Dinosaurs. Since as far back as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated with dinosaurs. What boy hasn’t been at one time or another? However, after watching Jurassic Park and thinking about what a real-life dinosaur experience would be like, I think I’ll pass!

A couple months ago, I read an interesting article about how recent discoveries of dinosaurs bones (not merely dinosaur fossils, but bones) have been confirming the literal Biblical account in Genesis. No, not the old Day-Age model that theologians, pastors, and believers try to twist and contort to make Genesis fit with evolution and archaeology, but the literal, ~6000 year-old, Six-Day Creation model. According to the article, portions of actual DNA have been discovered in the bone cells of these creatures which in evolutionary science supposedly went extinct roughly 65 million years ago. Given that DNA molecules, red-blood cells, and tissues in general are unstable and quickly break down, there shouldn’t be any dinosaur DNA (or Carbon-14 for that matter) after 60,000 years, much less 65 million. Such discoveries simply should not exist — yet they do… and more are being discovered. Ironically, since Darwin’s theory of evolution was introduced 150 years ago, the harder the evolutionists and paleontologists try to substantiate the theory, the more evidence is discovered which directly contradicts it. How frustrating it must be to try to fit dinosaur DNA, Carbon-14 dates, and other OOPARTs (Out Of Place ARTifacts) into a theory which was fundamentally disproven at least centuries ago, that life cannot arise from non-life (spontaneous generation)!

Along with the hundreds of fulfilled prophetic events described in detail in the Bible and confirmed by history and archaeology, the other significant contributor to my personal walk of faith was studying Creationism and giving their arguments a fair, unbiased chance, many of which I found to be rather indisputable. Many are simply arguments involving physical laws and good old-fashioned common sense. While I’m admittedly no scientist, common sense can go a long way in simply deciding for yourself which theory of origins best fits the evidence. Everyone has their own beliefs and opinions of our origins and even truth, despite the fact that certain things are indeed true and others are not. For myself, I found that when I stepped back and honestly examined the Creation arguments and the Bible, it answered many of the questions I had far better and more completely than those presented by the evolutionary camp (which I had been taught from elementary school through college).

When I first began moving towards the “Young Earth” Creationist camp, the age of the earth issue was a significant stumbling-block for me. How could a young-earth model possibly be reconciled with radiometric dating, carbon dating, and basic principles of geology? What helped me personally answer those questions was the consideration of several dozen age-limiting factors in general earth-science such as the earth’s rotation gradually but steadily slowing, the moon moving further away from earth, the decreasing magnetic field, population growth-rates, the maximum half-life limit of Carbon-14, etc. While there are several dozen age-limiting factors available that can be used to disprove the “billions of years” theories, only one or two solid age-limiting factors should be enough to dispel any notion that the earth is more than 10,000 years old, much less a million or a billion! If one considers basic population growth-rates, the simple question of “Where’s all the bones and evidence?” should make anyone hesitate before postulating that humans — much less all the rest of the vertebrates in the animal kingdom — are more than 6-10,000 years old. Why was there a sudden explosion of cities and civilization in the Middle East (not sub-Saharan Africa) about 5,000 years ago, but before that practically nothing?

Another kicker for me was the subject of dinosaurs, or “dragons” as they were previously known before the modern term (which means “terrible lizards”) was coined two centuries ago. For decades, evolutionists have declared that “No one has ever seen a living dinosaur.” Now according to evolutionary theory, that must certainly be true because the oldest fossils of humans (more or less) have been dated at just under 3 million years old while the dinosaurs are thought to have gone extinct 65 million years ago. Therefore, there shouldn’t be a shred of “evidence” of such terrible lizards — no tales, myths, legends, drawings, sketches, nothing — anything to be found in any culture anywhere on earth. Yet many cultures throughout history declare otherwise, from the Sumerians, Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, Chinese, Indians, Anglo-Saxons, Romans, Greeks, Native Americans, to an author in the Bible (Job 40-41). It would be understandable if the ancients found the large bones and described huge mammals with fur, but they didn’t — they described huge reptiles. Again, if all terrible lizards went extinct long before mankind arose, there should be absolutely no “memory” of such creatures. Yet there are — from murals on cliffs to pottery to textual descriptions to recipes to legends, traditions, and festivals that are still celebrated today, many of which are surprisingly accurate (even some of the fire-breathing tales!).

One of the few verses in the Bible that mixes both Creationism with prophecy is in 2 Peter 3:3-6 in which Peter (writing of the Day of the Lord) declares:

…knowing this first: that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” For of this they are willfully ignorant: that by the Word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, whereby the world as it then was, being overflowed with water, perished.

This passage predicts two of the pillars of evolution: uniformitarianism (“all things continue as they were”) and the blatant denial of the Flood and a literal Creation (being “willfully ignorant”). The debate between creationists and evolutionists isn’t a matter of science or the evidence but the interpretation of both as based upon their personal biases and worldviews. Though the evidence is the same, one looks at the majesty of the Grand Canyon and sees billions of years while the other sees the sudden, pervasive destruction of the Flood. There are over 200 cultural accounts of a massive Flood, yet evolutionists continually deny that any such event ever occurred. They postulate that the dinosaurs gassed themselves to death (dino-farts) or were struck by a huge meteor (which should’ve destroyed ALL life on earth), but never, ever by water (much less a global Flood), which is the only reasonable explanation for creating so many fossils in the first place (rapid burial by mud/sediments). As with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the formation of the Dead Sea in Genesis 19, it doesn’t matter if there were eye-witnesses who described the events as they occurred — according to modern archaeology, it all happened millions of years ago instead of under 6,000.

As a “Young Earther” (though I prefer Bible literalist), I’ve often been amazed at the double-standards between how creationists and evolutionists are treated — particularly in the universities and the scientific community — and even how various ideas and explanations of origins are regarded. Both camps have their own specific “religious” arguments to support their beliefs, and both can easily point to science to support their claims. After all, one group declares “In the Beginning, God created everything in six days” while in the other, “Billions of years ago, Nothing exploded and out of that chaos, time, space, order, and information arose and everything evolved by chance into the incredibly ordered universe we have today.”? At the core of both viewpoints is “faith” — both for the creationist as well as the evolutionist — though one believes in “God” while the other believes in “Nothing” or “Chance.” Where exactly did this Nothing come from in the first place, where did the energy come from, and what would cause Nothing to explode? After all, Time, Space, Matter, and Energy are all intertwined and affect one another — and for Nothing to explode, it would’ve first had to have originate somewhere at sometime, right?

The fundamental debate of our origins is NOT about evolution versus creation — it’s about God, the Creator, particularly the God of the Bible who judges everyone for their deeds and beliefs and holds them accountable for them. It’s about “Did God really say?” that there’s a literal judgement, Heaven, and Hell. No one likes having their evil/sin exposed and judged (John 3:19 – that men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil). No one likes to have to choose between two choices they have no control over (Heaven and Hell), so we invent elaborate ways of simply avoiding the choice by declaring that the Creation never occurred in the first place — after all, if there’s no Creation, then there’s no need for a Creator. In interpreting the evidence to conform to evolutionary theory, with most it’s not some grand, elaborate conspiracy or even conscious decision as much as peer pressure — not wanting to go against the grain of the rest of the scientific community, particularly when one’s reputation, popularity, and livelihood are at stake.

In the end, all matters of faith — even those of evolutionary science — come down to the very first question asked of man by the serpent (ironically, another “terrible lizard”) in the Garden of Eden: “Did God really say?” Everything we encounter in this world and this life relates to that one fundamental question that was asked long ago — or not so long ago, depending on one’s view of origins. And depending on what we really believe deep, deep down in our hearts is how we will personally interpret the world around us and answer that fundamental question.

Whenever bones are dug up or new archaeological discoveries are made, that solitary question lurks quietly in the background waiting to be asked — and answered — by each one of us: “Did God really say?”

“For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” — Exodus 20:11