CREATION vs EVOLUTION AT DOWNE
Down House at Downe in Kent UK, where Darwin lived for 40 years from 1842 until his death in 1882, has recently been restored at a cost of over £3 million. Over £1 million came from money raised from the National Lottery. On 10 April, Good Friday, 1998 English Heritage reopened it to the public
The downstairs is restored to look as it was in Darwin's day, with much original furniture, furnishings and artefacts. Each visitor is lent a 'wand' with recorded commentary read by famous evolutionist Sir David Attenborough. The commentary is extremely interesting historically and gives a good insight into daily life in the house, but inevitably it includes much pro-evolution propaganda.
There are just 4 rooms to visit on the ground floor. The focal point in the drawingroom is Emma Darwin's Broadwood grand piano, on which stand two small earthenware pots of soil. This was how Darwin experimented to see if earthworms can hear. The large dining table in the dining room seats 12 comfortably and was frequently where guests were entertained. On the sideboard is a platter from the Wedgwood 'Waterlily' china set which Darwin's mother Susanna ordered from her brother's factory. There is a billiard room where Darwin relaxed and played billiards with his butler, Joseph Parslow who was a good friend to him. The study shows Darwin's high-back armchair in which he sat to write 'Origin of Species', with a cloth covered wooden board resting over the arms, to write on. Beside the chair is a revolving drum table so that he had his specimens to hand.
Upstairs is a display with the overall theme 'The Revolutionary Genius'. One of the rooms Discover Darwinism has interactive exhibits; for example, a group of models of the skulls of human, chimpanzee and various 'ape men' with separate jaw bones. The game is to match the skull with its jaw bone. Another is, simple wire models to represent the pentadactyl limbs of various vertebrates, which have to be correctly assembled. This is to show homology and the supposed common descent.
The Controversy room has an audio tape constantly played in the background: it is a simulation, with much jeering, of the famous debate between Bishop Samuel Wilberforce and Thomas Henry Huxley. The exhibition labels were of course pro-evolution and gave false impressions of the true Christian beliefs about Creation. As usual it was implied that creationists do not believe in change. 'Many Christians believed that the world and everything in it, including mankind, had been created by God in the beginning - and had remained unaltered ever since.
Even those who accepted the very great age of the earth believed that every living creature looked the way it did because God had designed it that way.
Darwin's theory made nonsense of all this. He said that the world was a constantly changing place and that all living creatures were changing too.
Far from being created in God's own image, Darwin suggested that human life had probably started out as something far more primitive - the story of Adam and Eve was a myth. No wonder the church was outraged.'
There was no mention of theistic evolution, thus evolution is exposed for what it is, an anti-Christian and atheistic ideology. One can only hope that this obvious strong atheistic conclusion will shock Christians and non-Christians to reconsider the implications of evolutionary theory. Then there was a disparaging comment about those who do not believe evolution. 'Not everyone accepts evolution today. Some religions/cults require people to believe that the world and everything in it was created by God.
Some people - even some scientists - suggest there is a divine force at work in nature.
What has been proved over the last 50 years is how much more Darwin was right than either he, or anybody, realised. Yet some of life's deepest mysteries still remain to be discovered....'
This quote can also be found:- 'One hundred and thirty years after the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, and 6,000 years since the creation of the earth as calculated by Archbishop Ussher, the Roman Catholic church has acknowledged the theory of evolution as true. The Pope's acknowledgement of the truth of the evolutionary scientific view of the world's history, ends a long rearguard action fought by the Roman Catholic Church to maintain some literal sense for the book of Genesis. Andrew Brown, The Independent. 25 October 1996.'
It was admitted that 'Geology reveals no single fact in confirmation of Darwin's hypothesis. Anon. The Watchman.'
The original Victorian greenhouse has been restored. It is built against a wall backing onto which is the stove boiler house and Darwin's 'laboratory'. The coolest section of the greenhouse has insectivorous plants. Darwin's book Insectivorous Plants was published in 1875. The other two sections are hot and steamy with the original stovepipes still in use. Here there are orchids. Darwin studied the pollination adaptations of orchids and 'found that nearly all parts of the flower are co-adapted for fertilisation by insects'. In 1862 he published On the Various Contrivances by which Orchids are Fertilised by Insects.
Attached to the other side of the wall is his laboratory. This is just a simple brick room, more like a garden shed, with small windows and an open fire grate. It will be set up to show Darwin's interest in climbing plants. There are 4 pots with bean plants growing in them on the windowsill. His book The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants was published in 1865.
On leaving I signed the visitor's book and wrote 'Sadly Darwin was wrong, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth.' This museum will undoubtedly become a shrine to Darwin and evolutionism. But the good news is that the Lord founded a Baptist Church with a faithful witness in Downe village just a short walk down the road from Down House. Baptist Pastor Richard Hart said 'With the re-opening of Down House with an exhibition not only about Darwin, but also very much about evolution, we wanted to make a stand that we believe something different - to try to show people the truth of the Scripture that God created the world. We thought a simple exhibition would be one good way of doing that. Another way which proved popular in the past, on another significant anniversary date involving Darwin, was a series of lectures, which we are repeating this year.'
So for one week from 10 April in the afternoons, there was a Creation Exhibition in the church hall next door to the manse and church. A notice board 'CREATION...THE.ORIGIN OF SPECIES' was displayed and drew in people who were walking along the road to and from Down House. The photographs included Stort Valley Creation Group's mobile display. Free literature was available. Then on each of the four Thursdays in April a Creation Evening was put on with the challenging theme 'Consider Biblical Creation'. The talks were 'Evidence from Modern Biology' by Wendy Sharpless, 'Evidence from Geology' by Tony Bennett and 'Evidence from Scripture'by Eric Curnow, all members of Stort Valley Creation Group. Dr John Peet, the Biblical Creation Society's travelling secretary, gave a lecture on 'The True History of Man'. The meetings were all well attended with the little church full each week with over 60 people in the audience. A great deal of interest was shown, and much free literature taken and many books sold. All together it was deemed a great success. Gradually one by one the Creator is convicting people of His greatness. It was a great privilege and humbling, yet very exciting, to be part of the events at Downe. The Lord is doing wonderful things.
Wendy Sharpless (December 1998) )
