Creation Or Evolution Essay, Research Paper

Creation or Evolution?

Where did we come from? Did God create our incredible world in six days, and do we all descend from Adam and Eve? Or was the universe created billions of years ago, possibly by a “Big Bang”, with all living things evolving from a single organism? These questions have been debated for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, and there is still no answer that satisfies everyone. Until the 18th century, most people never doubted the Biblical theory of Creation; that God was responsible for the origin of the universe, and every living thing on earth. There are many people today who still believe this theory, which infers that our world is only about six thousand years old.

When scientific evidence to the contrary started surfacing, like bones that were found to be millions of years old, many questions were raised. Those that questioned the Bible were met with great opposition by the religious community. It wasn’t until Charles Darwin published some convincing theories in the middle of the last century that people started seriously doubting the idea of Creation. Darwin completely eliminated the involvement of God in his theory of evolution. He set out to prove that all related organisms have originated from common ancestors, which many people did not want to believe. Skeletons have been discovered of what are believed to be early humans, with ape-like features that become less prominent the closer in age the bones get to our own. These discoveries seem to show the gradual evolving of man, from a member of the ape family to the upright beings we are today. Religious people do not like this theory because it seemingly contradicts the Bible, and many others simply do not want to accept that we could have descended from animals.

One theory on the how the universe came to in to existence is the Big Bang theory, first suggested about fifty years ago by a German physicist. This hypothesis has since been quite widely accepted by astronomers. It suggests that a giant explosion, billions of years ago, created elements like hydrogen and nitrogen, which quickly condensed to form galaxies. Astronomical indications place the age of the universe at around 15 billion years, and this is also roughly the age that the earth is believed to be, based on carbon dating and other scientific evidence. Most people don’t have strong feelings about the origin of the universe, they just accept that somehow earth was created, and then the process of evolution began.

Many people believe that you have to either accept one theory or the other. It should be possible to have a belief system that combines elements of both the scientific theory and the Bible. I believe that life and the universe is billions of years old, and that we evolved from lower animals, but I think that God was responsible. God gave us the simplified version of Creation in the Bible, but I do not feel it was meant to be taken literally. Science presents hard evidence of our evolution from apes, but I still see God’s hand in our existence.

A few scientists agree with a combined theory. One such theory is the Day/Ages theory, that each day mentioned in the Bible is meant to represent an age of Evolution, or billions of years. This theory makes a lot of sense to me, and it allows Christians to accept scientific evidence without feeling that they are turning their backs on their faith. Our world is simply too amazing to have been created without divine intervention.