would require a billions of years long parade of novel features being added generation after generation. If evolution were true, new traits would have to appear in populations with a fair amount of frequency. They don't.

One of the lies spoken by evolutionists is that microevolution over time leads to macroevolution. The most famous example of microevolution, by far, is the peppered moth. Due to changes in the environment, the ratio of dark and light coloring in the moth population changed over time. The lie is that the tiny changes (microevolution) we observe can accumulate over “millions of years” to become drastic changes (macroevolution).

Let me ask you a simple question: If there are light moths and dark moths in a population, how long would birds have to eat one color of moth before new colors would begin to appear? You don't have to think about it too long because the answer is fairly obvious; you cannot add new colors by continuously removing colors no matter how long it continuous. In the end, you will only have fewer colors. In the 100+ years since the peppered moth experiment was first published, there has been no accumulation of small changes. There have only been back and forth changes in the ratio of light and dark moths amounting to a net change of zero! The peppered moth study is literally a textbook example of natural selection but in the century since it was first observed, there has not even been microevolution in the peppered moth species!

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Let me offer another example – dogs. Most people are familiar with dogs. We see dogs in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and colors. Pretend I owned a golden retriever but I wanted a green retriever. Could I selectively breed dogs to create a green one? What if I did it for 50 years? 100 years? 1,000,000 years? Dogs may come in a lot of colors but they don't come in new colors. Though there are a variety of dogs, they can never evolve past becoming dogs because nothing new is ever added to the dog-kind.

The limitation of natural selection is that can only select from traits already present in the population. If I should release a motley pack of dogs into a new environment, natural selection would immediately begin her work. The dogs that lacked the instinct or ability to hunt would quickly starve. The ones with coats that camouflage well would find it easier to sneak up on prey. Simply put, the dogs with traits best suited to environment will tend to live longer and have more pups; those with unsuitable traits will tend to die sooner and leave fewer pups. Over many generations, the most successful traits will be inherited more often, and the pups will begin to look alike. At that point, we might even call that population a new species. However, there will still be only those traits that were already present in the first generation. Nothing new has been added.

I've seen a hundred instances of critics calling natural selection, “evolution.” Natural selection is the opposite of evolution. Over time, natural selection can make animals well adapted to their environments but it is only accomplished by continuously removing traits not suited to that environment. The result is a species that is less diverse than the kind. There is a lot of variety among dogs. There is less diversity among golden retrievers. We can understand how a wolf could become a dog. That doesn't explain how a fish could become a frog!

Evolutionists suggest that mutations could add new traits to a population. I intend to write about that on another post but I'll say now that we don't have any examples of it actually happening. If evolution were true, trait adding mutations should occur frequently. Why don't we see any? What we do observe are bears staying bears, moths staying moths, and dogs staying dogs. We see changes happening, but we've never seen a change in the direction that could turn one kind of animal into another. What we observe is more consistent with the Bible than with evolution.

Lies evolutionists tell: evolution is compatible with the Bible

People who militantly defend evolution (AKA evolutionists) like to look down their noses on the “lay” public and smugly drone on about how science is the key to knowledge, how evolution is the most rigorously tested theory in science, and how they only go where the evidence leads. If that were true, why do they feel the need to tell lies to support their theory? I'm not talking about a mere difference of opinion – like how I believe the earth is around 6,000 years old and they think it's 4 billion years old. I'm talking about continuously repeating things that are objectively false. The sad thing is, many members of the public have heard these lies repeated so often, they assume they are true.

I've written series in the past where I list 5 or 10 of some of the most egregious examples but I'm not going to write a series now. Instead, I'm going to visit this topic from time to time and make each, entire post about a single lie. If you want to read all the posts published under this topic, click “lies evolutionists tell” in the label cloud in the left column.

Are we ready? Then on to the next lie!

EVOLUTION IS COMPATIBLE WITH THE BIBLE

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Many evolutionists try to encourage the idea that Christianity is compatible with evolution. While telling educators how to “deal with design” (that is, “intelligent design” or “creationism”), Nature Magazine had this advice:

Scientists would do better to offer some constructive thoughts of their own. For religious scientists, this may involve taking the time to talk to students about how they personally reconcile their beliefs with their research. Secular researchers should talk to others in order to understand how faiths have come to terms with science. All scientists whose classes are faced with such concerns should familiarize themselves with some basic arguments as to why evolution, cosmology and geology are not competing with religion.

That certainly sounds reasonable, doesn't it? Don't be fooled! Evolutionists will say anything if they think there is a chance of changing someone's mind. They're seldom sincere, though. They try to convince the wavering creationists that there is somehow “middle-ground” between “science and faith,” while all the while, they secretly hold any notion of “intelligent design” in contempt.

On the pro-evolution site, TalkOrigins.org, in response to a Christian's comment on homology, the rabidly atheistic P. Z. Myers had this reply:

The problem with your argument is that in adult human beings, these features have been so highly derived that they no longer bear any resemblance at all to their homologs in other animals. It's all well and good to claim that it's an example of reuse by a designer, but why would a designer think the most efficient way to build a tiny ear bone is to reorganize a substantial chunk of branchial structure in an embryo?... It makes sense if every feature of an organism is the product of its history, but it doesn't make sense if you want to argue independent design with appropriate reuse of common elements. Unless, that is, you're willing to argue that the Designer is wasteful, incompetent, and lazy.

Do you see what I mean? Compromising on Genesis for the sake of making the Bible seem compatible with secular theories of origins accomplishes nothing. In their own words, secular evolutionists see God as a lazy, incompetent, wasteful moron with less than half a brain. Why would anyone want to forsake the omnipotent Creator of the Bible who spoke the universe into existence and replace Him with the dim-witted god of evolution who can't create a way out of a wet paper bag?

There are several reasons we should reject the idea of “theistic evolution.”

It is contrary to a plain reading of the Scriptures

One way to “reconcile” the Bible with evolution is to claim the creation account isn't meant to be understood “literally” but rather as a poem or a parable. Genesis, they will say, only tells us that God created everything but science tells us how. I beg to differ. The Bible very clearly tells us how; God spoke and it happened. Genesis 1 offers a detailed account of the creation week. It's very specific, detailing the events of each day: on the first day, evening and morning, God did this; on the second day, evening and morning, God did this; etc.

Furthermore, the Bible says that God created Adam from the dust of the earth. These passages are not ambiguous. There is nothing in them to suggest we need to look somewhere else to determine how long “six days” or that suggest Adam evolved from some non-human primate.

What other parts of the Bible do we read in the same way some Christians read Genesis? Think about these questions:

How many days was Jonah in the whale?

How many days was Lazarus dead?

How many days did Joshua march around Jericho?

How many days did God take to create the universe?

It's easy to answer the first three questions. It should be just as easy to answer the fourth. Yet, because some Christians put their faith in science above the revealed word of God, they get confused over what should be an easy question. How many days was Jonah in the whale? “Three,” they answer. How many days did God take to create the universe? “We don't know,” they answer. What? Um, yes, we do know!

It diminishes the character of God

Proverbs 8:36 says that all who hate God love death. If they love death, the theory of evolution has it in abundance. Evolution, of course, is a very slow, cruel process. Richard Dawkins describes nature this way:

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives whimpering with fear, others are slowly devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there is ever a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.

An often spoken criticism used by atheists is, if God is good, why do bad things happen? To believe in evolution is to believe God intended the world to be full of death, disease, and suffering. It is saying that bad things happen because God wants them to happen and the bleak picture Dawkins paints of nature is exactly how God planned things to be. It would be a very capricious god who would waste billions of years of pain and extinction only to look back on everything he had made and describe it all as “very good” (Genesis 1:34).

It diminishes the Person of Jesus

Jesus came to fulfill the law. He said this overtly in Matthew 5:17, Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. But what does it mean to “fulfill” the law? He accomplished this in several ways. A Savior was necessitated by Adam's sin in the garden. When Adam fell, he brought death into the world and death has passed on to all men because all have sinned (Romans 5:12). But even as God judged with the Curse, He also promised a Redeemer, the Seed of the woman who would crush the head of the Serpent (Genesis 3:15). Jesus fulfilled that promise.

When Adam and Eve sinned, the Bible says their eyes were opened and they saw that they were naked (Genesis 3:7). They tried to cover themselves with fig leaves but God killed an animal and made skins to cover their nakedness. This is the first recorded death in the Bible and ushered in an era of sacrifices where the followers of God would sacrifice animals as a covering for their sins. Hebrews 9:22 says that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. But the system of sacrifices proscribed in the Old Testament was only temporary; they were pictures of the ultimate sacrifice that would come: Jesus, the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world (John 1:29). The death of Jesus did away with the need for animal sacrifices. He fulfilled the Law by covering our sins permanently with His own blood.

But what if there was no Adam? No first sin? No Fall? According to theistic evolution, death is just the way it's always been and not the judgment for sin. Then what did Jesus fulfill? It would be like having the answer to a question that was never asked.

It gives the wrong impression of death

The Bible is very clear that death is the judgment for sin. There are several passages that illustrate this: For the wages of sin is death, Romans 6:23. By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, Romans 5:12. He which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, James 5:20, et al. We die physically because we are descended from Adam (1 Corinthians 15:22) but, after we die, the lost will be judged for their own sins before the Great White Throne (Revelation 20:11-14). At that Judgment, everyone whose name is not written in the Book of Life, is cast into the Lake of Fire; this is called, the second death (Revelation 20:14-15).

Death is the key to evolution. You see, it's not just that death happens during evolution, death is prerequisite to evolution. It's the hero of the story. Yet in spite of this, I still think that most of the people who believe in evolution never fully grasp exactly how critical a role death plays.

Natural selection is sometimes described as the “survival of the fittest.” This must also mean the demise of the unfit! Because it plays such a key role in evolution, some people almost regard death as noble.

Biologos, a group that identifies itself as Christian, has an article titled, Death and Rebirth: The Role of Extinction in Evolution. Wow, “death and rebirth”! It almost seems to put evolution on equal footing with the Resurrection! In the article, the author makes this claim:

Extinction is actually a common feature of life on earth when viewed over long (e.g. geological) timescales. By some estimates, over 99% of the species that have ever lived have gone extinct [this is also a lie, by the way].... Such an extinction event (of a single species, or perhaps a handful of species) alters the environment of other remaining species in an ecosystem. This, in turn, may influence the ability of some of these remaining species to reproduce compared to other species.... As the ecosystem landscape shifts due to loss of species, new biological opportunities, or niches, might arise. These new niches are then available to support new species to fill them.

There you go. Animals go extinct but that makes way for new animals to evolve. It's the circle of life. Some things live and some things die and it's good! Tsk, tsk! The role of death in evolution is the complete opposite of what death truly is. Death is an intruder into the creation. It is the consequence of Adam's sin and later, of our own sins. It is an enemy that will one day be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26). Death should be dreaded by the lost and they should seek a way to avoid it. The gospel – the good news – is that there is life in Jesus!!

The plain understanding of the Bible is the opposite of some scientific theories in many areas. It's not debatable. So how do evolutionists make their theories “fit” with the Bible? Do they tweak their theories? Of course not. In order to make the Bible compatible with evolution, we must compromise on what the Bible says. That's exactly what too many Christians do. Their questionable hermeneutics not only make a mockery of a straightforward reading of the Bible, they seldom accomplish the intended goal of making Scripture fit with evolution.

Look, scientists teach science. I get it. The prevailing scientific theories regarding origins are evolution and the Big Bang so these are what are being taught in science classrooms. Again, I get it. But their scientific credentials do not qualify them to tell me how to interpret Scripture! Why do they feel the need to say this? I'll tell you: it's not because they really care how well their theory comports with the Bible but, rather, they say it in order to trick hesitant, creationist students into compromising on their beliefs. They're lying. Shame on them.

Rejecting a straw god

I've been blogging for a while now; this blog is about 1 year old but I started my first blog about 15 years ago. My online discussions with critics, however, go back over 25 years to the old, AOL chat rooms. I've been on FaceBook, Twitter, and many online forums like CARM.org where I've engaged atheists head to head – not just answering the comments left on my blog. I read other people's blogs, watch their videos, and listen to their arguments. Suffice it to say, I've heard about every reason there is that people use to reject God. Yet in all that time, all the different arguments I've heard can be grouped into just a few different categories.

Before I get into the categories, let me just say that I have my doubts that these are the real reasons why people reject God; they are merely the excuses they give. I think, deep down, they ultimately reject God because of their sinful, prideful, rebellious nature. They would prefer to continue in their sin rather than submit to God. They want to live life how they please and simply are trying to convince themselves there will be no judgment at the end of it. But since these are the excuses they give, they are what I will use.

Keep in mind that critics will seldom limit themselves to just one of these categories. Usually, it's only one of these things that will first cause someone to doubt, but once he has rejected the idea of God completely, he always embrace the other things as well. Here are the categories I've seen.

BAD THINGS HAPPEN

Some people claim to reject God because of the “bad things” they see in the world. It's common for people to say things like, “Why does God allow bad things to happen?” This includes not only people doing bad things but also natural disasters like earthquakes, plagues, famines, or tsunamis. Sometimes, there will have been a personal tragedy in the persons life, like the loss of a loved one or maybe a divorce or abuse. They believe that God doesn't act at these times because there is no God.

GOD IS EVIL

Other people claim to reject God because they reject the biblical standards of morality. They will point to passages like 1 Samuel 15:3, where God commanded Saul to destroy the city of Amalek and describe it as genocide. They say a loving God wouldn't condemn things like homosexuality. Dan Savage once said that the Bible was “wrong” on slavery so how can we trust it on things like sexuality? They also question the “fairness” of God forgiving really bad people or condemning “good” people who reject Him. They aren't just questioning why God let's bad things happen, but claim God Himself is bad. Critics believe if there were a God, He wouldn't act like this.

THERE IS NO EVIDENCE FOR GOD

People also claim to reject God because they see no evidence that He exists. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard people ask, “If there is a God, why doesn't He just show Himself?” These critics see the universe operating according to fixed, physical laws and we don't really need to invoke a god to understand them. One skeptic put it this way: Why is God so stingy with direct evidence?... [T]he supposed miracles that attest to a supernatural power all happened in ancient, pre scientific, times, in which there existed no means of reliable verification. These supposed miracles are not being duplicated today so that we could see that such things are possible.... A loving God would not erect such high barriers to belief and then further compound the difficulty in believing by providing us with such strong evidential circumstances against the supernatural, such as the inviolability of the laws of nature. These critics believe if there were a God, He would make Himself known in an obvious way.

THEY DON'T TRUST THE BIBLE

I could include people who reject the Bible on the grounds that they claim it contains contradictions and so can't be divinely inspired. This is more of an argument for agnosticism than atheism. That is, they may still think there could be a god, they just don't believe it's necessarily the Christian God of the Bible. This category isn't really relevant to my point today. I just raise it in case people later try to claim I didn't think of it.

https://unsplash.com/@matijeus

As we review this short (but nearly exhaustive) list of reasons, we see a theme begin to develop. These people aren't merely searching for God and not finding Him. Instead, they've imagined how they think God should act but they can't find a god that acts like that! In other words, they aren't really rejecting God, they're rejecting a straw god, one they've created in their own imagination.

If we look at these reasons objectively, we can see they're non sequitur. Take the first excuse, for example: bad things happen so there can't be a god? How exactly does that follow? It's sort of like saying, “doctors are supposed to heal sick people but, since there are still sick people, doctors must be imaginary.” You can see how that doesn't work. The second point suffers the same way. It makes no sense to say, “I don't think homosexuality is a sin so if God thinks so He must not be real.” Finally, no one can seriously claim that God can't be real because He won't appear on the evening news and tell us He's real. OK, maybe they do claim that but it still doesn't make sense.

There is a God. He is loving but He is also just. The bad things that happen in the world are His judgment for our sins but He has made salvation available to all who believe. He has redeemed His people by shedding His own blood and He will restore His creation where there will be no more death. He also has made Himself known through His prophets, through His word, and through His Son, who became flesh and dwelt among us.

It's no wonder some people can't find God. They're looking for a capricious god who loves sin. They're not rejecting God; they're rejecting an imaginary god who doesn't exist.

Were there koalas on the Ark?

I recently wrote an article about how some critics attack the Flood event with arguments like, “There's no way Noah could care for that many animals.” This is a textbook example of an appeal to ignorance fallacy. That is, “I don't know how this could be done, therefore, it can't be done.” I shared the article on FakeBook where a troll by the name of Charles [allegedly a Christian] took exception to it. Actually, he barely addressed my point and quickly went off the rails with insults and red herrings. Such is the habit of trolls.

Proverbs 26:4 says, “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.” In other words, don't fall for a troll's trap and chase his red herrings. Instead I followed the advice of Proverbs 26:5, “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.” I pointed out that he wasn't addressing my point and tried to move the discussion back on track. Of course, he would have none of it and continued his foolish rant, which ultimately led to him spouting this little gem:

I wonder, sometimes, what gives trolls their thrill. Do they think they're really making good points? Or is the fun just spouting nonsense, hoping to get a reaction from people? //RKBentley scratches his head.// Any way, I've heard this point before. In fact, I've heard it many times before. More than 10 years ago, in an apologetics forum I used to frequent, a skeptic named LeszekUK made almost exactly the same point:

Here is a puzzle for the Creos. (It works for pandas and bamboo, as well!) Koalas eat only eucalyptus leaves yet the myth of Noah's Ark claims that all the animals came on board, two by two, male and female... So how did these koalas manage to make it across continents and oceans, all the way from Australia to the Middle East, when all their food stayed in Australia? Aside from the problem of how one koala pair knew they had to make it to the Ark, how did they manage to make the crossing? Swimming and starving? Did Noah travel to Australia first to gather up eucalyptus leaves? Even worse for Creos, when the Ark came to rest on Mt Ararat, once all the vegetation had been drowned, how, exactly, did they make it back whence they came?

Wow! Are they reading from the same playbook or something? I sometimes wonder if critics ever have an original thought. They seem to simply repeat the same criticisms over and over again, ignoring any rebuttal they might hear. See canard. The problems with this argument are varied and I'm going to try to address each one in order.

First, it's a misnomer that koalas only eat eucalyptus leaves. One source says, “Different species of eucalypts grow in different parts of Australia, so a koala in Victoria would have a very different diet from one in Queensland. Koalas like a change, too, and sometimes they will eat from other trees such as wattle or tea tree.” This isn't a trivial point. LeszekUK's argument hinges on the premise that koalas eat only eucalyptus leaves. If they can, in fact, eat other things, it immediately undermine his whole point. Note that LeszekUK also said, It works for pandas and bamboo, as well! I intend to leverage that in a moment.

Second, the present distribution of animals throughout the world is merely that – their present distribution. We can't say with certainty where koalas lived prior to Flood. Marsupial fossils are found on every continent, by the way. But here's an obvious factoid that seems to have gone completely over the heads of Charles and LeszekUK: neither do we know where Noah lived prior to the Flood! Why do they assume Koalas had to swim from Australia to the Middle East before the Flood? For all we know, Koalas lived in Noah's backyard eating the leaves of whatever trees grew there!

Next, after the Flood, animals didn't have to make it back [to] whence they came. The fact of the matter is, the environments where they lived before no longer existed. It was a new world and animals had to find new environments to occupy. The only rule was to adapt or die. Keep this in mind while I go back to the point about panda bears.

https://unsplash.com/@tbs44

Bears are a little different than koalas because they are more diverse and us Western folks are more familiar with bears. Pandas eat almost nothing but bamboo. However, we know that their cousins eat a variety of things. Polar bears, for example, almost exclusive eat seals. Black bears eat nearly anything: roots, berries, meat, fish, insects, larvae, and grass. Where Charles and LeszekUK go wrong on this point is that they believe the modern species were exactly the same as the ancestral pairs Noah had on the Ark. He didn't have panda bears on the Ark. He had two representatives of the bear (ursa) kind. Those bears ate whatever bears ate then. When bears left the Ark and made their way across the world, they began to adapt to whatever environment they found themselves. Natural selection did her work and, over many generations, the various species of bears we have now were formed.

Can you see where I'm going with this? Put another way, there were no pandas before the Flood. There were no koalas before the Flood. Noah had the ancestors of these critters and it's foolish to insist that the ancestors had exactly the same environmental/dietary restrictions that their modern descendants have. Jeez!

This criticism is a mile wide and an inch deep. It's a straw man and, when skeptics use it, it merely demonstrates the limited understanding they have of the Flood account. They repeat it because they don't understand it.