Just Skip the Beginning

There are times in life when we just want to get to the good stuff.  Sometimes, we eat dessert before dinner.  Sometimes we rush people through their conversations to get to the meat.  Sometimes we are not interested in the details because they may get in the way of our conscience.  Or, they may remind us of some uncomfortable truth that turns our ideas on their heads.  For instance, if I found a million dollars on the side of the road, I have two choices.  I could say I have no idea where it came from and keep it or recognize that it came from somewhere, it's not mine and therefore I should seek out the owner.  If I dismiss the fact that it's not mine that gives me a clear conscience to keep it.  Who cares about the details of where it came from?  I am only interested in spending it.  The origin of the million dollars is just as important as my possession of it.  I know it did not simply materialize out of thin air and I know it belonged to someone else before I found it on the side of the road. 

In a debate with a Darwinist, this is the exact dilemma that they face when they begin discussing evolution.  They want to discuss diversity without considering origins.  Darwinism stems from Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.  The theory of evolution at its core states that every living species is derived from the same common ancestor, a single celled organism.  Natural selection is another Darwinian concept that says that extant species genetically develop specific traits and characteristics that allow them to survive in their environments.  These traits are developed by mutations in the genes of a given organism. 

According to those who support evolution, they say that it has nothing to do with origins.  That is another subject, a totally different area of study known as abiogenesis.  They contend that you can skip the beginning and go directly to discussing the diversity and complexity of life and that evolution allows us to explain this diversity.  Here is a gaping hole in evolutionary theory.  How can we skip the beginning?  Doesn't it matter where the species that we are describing came from?  Apparently not. 

Many also argue that evolution itself is not random. I beg to differ.  Absent a creator, the origin of all species had to occur randomly.  If the belief among evolutionists is that there is no God and therefore nothing to guide the process, then how else do we classify it?  Further, if abiogenesis is really how the first organism came into being, then that would mean that every organism randomly evolved from that first organism before natural selection could ever occur. 

How is this random?  If abiogenesis is how the first organism came into existence then the chemicals that made that organism up had to have randomly combined to even form one amino acid let alone the proteins or DNA which codes amino acids for proteins.  Sure, the chemical elements can be found on asteroids and meteors but amino acids aren't nor are proteins.  The elements are there but the parts are not assembled.  If there is no assembler, then how else, other than random, do we classify the process of the elements becoming molecules with specific bonding and structures?  Not to mention, where did the life of the first organism come from?  There is no evidence of life evolving from non-living material, anywhere.  Scientists have tried to duplicate/simulate conditions and only got a few amino acids; hardly a living being or even a bacterium (Prebiotic Chemicals?).  Glycine found on a comet (Rosetta Comet) won't cut it when we have to answer the fundamental question of where life begins or how extremely complex and purposeful molecules are derived through random collisions of atoms.  To have the ingredients for life but no life is not enough.  I cannot put the ingredients for five star meal in my kitchen, blow the kitchen up and expect that a desirous meal would come from that process!  Unguided processes are random.  Point blank.  The lottery is a random process- unless it's rigged.  The probabilities for winning are extremely low which is why you see 2-3 winners out of millions of players.

If this random process of making amino acids, proteins, peptides or even DNA, which is a totally different type of chemical from proteins, was successful, now that single celled organism would have to become every single species on the planet.  This would necessitate inter-species evolution i.e. one organism becoming something totally other than itself!  How so?  How else could every species originate from one common organism?  Evolutionists say that this is an aberration and that this is not how evolution works.  However, in order to discuss how evolution (speciation and diversity) does work, we cannot dismiss this fact. 

The formation of different species from the original organism too must be random because there would be nothing guiding the genetic mutations necessary for the original organism to become some other organism.  That's to say there is nothing to tell the original organism what to become.  Random, unguided mutations is the language that even evolutionists use yet they contend that the process itself is not random.  Really?  Here is another hole, evolutionists will not dare say that multiple species occurred at the same time, but rather that they each evolved slowly over time; they also contend that from each of the new species, variations of that species were derived.

Is there microevolution i.e. can there be advantageous changes within a species?  Absolutely.  There is no denying the evidence that there were and still are different humans who walked the planet at the same time.  Every one of us came from somewhere.  I believe that we came from Adam's seed but that's another issue.  The fossil evidence is there to suggest that human beings have indeed changed over time.  So has our environment and our living conditions which, according to evolutionists, have everything to do with evolution. 

But  Is it possible from one species to become another?  I don't think so and this has not been proven experimentally, ever.    But this is precisely what had to have happened in order for the diverse array of species that we currently see to exist, if evolution is taken to its logical conclusion.  There is debate over the whole man from ape theory as well as the common ancestor between men and apes.  Apes have 48 pairs of chromosomes  and humans have 46 pairs.  The debate rages over whether or not telomeres were somehow (no real explanation) fused together which evolutionists use to argue for how apes evolved into humans (Telomeres) and how the two chromosomes pairs are somehow missing from humans. There is no way around this unobserved inter-species evolution and this is where the Darwinian concept breaks down in the eyes of many scientists (for arguments against the theory of evolution, see "Icons of Evolution by Johnathan Wells" "I don't have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek" "Darwin's Black Box by Michael Behe" or "Signature in the Cell b Stephen C. Meyer"). 

We can't just skip over the beginning and not have an answer for it.  That presents a major challenge for Darwinists but according to them, the origins don't matter.  We can indeed skip the beginning and start discussing diversity.  How is that possible when there is a 400lb gorilla in the room screaming "where did all life come from in the first place?"

There is an answer.  He is an inconvenient truth and a thorn in the side of many who do not agree that there is a creator.  God created everything that we see.  While many do not accept this or claim that He is a bigger mystery than evolution, He is indeed a knowable mystery.  He cannot be studied empirically in a lab, he cannot be proven using science but He can definitely be experienced.  He also left His calling card throughout this orderly universe.  He gave the species the ability to adapt.  He designed the genetic switches that allow DNA to code for different proteins within a particular species.  He made human beings in His image, not from apes.  He made each animal, bird, creeping thing etc. after its own kind.  That those things are able to "evolve" is no mystery and that's something I do not disagree with.  But to say that without answering or even entertaining the vital question of where they came from is quite disingenuous.  The impossibility of a random unguided process leading to the vast array of complex organisms, humanity with all of its own complexities and don't forget our intellectual complexity and everything else that we see is mind-boggling.  It takes a lot more faith to believe in an unguided random process than it does to believe that God created everything in my humble opinion.  But, we don't need those details getting in the way of our theories, now do we?