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     At sometime in the first four or five years of life, everyone of us asked, “Mommy, where did I come from?”  Even at that young age, we become aware that we are not self-existent but have an origin and the desire to know from where we came.  All religions seek to answer this question, two of which we will consider in this article – Atheism and Christianity.  All other religions accept one or the other of these teachings or aspects of both.  Since no teaching of origins is provable by the scientific method (repeatedly reproducible), the rational person must determine which is reasonable from the available evidence.

     Atheism’s doctrine of origin is organic evolution, asserting that the entire universe is self-existent and self-developed through billions of years, culminating in its most developed creature – the human being.  At the other end of the spectrum of origins, Theism asserts that mankind came from a supreme, intelligent, and spiritual being not of this material realm.

     The most radical origin, in comparison to atheism, is the Biblical teaching that the universe was created in six literal 24 hour days by the all powerful eternal God of heaven.  The Bible states He spoke the entire universe into existence, complete, with all forms of life and intelligence, and is able to sustain life (Genesis ch. 1).

     Atheism asserts that this material universe is self-originating, beginning with a big explosion of self existent gases, occurring by pure happenstance and resulting in our ever expanding universe and evolving into all life and intelligence forms.  The expanding universe does not prove that its origin was a Big Bang.  Nor is there any fossil evidence showing evolutionary transition from one animal kind to another.
     However, regardless of all the arguments, whether organic evolution is reasonable can be determined by answering a few simple questions:  (1) How did nothing become something (matter) other than nothingness, by itself?  (2) How did non-life become life by itself?  Common evolutionary thought has been that life started spontaneously in water and the simple one celled water life forms, such as an amoeba, evolved into animals and ultimately into the intelligent and reasoning human being.  (3) How does intelligence come from non- intelligence by itself?  How does life and intelligence come from water?  Ultimately the question is how does reasoning intelligence come from water or from the explosion of gases by itself?

     The very first verse of the Bible asserts that the self-existent, all powerful, and intelligent God of heaven created everything (Genesis 1:1).  DNA, the ecosystem, the human body... literally everything in the universe points to an intelligent maker giving deliberate design, function, and purpose for everything that exists.  Intelligent design demands an intelligent maker.  What or who is the Creator?

     Since neither organic evolution nor creation can be reproduced in a laboratory, which origin is more reasonable?  Something from nothing by itself?  Or, everything from an all powerful, intelligent creator?  Mommy, where did I come from?...

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