The Birth of an Evolutionist

Having been raised in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, I grew up hearing the theory of Darwinian Evolution often scorned as an atheistic  rationality against God. I was raised to believe that the earth was no more than 6,000 years old and that therefore “we didn’t come monkeys.” In fact, the SDA church is the source for the modern YEC movement. Young Earth Creationism was a requirement for me when I was baptized into the church and officially became a member.

As I went to private schools run by the church, we were often indoctrinated into Creationism. I remember in my sixth grade science book, the flood of Noah was used as an explanation for geological formation, and that humans and dinosaurs co-existed, and that humans were individually created separately from apes. — Ironically, the same textbooks classified humans as primates along with monkeys and apes. — However, despite all the Creationist indoctrination i was put through,  little by little, I began losing faith in a Young Earth.

I began using common sence to determine that the earth and universe was much older than 6,000. It was basically all because of starlight and light speed. I reasoned that if light took millions of years to reach us here on earth, then the universe had to be older. — However, I still didn’t consider Carbon-14 and other dating methods because I was taught all my life that they were inaccurate. I then revised the belief in the creation week into long ages much like progressive creationists though I had no idea progressive creationists existed. I then also concluded that the flood of Noah was a local event because it was the only explanation that seemed to make sense. Certainly this would be acceptable, wouldn’t it?

A recently as the summer of 2008, I had stayed away from evolution thinking that there was no reason to accept it, or rather “to believe” in it. Finally, in all my ignorance of evolutionary theory, I left a comment on a blog that talked about Evolution being “both theory and fact.” — I ignorantly commented that Evolution was only a hypothesis, and nothing more, but that I accepted an old earth. This then drew other comments calling me ignorant . . . and I was.  I had no real response.

I then decided to look up what scientists said about Evolution. I was then troubled by all the support that it enjoyed in the scientific community. The fossil and genetic evidence I ran across bothered me, and the YEC apologetics I found online didn’t give me any comfort. The most convincing Creationist I read online was Harun Yahya, but I think that was only because he was not a YEC. He accepts the old age of the earth. As a result, I took more comfort in his works than I did from organizations like Answers in Genesis and the Insitute for Creation Research, though this isn’t to say I never read up on them.

In short, I did everything possible to avoid accepting that Evolution could possibly be true for the next full year. After all, I thought that if Evolution were true, then that would inherently mean that God was not our creator. I began reading Micheal Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box and Harun Yahya’s The Evolution Deceit, and used the arguments in those books against Evolution. I then was countered by even better arguments against those given in those particular books.

By July of 2009, I was finally losing what little faith in Creationism I still had. Though in the early part of that month, I was still an Old-Earth Creationist, my comments about Evolution became less and less dogmatic. I finally made statements like “I am a Creationist, but Evolution may in fact be true.” — What finally got rid of any doubt of harmonizing God and Evolution was a short three video series I randomly found on YouTube which beautifully ( and it can be watched by clicking here.) For at least a couple of days after this, I considered the points made, and I finally decided to do more investigation about the topic. By investigation, I mean unbiased with no preconceptions. This research fully convinced me that Evolution was indeed a scientific fact, and that God was fully in harmony with Science.

— An Evolutionist was born.