Author Archives: Duane Caldwell

About Duane Caldwell

Duane has served in many different capacities including pastor, elder, project coordinator and flight instructor. He is an ordained minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ by the Evangelical Church Alliance and holds a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, a Trinity International University school and a BS in Aeronautics from Parks College, St. Louis University.

Are Biblical accounts copied from pagan religions? Part 2. The Resurrection

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Depiction of the empty tomb of Jesus

Depiction of the empty tomb of Jesus

Since the original sin in the garden of Eden, mankind has searched for reasons not to believe God so he could live a life independent of God. In the garden, the serpent convinced Eve not to trust God. Why? Supposedly because God was holding back the knowledge of good and evil to the detriment of Adam and Eve. The serpent suggested God was wrong f0r withholding that knowledge, but that if they were to discover the truth, they would be “like God”. (Gen 3.5) That was a big lie. God was indeed withholding the knowledge of evil, but he was not wrong in doing so because he knew that (experiential) knowledge of evil (like disobeying God) would lead to death.  And the biggest irony is – they were already like God (Gen 1.26),  there was nothing to be gained from what the serpent offered.

Today there is another lie circulating to destroy belief in God: The claim that the biblical accounts are not history, but rather stories borrowed or stolen and then adapted from the made up stories of pagan religions. If there’s no reason to believe the pagan religions, then there’s no reason to believe a made up story based on it either. Continue Reading

Are Biblical accounts copied from pagan religions? Part 1. The God of Creation

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Recently while at work I overheard a discussion among some of my co-workers. They were agreeing among themselves that the Biblical accounts of things like the creation of the universe and the major events of Christianity – like the birth of Jesus and his resurrection – were all just stories borrowed (or copied or plagiarized – whatever you want to call it) from the stories of the religions of other cultures.

I’ve heard that charge before, and as a Christian, I find the entire idea repugnant. It’s not like they’re talking about something inconsequential like a comic book or the like. After all scripture reminds us the biblical accounts “are not just idle words for you–they are your life.”(Dt 32.47)  The fact that such discussions are still being entertained and the idea affirmed is proof that many people are still taking the bait and falling for the trap: being persuaded that this lie is true. Since people’s eternities are a stake the only question is how best to respond? Continue Reading

Radiometric dating: Science or Guesswork?

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F14 in catapult with full afterburners

F14 in catapult with full afterburners


Is radiometric dating accurate? It’s science and many believe “science” to be synonymous with “always true” and therefore don’t question the data given, even when it contradicts the Bible – which also claims to be always true in  information that it affirms. So when the two contradict – as they do with the age of the universe and the earth – many abandon the faith and reject the Genesis account because current science tells them that the universe and the earth is billions of years old, and disregard the biblical account – which indicates an age of about 6,000 years. The evidence many find persuasive:  radiometric dating. But is radiometric dating really the objective hard science many believe it to be? By “objective, hard science” I mean science that is  measurable, repeatable, predictable, consistent and accurate.  For instance I would could consider the physics of flight a “hard science.”  Here’s how those terms apply to the performance of an aircraft: Continue Reading

More Big Bang Magic Tricks – Shadows and Waves

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What casts no shadows besides vampires? Apparently, the big bang.

In theory, scientists are objective seekers of the truth, handling the data that is discovered with honesty and integrity.  Unfortunately particularly in sciences that have worldview implications, that is not the case. One of those sciences is cosmology – the science that attempts to determine the origin and development of the universe. With the possible exception of Darwinian evolution,  there are no sciences  that have larger worldview implications that cosmology.   Even without knowing how the origin of the universe came about, the psalmist is correct in his declaration “the heavens declare the glory of God.” (Ps 19.1)  Atheist cosmologists know that and have tried to mute that testimony by attempting to come up with a story of the creation of the universe that doesn’t involve God.  Because even if you haven’t formally studied apologetics or cosmology, everyone implicitly understands the Kalam Cosmological argument for the existence of God: Everything that begins to exist has a creator. The universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a creator. The only one powerful enough to create the universe is of course God, therefore God created the universe.

Such a simple, intuitive, easy to understand proof of the existence of God is anathema to atheist cosmologists because their own preferred theory of origins – the Big Bang theory – though incorrect nevertheless points to the fact that the universe had a beginning. Continue Reading

The complex science that explains consciousness: Faith

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Consciousness poses a serious, and in fact insurmountable problem for  materialist scientists – which includes of course materialist evolutionists.[1]  Brain researcher Robert Lawrence Kuhn captures the problem succinctly: “Try as I have for decades, I cannot remotely imagine how physical matter can become mentally aware.”[2] By “mentally aware” he is referring to consciousness, which he defines as:

“Consciousness is what mental activity feels like inside. The private inner experience of sensation, emotion and thought.”[3]
Robert Lawrence Kuhn

Which is probably the easiest way to view consciousness.[4] But this easy to understand concept of consciousness masks a fundamental conundrum: matter is not conscious. If matter is all that exists, and thus people are no more than intricately structured matter, why are we conscious?

The problem is akin to the origin of life for such materialists. The origin of life problem, briefly stated, is  how did non-living matter – an arrangement of molecules – become a living creature? The problem of consciousness is very similar:  How does an arrangement of non-consciousness matter become conscious? For  the record, materialists have no answer to either question.

Before looking further into the problem, we need to be clear on how  insurmountable a problem consciousness is for those who believe there is nothing beyond the material world. Famed former atheist turned theist Anthony Flew highlighted the problem through the means of  a thought experiment: Continue Reading

Intelligent Design’s Blind Side

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Intelligent Design’s Blind Side

William Dembski is a leader in the Intelligent Design (ID) community, so I read with initial interest a recent interview he did with Sean McDowell titled How is the Intelligent Design Movement Doing? Interview with William Dembski.  which is posted on McDowell’s blog. That initial interest turned to dismay as the adversarial attitude Dembski has toward revealed truth in general and Young Earth Creationism (YEC) in particular was made apparent. When asked how he assesses the reception of ID within the church, Dembski states:

“I would say that the church broadly and even the evangelical community has — on balance — been somewhere between useless and downright counterproductive to the success of ID.”

A most unfortunate assessment given the potential ID has to impact a culture that has largely fallen under the sway of the junk science put forth to support the materialist religion known as Darwinian Evolution. Even more unfortunate is Dembski’s  apparent blindness to how he (and other ID advocates with similar positions) has caused such a reaction from the God fearing, Bible believing faithful they’d like to gain support from. To unravel this mystery for them, let’s start with what both ID advocates and YEC advocates are trying to achieve. Continue Reading

Should Christians believe in a multiverse? 7 Reasons Against

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The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
2 Cor 4.2

Non-believers will likely consider the above scripture irrelevant and unpersuasive and will ponder the wisdom of starting an article on the multiverse with a verse of scripture. In so doing they will have confirmed the scripture (blind to spiritual truths) while setting up my two points: First – this is not merely a discussion of physics – but of metaphysics. (Metaphysics being those things that lie beyond the realm of observable physical reality and so strictly speaking, are beyond the realm of the questions that physics can answer.) Second, not only is the multiverse “pure metaphysics”[1] as Christian apologist William Lane Craig puts it, but many scientists seem blind to the fact that they are engaging in metaphysics – not physics – when proposing the multiverse as a “scientific” answer to a number of the problems their theories have. They have fallen into the same error that  philosopher of science and apologist John Lennox chides theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking for: engaging in metaphysics while failing to recognize he is doing so.[2]

Truth in advertising

Having identified multiverse theories as claims that deal with the metaphysical, we can make the following observations: Continue Reading

Can Evolution Explain the Origin of Language?

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With regards to origins, evolutionists and creationists don’t agree on much. The item of contention for today’s closer look: language. Creationists will tell you that God is the originator of language and gave man the ability to communicate via language as part of being made in the image of God. (Gen 1.27) For evolutionists, the origin of language is yet another unknown conundrum; one of the many things that evolutionists have no plausible theory to explain such as:

  • the origin of life
  • the origin of DNA and the coded information in it
  • the origin of multi-cellular life from single celled creatures
  • the non-directed specialization of cells that allow for the creation of specialized organs likes heart, lungs, etc.
  • and the specialized, completely different but complementary organs for accomplishing reproduction through two different creatures; the organs making the individual either male and female – and when paired male and female, reproduction is accomplished.

All the above happened – according to evolutionists – without plan, direction or design. Add to the list “origin of language”. In spite of  the lack of a coherent theory to explain any of this, evolutionists still cling to the merit-less theory of evolution. Continue Reading

Review: The Atheist Delusion

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In his latest evangelistic movie “The Atheist Delusion – Why Millions Deny the Obvious” Ray Comfort is once again out among atheists in what I’d like to say is his inimitable style – but that would be a very inaccurate description. Because it is clear that Comfort has developed an easy to use approach that he’d like every Christian to use when confronted with atheist claims of “there’s no evidence of God”. Continue Reading

MicroEvolution: Dispelling the Myths and Misconceptions

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As the above image implies, there’s a mist that surrounds the concept of microevolution that conceals clarity on the matter. If you’re not a close follower of the theories that comprise Darwin’s theory of evolution[1], you are probably laboring under a misconception of what microevolution is.  That misconception is furthered (it appears to me) by Darwinists seeking to bolster the evidence-lacking theory.  To dispel the mists surrounding this often abused term, and shine the light on the truth, following are five myths or misconceptions, and the reality or the truth behind each one.

As I point out in an article titled “Games Evolutionists Play: The Name Game” part of the problem with demonstrating the falsity of  Darwinism is that evolutionists keep changing the definition in an attempt to keep evolution from being falsified. So let’s start with a firm definition. Jonathan Wells, author of “Icons of  Evolution” provides a firm definition of both micro-evolution and macro-evolution in the glossary of his book “The Myth of Junk DNA“: Continue Reading