Scientific evidence supporting evolution grows stronger and stronger every year and the evidence supporting creation is apparently stagnant. Are we going to see changes in WELS as a response?

As far as dealing with the so-called empirical evidence, however, you do seem to be turning a blind eye to the rising doubts about the theory of evolution, even in the scientific community. In the current issue of National Geographic (September 2005) the observation is made, "By the 1960s the text book version of human origens looked pretty tidy. ...Today the field [of paleoanthropology] has again become a rather glorious mess." [We would prefer to say "rather inglorious."]

In this same article Harvard paleoanthropologist Dan Lieberman says that his colleagues have tried too hard to tell the story of human origins from a relatively limited set of fossils, particularly those found in the Rift Valley of East Africa. He says, "We are not doing a very good job of being honest about what we don't know. Sometimes I think we are trying to squeeze too much blood out of these stones.

In August 2005 the History Channel featured a program on the evolution of man. It was a very interesting program because it illustrated so clearly that at every step of the process the interpretation of the evidence was confused and often outright wrong. For decades the paradigm of human evolution was based on a hoax, the Piltdown man. As I watched the program my thought was that evolutionary scientists should have been embarassed to see the foundations of sand of their theories so exposed. More of an inglorious mess than a "glorious mess."

If the evidence for atheistic evolution is so sure, why the desperate even panicky attempts to suppress the discussion of intelligent design within the scientific community. Intelligent design is not a religious claim based on the Bible. It is a hypothesis based on the flaws in evolutionary theory. It allows room for God in evolution. Atheistic evolutionists are afraid to allow this possibility even to be discussed.

Though the National Geographic article states that the process of evolution can't be observed like "the fall of an apple," evolutionary scientists want to suppress the discussion of God on the grounds that he can't be observed. It is very interesting that evolutionists, supposedly the defenders of enlightened open-mindedness are working so hard to suppress discussion, and critics of evolution are in favor of open, free debate. Who is it that is hiding their heads in the sand in this case?

In spite of this, the Geographic article asserts, "The central fact of human evolution is a given." The problem is that evolutionary scientists take the field knowing what they are trying to prove and g.html at any evidence that can be shaped to the theory. People who know ahead of time what they want to prove and who feel free to consider only a portion of the evidence can usually prove what they want.

We are not attached to any scientific theory, whether of Ptolemy, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, or Einstein. None of them are laws in a strict sense. Theories come and go. They are only humans' attempts to explain what they observe in creation in such a way that they can predict future outcomes.

If the current explanations of gravity or light or some other.htmlect of creation changes, this does not have any effect on our belief in the reality and basic principles of creation. There is no need for us to question anything about current explanations of gravity because nothing in them contradicts Scripture. If the understanding of gravity evolves from Newton's view of the universe through Einstein's to something else, it will still remain only a human attempt to explain what can't be seen or observed directly. I can see and measure the apple's fall, but the why and what lies behind it remains elusive.

As far as trying to hold members, we cannot base our beliefs on what will be popular or hold the greatest number of members. We must base them only on God's Word. If people are looking for a church that places the claims of science over the Bible, that believes that the Bible is full of errors, that cannot decide what is right and wrong even in basic issues of morality, we are not that church and cannot meet their desires. I pray that we never will be.