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LIFE is everywhere around us. It is evident in the humming of insects, the singing of birds, the rustlings of small animals in the underbrush. It exists in the icy polar regions and in parched deserts. It is present from the sea’s sunlit surface to its darkest depths. High in the atmosphere tiny creatures float about. Beneath our feet untold trillions of microorganisms are at work in the soil, making it fertile for the growing of green plants, which sustain other forms of life.

Earth is packed with life so abundant and varied as to stagger the imagination. How did it all start? This planet of ours and all its inhabitants -how did they come to be here? More particularly, how did humankind get started? Did we evolve from apelike animals? Or were we created? Just how did we get here? And what does the answer imply for the future? Questions like these have been around for a long time and they are still unanswered in the minds of many.

Perhaps you feel that these questions do not really affect you. You may think: ‘It doesn’t matter how I got here—I’m here. And I’ll probably live for 60, 70 or maybe 80 years—who knows? But whether we were created or we evolved, it changes nothing for me now.’ On the contrary, it could change a great deal—how long you live, the way you live, the conditions under which you live. How so? Our entire attitude toward life and the future is influenced by our viewpoint on the origin of life. How life came to be here will definitely affect the future course of history and our place in it.

Differing Viewpoints

4 In the view of many who accept the theory of evolution, life will always be made up of intense competition, with strife, hatred, wars and death. Some even feel that man may destroy himself in the near future. A prominent scientist stated: “We may have only another few decades until Doomsday. . . . the development of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems will, sooner or...