As impossible as it is to explain the human body apart from intelligent creation, it is even more impossible to account for those characteristics of man which have no material form: his mental endowments, articulate speech, his power of abstract reasoning, his appreciation of the beauties of nature, his enjoyment of music, his moral sense, conscience, his dominion over the rest of creation, his religious faith, his belief in God.

Even evolutionists admit that "the intelligence of man so far surpasses that of the nearest competitors, the anthropoids, that the mental gulf between them is immeasurable," (Lull, Evolution of Man, p. 38). Let me pose a question here, and do not toss it aside until you have given it some thought. How did man come by his idea of God? Every idea we have came to us through the five senses: touch, taste, smell, hear and see. If you think this is not true, then try to think of one idea that you have, about anything, that did not come through one of the senses. I have asked people who were born blind if they have any idea of color. The answer is always "No." One man said he associates color with things. For example, he hears people say grass is green. When he hears the word "green" he thinks of grass, but it makes no picture on his mind. He cannot think "green." He thinks "grass." He can feel "Grass" - he cannot feel "green."

If he could not hear, music would have no meaning. If he bad none of the five senses be would be as a vegetable. This is not original with me. Alexander Campbell posed the same questions with Robert Owen in their debate. Campbell undoubtedly got it from John Locke, the English Philosopher. Owen tried to answer by saying that man created God in his imagination. But imagination cannot create. It is like a carpenter who can take wood and tools that already exist and build a house, but he cannot create either the wood or the material of which his tools are made. Imagination can combine the body of a horse and part of a man and he has a Centaur. But if anyone thinks he can create in his imagination an entirely new idea not borrowed from things he already knew, which things he acquired through his senses, let him take a crack at it. So - if God does not exist, then nobody ever saw, heard, smelled, tasted or touched him and therefore can have no idea or thought of him. I hope I do not sound irreverent. God revealed himself to man. Hebrews 1: 1-2 "God . . . spake in times past." Man heard. That is why man knows about God.

Evolution and Instinct

The Water Spider

Like other spiders the water spider is an air-breathing animal. But it lives under water. How did it evolve its body and habits so as to be able to live under the water? Of course the truth is that the Creator made him like that and adapted him to his surroundings. But the fellow who believes evolution should tell us how this little spider, after deciding to live under water, managed to develop the necessary organs for it. Remember he had to have these organs at the beginning or he would have drowned right off.

When we examine this spider we find his body covered with hairs that keep it from becoming wet when in the water. In order to live under water and raise its young there, it must weave a water-proof cell or balloon, capable of holding enough air for breathing purposes - remember this critter breathes air - not water. To have the balloon it had to have the instinct and material to make it. It spins under water an egg-shaped balloon, open at the bottom for entrance and egress. Then it attaches the balloon to a rock or something to hold it under water. Now it has to fill this balloon with air for breathing purposes. To accomplish this its hind legs are covered with hair and are so constructed that they can take hold of a large bubble of air and take it down under the water and into the balloon. When it has made several trips with this light cargo the balloon is full of air and the water has been forced out by the air. Here the eggs are laid in the upper part of the house and the family is in business.

The Salmon Fish

The salmon live in a cycle of four years, no more, and always return to the waters of their nativity to die. They are hatched in rivers of the northwest, and shortly thereafter go out to sea where they stay until time for them to spawn and die. When they return to their native waters they always find the same river or creek in which they were spawned. If they start up some other stream they immediately recognize their mistake, go back and continue up the coast until they find the right stream. Here they spawn and die. How are they able to thus identify their birthplace after years in the sea? The word is instinct. But try defining the word without getting back to a wisdom that did not and could not evolve from a lump of dead matter.

The Eel

Both the American and the European eels are spawned in the waters off the coast of Bermuda. Then after a while they go to their native land. There has never been found an European eel in American waters nor an American eel in European waters. How does the eel find his way "home" when he has never been home? Not only this, but the mating time for the European eel is months later than the American eel so that they will have time to get to the spawning waters. The distance being much greater to Europe.

The Honey Bee

In a beehive there are three distinct classes of bees: Queens, drones and workers. Each of thes classes is necessary to the life of the swarm, and each has its structure different from the others. The workers are undeveloped females and they are the most important and most numerous. The interesting thing about this class is that in both instinct and structure they are different from both their parents. You see they are the offspring of queens and drones, and neither of these has either the instinct or the organization to make honey. It is absolutely necessary to the theory of evolution that the characteristics of the parents pass on to their offspring! The worker or honey bee seldom lays an egg, but if one does the egg hatches a drone which does not make honey. Let the theorist "chaw" on this one a while. This worker bee has a proboscis instead of a mouth. She sticks this proboscis into the flower and sucks out the pollen. Now and then her proboscis gets stopped up like a vacuum cleaner hose. If she could not get it unstopped she would be in trouble. But, it just HAPPENS that she has brushes on her knees by which means she cleans out her proboscis. There must have been a high death rate from strangulation among the worker bees during the long years required to develop these brushes.

Nature's Clocks

Flowers, bees, bats, and oysters are among living things that can tell time without a clock.

A flower placed in a dim room with unchanging temperatures continues to open at sunrise and how the flower unfolds on schedule has become the subject of spirited debate among biologists.

Bees that find nectar on a flower may return the following day at the same time to pick up a new supply; they seem to know that a plant exudes nectar at fixed times of day.

A night-flying bat does not need to check the entrance of its cave every few minutes to see if evening has come. Instead the bat -sleeps peacefully through the day, relying on a biological clock to wake it at the proper time, the National Geographic Society says.

An oyster taken from the Atlantic Ocean to a laboratory in Illinois continues for a time to open its shell to eat at the time of the Atlantic tides. Eventually the oyster resets its clock in accordance with the time a tide would occur if there were tides in Illinois. Scientists speculate that the oyster senses the gravitational pull of the moon which creates tides.

Nature's Protection

We all know about the chameleon which changes his color to match the object on which he lies. This renders him inconspicuous and protects him from predators. The fawn (baby deer) has spots on him which, together with his ability to lie still, make him hard to see. These spots are a camouflage, a good deal like that which the fighting men wear in the jungle. But when the fawn is old enough to run lie can outrun most of his enemies, so he no longer needs his spots and they go away. How did evolution provide this protection on a temporary basis? It did not. The Creator gave it to him through natural law.

We stated at the beginning of this tract we were not going to deal so much with objections lodged against the theory of evolution from the standpoint of its failure to prove its case with physical evidence, but that we would concern ourselves with the alternative, special creation, and the overwhelming evidence for an all powerful, intelligent CREATOR. The proposed length of the tract does not permit us to present more of the abundant supply of such evidence yet untouched. But as we ring down the curtain we leave you with this question:

If God is a myth, and man the ruler of the universe (to the extent that it is ruled), then there is no such thing as right or wrong, except as man decides what is right and wrong. There is no court higher than that which we hold. This being true, if a democratic nation such as this should vote to destroy retarded children, the insane, the hopelessly ill and the people who are too old to work and carry their own weight; destroy them in the same way we would destroy a horse with a broken leg or an old dog, WHAT WOULD BE WRONG WITH IT? I asked a question similar to this, of a young lady who was belittling my faith. She said she would oppose this because man is more intelligent than other animals. But her reasoning is faulty. Intelligent people are also realistic. Such a law would lower our taxes. Think of the money spent on hospitals and other institutions for people who can contribute nothing of intrinsic value to society. Think of the millions paid in pensions to old people, disabled veterans, et a]. Come now, leave us have none of this silly sentimentalism. We have eliminated God and that means there is no such thing as morality. There is no room in the animal world for morality, compassion, or benevolence. Animals are not moral or immoral. A lion have compassion? A dog has compassion on another dog? All he wants is the biggest chunk of the meat and he will get it if the other dog is starving and he is not even hungry. If he could talk he would tell us that compassion is for squares, like, well, like me, who think sick folk and old folk should be taken care of.

Could it be that down deep in the heart of a young woman, and in the hearts of many like her, who parade their doubts because they think that it gives a luster to their intellectual facade, there is a suspicion, maybe, after all man is something more than an educated animal? Methinks yes.

"Tell me not in mournful numbers,

life is but an empty dream,

That the soul is dead that slumbers,

and things are not what they seem.

Life is real and life is earnest,

and the grave is not its goal.

Dust thou art, to dust returneth,

was not spoken of the soul."

(NOTE: This concludes the material prepared for publication on this subject at this time. It will be put into tract form as soon as the printer can get it done.-L.B.)

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XII: 4, pp. 8-11
January 1968