Archive for April, 2010

Creation: Part IV

Honesty on the lips of an evangelical Christian, agnostic, atheist, deist, or theist is to be all alike admired. A diamond is a diamond even if found in a rock pile. So truth is truth regardless of the source. Often if a person speaks a truth on one subject a critic will try to find some counter statement by that person to negate the comment. One quote from an individual does not infer an endorsement of all of that person’s philosophy.
The concept of origins is controversial. Renowned persons and/or great scientists of various persuasions have offered their opinions on origins. Pursuing a minor is biology in a state university I reached a conclusion regarding origins. I then compared that conclusion with the Bible and found them very compatible.
Years later I found a far greater mind who felt the same. Robert Jastrow, an objective agnostic and founder of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, wrote, “Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same…”
Wernher von Braun, one of the fathers of our space program, commented, “I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science. And there is certainly no scientific reason why God cannot retain the same relevance in our modern world that He held before we began probing His creation with telescope, cyclotron, and space vehicles.”
In “The Consolation of Philosophy,” Anicus Manlius Sevrinus Boethius, postulated: “This universe would never have been suitably put together into one form from such various and opposite parts, unless there were some One who joined such different parts together, and when joined, the very variety of their natures, so discordant among themselves, would break their harmony and tear them asunder unless the One held together what is woven together into one whole. Such a fixed order of nature could not continue its course, could not develop motions taking such various directions in place, time operation, space, and attributes, unless there were One who, being immutable, had the disposal of these various changes. And this cause of their remaining fixed and their moving, I call God, according to the name familiar to all.”
Reliable scientific facts have led these and millions of others to such conclusions.
Robert Jastrow, in his book “God and the Astronomers,” observed: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
Persons wanting to broaden their horizon on the subject will enjoy such works as “Darwin’s Nemesis” and “Darwin on Trial” by Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson. Scientific minds will enjoy the challenge of reading “The Design Inference” by William A. Dembski and published by Cambridge University Press.

Creation: Part III

Do you believe in evolution? When asked that question a reasonable response is to ask what is meant by evolution.
Microevolution is change within a species.
Macroevolution is change of one species to another.
Micro is observable. Macro is not.
Naturalists try to use micro to prove macro.
Bacteria and viruses have been observed to change. The swine flue virus is an example. There is fear the virus will evolve and develop a resistant strain. When bacteria and viruses evolve they are observable and in every case it is another bacteria or virus. This is microevolution. They do not change to another type of organism. That would be macroevolution. It has not been observed.
Microevolution might be able to explain the survival of a species but it cannot explain the arrival of a species.
Berkley law professor Philip Johnson made this observation in his book Darwin on Trial: “None of the ‘proofs’ [for natural selection] proves any persuasive reason for believing that natural selection can produce any new species, new organs, or other major changes that are permanent.”
For some time naturalistic biologists claimed life generated spontaneously from nonliving chemical without intelligent design. Since the 1950s technological advances have enabled scientists to see deeper into the components of life and realize life did not come to you from goo via the zoo. The problem Darwinists have is not in explaining how all forms of life are related, as challenging as that is, but in explaining the origin of the first life.
In 1952 James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the chemical that encodes instructions for building and reproducing all living things know as DNA. DNA has been defined as “specified complexity.” It is so complex that Darwinist Richard Dawkins, professor of zoology at Oxford University, acknowledges the message found in just the cell nucleus of a tiny amoeba is more than thirty volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica combined. The entire amoeba has as much information in its DNA as 1,000 complete sets of Encyclopedia Britannica. That is specified complexity. That is complex design, yet simple compared to this.
Within each human cell there are about 3,000 million pairs of the four letters used to specify the DNA code: A,C,T,G. The body has trillions of cells and makes millions of new cells every second. Each cell is irreducible complex.
Michael Behe, professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in his work, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution notes the numerous functions of the body such as blood clotting, cilia, and vision require irreducibly complex systems that could not have developed in the gradual Darwinian fashion because intermediates would be nonfunctional.
Behe writes, “There is currently no experimental evidence to show that natural selection can get around irreducible complexity…. The result of these cumulative efforts to investigate the cell — to investigate life at the molecular level — is loud, clear, piercing cry of ‘design,.”
Where there is design there is a designer and He is not blind.

Creation: Part II

Albert Einstein was not only brilliant but honest. In 1961, he devised what is known as the theory of General Relativity. It proved what he did not believe but as a result of his calculations accepted. It revealed time, matter, and space all had a beginning. The universe had not simply always been.
That fact is right there in the Bible in John 1:1 which in the Greek text reads, “before time began to begin.”
If it had a beginning the Law of Causality must apply. Everything that had a beginning had a cause is the fundamental principle of science. Science is a search for causes. Francis Bacon said, “True knowledge is knowledge by causes.”
The prominent skeptic David Hume wrote, “I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that something could arise without a cause.”
In 1965, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson observed on their antenna at Bell Labs what is described as the afterglow of the beginning of the universe. Technically it is known as cosmic background radiation. It is the actual waves of light and heat of the beginning of the universe.
Astronomer and project leader, George Smoot, announced the result of the COBE satellite findings supporting this phenomena. He said, “If you are religious, it’s like looking at God.” He further stated that observing these waves is like seeing “the fingerprints of the maker.” COBE actually took infrared pictures of the ripples of the cosmic radiation.
University of Chicago astrophysicist Michael Turner was equally enthusiastic stating, “They have found the Holy Grail of Cosmology.”
Robert Jastrow, founder of the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies, an agnostic, nevertheless has some theistic insights. “Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.”
He further states, “That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.”
In response to the question of whether the Big Bang theory evidence is indicative of a Creator Jastrow responded, “Certainly there was something that set it all off. Certainly, if you are religious, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match Genesis.”
Since the universe had a beginning it had to have a Beginner who was outside the space-time universe.
If everything has a beginning who made God? The Law of Causality does not say everything needs a cause. It says everything that comes to be needs a cause. God did not have a beginning so He didn’t need a cause. It is right there in the Book: “In the beginning God ….” “…before time began to begin God created….”
Isaac Newton observed: “This beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.”

Creation: Part I

Having a minor in biology I have maintained an interest in earth sciences. Following are insights from keen scientific minds on the subject.
There are several scientific societies made up of members with advanced degrees from prestigious institutions. “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist” by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek quotes some of these scholars. In this worthy read many scientist speak on the topic of origins. They range from creationist, to theist, and atheists. Note these insights by them on the topic of the Teleological Argument. “Telos” is Greek for design.
Isaac Newton wrote, “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.”
Cosmologist Ed Harrison said, “The fine-tuning of the universe proves prima facie evidence of deistic design.”
Microbiologist Chandra Wickramasinghe admits Darwinists are acting on blind faith when it comes to spontaneous generation of life and observed, “The emergence of life from a primordial soup on the Earth is merely an article of faith that scientists are finding hard to shed. Indeed all attempts to create life from non-life, starting with Pasteur, have been unsuccessful.”
Einstein said, “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.”
Phillip Gold, referring to the orderly design of the universe concluded, “God plays Scrabble.”
Though not a scientist, former astronaut John Glenn looked out of the Space Shuttle Discovery and remarked, “To look out at this kind of creation and not believe in God is to me impossible.”
Michael Denton, a respected atheist adds, “The complexity of the simplest known type of cell is so great that it is impossible to accept that such an object could have been thrown together suddenly by some kind of freakish, vastly improbable event. Such an occurrence would be indistinguishable from a miracle.”
Design indicates a designer. Consider the design of a single one-cell amoeba. Darwinist Richard Dawkins, professor of zoology at Oxford University, acknowledges the message found in just the cell nucleus of a tiny amoeba is more that the 30 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica combined. The entire amoeba has as much information in its DNA as 1,000 complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica. That is detail intricate design yet naturalistic
evolutionists claim it came about by spontaneous generation.
Design is seen in one protein molecule which has about 100 amino acids. Michael Behe has calculated that the probability of life arising by chance from nonliving chemicals would be like a blindfolded man finding one marked grain of sand in the Sahara Desert three times in a row. One protein molecule is not life. To get life, would require about 200 protein molecules together.
Physicist and information scientist Hubert Yockey is honest in admitting, “The belief that life on earth arose spontaneously from nonliving matter, is simply a matter of faith in strict reductionism and is based entirely on ideology.” He concludes Darwinist are as religious as the “religious” and live by faith.
The creation evolution debate is not about religion verses science or Bible versus science —- it is about good science verses bad science and creation is increasingly proving to be good science. Many honest evolutionist admit flaws in their philosophy but like Darwinist Richard Lewontin of Harvard insist that because of having “a prior commitment to materialism …we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.”

Nahum Speaks On The Believer’s Assurance

For a culture to change and a new culture emerge an old one has to die. Most often it is killed.
For generations Israel was basically a stable culture. Then a leader emerged who changed it dramatically. Historian Josephus gave this description of the change.
“Herod went still farther departing from the native customs, and through foreign practices he gradually corrupted the ancient way of life, which had hitherto been inviolable. As a result of this we suffered considerable harm at a later time as well, because those things were neglected which had formerly induced piety in the masses.”
Herod used “foreign practices” that “corrupted” formerly “inviolable” practices and the people “suffered” at a “later time.”
He used the tactic of providing for his base by taxing the wealthy. What he provided was entertainment. He started the athletic contests in Caesarea to rival the Olympic and Corinthian games. To accomplish this he built large stadiums in Jerusalem and the new city he developed and named for Caesar called Caesarea Maritima (by the sea).
To attract world class athletes and induce them to favor his games over the Greeks he offered large prizes at the expense of the populace. He added a new feature. In the Greek games each contest had a winner, only one. He started offering first, second, and third prizes and giving rewards of gold, silver, and bronze. It worked. The Greeks eventually adopted his system and three places are still used.
It took a while for the people to realize as Josephus wrote, “… it seemed a further impiety to change their established ways for foreign practices.”
Oops! Too late. Capitulation to Herod’s Roman mentality compromised the customs as well as the conscience of the country.
Neglect and abandonment of virtuous foundational practices on which the culture was built resulted in deferred suffering.
Deferred payment is on what modern America has been built. A pay later mentality only postpones the result. That is the principle that caused our current national financial collapse. It is the principle now being employed to garner support of a part of society at the expense of the future.
Replacing the free enterprise with socialism, a good work ethic with an entitlement mentality, abandoning known standards for a belief there are no absolutes, and giving preference to a foreign religion while restricting the foundational faith of the country will inevitably result in deferred suffering.
Let the games begin!
Current leaders prefer not to use the word “war” as related to our present conflict. It is a word that needs to be used regarding our current “cultural war.” To lose this war would mean losing our birthright of freedom and with it our blessed way of life paid for by the blood of our predecessors and current courageous countrymen and women.
We must not like ancient Israel neglect those things “which had formerly induced piety in the masses.” For God’s sake get involved. That is not slang. Get involved for the sake of God and country — and your own welfare.