It is an honor to be here.  I appreciate you attending this discussion on creation and evolution.  I certainly appreciate the good spirit I have always gotten when I've debated Terry Prewitt.  I'm glad that he is open-minded and we're going to try to convert him today.  He'd be a great asset to the creation side when we get him converted over.
    I was a high school science teacher.  I taught that for fifteen years and now for 10 years I've dedicated my life to traveling all over the world and speaking on this topic: creation and evolution.
Like the Russian astronomer said, "Either there is a God or there isn't; both possibilities are frightening."  If there is a God, we'd better find out who He is, and what He wants and do as He says.  If there isn't a God, we are in trouble, because we are racing around the sun at sixty-six thousand miles per hour and nobody is in charge.  Frightening thought.
    You know there are four great questions to this life.  Every religion in the world, including atheism, tries to answer the four fundamental questions of life.  The way you answer these questions depends on the way you view the world and there are only two choices: creation or evolution. [4 Choices Slide]
    Now, if the evolution theory is true, they say, "You know it is amazing a 'Big Bang' made this whole place from nothing."  That is the humanist world view that says man is god.  Now that is a very appealing religion because you get to decide what is right and what is wrong; nobody tells you what to do.  That would be great to be your own god.  Then there are no rules.
    The other way to look at the world is to say, "You know it is an incredible design; there must be a designer."  That is the creationist world view, which says "God is God."  And these two worldviews are at war with each other as even Sir Arthur Keith said.  He wrote the forward to Darwin's reprint in 1959.  And he believed in evolution.  He said, "Folks, these two views, these two philosophies, these two world views are at war with each other."  If the evolution theory is true: Who am I?  What am I worth?  Well, if evolution is true, you are nothing; you are nothing important.  You are just a piece of protoplasm that washed up on the beach and you are not worth a thing.  Matter of fact, you are probably the problem because you are one of the polluters of the environment and the more of you we can get rid of the better.  That is normal thinking if evolution philosophy is true, I believe.  Where did I come from?  Well, if evolution is true, you came from a cosmic burp about 20 billion years ago.  Why am I here?  What is the purpose of life?  Well, if evolution is true there is no purpose to life.  You might as well have fun.  If it feels good, do it!  Where am I going when I die?  Well, if evolution is true, you are just going to the grave and you're going to get recycled into a worm or a plant.  These two world views could not be more opposite. The Bible says, "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth." Folks, if that verse is true, we'd better find out who He is and what He wants.  And I've decided that I'm going to do what God says to try to do for my life, and I'm going to encourage you to do the same thing.  If you are here today and you're not a Christian, we would like to encourage you to open your mind, just a little bit.  We are going to try to show you some evidence that this world was created, that it had to be designed and that the evolution theory has no evidence of it whatsoever.  We offer a fourth of a million dollars for real scientific evidence for evolution. We think that evolution is a philosophy—it is a religion—but it is not a science.  Thank you.

Terry Prewitt: Introduction

     I'm Terry Prewitt and I have been teaching Evolution for something like 25 years.  During the time I have been engaged in that process, there have been tremendous changes in the fossil record, and tremendous changes in our understanding of the processes through which human origins (and the origins of all the specific kinds of life on this planet, or other life that we have ever encountered) are linked.  We have been presented already with a number of questions and although I'm not going to respond directly to Kent on all the points at this point, I do want to argue, at least, that rather than this being a 'yes or no,' 'design or no rules,' 'humans-are-of-no-importance or humans-are-of-great-importance,' kind of black and white question, I think there are many different levels of approach and of understanding; and the one that I represent today more than my even sort of deeper position, is the one of theistic evolution.
     I am going to represent the theistic evolutionary perspective today, in part because it would otherwise not be represented, and this debate would appear to be a contest between two sides when in fact it is a contest that involves many different elements in a continuum of ideas and processes and thoughts that have gone on for many centuries.  I want to contend today… Ah well, I already have two strikes against me, with at least part of the audience today, because not only am I an evolutionist but I am also a form critic and I understand that form criticism and textual criticism in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible are not necessarily popular things in some circles.  But I treat God's text or what many would consider God's text as a human product.  It is a text about God and it is a text about the particular beliefs that have given us the religious and many of the spiritual traditions of our time.  I live in a world where the Bible is considered God's text, even if I don't treat it as my god's text.  But I also argue that the world Kent has already assumed that God created is also God's text, and if we have an obligation to read the text of the Bible then we also have an obligation to read the text of the world—and I don't believe that Kent would disagree with me on that.  And I will leave that as my opening comment and I will come back in a little bit.

Mike Schultz: Introduction

     My name is Mike Schultz.  I've been in this Creation thing for about seven years.  I used to be a garbage man of all things, taking people's trash out, before I got saved, before I accepted Christ as my savior, like the Bible says--and I've always been interested in this topic.  This is what kept me from being saved for twenty-three years of my life. And I got saved, then I really started to study this topic and realized that the Bible is true.  I am not a theistic evolutionist, I believe that God created everything and did it [snaps his fingers] just like that.  I don't think that God has to use mutations and billions of years.  I think the Bible--if you read it clearly--very clearly says that God created everything in the beginning.  I think Jesus put Adam and Eve, like Mark 10:6 says, at the beginning.  I don't believe in any form of evolution.  I'm here today because basically what II Peter 3:3 says.  I'll show it up here on the board for you all.  II Peter 3:3 basically says: "Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts."  I believe that this is going on today and it worries me.  This is something that kept me from being saved for a long time.  This is my first debate.  I get to preach on this topic quite a bit.  What worries me is the things that are presented in the text books have been proven to be false, some of them for over a hundred years, yet they are still being taught in our text books today.  Today I am going to try and bring some of those up. I think this is the lie of the [end times].  Basically, the scoffers, the Bible says, are ignorant of three things:

    1. The Creation
    2. The Flood
    3. The coming Judgment of God
           II Peter 3:3-7

    And this poison is being taught right along side of science in our textbooks.  It is being portrayed as science but as Kent has already said, it is not science at all.  Many of these claims that are being taught everyday have no scientific evidence.  There is nothing behind them what so ever.  I'm afraid that when you are being taught that "you are an animal and share a common heritage with earthworms," that the end product will be like this. [slide of punk rockers]  And you don't have to live like this.  God created everybody in His image; He created you in His image.  He has a wonderful future for you.
     Adolph Hitler said "If you tell a lie long enough, loud enough and often enough, the people will believe it."  He also said "People are more likely to believe a big lie than a small one."  I believe that evolution is that big lie and it has led a lot of people astray and it has definitely been detrimental to science.  God gave man a mind for science to draw man to Him.  And that is what happened in my case and I hope to represent that side today.  Thank you.

Nick Power: Introduction

Well thanks for coming out today.  My name is Nick Power, I teach in the Philosophy department here at UWF.  I'm not a biologist, and certainly not a theologian.  So all I hope to do today is to give you some reasonable grounds upon which you can make a decision, if you need to make a decision about this issue.  But I should say, by way of introductory comments, this debate is kind of unfortunate, right?  I mean this debate needn't be--in this room it needn't.  But the broader cultural debate is very unfortunate.  It is very divisive and being fought out in school classrooms and boards of education all over the country and that is at the least divisive and unproductive.  That is not where it ought to be fought out.  But it is being fought out there for a deeper reason, I think.  That's because our guests today here are threatening a Christian world view much more than Darwin or Hume or any secular humanist ever did.  That's because if they are right, if they're on the right track, then Genesis, and the account of Genesis, has to come over on scientific terms and go into a lab and stand head to toe to the National Science Foundation and all the universities and all the research institutes around the world who are exploring and making progress on evolutionary terms and evolutionary theory and refining that theory.  Genesis has to stand up to all those guys, and girls. And I think you lose; I think that debate, if they are on the right track, is a losing one.  So if I was a Christian in this room, I'd be on my side.  Particularly on Terry's side and believe in theistic evolution.  Right?  Just so you understand, theistic evolution, the view that… it is a version of theism, and theism says that some divine power is required--some supernatural force or divine power is required--to get this business we call the universe rolling.  But it needn't have done it in some account as presented in Genesis and certainly needn't have made whole species out of cloth or you and I out of mud and then blown a wind over us.  No, He's much more subtle and much more supple supernatural force than that and that is what I recommend to you all.  For those of you Christians in the room, I recommend theistic evolution and not creation Science.  Thank you.