“How does Satan bully you?”

This question was posed at a recent topics session I attended. I had never thought much about it before. After all, I’ve lived a relatively sheltered life. I was born in the Church, went to God’s schools after the second grade, lived on campus, and currently work at Headquarters. However, after thinking about it more, I realized that—despite my protective bubble—there’s one particular tactic Satan uses to bully me incessantly.

Evolution.

Much of our modern society expects us to accept the theory of evolution. As it turns out, evolution is everywhere.

When I was about 5-8 years old, I was obsessed with dinosaurs. I was so obsessed, in fact, that I could tell you exactly what Mesozoic era even the most obscure dinosaurs were assigned to. At one point, I had a giant poster that wrapped across my entire bedroom ceiling that organized dinosaurs chronologically according to Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous. However, this was—as my parents explained to me—100% based on evolution.

After my dinosaur phase came my Crocodile Hunter phase—where I became all too familiar with Steve Irwin calling crocodiles modern “dinosaurs.” This, again, was evolutionary rhetoric I wouldn’t have caught without my parents.

A few months ago, I tried my hand at mapmaking. One of the first maps my mini-course had me make was a map of Ireland’s geological layers, which organize rock formations from oldest to youngest. These layers are dated by the age of the fossils in each layer of rock. Guess how those fossils are dated.

When I built my Geography course at ia, I had to filter through a lot of evolution in my research. I’ve even had students come across evolution in researching for class projects. Sometimes, these books are directed specifically at kids.

It’s nearly impossible to find an otherwise decent history textbook that doesn’t have some mention of man 10,000 years ago. Even the history textbooks we use at ia and hwac have some mention of evolution the class needs to sift through. And if the book focuses on history after 4,000 b.c., it will still probably use dates that contradict the Bible and are built on an evolutionary foundation.

One common theme in all these examples is that they never once attempted to prove their reasoning. Sure, if you google “proof for evolution,” you’ll find hundreds of articles claiming to offer conclusive evolutionary evidence. But from the dinosaur poster in my room to my college history textbooks, I was simply supposed to accept it as fact. And if I didn’t—I was stupid.

In 2017, a documentary was made about Bill Nye, known to most Americans as the fun, energetic kids science show host who inspired many—myself included—to love science. This particular documentary, however, spent a large portion of its 100-minute run time with him villifying creationists and making a laughingstock of the Noah’s Ark replica in Kentucky. This was particularly unsettling to me because of how much I loved his earlier work in school.

Another educator I loved watching in school was Hank Green, a host on the CrashCourse and SciShow YouTube channels. I always adored his vivid teaching style and captivating personality. And yet, I would have to filter through countless claims where he virtually attacked the idea of a Creator by personifying evolution—like how evolution “makes life possible” and “gives us awesome stuff to marvel at.” To him, if you don’t believe in evolution, it’s simply because you don’t understand it.

Probably the biggest evolutionary “bully” is Richard Dawkins, whose self-ordained role in society is to spearhead the attack on creationism and advertise universal evolutionary education. In 2015, he actually tweeted that he “despised” young-earth creationists. While young-earth creationists are certainly wrong about many things, Richard Dawkins believes it warrants despising them.

This rhetoric isn’t new: even Mr. Armstrong had to face the same kind of verbal assaults. In 1926, his brother-in-law’s wife, a 19 year-old college freshman named Hertha, accused him of being ignorant for not believing evolution. “One is uneducated, and ignorant, unless he believes in evolution,” she said. “All educated people believe it.”

At the time, he didn’t claim to have proof either way: he simply mentioned he wasn’t convinced. However, for refusing to blindly accept it, he was
bullied!

But notice how he responded. He didn’t just find one article about evolution and end it there. He began a daily study of evolution’s founding documents. He became aware of every argument for and against evolution. Once he had enough to disprove the theory, he wrote a paper refuting it and showed it to a scholarly librarian, who was forced to admit Mr. Armstrong was right.

Mr. Armstrong stood up to the bully!

Here at True Education, we have plenty of articles dealing with evolution: we even dedicated an entire issue to it in 2009. The Trumpet has similar material. We have booklets like Does God Exist?, The Proof of the Bible, and Our Awesome Universe Potential that tackle the theory head-on. And, if you go to ia or hwac, you are going to receive a textbook’s-worth amount of material in the form of lectures and handouts refuting evolution.

With all this at our disposal, it can be easy for our publications to start sounding like a broken record. It can be easy to think: Great, here’s another evolution article.

Yes, we’ve written a lot disproving evolution. And sure, there’s more to life than just reading evolution articles all the time. However, we should never grow tired of confronting evolution.

Mr. Armstrong called the theory of evolution Satan’s “most powerful weapon.” It is faster, far more destructive, and much deadlier than any nuclear bomb or chemical weapon. Even if you are the most sheltered youth in the world—Satan will bully you with evolution at some point. It’s going to be in your face. And you’re going to be called an idiot for rejecting it.

In 1 Timothy 6:20, Paul told Timothy to “keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called.” We are going to be deemed ignorant and backward by very articulate, highly-respected, intellectual men. But, as Paul said: hold on to what God gives you, and when someone accuses you of being anti-science, don’t listen to them.

Mr. Armstrong began his conversion with an intense study of proving the Bible against evolution. But what about the end of his life?

Although Mystery of the Ages was written shortly before he died, it actually wasn’t the last booklet he wrote. After finishing Mystery of the Ages, he wrote a small booklet called The Bible: Superstition or Authority? (Today, we own it as Proof of the Bible). This booklet, published just months before he died, confronts the same issue of evolution he faced six decades earlier.

Mr. Armstrong both began and ended his life of studying the Bible by challenging the theory of evolution!

He never grew tired of it. And neither should we.

If you ever find yourself in a debate with Bill Nye, Hank Green, or Richard Dawkins, you’ll certainly want to know your stuff. However, even though most of us probably won’t have these kinds of encounters, remember that evolution is Satan’s “most powerful weapon.” All of us are going to be bullied by Satan in this regard.

So—are you ready to stand up to the bully?