Still No Apologies

The Atheists Have Trained Me Well: My apologetics journey, part 1

This is a brief-ish history of how I got into apologetics. I learned a lot about what I should and should not do, which is why I decided to share it.

When I was little, I watched a bunch of Animal Planet. I learned a lot about dinosaurs, and where there are dinosaurs on TV, there are millions of years. I learned about evolution. I "knew" the TV could not lie. It was like a sacred object to me as a kid (Not really, but I thought adults were perfect). I also had numerous dinosaur books that fed evolution into my little brain. I never questioned it. I even made a drawing showing the evolution of a made-up dinosaur.

When I went to church, I learned about Creation. I believed the Bible 100%. But I also believed the TV just as much. I tried for years to fit the two together, but I couldn't. I thought I must be missing something.

I asked my dad one night about this contradiction. He told me the TV was lying against God. No! 😯 Everything made so much more sense! That night marked the beginning of my passion for apologetics, especially in science. I learned how to find the truth in my science books by ignoring the "millions of years" parts.

As I grew older, I actually started hearing snippets of creationist arguments. Most of them were terrible arguments that I listed in one of the earlier chapters.

For homeschool, I had a massive book where I learned more about what evolution actually is and how it works. It told me more than all the science shows and books I read even scraped. It was written from a Christian perspective, explaining where evolution happens, and where it fails. I loved learning about it, as I still do. It is very interesting, especially some of the earlier ideas before evolution, like how they thought mice were "spontaneously generated" from old, smelly underwear. 😂 Imagine setting up that experiment!

I found a book at a homeschool convention, written by the infamous Ken Ham! I started reading it (mostly the comics), and my parents bought it for me. This is how I learned about Answers in Genesis. They are really cool, you should visit their website. Every Christian should. (And don't forget Creation Ministries International).

When I became a teen, our church had apologetics classes! Finally! (Thankfully, we now have an AiG apologetics curriculum for middle schoolers in Sunday School). Us teens would watch apologetics videos and read apologetics books. Unfortunately this did not go on for long. I feel like a lot of Christians do not care about defending their faith using logic and science as much as they should.

One year, I went to the AiG Creation Museum! I highly recommend it. This is when I really got interested in apologetics and a career in the science field. It was amazing how much everything made sense, and how I didn't have to constantly filter out the invasive millions of years normally shoved into everything.

I started a Twitter account for apologetics debates. Yes. I know. BAD idea. But at that time, I had faith that almost anyone, when faced with the serious complications in evolution, would realize they were wrong. I didn't expect thousands of converts. I expected open minds. Mostly, I got a bunch of vulgar insults, along with people who wouldn't stop whining at me for capitalizing pronouns. It was pathetic. But among that, there were some good arguments. I had to look some things up on Google (which they made fun of), but this is what trained me the most in developing bulletproof arguments against evolution, abiogenesis, and the Big Bang. I deleted this account because I have learned all I could from it.

On my other Twitter account for mental health (MH) awareness, I made some Twitter friends with a bunch of people. Some of them Christian, some of them not. I ended up in discussions with two of them (who are atheists) about evolution. It was like a night and day difference. Both of them were really respectful about it. I could have an actual discussion without people calling me crazy! Then again, that would be like shooting holes in a canoe you are both standing on. It's really ironic that for how all the Twitter atheists on my old account called me mentally ill and such, their fellow atheists with schizophrenia did a much better job of arguing their point, staying on topic, and not acting like immature children.

Now, I am here on Wattpad, which is by far the best platform for apologetics. 😎👍