Creationist Says NASA's All Wet, Mars Never Inhabited
by Allie Martin
March 29, 2004
(AgapePress) - A former evolutionist who is now a biblical creationist says the recent discovery that water once covered part of Mars does not prove that life once existed on the red planet.Recently scientists of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have displayed photographs from two unmanned crafts exploring Mars. Some of these images show, according to the scientists, that water once covered part of the planet. NASA's scientists say that discovery proves that life could very well have existed on Mars.
But Dr. Grady McMurtry, president of Creation Worldview Ministries, says the discovery that water once existed on Mars is not surprising. "If you think about it, in Genesis, chapter one, verse two, the Earth is created with water on the surface. There's no reason to believe that Mars would not have been created by God in the same basic process," he says.
Creation Worldview Ministries holds seminars and conferences to equip Christians to defend the biblical account of creation. The ministry's leader says the fact that water once existed on Mars fits into the Genesis account of life's origins, but the other conditions that make Earth suitable to house God's living creations do not exist on the fourth planet from the center of our solar system.
"The reason that you don't have liquid water on the surface of Mars today is, of course, it's much smaller than the Earth, has a lot less gravity, and has a minimal atmosphere. While on Earth, certainly water is very important to life's existence, water does not equal life," McMurtry says.
The creationist asserts that scripture absolutely negates the idea of extra-terrestrial intelligent life. He says, "In the New Testament, of course, it says that Jesus Christ came here, and died once for all. Now, God is the only one that can use the word 'all' and mean it, so there are not people who can be redeemed anyplace else. There are not other life-forms someplace [that are] like us."
McMurtry believes NASA will use its discovery to push for more missions to Mars, exploration that he says will cost billions of dollars and only serve to increase an already oversized bureaucracy.
