Featured as a back-of-page article in the CSABC Quarterly Letter of March 2014
by Richard Peachey
Michael Fugate, a blog commenter, casually remarked to me that I (as a Biblical creationist) must believe in “magic.” <http://evolvingthoughts.net/2013/10/the-theological-and-philosophical-origins-of-the-concept-of-species/>
My response was as follows:
You live in a glass house, Michael, and therefore you should not be throwing stones. Let’s talk about the “magic” accepted by adherents of a secular/evolutionist worldview.
First of all, you accept that Something can magically appear from Nothing. For no good reason, a tiny particle or region appeared, a hundred billion times smaller than a proton. Then, for no good reason, the particle or region expanded, many times faster than the speed of light. Then, for no good reason, that inflationary period ended and the expansion continued at a slower rate.
This Big Bang “singularity” is inexplicable by known laws of physics. It’s a miraculous, magical event contrary to reason.
Many secular cosmologists and physicists have even suggested that such events could have occurred repeatedly, up to 10^500 times. (This is according to a version of string theory called ‘M’ theory, which some wags say stands for ‘Magic’.) This proposed “multiverse” is currently unobserved, and may be forever unobservable, but never mind: you believe in magic!
Secondly, you accept that Life can magically appear from Non-Life. For no good reason, monomers such as amino acids, nucleotides, and sugars joined together into long homochiral polymers, very much contrary to their natural tendency. For no good reason, these polymers collected themselves together into self-replicating entities, beyond what any well-staffed, well-funded twenty-first-century laboratory is able to make happen.
As former senior science writer at Scientific American (and evolutionist) John Horgan wrote in a 2011 blog, “Geologists, chemists, astronomers and biologists are as stumped as ever by the riddle of life.” The title of his article: “Pssst! Don’t tell the creationists, but scientists don’t have a clue how life began.” <http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2011/02/28/pssst-dont-tell-the-creationists-but-scientists-dont-have-a-clue-how-life-began/>
Thirdly, you accept that amphibians can turn into humans (Frogs into Princes!) given enough of the magical pixie dust called Time. Increased complexity magically appears through processes that in real life are recognized as negative, destructive, and harmful — processes such as Mutation (accidental errors in genetic information) and Natural Selection (including untimely deaths of lots of organisms).
Evolutionists have often taunted each other for inventing barely plausible, and sometimes contradictory, “Just-So Stories.” On the other hand, they like to taunt creationists for our “incredulity” and “lack of imagination.”
Creationists, at least, can point to a supernatural Agent who has the ability to make supernatural events occur. But you, the secularist/evolutionist, require unthinking matter and energy to perform magic contrary to their observed natural tendencies and abilities.
Sorry, we just don’t have enough faith to believe in that kind of magic.
Along the lines of the above . . .
In the style of Hebrews chapter 11, Florin Mocanu presents an apt summary of the faith of evolutionists:
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. This is what the ancients were commended for.
By faith we understand that the universe was formed in a Big Bang, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible; by faith we realise that the universe made itself from nothing.
By faith we know that stars were formed out of gas clouds. By faith we acknowledge that heavy elements were formed from stars that exploded; we proudly affirm that we are all ‘star dust’, ‘sons of stars’.
By faith we claim that first life appeared in a ‘chemical soup’—although there is no geological evidence that this soup ever existed.
By faith we accept that the genetic code appeared through a mindless and unguided process of chemical activity, that the coded information got corrupted by many copying errors, and that this led to the production of new and better adapted types of organisms.
And without faith and imagination it is impossible to understand evolution, because anyone who studies evolution must believe that it really happened, since no real scientist doubts it.
By faith we affirm that the ‘present is the key to the past’. We don’t really know what the past was like, but this faith helps us ignore all the evidence for Noah and the Flood—such a preposterous idea would mean that God has judged the world and He may do it again.
By faith we boldly affirm that death is the hero of the plot and that less adapted organisms have to be sacrificed on the altar of progress. The less fit need to die in order to make space for the more fit—there’s no mercy and no care for the weak. Struggle for existence and death have always been around—this is how it was, how it should be, and how it will always be.
By faith we accept that we are nothing but animals. It’s only random mutations and natural selection that brought us here some 100,000 years ago and made us able to study our evolutionary past. We are here for a while, we suffer, and then we die.
And what more shall I say? I do not need to say many words about those who have already died: they are dead and buried and the chemicals that once formed their bodies have already entered nature’s cycle. As for their deeds—whether they did right or wrong, whether they brought justice or injustice, whether they were brave or cowards, whether they raped women or were faithful husbands, whether they properly raised their children or rather abused them, whether they helped others or tortured them, whether they invented new drugs to heal people or rather committed genocide—these are all irrelevant since there is no resurrection of the dead and no final judgement.
These are all dead, and very soon we will be too. There is no meaning in universe, and no purpose in life.