©2002 by Thomas F. Heinze
Reproduced by permission

Cells are exceedingly complex, so permit me to offer a simplified explanation which covers only a few of the cell's basic parts. It will provide a framework to which you can add other details as you come across them.

• The DNA is programmed with all the information necessary for the construction and function of the cell. It is the "blueprint" for making the proteins which are responsible for most of the cell structure and its many chemical reactions.

• The ribosomes are little factories that make proteins. There are a number of ribosomes inside each cell. In them, following the instructions in the DNA, proteins and ribosomal RNA fit together in a molecular machine which makes the various proteins needed by the cell.

• Messenger RNA is a copy of a short sequence of DNA. It takes information from the DNA to a ribosome which uses it to make a specific protein. The ribosome only needs a copy of the right "page" of the information in the DNA, not the whole "book."

• Transfer RNA lines up the amino acids in the right order for each protein the ribosome is putting together.

• Enzymes are special proteins that function as catalysts. They speed up chemical reactions. Otherwise these reactions would take place so slowly, if at all, the cell would die while it waited for the first protein to be made.

Here, in a nutshell, is how these parts work together:

The information in the DNA is on the rungs which go from one side of the spiral "ladder" to the other. It is therefore wound up inside the DNA. Some of the enzymes recognize the right spot on the DNA and open up the tightly twisted spiral so the RNA can get at the information it must carry to a ribosome.¹

"The central dogma of molecular biology states that information is stored in DNA and flows through RNA to protein."²

After the correct part of the DNA has been exposed, a copy is made of just that part. The copy, called messenger RNA, floats over to the ribosome and rubs across it, something like a tape rubs across the head of a tape recorder. As the ribosome is reading these instructions, it is receiving the correct amino acids in the right order and putting them together to make the protein. The address tag is added, and as the finished protein comes out of the factory, it proceeds to the spot where it must be to do its job. On the way it is folded to fit the other proteins with which it will work.

The information in the DNA controls a cell's production of its many proteins, RNA, etc. somewhat like a computer running a factory. What happens when a computer is directing the activity of a factory and some really essential part wears out? The factory grinds to a halt! The same thing happens sooner or later to every cell, in spite of its ability to replace many of the parts.

That first cell could not wait a million years to evolve some way to reproduce. The entire system of reproduction had to be fully functional before that first cell died. Otherwise no more life would have existed. The project required a great deal of advanced planning.

Cells, however, unlike factories, are able to reproduce and make new cells before they wear out. Splitting a cell into two cells is done according to a sophisticated plan that requires the interaction of DNA, RNA, and a good number of proteins. What would happen if the DNA (or RNA) of the "first cell" had not already been programmed with the right information to direct its reproduction from the very moment it became a cell? Or what would happen if the information was there, but one of the proteins necessary to perform an essential part of the cell's reproduction did not yet exist?

That first cell could not wait a million years to evolve some way to reproduce. The entire system of reproduction had to be fully functional before that first cell died. Otherwise no more life would have existed. The project required a great deal of advanced planning.

The evidence is stacked against every atheistic fantasy about the spontaneous generation of life. I pray that some of you who read this book will understand; that your eyes will be opened, and you will place your faith in the Creator who not only programmed your DNA, but knows you personally and wants to heal your broken heart and save your soul!

If I were to claim that God started life in exactly the same way that is claimed for chance or pre-RNA, atheists would criticize, "This is not science! It would require a miracle at every step. There is no way these things could happen in nature."

The critics would be right! For a first cell to have been formed in the way evolutionists claim would require a whole series of miracles. Some who believe in the spontaneous formation of a first cell have recognized this, and have looked to two billion years to perform the miracle, or to a natural selection that creates, rather than just eliminating the unfit.

Two top first life researchers among the many authors of the influential book The RNA World, contrast themselves with the optimistic first life scientists who think impossible things could easily have happened:

"The second group of scientists are much more pessimistic. They believe that the de nuovo appearance of oligonucleotides [Short strings of nucleotides, the building blocks of RNA] on the primitive earth would have been a near miracle. (The authors subscribe to this latter view.)"³

Here are a few of the miracles (or near miracles) which would have been required to produce life without a Creator:

• A miracle to provide only left-handed amino acids (and right-handed sugars).

• Another miracle to keep any of them from switching handedness while waiting for the cell to form.

• Another miracle to link them together in the correct order to make each protein.

• Another to address the proteins and send them to the places where each must fit perfectly to connect to those around it.

• It would take a miracle, or a very powerful super computer, to fold each protein correctly so its amino acids could attach properly to those in the proteins around it.

• Another miracle would be required to conceive the huge amounts of information the cell would need, and to program pre-RNA, RNA, and/or DNA with that information.

• What, except another miracle, could invent a cell membrane with the necessary protein channels and pumps that would provide the environment necessary for the life of a new cell?

• Evolving the mechanism for reproduction in the first cell in the few minutes before it died would require another miracle.

No one who claims these things came about spontaneously in nature is able to make them occur, no matter how sophisticated his laboratory may be. Some Christians have been accused of having a God of the gaps: When they don't understand how something happened, they say that God must have done it. Many who believe in abiogenesis do something much more extreme. They fill the gaps with made up stories about chemical processes that the evidence consistently shows do not happen in nature. Some don't even happen in the lab.

My problem in believing these things is very similar to that of Alice in Through the Looking Glass:

"Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said: 'one can't believe impossible things.'

'I dare say you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast…'"

The late Sir Fred Hoyle, the famous astronomer, had the same problem believing the impossible things about the origin of life. After writing: "not one of the many thousands of biopolymers on which life depends could have been arrived at by natural processes here on earth." He speaks of "…a group of persons who believe, quite openly, in mathematical miracles. They advocate the belief that tucked away in nature, outside of normal physics, there is a law which performs miracles (provided the miracles are in the aid of biology.)"⁴

Much good evidence exists that proteins do not form in organic broth, no matter how many amino acids are packed into that broth, nor does pre-RNA form on clay. Neither do DNA, RNA, nor even the nucleotides from which they are made. In essence, a series of small miracles, which we are told are performed by time, natural selection, etc., is being substituted for God's big miracle of the creation of living things. There is no chemical evidence that God did not create life, and He is the only possible source of the information carried in DNA. In addition, in a very reliable ancient document, the Bible, we find God Himself stating that He created: "In the Beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."

But if the principles of chemistry and physics were different, and a first cell did form by naturalistic processes, what would we find? A dead cell! Why do I say that? Every graveyard has trillions of cells full of the right parts. They don't come back to life! Having every necessary part in the same place at the same time is not enough. Something must give the cell life.

Some have been offended by my above list of the miracles needed to make life. They have responded that they believe science may someday find a way by which a living cell could be created without an intelligent Creator. This is an admission that they hold to their position by faith in spite of the evidence stacked against it. While they have been looking for evidence to confirm their speculation, the growth of scientific knowledge has been turning up more and more evidence for a designer. The cell's information content and its fantastic complexity are among the most important. However, little things are coming to light all the time, like the way proteins must be addressed, folded, and put together to make molecular machines. Most parts work with other parts, and will not work without them. Can you think of any of the cell's complex parts which would be of any use without the other parts?

How much longer will books continue to call it science when they push the evidence aside and present the first life as a simple blob made by chance or clay? If the first simple cell was simple enough for our best scientists to make in the most advanced laboratories, they would be turning out thousands of them.

Let's get some things into perspective before we move ahead. Imagine that you are walking down the road and come upon a spot where there had recently been a tremendous wreck. The vehicles have been hauled off, but the road is littered with debris. Among the fragments on the road something captures your attention. Is it a piece of the wreck, or just a chip of rock? You stick it into your pocket and ask a friend who knows cars. He explains: "This is one of the computer chips that control the motor. It checks the sensors, processes the information and gives commands. When the motor is cold, it provides a mixture richer in gasoline than when it is hot. If it detects one thing or another in the exhaust, it uses that information to change the mixture or the timing to make the motor burn more efficiently."

What made the chip? You have two choices:

• It was accidentally put together by the forces of nature.

• It was produced according to an intelligent design.

We recognize things that had to have been conceived by a mind every day, but in all cases in which the designer of a complex object could not be man, we are told that we should not reason like we do for everything else.

You reason: "It receives information from sensors, then it uses the information already contained in the chip to process the information from the sensors and send out commands to the various parts of the motor." You constantly observe intelligent minds creating and using all kinds of information, but you have never heard of chance creating or using information, so you decide the chip is a product of intelligent design.

Every day, we recognize things that must have been conceived by a mind, but in all cases in which the designer of a complex object could not be man, we are told that we should not reason like we do with everything else. We are told that even the most complex things in existence came about by chance or by natural selection with no mind behind them.

We are to "think within the box." The box is called "naturalism." Giving it this label makes it a little less obvious that atheism is becoming the established religion of our schools. The word naturalism has several meanings, but the one that applies in this context is:

"the belief that the natural world, known and experienced scientifically, is all that exists and that there is no supernatural or spiritual creation, control, or significance."⁵

Is this kind of naturalism a religion? Here is the first part of the principle definition of the word "religion" according to the newest dictionary in our house: "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe…"⁶

The term "science" once brought to mind knowledge discovered by experimentation, observation and objective investigation. It was to be observable, testable, and repeatable. When one scientist did an experiment, others could repeat his experiment, and obtain the same results.

Should our schools be promoting the naturalistic "beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe" above all others? How does it differ from promoting the religion of naturalism?

The term "science" once brought to mind knowledge discovered by experimentation, observation and objective investigation. It was observable, testable, and repeatable. When one scientist did an experiment, others could repeat it and obtain the same results. If no one who repeated the experiment came up with the same results, those results had been "falsified," that is, shown not to be true. Under this definition, neither abiogenesis nor evolution are scientific because both are ideas about ancient history, and are not observable, testable, or repeatable. Because of this, and to keep scientists from thinking outside the naturalistic box and coming to non atheistic conclusions, science is being redefined. Many now insist that science must explain all that we observe by solely natural causes.

In Kansas, the state guidelines redefined science as:

"The human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us."⁷

Notice, it does not say, "The human activity of seeking the best explanations," or "the most probable explanations" or "the explanations indicated by the evidence." The fact that it says science is the "activity of seeking natural explanations" means that when studying such things as the origin of life, the new definition has already determined the conclusion before the research has even begun! As one philosopher of science puts it:

"…origin of life research consists in looking for a naturalistic alternative to the idea of the creation of life by a designer."⁸

In reality, the origin of life is outside the bounds of science since it was not observed and cannot be repeated.

Another problem with the new definition becomes obvious when you try to find a naturalistic alternative to anything you know was designed by a mind: a brick for example. You could say, "Some clay was deposited in a flat spot on the side of a volcano between two straight sided rocks four inches apart. This gave the clay the shape of a brick. The next eruption heated the clay and baked the brick."

Instead of helping us understand how bricks are really made, making up stories about how a brick or an organism might have been made if no intelligence were involved hides the way in which it was really made. Any made up story that indicates a false origin, if assumed to be true, can impede real science.

Police investigating a crime scene find clear fingerprints. Refusing to believe that the one implicated could be guilty, they decide to change the definition of evidence so his fingerprints are excluded. OK! You caught me. It is not cops. I am talking about atheists. Search this book for God's fingerprints. Then notice them in the world around you.

Anyone who accepts a definition for science like, "The human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us," can only apply it when studying certain specific things. He cannot use this definition when studying anything made by men because his definition only permits him to search among "natural explanations." What was the origin of the chip that controlled the car motor in the illustration at the beginning of this section? Under the new definition, you must reject intelligent design and choose from among natural explanations like: "It broke off a rock," or "It condensed out of hot gasses from a volcano." In one way or another, you must conclude that the subject in question was not made by intelligent minds, but came about by natural causes. The evidence does not matter. You are not allowed to look where the evidence leads when it leads to intelligent design.

If we work under this definition of science, whether we are studying a cell or an automobile, our finding must always be that it had no intelligent Creator. Therefore, the new definition of science: "The human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us." cannot be used for the huge number of things we observe in the world around us that were made by people. It would lead to answers that are so wrong as to be utterly ridiculous. We can easily test the definition by trying it on objects that we know were made by men. If we do, we will find the new definition to be wrong in every point. Why in the world, then, would we want to put our faith in it in areas where it cannot be put to the test?

To avoid the problem of people putting it to the test, and finding that it does not work, there is an understood exception for cases in which people did the designing. We are expected not to use the new definition in these cases. The test, however, is still valid. A definition of science that will not work in any case where it can be put to the test is obviously faulty. It is interesting that the Bible says:

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (Genesis 1:27)

Perhaps the reason man is also able to design things can be found in this statement.

To conclude that living things came about by any kind of spontaneous generation, whether it is rags to rats, protein to life, or the RNA world, requires that all of the evidence which points to intelligent design be thrown out. Throwing out evidence in order to come to a required conclusion is not science.

We can understand the motivation behind the new definition. If one is allowed to follow the evidence for the origin of life wherever it leads, it leads to God. The evidence is so stacked against a mindless source for living things that the only way to arrive at that conclusion is to redefine science!

Some school textbooks have become very persuasive at presenting atheistic speculations in ways that make them sound like science. Belief in any kind of spontaneous generation of the first life, however, is neither belief in science, nor in the evidence, but in a key doctrine of the religions of naturalism, atheism, and agnosticism. Parents who believe in God are being taxed to pay for the books that teach their children a competing religion. If I am wrong, and naturalism has not become the established religion of our schools, in what way does it differ?

Scientists who think outside of the naturalistic box are often disciplined by making it difficult for them to publish the results of their research in scientific journals. Even worse, good scientists and teachers are being fired for simply pointing out some of the real scientific problems with an atheistic or evolutionary approach. An example from our local paper: "A Central Oregon Community College teacher jeopardizes his job by creating doubt about the theory of evolution."⁹ This biology teacher was then fired. Such pressure to conform does not encourage honest science, but it may be the only way to get people who recognize design whenever they see it to conform to the idea that the design and information content of cells sprang up without an intelligent designer.

A double standard is being used:

• Things with complex design are accepted as a product of intelligent design if they were made by people, even if the inventor based his product on a design which he found in nature.

If an object with even greater complexity, irreducible complexity, and information content was not designed by a human mind, it is claimed that no mind at all was involved: It must have come about by accident, time, or natural selection. The evidence no longer matters. God has been defined out of existence.

• If an object with even greater complexity, irreducible complexity, and information content was not designed by a human mind, it is claimed that no mind at all was involved: It must have come about by accident, time, or natural selection. The evidence no longer matters. God has been defined out of existence.

Here is what actually happens when some people examine a cell on a glass microscope slide. I am not making this up. They see the irreducibly complex molecular machines used to manufacture the proteins which form many of the cell's complicated parts. They know that many proteins and at least three kinds of RNA interact precisely with one another to accomplish this process. They know that the cell is equipped to fight off enemies, to transform energy into a usable state, to make and fold proteins so they fit and function perfectly, address them to go to the correct spot in the cell, and turn their production on and off at the right moments. They look at the DNA, which they know contains the huge amounts of complex information that controls all these processes.

Then, undaunted by the fact that only a mind can produce such information and complex design, they insist: "The cell does not show intelligent design."

Now ask these same scientists, "How about the glass slide on which the cell has been laid?"

Without hesitation they answer, "It is a product of intelligent design!"

What good is a microscope to those who refuse to see?

The heads of some of America's most famous presidents were carved out of solid rock on the side of Mount Rushmore. These heads are out in the wind and rain. Someone who knew nothing about them could ask, "Are these heads a natural occurrence? Did weathering and erosion happen to shape the surface of the rock so it resembles the heads of presidents?"

No one asks this question because anything that complex and perfect has obviously been designed. It is the work of a great sculptor. Ask a thousand science teachers. They will all give you the same answer. Yet many of these same teachers stand up in class and teach their students that the very presidents themselves evolved through the blind forces of nature.

These teachers recognize design in a superficial sculpture in which the likeness of a president is not even skin deep, but are blinded to it in the case of the president himself who shows much greater evidence of design as deep as you care to probe.

They can spot design in a flash when it is executed by a person. It doesn't have to be complex like a sculpture, it can be as simple as a brick! They are only blind to evidence of design in things humans did not make; things that might bring them face to face with God.

Looked at superficially, it might seem like someone with a big bucket of camouflage paint dumped it over every design which points to the existence of a Creator. That, of course, is not the reason. Rather:

• Some have a hidden motive. If they don't recognize their Creator, why should they be judged for disobeying His rules?

• Others have a different hidden motive. If your emperor has no clothes, but he doesn't know it, the easy thing to do is to humor him; let him think you agree with him. Otherwise you might not pass the course or get that promotion.

I asked a rather practical engineer, "Why is it that after our schools have systematically indoctrinated at least three generations in atheistic evolution, polls show that most people today still believe that God created?"

He answered, "Some things are just too self evident!"

The probability that something will happen by chance can often be calculated mathematically. Having done the calculations, many scientists and others understand that the evidence is overwhelmingly against life having started on earth without a long string of small miracles, or a Creator capable of making living things all at once. Some have tried to save the idea that the first cell formed spontaneously by moving the action to another planet somewhere else in the universe.

Having done the calculations, many scientists and others have understood that the evidence is overwhelmingly against life having started on earth without a long string of small miracles, or a Creator capable of making living things all at once.

Because I saw how overwhelming the evidence was that life could not have begun on earth without a Creator, I predicted that this idea would become popular in the 1980 edition of my book, The Creation vs. Evolution Handbook when the idea of life coming from space was still quite young.

It is more difficult to prove scientifically that life did or did not evolve from non living chemicals on Mars or in some far off galaxy, but I will take a crack at it.

In 1981 Francis Crick, who earlier shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA, was struck by the mathematical evidence that life could not possibly have evolved on earth. The probabilities were too strongly against it. While most who believe life came to earth from another planet believe a primitive life form got here on a meteor or a comet, Crick suggested it was sent on purpose on a rocket!

In the same year, the famous astronomer and mathematician Sir Fred Hoyle did a mathematical analysis of the chances of life having evolved:

"The likelihood of the spontaneous formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 naughts after it… It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution."¹⁰

According to Hoyle, believing that living things were put together by accident was like believing that "…a tornado sweeping through a junk yard might assemble a Boeing 747…"¹¹

Some who realize that the first life could not have evolved here have been guiding governments of the world in spending huge amounts of money trying to find life somewhere out in space. Putting the first life farther away works much like the old argument, "In that much time anything could happen." It adds a layer of mystery. We are encouraged to believe: "That far away anything could happen."

We frequently read, "Life evolves wherever water exists in its liquid form." We are told that with all those galaxies out there, water, and therefore life, must exist on many other planets. It is true that living things require water, just as cars need motor oil. But it does not follow that wherever there is motor oil cars will evolve, nor that wherever there is water, life will evolve.

On the contrary, DNA, RNA, and proteins break down and amino acids switch from all left-handed to a useless half and half mixture more rapidly in the presence of water. In addition:

"…water greatly interferes with the linking of amino acids and nucleotides into chains, a crucial step in the origin of life. (Chyba 1998:17)"¹²

Long ago, far away, and wet would not make life happen, but would only degrade the materials from which living things are made.¹³

Others have suggested that chemicals needed to make life are probably out there in space:

"Scientists believe the molecules needed to make a cell's membrane, and thus [needed] for the origin of life, are all over space,"¹⁴

This quote loses track of the fact that the lipids from which complex membranes are made break down all by themselves, but even given exactly the right chemicals to make membranes, the lipids do not form. In cells they only form because the DNA contains the program that directs the complex process.¹⁵

What kind of a planet are they looking for where life might have started? The answer will blow your mind! They are looking for a planet that is just like Earth!

Life also needs a planet that is the right distance from its sun, has the right amount of gravity, the right orbit and speed of rotation, the right atmosphere, temperature, elements etc. Even though earth has all these features, the molecules from which cells are made (lipids, DNA, RNA, proteins) do not form outside of living cells here. The evidence is overwhelmingly against life being generated spontaneously on earth. That is why the theory that life started somewhere else was invented, and why many who do not believe in a Creator are actively searching for a suitable planet somewhere else.

What kind of a planet are they looking for? The answer will blow your mind! A planet that is just like Earth!¹⁶

Information is far more important to the existence of life than water or the other things I have listed. Any living thing must have the plans that tell what it will be, and how it must be made. If the correct information is not contained in the DNA, the evidence indicates that no life can exist,¹⁷ and all known information comes from a mind.¹⁸

Stanley Miller believes life must have evolved on earth, not in space, because space solves none of evolution's problems, but adds the destructive effects of cosmic rays during the long trip to the earth.¹⁹ Other problems which would be added if life had come to Earth from another planet include the extreme cold of outer space, the lack of anything to breathe during the trip, the time it would take, and the heat and shock of reentry.

Grigg points out two other major obstacles:

"1. The need to achieve escape velocity:
For a rock (or a spacecraft) to break free from the pull of gravity of its mother planet, it must achieve a speed called the escape velocity. For earth this is 11.2 km per second… (25,000 mph). As volcanoes do not eject materials at these speeds, scientists postulate that rocks are blasted from planets and into space through giant asteroid collisions."

"2. The tyranny of distance:
The nearest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri. It is 4.3 light years away… If a planet was orbiting Proxima Centauri and a rock was blasted from it at the speed of earth's escape velocity, the object would take 115,000 years to get here."²⁰

All other stars, and any planets they may have, are farther away. If the generally accepted distances are correct, arrival from most stars would take at least millions or billions of years. The temperature during the trip would be near absolute zero, and there would be constant bombardment by cosmic rays. Then, if the alien life form was not burned up on entry into our atmosphere, could it survive the impact with earth?

If life was found on another planet, would that show that life got here from there, or that it got there from here?

At this time, any appeal to life having started somewhere else is another way of saying, "Once upon a time, far far away!" Some who now recognize this fact claim that rather than life coming from outer space, only the raw materials from which life could be made came. Some even cite a slightly higher ratio of left-handed amino acids on a few meteorites. When you read their statements, remember that living things do not just require that more than half of their amino acids be left-handed. They must all be left-handed. In addition, the correct raw materials have been purchased in chemical supply stores, and put together in laboratories. They don't form life. If all left-handed amino acids could be found in space, they would be stuck with the same problems that caused people to look to space in the first place: Amino acids would return to half left and half right-handed. Other materials necessary for life would break down, and for reasons we have already examined, no DNA, RNA, Lipids, or proteins would form.

Before finishing up our discussion on the possibility of life in space, I should again mention the SETI institute. The scientists of the institute are using huge radio telescopes to search for intelligent beings in space. They reason that if intelligent life exists outside our earth it would be reasonable to expect it to try to communicate with us. The SETI scientists know that intelligent information can be produced only by intelligent beings. They believe that an intelligent message from outer space would be conclusive evidence for the existence of an intelligent being out there somewhere.

The SETI scientists know that intelligent information can be produced only by intelligent beings. They believe that an intelligent message from outer space would be conclusive evidence for the existence of an intelligent being out there somewhere.

Like the SETI scientists, Dr. Gitt has studied the evidence for the origin of information, and he also is convinced that all known information comes from a mind. He said this in discussing the information contained in DNA.

Archeology is another area of science largely based on the fact that information only comes from minds. Archeologists count on it when they identify the inscriptions on stacks of clay tiles they have dug up in a library produced by intelligent people. The fact that the DNA of every living cell has been programmed with huge amounts of intelligent information written in the most efficient manner ever discovered is evidence of the existence of an intelligence greater than that of the people who inhabit our planet. Some people, to avoid admitting this powerful evidence for an intelligent Creator, insist that the information in DNA comes from matter, or some other source rather than a mind. If true, their argument would also destroy the SETI institute and the science of archeology. It obviously is not true.

Chemistry Professor Andrew Ellington states his position as an evolutionist with great literary force:

"We are borne of slime layers on rocks…"²¹

According to Ellington, you evolved from slime by an accident of nature. If he is right, all that makes life noble and gives it purpose is gone. We might as well have remained slime! Is he right? Slime + time =?

Life comes from life. That is a scientific principle. Getting something from nothing for no reason is not scientific. It is contrary to several scientific principles and laws.

No matter how convincing the evolution of a first living cell can be made to appear, it is still the fisherman's story of the big one that got away. Not even in the best equipped laboratory has anyone ever created a cell. No matter how many books state or imply the opposite, not even the cell's principle components are produced in nature except when made by already living cells. Life comes from life. That is a scientific principle. Getting something from nothing for no reason is not scientific. It is contrary to several scientific principles and laws. Our Creator is alive and our life comes from Him.

Taking God out of the schools and replacing Him with slime, clay, and organic broth has left a void. Attempts are being made to fill that void with expensive metal detectors and police patrols, but when kids are convinced they have no souls and are only moving from slime on a rock to dust in a grave, they have no hope. Darwinism is the grinch that stole hope. Guns in school are just a symptom. Whether kids turn them on themselves, or shoot others to go out in a blaze of glory, they are expressing a sort of backhanded compliment. The lesson they have been taught at school has gotten through. Many believe there is no God, no heaven or hell, no salvation, no purpose in life, and no hope.

Another scientist, looking at life from his position as an evolutionist, gives the hopelessness a different slant:

"It is very hard to admit that there is only one single reason for each of us to come into this world: to transmit our DNA to the next generation. There is absolutely no other purpose for us to be born."²²

If he is right, any moral rules that limit our sexual activity hinder us in accomplishing the "one single reason for each of us to come into this world."

The Ten Commandments have been thrown out of the schools. Not just the commandments against lying and murder, but also the one against adultery. Some people who don't believe that the only reason we were born was to transmit our DNA, get on the band wagon with those who want to have God and His commandments thrown out of the schools so they can take advantage of the resulting loose moral standards.

Many evolutionists are honest people with high moral standards, but can you think of a clear basis for morality in the evolutionary viewpoint? Provine, a well known evolutionist wrote:

"Evolution provides no foundation for ethics and no deep meaning in life."²³

If selection of the fittest really is making us into better and better animals because the strong replace the weak, why should we not be the strong, and murder, tell lies and commit sexual immorality before we are eliminated in the fight to survive because someone else has done that to us?

The evidence, however, shows that God does exist! He explains that He is a righteous Judge, and says; "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). When Jesus was asked, what is the most important commandment, He answered:

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." (Matthew 22:37-39)

The only bad thing is that because of God's commandments we know we have not lived as He asks, and we risk His judgment. The next chapter will explain His provision for us in this dilemma. It is much better than distorting science to pretend He does not exist. God, who asks us to love each other, has provided for our sin and empowers us to live as we should. You are not slime. There is hope! God loves you and has a fine purpose for your life. He not only created man, He knows you personally and wants to save your soul and heal your broken heart. Life is great when you let the Creator care for you and lead you day by day.