Continuation of Section 6, Icons of Evolution
Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria
The ability of certain bacteria to develop resistance to antibiotics is held up as a textbook example of evolution in action. These bacteria are being studied by evolutionary scientists with the hope that they will reveal secrets of how evolution could have happened.
The mechanisms of mutation and natural selection aid bacteria populations in becoming resistant to antibiotics. However, mutation and natural selection also result in bacteria with defective proteins that have lost their normal functions. The altered protein is less efficient in performing its normal function, making the bacteria less fit in an environment without antibiotics.
Typically, the non-mutant bacteria are better able to compete for resources and reproduce faster than the mutant form.
When bacteria mutate in such a way as to become resistant to antibiotics, they thrive in an environment with antibiotics. However, when the antibiotics are stopped, the mutant bacteria cannot function well and begin to die out, and the non-mutant strain survives and reproduces better. Everything goes back to where it started. Bacteria are still bacteria.
Evolution requires a gain of functional systems for bacteria to evolve into man -- functioning arms, eyeballs, and a brain, to name a few. Mutation and natural selection, thought to be the driving forces of evolution, only lead to a loss of functional systems. Therefore, antibiotic resistance of bacteria is not an example of evolution in action but rather variation within a bacterial kind.
Section 7:
Cain’s Wife and Dinosaurs
Cain’s Wife
Skeptics keep coming up with the same lame arguments against the Creator, and each time someone comes up with such an argument, two things are true – he thinks he thought of it, and he thinks he has now proven beyond any argument or question that evolution is true: "The debate us over." This just proves that foolishness never stops.
“Where did Cain get his wife?” Generally that question is asked with an air of smug assurance and an utter confidence that asking a question that has been asked and answered many times before somehow refutes biblical creation forever and clearly establishes the truth of Darwinism. Obviously, Christians should run for cover when this question is asked, because there could not possibly be an answer. It is interesting that those who do not believe the Bible ask a question based on the Bible.
The Bible is consistent with itself on this and all other matters.
God who created all things certainly has enough wisdom to take care of reproduction so the race did not disappear after one generation. Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters. Marrying one’s sister had no legal or medical implications back at the beginning. Laws relative to marriage had not yet been made, and the gene pool was not yet so polluted by the ravages of sin that marrying a close relative would be a problem. Quite some time later, Abraham was married to his half-sister Sarah.
Evolutionists have much more difficulty explaining where the first man got his wife. The idea that man and woman both evolved in a timely way so as to make reproduction possible is patently absurd and laughable.
Dinosaurs
Some today think that somehow the very existence of dinosaurs somehow refute creation and the Creator. Dinosaurs were animals, created by God, just like all of the other animals. The animals we commonly refer to as “dinosaurs” are believed to be extinct, just like many other animals are extinct.
Of course, scientists are never wrong, are they? The Coelacanth, a fish that was “known” to be extinct for sixty-five million years, was discovered alive and well in 1938 and continues to exist today, and instead of admitting they were wrong, scientists began calling it a “living fossil.”
We ought never to be taken in by the agenda of those who are desperately looking for something to prove there is no Creator and therefore no Judge to whom we must answer.
None of the foolish questions men can ask have the slightest impact on the truth of Scripture. The foundation of all of the Bible is found in the book of Genesis, and that is why so many want to undermine it with foolish arguments.
“For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.’ Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? … Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1:19,20,25, NKJV).
Section 8: Common Sense Reasons to Believe in Creation and Reject Evolution
There is a movie called “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The beginning section, which is entitled “The Dawn of Man,” brings to mind the essential foolishness of the philosophy of mankind today. A number of apes, who were supposed to be “ape-men” or “hominids (or whatever), fought over possession of a pool of water. Great progress was made in the evolution toward human civilization when one of the creatures discovered that a bone could be used to crush a skull. The first weapon was invented. The scene then cuts to space travel, obviously skipping quite a span of time in the alleged evolutionary process.
The opening scenes of this movie, which was made in 1968, serve only to underscore the false assumption that all people swallow the story of evolution. This assumption is simply not true. Those who pretend to be scientists by passing off a very silly and absurd story as science do not speak for the majority of people. When the average person, educated or not, looks at the claims of evolution, the sensible response is, “Give me a break!”
Remember John MacArthur’s statement: “Believing in a supernatural creative God who made everything is the only possible RATIONAL explanation for the universe, for life, for purpose, and for destiny.”
While the average person may not understand spiritual truth, he/or she does not have to be foolish. An appeal to common sense makes creation by God a much more sensible answer to origins than the absurdity of evolution.
Next week, we will continue with a few common sense reasons, which are neither scientific nor theological, for accepting creation and rejecting evolution.
Following are some of the resources, in addition to the Scriptures, that have helped me a great deal as I have studied to teach this Sunday school topic. These include the following:
Materials from the Institute for Creation Research, including the book The Genesis Record by Henry M. Morris.
Materials from the “Answers in Genesis” website, and the book The Lie: Evolution by Ken Ham.
Sermons by John MacArthur from the website, “Grace to You.”
Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells, a proponent of the Intelligent Design movement.
The “Got Questions?" website.
Various other resources, both printed books and websites.
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