Creationism is a better model than evolution

First off, I want to apologize to my opponent for taking so long to respond. It has been a busy weekend (Go Falcons!!! - Sorry, I live in Atlanta and had to go there.) In rebuttal to my opponent's arguments, I will start by saying that he is right that you do not have to witness an event to prove that it happened. However, judging solely by circumstantial evidence can lead to disastrous results. We can assume that it is Mom who entered because we heard the door open and saw her umbrella by the door. However, it very well could have been a criminal who knows Mom's routine, stole her umbrella and keys, entered the house unseen, and now is waiting for the right time to cause additional harm. Educated guesses are great, until you use the wrong scale to measure the data you have received. I would agree with the definitions my opponent has supplied. I would only add that some people include adaptation and "natural selection" in with evolution, but they are different. Adaptation and natural selection are in fact real and have been proven, but they do not account for new species development. They may account for differences within a species that have been separated by geographic boundaries, but those different animals (or plants) are still the same species. They still have the same basic genetic structure, and can breed successfully. My opponent claims that, "While abiogenesis could not have happened on earth, as the levels of oxygen were too high, it could have happened on another planet or any celestial body, and while the earth was being pelted with meteors in its early creation, have arrived." There are several problems with this theory. First, biogenesis has never been replicated, even in low gravity/low oxygen/low light environments. It cannot be replicated, because even the most basic living organism is far more complex than chance can account for creating. Second, even if it could survive in the near vacuum of space, upon entry into our atmosphere any living tissue would be destroyed. Not even bacterial spores would survive the entry heat of a meteorite. My opponent makes the ages old argument that for God to be omnipotent He would be able to create a rock that is too heavy for Him to carry, which would prove his lack of omnipotence because He could not carry the rock He created. This statement proves a fundamental lack of understanding about the nature of God. God is not part of this creation. He is outside of it, and cannot be measured by it. He created the entire universe, yet He is greater than all of it. He is not physical. He is a spiritual being that "holds all of creation in His hand." He does not have a physical hand, obviously, but so that we can understand some of His power, He speaks to us in terms we can understand. As for vestigial structures, there are many explanations for them. One, as I have said before, is that adaptation within a species does happen. So it could be that there was a need for these things in the past, but over the last 6000 years or so the need for them has disappeared. Another could be that God created us with these parts to give evolutionists something to rally around that would "explain" their belief. Finally, it could be that, as with many other structures that used to be called vestigial, we just haven't found their function yet. There are many things we don't know yet, but the more we learn, the better intelligent design looks. As to why God designed us to live on only one rock in the observable galaxy, and only live on the dry part of that rock, and only be able to use .007% of the water on that rock, I cannot tell you for certain. It may be that He didn't want us venturing too far from this rock. It may be that He wanted to show us how special we are, because we live in the only place in the observable galaxy that is capable of sustaining us. These things don't show lack of intelligent design, they prove it. Evolution would say that we would be better off living in salt water. We would have fewer natural disasters to fear, and would be protected from many more harmful environmental effects. If we were "still" lived in salt water, we would be able to use all of the water on the planet. We would probably have developed so we could dive to enormous depths unaided, and our intelligence would have allowed us to go even deeper, much more easily than we have as land based beings. No, it is much more likely that we were created and designed to be air breathing, land based, creatures than that we evolved away from our original home and had to change dramatically to become what we are today. Radiation dating of rocks proves nothing. First off, it is based on a scale that we defined. Second, we do not know the level of radiation that existed in the original sample. Second, it is very easy to conceive of an intelligent creator making the world appear to have a history beyond its age. For example, while I know that the universe is constantly expanding and things are moving away from each other, some of the furthest stars away from Earth are 10s of billions of light years away. (1) If the Earth was only 6000 years old, that light from that object would not have reached Earth yet. But an intelligent creator could easily have created all the light between here and there so that it appears to have always been there. He could easily have created oil reserves that come from creatures that never existed. He could have created fossils of creatures that never existed. But we also have to consider that science is not infallible. Science would tell you that diamonds take hundreds of years and massive pressure and enormous heat to form. But when the Trans-American Railroad was torn up, there were diamonds found in the wood of the ties in the tracks. This wood had only been there a few dozen years, and had not been subjected to massive heat and constant pressure, Now, these were not jewelry grade diamonds, but they were diamonds none the less. And there were not just a few of them. There were numerous samples found. Also, since Mt. St. Helens eruption, we have to consider natural disasters when aging stone strata, and the time it takes to form canyons and other natural structures. (2) Finally, to my opponent's Noah's Ark argument, I will say that there is nothing that says what age the animals were who entered the Ark. It is entirely possible that very young animals were taken. They would take up less space, eat less, and be easier to manage. This would allow two to seven of every animal on Earth to fit in the three deck ship described in the Biblical account. But y opponent's main question was how did those animals reach places like Australia. It is entirely probable that, as geologists tell us, there was once a single land mass that we call Pangaea. If there were multiple earthquakes and resulting tsunami as there were in the M7.8 earthquake near New Zealand last year (3), it is entirely possible to move the masses of the continents from one centralized location to their current location over the 4-5000 years since the Flood. While it does take a lot of faith to believe in a single intelligent being that created all of the known universe with nothing but His Word, and then to believe that He made all the life on Earth, and that He designed it to be the way it is; it takes much more faith to believe that what science tells us cannot happen, happened once a long, long time ago and that resulted in a single living being that mutated (which never improves but always weakens the resulting organism (2nd law of thermodynamics)) into increasingly more complex creatures until you get to the diversity we see today. If we skip the very first step, evolution may seem to make sense in some respects, but you cannot skip over that very first life form. For it to exist violates all kinds of what science would tell you are immutable laws. However, for God to have created not only the creatures, but also the laws and systems that regulate those creatures, the planet, and the entire universe, not only makes sense, but the best sense of the data we have today. References: 1. http://www.space.com... 2. 3. http://info.geonet.org.nz...