by Bill Nugent
Article #41
An elderly man, grizzled and bent yet still maintaining an air of dignity, walked along a southern California beach. As he walked along the beach he marveled at the many intricate and varied life forms.
He believed they formed by random collisions of atoms in nature. He was a Darwinian evolutionist. He was taught evolution in school as a child back in the 1930s. He was a diligent student and believed what he was taught. As a youngster he never doubted the Darwinian evolutionary paradigm.
A year before this one of his golf partners mentioned that the DNA of a single-celled organism has over a million chemical base pairs that must be assembled in precise order. His golf buddy explained how he came to reject the idea that the DNA (and all the other complex cellular machinery) had simply formed by chance in the primordial sea.
The old man was annoyed at his golf buddy who had dared undermine Darwinism. However, the golfer persisted and exclaimed that there is not even a generally accepted hypothesis to explain how single-celled organisms could form by chance. He said that even prominent biologist Dean Kenyon repudiated the “chemical affinity” theory he once championed.
The old man continued down the beach and tried to put those thoughts out of his mind but he could not. Just then he felt a sharp jab of angina pain in his chest and was reminded of his own mortality.
He remembered a high school classmate who had gone on to become a minister. He saw him at the 40 year class reunion and mocked him saying “You, a preacher?!!, that’s a waste of your time and talent!” The old man’s classmate gently countered“Darwinism functions as a secular religion. Darwinism’s presuppositions are never questioned. Pride prevents many people from abandoning Darwinian myths. The best an atheistic Darwinist can hope for after death is annihilation but there are no atheists in the grave! After their bodies die their spirits live on and encounter the reality of God!”
The old man slowed his pace and then stood there on the sand viewing the pounding surf and said to himself “I know there must be something more!” Then he prayed “God, if you really exist then touch my heart, reveal Yourself to me and I will follow you.”