Some Background

I’ve heard a lot of stories
about how people came to be;
that Neanderthals and Lucy
are in our family tree.
I’ve wondered who the ape-men are.
What’s a caveman, please tell me?
Were tails and fur and ape-like gait
really in our ancestry?

When we talk about these questions,
two viewpoints come to mind:
one involves the Bible,
and one is nothing of the kind.
We will dig through facts and theories—
what is true and what is not.
Our search will help us start to think.
Read on! You will learn a lot!

Our book about ape-men must start with a basic discussion about worldviews. What is a worldview? A worldview is the set of beliefs a person uses to understand life. It answers questions like these: Where did people come from? Why are we here? Is there a God? How did the world get started? Every person has a worldview, including you! What are your answers to these kinds of questions?

There are two very different ideas about the history of our universe. The first idea comes from the Bible. The Bible is God’s Word, and it is completely true. It tells us that God created everything in six 24-hour days around 6,000 years ago. This information is the basis of a biblical worldview. We could say that people with this worldview look through “Bible glasses” to understand the world around them.

The second idea is based on the belief that the universe came into being all by itself when there was a chance explosion billions of years ago. People who believe this way say earth gradually formed as chemicals from exploding stars stuck together. Then, after a very long period of time, these chemicals changed into simple, single cells, which changed into more and more complicated plants and animals. Eventually, ape-like creatures turned into human beings. This information is the basis of an evolutionary worldview.

Wow! Those are pretty heavy thoughts to tackle.
You can see there are clearly two sides.
Both are so very different;
the effects are far and wide.
And they have everything to do with the question
of how humans came to be.
So let’s talk now about the ideas
of ape-men, creation, and me.