Not many questions are as hard fought over as the ones concerning the origin of man. Man is curious and stubborn, and all of us have pondered about where we came from. The Board of Education in Kansas has taken out evolution as a probable origin of man in school curriculum. Children are no longer taught that we have evolved from lesser species. Though I do not commend this decision, I am a creationist. I believe mankind was created by none other than God. In this article we will discuss both sides of the issue, why a creationist view is more valid than an evolutionists, the decision made by the Kansas Board of Ed, and how all of this is important to us, the youth.

First off, let's just get one thing straight. An evolutionist fights for what he believes as a theory. The theory of evolution has not come close to being proven. For those who are evolutionists, this is what you believe: Many billions of years ago, there was a big BANG. This big bang of UNKNOWN origin sent all the matter in our universe flying in all directions. This matter would, because of gravitational and chemical properties, begin to clump into large masses which we call stars. Other matter would clump into lesser masses, and fall into orbits around these stars. Gravity would determine the layout of our universe, from inter-galaxy formations to inter-star formations to star-planet formations. And by complete CHANCE, somewhere in one of the tails of the Milky Way galaxy was a star. This star had (arguably) nine planets orbiting around it. This solar system was comprised of mainly rock and gas planets. And also, by complete CHANCE, was this planet that was at a certain distance from the sun. This planet, Earth, was completely unable to support life as we know today. It was a violent planet with many volcanoes and a harsh atmosphere. But, for some UNEXPLAINED reason, there were amino acids that just happened to lay around on the surface of the earth. And by complete CHANCE, a violent storm sent a bolt of lightning to strike these amino acids, tapping them and instantly creating the first single celled animals. These single celled animals would survive the constant changes the earth would face for the next billions of years. After some time of plain BLANKNESS, we come out to see another picture. An earth with a sea of pure water. Somehow those first single celled animals have strangely EVOLVED into a strikingly diverse array of simple sea animals. These sea animals would strangely evolve, changing most of the time for no apparent reason or advantage, and further diversify the animal kingdom. From single celled animals, we now have fish in the sea, dinosaurs, flyers, amphibians, and the introduction of mammals. Well, to make a long and incomplete story short, a single celled animal, over billions of years (all of which the sun kept burning and conditions stayed relatively unchanged [as to support life]), eventually evolved into modern day humans, a single species that possesses superior thought, cars, computers capable of executing 1500+ simple math instructions per second, air conditioning, microwave ovens, nukes, large urban centers, electron microscopes, airplanes, a whole lot of artificial flavorings, and Cher. To put it another way, animals like that paramecium you saw in fifth grade under the microscope evolved into people who build computers and walk on the moon. This view has so many holes and uncertainties, and only makes sense if everything just happens to go perfectly, which well is not likely at all, and when you look at it from a distance, quite absurd. In contrast, a creationist fights for what he believes as fact. An all-powerful God created the universe and set the balance for things. I don't care what you say concerning the intelligence of chimps, porpoises, or other animals. Humans are BY FAR the most intelligent living things on this planet. All of a sudden the Bible doesn't seem so far fetched, eh? To accept one part of the Bible as truth binds you to believe all of it. Evolutionist scientists and other people will tell you the Bible was never meant to be taken literally. Well guess what? Much of the New Testament Bible was written in Koine Greek. See, back in the day, there were two kinds of Greek. Classical and Koine. According to http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~jtreat, “Koine was the language of life and not of books.” Meaning the Bible was written in everyday spoken Greek for EVERYONE to understand. This was not a high piece of literature written to be subjected to analysis or criticism. So with the Bible's internal validity secure, the only hole left in a creationist's view is one of faith. Without it your view falls apart. You will never have enough physical evidence to convince yourself or other people, since we were never intended to comprehend our Creator. In the same fashion, how can we comprehend our creation? Oh sure, not every creationist is opposed to the BANG part of the big bang theory, since the big bang could have been one of the ways God created the universe. You can't see this as a science/Christianity clash, since the two complement each other so well (Christian Scientists is not an oxymoron is it?). Everything from the geographical precision of the scripture to the tracing of Jewish lineage all makes perfect sense. The Bible and science work together seamlessly (through faith) to tell us about the origins of man and of our environment, the Earth.

So do the pros and cons of creationist and evolutionist views justify the actions made by the Kansas Board of Education? No. Everyone is entitled to knowing both sides of the story completely just as everyone is entitled to their own opinion. By removing the theory of evolution from school curriculums, the state of Kansas has basically crippled defense for creationist views, and robbed their youth of knowledge they should rightfully have. I'm not saying evolution should be a full blown part of the curriculum, but evolution should be taught as theory though an incorrect one.

So how is all this important to us? We are the youth of the current generation, but why should we care? We are too busy with everything else to care, right? No. One of the biggest problems with youth society today is lack of understanding and standings. Not too many kids are sure about anything anymore. Creation vs evolution is just another topic. That is a problem. We need to SURE ABOUT OUR BELIEFS. We need solid beliefs and the faith in them to back them up. Where you stand on this topic, our origins, will effect every aspect of your life in some little way. Are some highly evolved form of animal or a man, created in the image of God? Look, I don't have the ability or the right to tell you what to believe. But we were created. That is fact.

Author's Note - There are way too many sides to this argument to have been discussed in this short article. I have covered very little and if you would like to investigate further into a creationist's view please feel free to contact any local Christian representative of yours. I urge you to seek Christian experts of scientific fields, as they will give you a better understanding and explanation. Thanks for your time.