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Writer's pictureBible Brian

The clue is in the name!


One of the greatest difficulties of discussing any religion is defining terms. Most religions can be defined by their core doctrines. It is, for example, perfectly safe to say "all Muslims believe Muhammad was a prophet". This is because the prophethood of Muhammad is literally the foundation of Islam. To convert to Islam, you must say "there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger". But there are some doctrines that not all Muslims believe in, some doctrines that only a large portion of Muslims believe in, some that less than half believe in and so on and so forth. Evolution is similar. It is absolutely correct to say that all Evolutionists believe things change over time (as do Creationists). But this is about where the generalisation ends.


Unlike many religions, Evolution does not have a central authority. Instead, it is built on multiple, fallible (even by their own reckoning) authorities. An Evolutionist can accept one authority, reject another, and pick and choose which of their chosen authority's statements to accept. This ultimately leads to huge discrepancies between Evolutionists, to the point where two Evolutionists can have widely different opinions on a range of different issues, and whereas I can point to a verse in the Qur'an to say a Muslim should believe a certain doctrine, even if many Muslims don't, I can't pick up an Evolution book and show an Evolutionist that they should believe one thing over another.

This is convenient for the Evolutionist, as it allows him to paint his Creationist opponents as ignorant of Evolution. But in reality, doing so results in claiming an Evolutionist, even a "high ranking" one (for lack of better term), is also ignorant of Evolution.

As an example, I am often told I don't understand Evolution because I include the Big Bang and the like as Evolution. It doesn't help that, since this is my ministry, I make the "first move", so to speak, so my articles are more likely to attract the Evolutionists who don't consider the Big Bang as Evolution. But just because they don't consider it to be Evolution doesn't mean no one does. It just means I'm using a different terminology than they are. And this is not a terminology I've just plucked from thin air. I've gathered it from the mouths of those who profess it, and even those who taught me.

In the above collage, I have included a screenshot from a presentation by AiG's Terry Mortenson, in which he shows 4 books by secular scientists which use the term "Evolution" to describe the process of the developing universe. There are many more. The second image in the collage is actually the first result when you Google "cosmic evolution" (and I believe Mortenson used that in his presentation as well), which was produced by Harvard University. Long story short, the terms "Cosmic Evolution" and "Stellar Evolution" both come from the secular world. I didn't come up with it, I didn't learn it from Creation ministries who made it up themselves, it comes from the very people with whom I disagree.

Now, if individual Evolutionists wish to dispute the use of the term, that's fine. If entire groups want to use different terminology, or even separate themselves entirely from a single view, that's fine. But when Christians, such as myself, use specific terminology with which these people happen to disagree with at the time, that's not due to a lack of understanding, and it is dishonest to claim that it is. All it means when a Christian addresses a view that you do not personally hold, or uses a definition you do not personally use, they are not addressing you specifically.

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