Creation? Evolution? What does it matter, after all?

I may reveal myself as the totally uneducated and uninformed Christian that I am as I divulge the following information here… but I feel compelled to post this just on the off chance there might possibly be other people out there who know as little about the subject of evolution versus creation as I did.

Or maybe I might possibly offend you if you hold views other than those which are presented here.

But I’m willing to take that chance. Because I wish someone else had told me this stuff years ago.

So here goes.

I grew up in the government public school system and though I was raised with a basic Christian upbringing, I never really took the biblical account of creation as the whole truth. But I never really believed that we evolved from some cosmic sludge fifty bazillion years ago, either. As I went through school, I clearly recall the evolutionary model being presented as pure fact – just minus a few key missing links that the text books and scientists were sure to find sooner or later. Every museum I went to, ever book I read, every kids movie I watched, every dinosaur picture book I ever flipped through… it was all there in black and white… billions and billions of years ago, the earth was formed. Somehow, some way… we’re not quite sure how, maybe Big Bang, maybe something else. But that’s not important. But we do KNOW that the earth is gazillions of years old.

And as a Christian (sort of – but not quite scripturally raised) I just knew it wasn’t quite right. But it also seemed a bit farfetched to think that the earth was really created just 6000 years ago in six short days. I mean, the sun wasn’t created until day 4, so maybe a “day” could mean just about anything. And after all, scientists had PROVEN that the rocks on the earth were really, really old. So something wasn’t quite right.

And the whole world wide flood thing? Who knows? I mean maybe the Bible wasn’t LYING per se, but it could be figurative – or it could mean the whole local area of the world that was populated at that time in history.

So fast forward a decade or two and here I am, a full adult Christ follower since 2005, home educating mother of now four children. In my own path as an adult, Christ has revealed to me that the Bible is the truth. Period. I know I do not understand every word of it, and I know that there are parts that might be left out or hidden as part of God’s plan. But I do not believe the scripture is fallible. I just can’t buy that He’d leave behind his one and only physical connection to the generations of people to come after His time on earth and let it get so tainted that His people could be lost for the rest of eternity. It just is TRUE.

But I’ve still been stuck in the same old mindset. Is there a “gap” somewhere in the creation account? What happened between the time when God created Adam and Eve and the moment they ate of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil? Maybe billions of years did pass before they sinned.

But what it really has come down to for me over the past 4 years is that it didn’t matter. I don’t know it all. God does. And that’s OK with me. If He wants me to know just how and when He created everything on earth, He’d tell me when I get to heaven. I’m really OK with that. After all, science is science, and though the Bible must be true, I’m neither a biblical scholar nor a geologist. So I’ll just leave the “knowledge” to others and I’ll stick with faith. And when my kids ask, I can just tell them that no one really knows, even scientists, and it’s all just a guess. But the Bible does say it happened this way, so we can just go with that.

So here is the part where you may be thinking, “Man, what a dummy you are, Benny. Have you never picked up a creation science book or article? Do really not know how this whole thing works?” But bear with me here. This is going somewhere…

So I went to this great Christian homeschooling conference a month or so back and really got so much out of it just in hearing the speakers. But I also stumbled across the Answers in Genesis booth and spoke with a very fascinating man named Mike Riddle. He’s a scientist and a math whiz and a whole long list of other things… but in a nutshell, he’s a very smart and well educated guy.

And the nice Mr. Riddle has a very lovely pack of DVD’s that I ended up buying. I do not normally just buy things like that, but somehow it just felt like something our home needed. I’m not exactly sure what the name of the DVD series is called, and each of the six DVD’s has a different name. But basically it’s a whole set of DVD’s with tons of scientific support and evidence for God’s creation – and a whole lot of discrepancies and falsehoods brought forth in regards to the evolutionary model.

Did you catch that? There are actually major holes in the theory of evolution. MAJOR HOLES.

OK. So I could go on for pages and pages here. I mean there are six DVD’s all an hour+ long just in the one series I purchased. But I have been just awed and amazed at the amount of true scientific evidence supporting both the six day creation about 6000 years ago, as well as the Genesis flood, which would have been about 4000 years ago. Fossil formation. Faulty dating methods. Sea fossils found on mountain tops. Observable evidence from recent earthquakes, floods and volcanic eruptions that make in just days geological changes once thought to have taken thousands or millions of years. The list goes on and on.

My faith has been strengthened by just the two movies I’ve watched so far. And more than that… my husband, who I might have mentioned is not actually a believer, has really been enjoying the series. It has not proven anything to him, but it has really opened his eyes to some major untruths that have been presented as solid fact, and so far he has not been able to argue any of the points Mr. Riddle has made supporting scientific evidence for the Creation account. My Man has even said that if a created earth 6000 years ago were proven beyond doubt, that he would probably be a full believer. That evidence alone would be enough to make the whole rest of the Bible just be true for him.

That is the power that scientific evidence can hold to so many out there who have doubts about Christ and Yahweh the creator. And the DVD’s make so many good points about how Christians who show that same lack of understanding and faith in the creation account that I had can often undermine the faith, because people who do not yet believe see us as inconsistent… if we can’t even prove and support what our Bible says about how the earth was made, why and how can we believe any of it?

So anyway. This is the DVD set that I bought. And it was worth every penny of the $39.99 I spent on it – and I’ve only watched a third of the set so far! I just feel so happy to know that I do not have to disprove science to show that my God did make the world and that His Word is true. True science actually supports God’s creation. And I just think that’s so cool! And honestly, I’m a little peeved at the textbooks and schools that present everything else as hard, solid fact… when it’s really just as faith based as creation… they just have faith in time and chance, whereas we have Faith in a one true Creator of everything and everyone. I think I’ll take my chances on that Faith, thank-you-very-much. ;o)