Since today was the first day after Spring Break, I decided to devote much of my class on the Bible to an activity that didn’t require one to have done the assigned reading (I’m a realist). And so, given the plan of a campus ministry to bring someone from Answers in Genesis to campus, I thought we could do some fact-checking of their claims.
I mentioned two of the countless pieces of evidence regarding the age of the earth and evolution which I consider important, inasmuch as they expose the theological problems with young-earth creationism, in addition to the scientific ones.
The first is chalk beds, of which the famous White Cliffs of Dover are one example:
Chalk is formed as microscopic organisms die, settle on the sea bed, and are compressed over time. Within young-earth creationism, the only way for these huge chalk beds to exist is for the Creator to have brought billions of microorganisms into existence, killed them, and compressed them in order to form chalk that looked like it was evidence of an old Earth. According to the young-earth creationists, this same Creator then holds it against people when they believe the Creator would have been honest and thus the evidence of creation is trustworthy.
When it comes to evolution, a key piece of evidence is human chromosome 2:
We have one less pair of chromosomes than other primates, and we have a chromosome which matches up almost entirely with two chromosomes that chimpanzees have, and ours has telomeres, which are found at the end of chromosomes, in the middle. This should be clear evidence of common ancestry and of a chromosomal fusion event in our past. For young-earth creationists, this too must be explained in terms of a Creator who made our genetic material look like we share common ancestry with other primates. And once again, this Creator apparently despises those who think that creation testifies accurately about the creation process and thus about the Creator.
As geologist Steven M. Smith writes, it is a false dilemma that suggests you must choose between Christianity and science.
But it does seem that one has to choose between young-earth creationism and a God who is honest and loving. Contrary to what young-earth creationists claim, they are not defending the God of the Bible, nor the Bible itself. They are sacrificing the Biblical idea of a God who is compassionate and trustworthy, and setting up a God who is as dishonest as they are.
Christians should not be deceived by these charlatans. They are not defending the Christian faith, they are undermining it.
Let me conclude with a wonderful video by Ken Miller which I have shared before, about human chromosome 2 as evidence for evolution:
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