What about Evolution? (sermon extras)
INTRO
In 2005, Bobby Henderson wrote an open letter to the Kansas State Board of Education, protesting their decision to teach creationism along side evolution.
He said they should also devote equal time to teaching about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The idea is that evolution is watertight science, and belief in God has no logical support. The Flying Spaghetti Monster idea took off online, and now there is a recognized Church of the FSM. You can be even be ordained as a priest in the Church of FSM. Here are real pictures of FSM devotees wearing their “most sacred item,” a pasta strainer, on their heads in court.
These folks don’t actually believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The whole thing is a deep satire that is meant to show Christians how ridiculous we are being by not only believing in God but insisting on bringing our belief into the public arena and even into law-making. We are essentially as ridiculous as a person wearing a pasta strainer on their head.
Here is the website for the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Questions for the sermon:
Is the Theory of Evolution really watertight?
Is there really NO evidence for God?
Bold Claims of the Sermon:
Evolution is actually suppression of the truth.
Belief in God is reasonable.
Bible Quotes
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
The Fossil-Record Argument
Does the Fossil Record support evolution? A simple Google search will give you the following:
Bear in mind, a Google AI Overview does not tell us what is true, but it scans the corpus of info out there, and tells us essentially what most people are saying. So most people are saying that the fossil record gives STRONG evidence of evolution. Let’s see what actual scientists say.
Scientist Quotes
Charles Darwin himself in “On the origin of species, 1859”:
“Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record” (PDF page 130).
Darwin came back in the sixth edition in 1872 and said this:
“To the question why we do not find records of these vast primordial periods, I can give no satisfactory answer” (PDF page 142).
For the Darwin quotes, click here for the PDF of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
Richard Dawkins
“Evolution could so easily be disproved if just a single fossil turned up in the wrong date order. Evolution has passed this test with flying colours.” ― Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
Niles Eldredge quote
No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It never seems to happen…When we do see [a new species], it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else. Yet that's how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution. - Eldredge, N. (1995) Reinventing Darwin, Wiley, New York, p. 95.
Stephen Jay Gould & Punctuated Equilibrium
Here is a link to the Harvard University Press bookstore where they feature a printed version of Punctuated Equilibrium by Stephen Jay Gould.
Click here for the full interview titled Science, Fate, and Religion that was featured in the sermon. Below is the edited clip used in the sermon:
In the sermon, I mentioned a Youtube video that ALMOST plainly explains Gould’s theory of Punctuated Equilibrium. Click here for that full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3n9LFxGK5w. Below are the two pictographs from the video that ALMOST plainly explain the theory.
I pointed out in the sermon that the pictographs are misleading. Remember, no one is wondering where the brown birds came from. The dilemma of the fossil record that Punctuated Equilibrium seeks to answer is “where did ALL the different animals come from?” The answer, according to Gould is random mutation, meaning that a bird would lay an egg, and because of a random mutation, a different animal would hatch out.
Below is the truer representation of how Punctuated Equilibrium works.
To be fair, no one would say that a bird gave birth to an alligator. A truer rendition would be the alligator giving birth to the bird through random genetic mutation.
The simple point worth writing down is this: The fossil record does not support the theory of evolution.
Here is the quote from Richard Dawkins that essentially corroborates that fact.
“We don’t need fossils – the case for evolution is watertight without them; so it is paradoxical to use gaps in the fossil record as though they were evidence against evolution.” - Richard Dawkins (2009). “The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution”, p.146, Simon and Schuster.
The Origin-of-life Argument
The Stanley Miller Experiment
In 1952, Stanley Miller and his professor Harold Urey at the University of Chicago conducted the Miller-Urey experiment to test the idea that life could have formed on early Earth through chemical reactions. By passing an electrical current through atmospheric material in a beaker, they successfully created amino acids. This led many to believe that life could have started on Earth from the atmospher and electricity.
In the sermon, I showed clips from a Radio Lab show where they disparage the Miller experiment. Remember, Radio Lab is a show that is in no way influenced by Christian or creationist thinking. Everyone featured in the show holds to the theory of evolution.
Click her for the full show titled Life in a Barrel which aired on March 11, 2022. Below are the edited clips featured in the sermon.
Clip 1: Dr Lane says the Miller Experiment doesn’t explain life
Clip 2: Nobel Prize Winner, Francis Crick says “aliens.”
The third clip is from an interview with Ben Stein and Richard Dawkins. Click here for the full interview titled Richard Dawkins vs. Ben Stein Interview.
Clip 3: Evolutionary Biologist, Richard Dawkins says intelligent design is possible as long as it was aliens and not God.
The final point to take away is this: Evolution does not account for the origin of life. The origin of life is so mysterious that Crick and Dawkins resort to aliens as a possible answer. My point in the sermon was that you can believe in anything you like, but if aliens is your answer, don’t pretend that it is the intellectual high ground.
We end by asking the question “Why does Dawkins go with aliens over a creator God?” Dawkins gives what I believe is his true answer in the following clip from the interview. This is, of course, speculation on my part. Dawkins does not say that he chooses aliens over God because he doesn’t like the idea of God. But the bible says that the truth is obvious to everyone, but unrighteous people suppress the truth. I think Dawkins’ answer in the following clip is an example of the scripture bearing true.
Clip 4: Dawkins says that the idea of God is “an unpleasant prospect.”
“To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
