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Investigating the science behind Creationism

Earth from spaceMartin Kentish was keen to find out how his belief in the Bible fitted with his understanding of evolution. Here he outlines his research and the findings that led him to believe in the truth of a Young Earth.  

Here’s the rub. Before I became a Christian I believed everything I was told about evolution. All those things were definite ‘facts’ because everyone I knew seemed to believe them. Even after becoming a Christian, I didn’t think the ‘New Earth Creationists’ had a scientific left to stand on. I was wrong.
 
Evolution or creation? Old Earth or New Earth? To answer the questions I did what many people do in trying to fit what I read in the Bible into the evolutionary worldview I previously held. For example, the 7 days of Creation weren’t days at all, but some period of time that really meant millions of years. I had become a Theistic Evolutionist trying to fit the Bible into science which I used to believe was true.
 
As I grew in my awareness of God, I couldn’t help but think if He said ‘days’ in the Bible and referred to morning and evening, then He probably meant days as we know them. The more I grew in my awareness of God, the more I doubted what I was previously told from an evolutionary view.
 
What really kicked off the search was a very simple view I held which was that if something ‘appeared’ to be designed, then it probably was. I was acutely aware that I might be trying to fit my Christian worldview into scientific data, but kept going back to let the scientific data speak for itself.
 
Then courtesy of a dear friend, Eric Hopley, my eyes were open to a chap called Dr Grady McMurtry. He is a very clever chap - an evolutionary specialist - but became a Christian at 27 which presented him with the same problem. Rather than leave his brain behind and simply reiterate ‘God did it’, he stood up to the challenge with a determination and brain the size of a planet to look at the facts.
 
And here is what was revealed to me as if a light was turned on. We’re told the Earth is old because it has to be if evolution is true. And we are told the Earth is old because all the evidence we hear tells us it is old.
 
So what is that evidence? Fossils? Rocks? Radiometric dating? Yes, all of them and several more. If any of these three are true, I would agree: the Earth is old and I still have the problem of fitting the Biblical account of creation into the scientific worldview.
 
When I started looking into these three, I was shocked to discover some massive problems with the assumptions of age. Age is really important. For a start, fossils have to happen quickly, else the life that is about to be fossilised decays naturally and won’t produce a fossil. Therefore, fossils themselves are no indication of age.
 
Rock Strata in PipeSecondly, rocks and their strata that I assumed was evidence of millions of years, can easily be formed quickly. In fact, by examining their shape and line, they are far more likely to have been produced quickly than over millions of years.
 
Lastly radiometric dating which was conveniently difficult to understand in the beginning is easily proven to yield completely mad results in the lab.
 
Now even if someone like me who does not have a PhD in any of the above can understand very simply the obvious errors in the methods and ‘facts’ that we have been repeatedly told, why can’t all Christians?
 
The simple answer is this: most Christians have left their brains behind and never engaged with the Scientists. Secondly, many who have engaged with the scientific worldview have unknowingly embraced a worldview which is contrary to the evidence in the Bible.
 
What was so exciting is the more I looked at the Bible, and then the scientific evidence, the more the Young Earth view seemed true. Fossils had to be created quickly, so therefore did the rocks around them. A worldwide catastrophic flood that lead to the evidence we see seemed to be a much better explanation than the evolutionary one. And that is exactly what we see in the Bible.
 
Reading Romans 1:20-23: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities -his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles”.


Now this says to me that you don’t need to have a massive brain to see that God created everything.  Nor is it difficult to see why ‘wise’ people go stupid to deny the existence of God. When we look at ‘Mr Evolution’, Charles Darwin, one of the key reasons (encouragements, incentives) of publishing Origins was to deny the existence of a Divine Creator. It removed God from the equation. I can’t help but feel that the motive for pursuing the evolutionary worldview is not so much about doing ‘good science’ but about doing science that removes God from the equation.
 
So I would say to anyone who is reading this and thinking I am a mad ‘Young Earth Creationist’ to forget the labels you want to give me and look at the evidence yourself. And if right now you are steaming under the collar with rage because everything I have said undermines what you have accepted, here’s three questions to take away and find out the answers yourself: 

  1. What are the best conditions for fossils to be made?
  2. Can rock strata be created quickly?
  3. Is radiometric dating infallible?
So look into these, baring in mind the underlying worldview of the person who is presenting you with the ‘facts’. It is an interesting journey and I hope those who embark upon the discovery of the facts will not feel the conflict between believing in Genesis and the evidence there is out there.


Photo (middle): Stratas of rock, in a modern pipe. Not formed by millions of years!
 

Martin Kentish is a Norwich-based marketing analyst and entrepreneur.  He is the Founder of Free Range People, a company that has successfully developed feedback systems for organisations such as McDonalds, Tesco, John Lewis and the Royal Navy.  He is a member of King’s Community Church, Norwich.

The views carried here are those of the author, not of Network Norwich and Norfolk, and are intended to stimulate constructive debate between website users. 
 
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