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Embittered evolutionist becomes rejoicing ‘creation evangelist’

The testimony of Claire S.,1 provided to CMI–NZ April 2010

Photo stock.xchng Marine biology

I grew up going to and enjoying Sunday school, even attending worship sessions at the Salvation Army. I grew up knowing God was real, even if my experiential life suggested to me He did not care. As I grew I chose science subjects at school—I wanted to be a marine biologist. Once I was streamlined into separate science subjects at the age of 13 I was indoctrinated into the religion of evolution. I became an enthusiastic follower, totally convinced I had evolved from a generalised primate some indeterminate millennia ago. I swallowed everything that was thrown at me including the geography I was taught. I was hungry for more. I helped write a thesis for an oceanography/biology degree aged just 15.

However I was, by now, certain the earth was some 4.5 billion years old, sedimentary rock [layers] proved this, and that radiometric dating could not be denied showing the age of fossils to be in the millions of years without doubt. DNA showed that there was a variation on a small scale, therefore there could only be one answer of mutation combined with pure Darwinistic natural selection giving rise to new species; as per his Galápagos finch beak variation illustration.

The faithful five

I studied further and became a government marine biologist. In the science labs where I worked, shockingly there were five Christians who even had the audacity to pray at lunch times—we laughed at their foolishness. I wondered how five such intelligent men (including the unequalled genius who headed up the department) could swallow such foolishness; could they not see that evolution totally disproved the Old Testament rhetoric; therefore in equivocal logic everything else must be very questionable? Maybe Jesus’ words were allegorical stories at best—even fairy stories as well?

I was rapidly losing my faith—eventually I no longer believed in God being other than some confusing desperate answer to some things my beloved science had not answered yet. Yes, we were creatures that helped each other like no other creature on the planet did—but that was merely a superior form of a herd mentality and survival instinct, wasn’t it? (My ideation was that some deluded folk chose to call that morals—I had stopped really believing in morals except to allow society to continue as a species survival behaviour.) The Old Testament was totally irrelevant in my overblown opinion. Jesus existed for sure, but he could only have been a man. After all, why would a God become so small as to be a weak animal; and do it for things as damaged and nasty as the people I knew of?

As a result I began to lead a life where I no longer cared for others (on a personal level), or indeed myself; I joked about Darwin being wrong because we were de-evolving into some chimera of hyena (in attitude) and human (in looks). We ridiculed the scientists who still prayed to their ‘non-existent’ God and read their fairy stories. They were deluded, they had to be—please tell me they were; if I was wrong, the consequences to my life were nothing short of cataclysmic.

I trained in nursing and got more degrees as I furthered my education gaining top marks in my country. My colleagues knew me as ‘the oracle’, as I knew more than a lot of the doctors who were not consultants did. I was so proud of myself, my achievements of multiple degrees and professional diplomas, a hatful of top exam results that actually mean nothing in the scheme of things, my general knowledge that would win pub quizzes with ease, and my IQ in the 2nd percentile in the country—such puffed-up pride.

Without hope in this life

I was not proud, however, of what I was—a heartless drunk, becoming depressed, as I was without hope or reason for life other than some self-aggrandizing hedonism. I sank into deep depression, as I had a number of times before, without hope as the God I had once believed in would never help me, and no one else would either. Then one day a friend of mine, who was treating me for depression, suggested I go and tell God what was going on and ask for help. I laughed at her and told her what I thought of the ‘saddos who believed in creation and the fairy stories of the supernatural’. She gave me the (then) web address of your ministry (now creation.com). I found it and saw DVD presentations that were refuting, with easy science, what I thought I knew. This was not fairy stories, this was better science! I had to know more—I read Strobel’s book ‘The case for the Creator’ and in it I read of my hero Francis Crick and his thoughts on DNA and evolution. I read of another hero, (former atheist) Professor Antony Flew, and his astonishing u-turn to become at least a theist, and his clear denunciation of naturalistic evolution (chemicals to life) as anything other than a disproved theory rather than a religion or even a Faithful Truth.

I was shaken badly. Could all I had believed have been wrong after all? I was then given more on creationism and the mathematical likelihood of the four astonishingly coalesced nucleotides of DNA subsequently coalescing a few thousand more times in some miraculous fashion to make a DNA strand—and that then somehow all the other machinery of a living cell, a machine that can make copies of itself, arose, and this first living thing then avoided all the storms, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes and everything else and from a series of genetic accidents made a population that again continued to vary from cosmic rays and evolve, develop male and female sexual reproduction, mitosis/meiosis and more. The more I thought the more I was disturbed at what I read. I was finally given a book by Charles Colson,2 which continued to answer my questions; or at least it put major caveats in my belief system of Science as the religion to follow.

My world fell apart. I knew I was wrong, I knew the five faithful marine biologists were right. I had been such a fool. This revelation allowed me to continue to go to church at least—without a true revelation of who God is, but at least I knew He was real. Then His grace healed me from my 25 years of depression and I had revelation of the reality and power of the creator God who did what science could not do—redeem me, rebuild me, love me and resurrect me. It was the nudge to CMI teaching which opened my eyes to possibilities which allowed God to get in and bring the revelation that had been robbed from me in school and university and cemented by the lies of the evolutionary religion I had had indoctrinated into me. My eyes became opened to the world around me and I saw the mathematical beauty in God’s creation as well as the genius and systematic approach He has taken—a level of genius reaching from biology, chemistry, physics, the majesty of astrophysics to the incredible detail of the subatomic existence of matter.

My shame was what I had done to countless others, I had been an evangelist for evil and I was ashamed. Now my only recourse is Jesus’ saving grace, however I can also tell the truth as well. I am now a missionary and evangelist, God has brought me to other parts of the world and allowed me to serve in His love and mercy. I have now gained opportunities to speak the truth of His glorious creation now my eyes are open. Continually I am stunned that I was so blind—but now I see. Praise God for His mercy upon a sinner like me.

Published: 8 June 2010

References

  1. Surname given as initial only in line with our standard policy when publishing testimonials. Return to text.
  2. “How Now Shall We Live” Return to text.