Category Archives: Bible

Biblical Teaching

Is Creation Relevant? Part 2: Undisputed Evidence

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In part 1 of this article, we began to explore the dynamics around the question, “Is creation relevant?” What we found is that to God, it is quite relevant – it is the first thing he wants us to know about himself, as indicated in the first verse of the Bible – “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” But today, due to a desire to make and live one’s own reality, people are throwing away what God has clearly created and instituted in order to fashion a world made to their own likings and tastes – whether such a world is true or not. And since they have rejected God’s truth – the world they fashion is increasingly distant from the truth of what God created. And thus like the shadow of Mordor over Tolkien’s middle earth, the shadow of self deception grows increasingly long over the lives of people today.

In our previous exploration, we left off pondering the  question “how do we begin to address this problem of a rejection of absolutes and the creator?” – the Creator being of course the ultimate absolute. Which is where we pick it up today.  In order to address the problem, we must understand what is at the root of the problem of people rejecting the Creator and His teaching on creation. Otherwise we will merely  be treating symptoms, while the disease continues to ravage the body (Some of those symptoms – 80-90% who make a profession of faith fall away; 2/3 of professing young adults leave the faith by the time they leave college; the falling numbers of people adhering to Biblical truth, etc.). Thus we must understand why people reject the creator. Continue Reading

Is Creation Relevant? Part 1: The Problem

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Is teaching and proclaiming God’s creation of the universe and all life relevant for today? Is the biblical proclamation –  “In the beginning, God created … ” a message that 21st century people need to hear; or should we have the same focus as the apostle Paul who said – “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified“? (1 Cor 2.2)

 Some Christians see an insistence on adhering to the traditional creation account – that God created in six – 24 hour days about 6,000 years ago – as unnecessarily divisive.  But adherence to any Biblical account can be divisive. Some Christians don’t believe, for example,  that the New Testament witness of the day to worship is on Sunday (Acts 20.7) and insist on keeping the Old Testament practice of meeting on the Sabbath (Saturday).  That has been an issue divisive enough to form separate denominations over. So the question of divisiveness is beside the point.  It does not address the question of relevance. Also, since the divisiveness issue is an in house question (the house of God I mean) that has already been well addressed[1] I won’t spend time on it here.

Others say that for those who are lost, the account of creation is not a concern. They may have many concerns, but how the universe began is typically not one of them. I had that conversation with a pastor, who said of the many people he speaks to, creation is not an issue. And though not stated, the implication was that creationists spend too much time discussing things that are not of interest. Things such as evolution, the big bang, dinosaurs, the flood, the age of the earth, etc.,  etc.  Perhaps he has a point. Perhaps at the point he speaks with people there is no interest in creation. But does that mean the issue is not there, lurking beneath the surface? Continue Reading

If evolution is true, Humanity is doomed

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Model of the head of Sonny the AI robot from I, Robot

 

 Evolution predicts humans will eventually go the way of the Dodo.

I came across an interesting headline in my newsreader the other day:

“The beginning of the end: Google’s AI has beaten a top human player at the complex game of Go”[1]

Here is their one sentence summary of what happened:

“Earlier today, AlphaGo, an artificially intelligent  algorithm developed by Google’s DeepMind subsidiary, categorically beat Lee Sedol, one of the best players of the Chinese board game Go”

I remember a similar epic match up back in the day (twenty years ago to be precise) in Philadelphia between IBM’s supercomputer “Deep Blue” and the then reigning world champion chess master Gary Kasparov (mentioned in the article above in passing).  In the first match up, Deep Blue won only 1 of the 6 game series. Not satisfied, IBM wanted to win an entire match, so the engineers went off and made improvements for a rematch.

The rematch came the following year in New York City. As the above article notes, Deep Blue used a “brute force” approach to playing chess, evaluating the strength of various possible chess plays. Brute force is a bit of an under statement: “Deep Blue could calculate over 200 million chess positions per second”[2] according to Smithsonian historian David Allison. Kasparov and Deep Blue split the first two games – winning one each, and tied the next three. Kasparov lost the final game to Deep Blue, giving Deep Blue the match. Kasparov, perhaps like many, couldn’t believe he could lose to a machine and IBM’s refusal to requests for computer logs and a rematch seemed to highlight previous charges he had made earlier in the match accusing the IBM team of cheating – having a human (grand master) help guide the machine.

The difference between Deep Blue’s win and  AlphaGo’s win is that: Continue Reading

Refining the Questions for Question Evolution Day

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Above: Redirecting the questions answered by Phil Plait		 Refining the questions to evolutionists for Question Evolution Day

Evolutionists claim that evolution is not a religion. That becomes increasingly difficult to believe as they act more and more like devout followers of a faith based religion. In addition to having doctrine, discipline for those who disagree with the faith, preachers and teachers, they now also have a holy day. Perhaps you’ve heard of it: Darwin Day, a celebration held on the anniversary of Darwin’s birthday, February 12. If the practice of evolution wasn’t looking like a religion before, it certainly is now. I wouldn’t even be surprised if they begin to exchange gifts on Darwin’s day.

For the Darwin’s day just past, astronomer Phil Plait who appears on science programs such as How the Universe Works, tweeted a link to an article he wrote in response to questions from Creationists pointing out problems with evolutionary theory. (The questions are appropriate for Question Evolution Day, which is held on the same day as Darwin Day,  but were in fact asked at the Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate.) In his article “Answers for Creationists” Phil addresses the questions from the secular consensus view – that is to say from the “evolution is true/fact” perspective.

He sets it up like this:

On BuzzFeed, there is a clever listicle that is a collection of 22 photos showing creationists holding up questions they have for people who “believe” in evolution. These questions are fairly typically asked when evolution is questioned by creationists. Some are philosophical, and fun to think about, while others show a profound misunderstanding of how science works, and specifically what evolution is.

He goes about answering the 22 questions from creationists. Given his answers (when he has them – for some he doesn’t and never will), I’d like to look at how we as creationists can better formulate the questions to minimize wiggle room. The problem is many of the questions are imprecise, or mix theories, thus giving him (and all evolutionists) plenty of wiggle room through which they drive a truckload of nonsense. The result being, evolutionists continue in the belief that creationists are wrong about origins and don’t understand science; while evolutionists are correct and properly understand science.

So while I’ll comment on Phil’s answers, it’s primary to lay the foundation for better questions. The goal being to refine them so what we creationists ask the evolutionists leaves as little wriggle room as possible (none at all preferably) to squirm out and thus avoid the serious problems with Darwinian theory. So what follows are the original questions, part or all of Phil’s answer, followed by my remarks, and if appropriate a refined or redirected question.  So here we go: (the question is in bold, Phil’s answer in italics.) Continue Reading

Misguided attacks by evolutionists

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 Those who deny God’s activity in the creation routinely try to kill any evidence that originates from the Bible.

In their zeal to defend evolutionary theory evolutionists often make unfounded and fallacious charges and accusations. Following is the problem with three of those attacks.

1. A Misguided attack on reason: “There’s no evidence of God”

The only alternative to life arising via some form of evolution, is that all life originated from God. There is no other alternative. Thus, in support of the godless theory of evolution, atheists and evolutionists alike tend to use the argument “there’s no evidence of God”, and its variant “there’s no evidence for x” – for any “x” they don’t believe. They don’t believe in God, so they say there’s no evidence of God. They don’t believe in an intelligent designer, so they say there’s no evidence for intelligent design. They don’t believe in miracles, so they say there’s no evidence of miracles, and some will foolishly go so far as to say there’s no evidence of the miracle worker Jesus.  What are we to make of such allegations? Continue Reading

Science and the Paradox of the Unbelievable

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Artist's depiction of Earth curving space according to Einstein's theory of General Relativity while satellite GPB orbits
Artist’s depiction of Earth curving space according to Einstein’s theory of General Relativity while satellite GPB orbits		 Christians are often accused of believing the unbelievable. But are they the only ones?

Christians are often accused of believing the unbelievable. One of those “unbelievables” is the claim that the universe was created in 6 days. But is that really unbelievable? Even if it were, are Christians the only ones who believe something that’s unbelievable? Consider this: physicists also believe something once considered unbelievable. If that is true, perhaps the belief of Christians is not as wild and crazy as some think.

Physics and the Unbelievable

Consider the well known phenomenon of gravity. Since Newton published his theory of gravity in the seventeenth century, people have believed in the pull exerted by the force of gravity. Newton is widely credited with being the founder of modern science based on his law of gravity and laws of motion.  Newton’s understanding of gravity seems intuitive – of course things are pulled by the force of gravity. Yet scientists today don’t believe his model of gravity.  They say that force is not real; it’s something Newton just made up. There is no pull of gravity.

Which leaves those of us who were taught Newton’s theory of gravity as an unchanging “law” of science in a bit of a quandary. We are now told not to believe in a foundational theory of science given to us by the father of modern science.  Saying Newton was wrong was once considered unthinkable, much less believable. Yet that is precisely what scientists today are asking us to do. Do you believe them? If you do, you too believe a number of things once considered nonsense by modern scientists as demonstrated below. And if you don’t you’re at odds with modern science. Continue Reading

Age of the universe: 13.75 Billion years- Fact or Faith statement?

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Scientists don’t actually measure time to determine the age of the universe. One method attempts to correlate passage of time given a certain amount of redshift in the light from a given star.
Do scientists accurately represent their ability to estimate the age of the universe?

Ever since the rebellion in the garden of Eden that sowed seeds of distrust against God and his word, there have been two groups of people: those who believe and obey the word of God and those who don’t. Among those who don’t believe it has become quite fashionable to smirk and be amused at the quaint beliefs of those bible believing unsophisticates – until of course  – evidence for those beliefs are found and confirmed. Here is the typical sequence:

1. A pronouncement is made that directly contradicts the bible – such as “King David didn’t exist because no archeological evidence can be found confirming his existence.”
2. Bible doubters jump on the band wagon and poke fun at those quaint bible believers – until evidence is found that confirms the Bible. In the case of King David, it was the Tel Dan Stele, a monument erected in the 8th or 9th century BC by one of the kings of Aram (ancient Syria) which bore the inscription “…of the House of David…”
3. An acknowledgement is made that the Bible was right (again) and off they go looking for some other part of the Bible to doubt.

In the case of King David,  all but the most obstinate doubters will agree with the myth hunters:

“When the inscription at Tel-dan was found, that put the debate to rest. It was clear that David did exist.”[1]

Today, one of the Bible truths most attacked by scientists in every field is the Bible’s proclamation that the entire universe was created in 6 days. This proclamation is strongly denied because if true, it means that neither the Big Bang nor Darwinian evolution can be true, because both of those require billions of years.  Therefore atheistic and materialistic scientists have a vested interest in keeping belief in a billions year old universe alive – it’s required for their worldview. And thus they take every opportunity to promote that godless belief. And so we regularly see such scientists either outright mocking Christian belief, or attempting to show why, according to their calculations, it cannot be correct. Here is one of those attempts made during the reboot of Cosmos, as narrated by the show’s host, Neil deGrasse Tyson:

“The crab nebula is about 6,500 light years from earth. According to some beliefs that’s the age of the whole universe. But if the universe were only 6,500 years old, how could we see the light from anything more distant than the crab nebula? We couldn’t. There wouldn’t have been enough time for the light to get to earth from anywhere farther away than 6,500 light years in any direction. That’s just enough time for light to travel through a tiny portion of our milky way galaxy.” 

“To believe in a universe as young as only 6 or 7,000 years old is to extinguish the light from most of the galaxy. Not to mention the light from all the hundred billion other galaxies in the observable universe.”[2]

This actually points to a bigger problem – the problem of distant starlight. And what the Big Bangers won’t tell you is that the Big Bang has its own distant starlight problem. I dealt with the distant starlight problem in the article “Which theory has the fatal flaw, Big Bang or Creation“, so I won’t cover that ground again here. In this article we’ll focus instead on the problems with the big bang proclamation of a 13.75 billion year old universe.[3]

As far as such scientists are concerned, people who believe in a 6,000 year old earth are like believers in a flat earth – hopelessly backwards and foolishly ignorant. But there is an important distinction to be made here. Believers in the Bible are not like believers in a flat earth. Besides the fact that the bible proclaimed the earth is round thousands of years before 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue,[4] there is direct, clear evidence that the earth is round: photographs of the earth from space being one of them. This site is about rational reasons to believe, so for those really seeking the truth, that should be the end of the matter.

Now that we’ve established Christians believe because of strong, direct, evidence supported reasons, let’s apply the same standard to the age of the earth. Let’s have the scientists present direct, clear evidence that the universe is 13.75 billion years old as they claim. Direct evidence would be something like a clock that has been running since the beginning that we could consult, or an eye witness that existed for the duration that can give testimony as to the passage of time or the time frame.

Scientists will say something to the effect “a clock running since the beginning – that’s absurd. That would require the clock to exist in the beginning before anything existed which is clearly impossible. Likewise, a testimony would require an immortal being outside of time and space – which is also impossible.”  So  scientists have no direct, conclusive evidence of a 13.75 billion year old universe. What evidence do they have? Let’s come back to that question. First, let me point out that we do have an eye witness testimony of an immortal being outside of time of space  – that of God who said:

“For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.”
Ex 20.11

Scientists of course do not accept that testimony- it’s not scientific. But please note that the Bible describes God as having the needed qualities: scripture testifies that God is both immortal (1 Tim 1.17,) and existed before any created thing, and thus is outside of space and time (Gen 1.1, John 1.1-3). (Note – scientist agree that space and time were both created – though they believe they were created in the Big Bang).

So Christians have the direct evidence of the God of Creation who testifies as to how long it took him to create the universe: 6 days.  Scientists have no direct evidence of a 13.75 billion year old galaxy.  So let’s return to the question above: exactly what evidence do they have as to the age of  the universe?

How Scientists Calculate the Age of the Universe

Since scientists cannot consult clocks to determine the age of the earth, and they can’t use tools like the much abused and misused radiometric dating process as they do for materials on earth.  Since the stars they want to measure are light years away, they have no physical samples to work with. What then, do they have to work with? Continue Reading

Six Day Creation: Written in Stone

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The six day creation is written in the Ten Commandments by the finger of God. Exodus 20.1-17

 Was the world really created in 6 literal days?

Seven days that divide the world.1 That’s what mathematician, philosopher of science and apologist John Lennox calls the biblical account of the first seven days of the universe.  But why should that be? Compared to the text of  Genesis 3 – the account of the Eve and the serpent,  the account of the creation (Gen 1) is rather straight forward.  Yet it appears there are more interpretations of the straight forward text of the first seven days than there are of the clearly more complex text of Eve and the fall.

Even so, the account of Eve and the serpent is not so difficult that it can’t be easily  understood as I demonstrate in the previous post. Why then, is what appears to be the clear meaning of Genesis 3 not the understanding most bible believing commentators hold to today?2 Which got me to thinking of that question in context of our current section of Genesis 1 concerning the biblical creation account. Both the account of the creation and the account of the fall appear very clear and straight forward. Why then are there so many different understandings of what they mean? That is an important question to answer before looking at the account of the creation of the universe in 6 days.

Jesus asked a very similar question, and also gives us the answer:

Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say.
John 8.43

Why were they unable to hear? Because they had an agenda, and they were intent on carrying it out Jesus said. (John 8.44) And as we well know, having an agenda or a priori assumptions that cannot be changed creates boundaries that circumscribe what you will allow yourself to believe, locking out of  consideration anything to the contrary.

The Hidden Agenda

What is the agenda behind people interpreting these two passages of scripture that make some so reluctant to accept the clear message of the text of one or the other (or both)? Interestingly enough it boils down to the same issue: a desire to either support, or remove support for the long ages needed for the bang bang and neo-Darwinian evolution. With regard to how to understand the serpent, a statement made by a Christian blogger3 who supports evolution and thus rejects much creation evidence makes this point crystal clear: Continue Reading

A talking snake and the alien connection

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The serpent deceives Eve. (Gen 3.1-5)		  Was there really a talking snake that deceived Eve in the garden of Eden?

‘I’m a Christian, but the Bible’s all stories1 … ’. As I write this article, that is not only the title of the lead article on Creation Ministries International website, but unfortunately it’s a sentiment shared by far too many devoted, well meaning, but dead wrong Christians; as well as by most Bible skeptics. I lay a good portion of the blame for the many misguided Christians in this area at the feet of Bible teaches and pastors who get in front of congregations or Bible classes every week, and talk about Bible “stories” (stories being typically understood as make believe) instead of Bible “accounts”  (accounts being typically understood as a recounting of something factual that happened). You may think the difference is a minor thing – but the way an idea is labeled is critically important. Why else do companies pay so much attention to branding (a form of labeling) and spend millions to promote their own brand as well as protect it? Why else are there battles over how various issues are labeled?

Why do those who support liberal border policies prefer the term “Undocumented immigrants” over the more accurate “Illegal aliens?”

Why do so many in the LGBT community insist on calling those who support one man,  one women marriage not  “traditional marriage  supporters” but rather  “homophobic” or “haters”?

Because they know how you label an idea is critical to how it will be perceived. And they want to frame how people think about those issues without even discussing it. The church has handed the adversary an easy victory on that front by allowing the historic events of the bible to be labeled as “stories”  – without raising an objection. (Please note my objection!) But terminology is just the tip of the iceberg. The root of the problem lies much deeper.  And it’s tied up with why so many in the church still call Bible accounts “stories.”  The reason: because unfortunately, for many Christians – as the CMI article points out – that is precisely what they are to such Christians: just stories. Not historic accounts, but stories – not to be taken literally. Not to be understood as actual history.

But as Bible and Hebrew scholars2 will tell you, the Genesis accounts (and biblical narratives in general) are presented not as fictional stories, but as straight forward narrative history, and are intended to be understood as such. What then are we do with things like a 6 day creation, and a talking snake?

The reason most people no longer believe in a 6 day creation is they need to squeeze in billions of years because they have embraced the godless theories of the  big bang and neo-Darwinian evolution which require billions of years. I have already devoted a number of articles3 to exposing the numerous flaws of those godless theories so I will spend no time here. Instead, we turn to the objection of a talking serpent.

Some people reason that since snakes neither talk, nor even have the physical capability to do so (no vocal chords, etc.) the “serpent” referred to in the account of the fall in  Genesis cannot be a real snake, and thus they reason, the account cannot be a true and accurate account. But like a murder mystery that seems obvious who-done-it at the beginning, you don’t come to the correct conclusion until you consider all the evidence; and the key pieces are not given until the end. So let’s take a step back,  broaden our view and consider more evidence and determine if the “it can’t be true” position is a premature jumping to conclusions before all the evidence is in.

Who or what is the serpent?

Let’s start with a review of the biblical text: Gen 3.1-4

3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,
3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'”
4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman.
Gen 3.1-4

There would be no question that the serpent is Satan, or the devil, except for the few who deny that, claiming the serpent is never identified as Satan in scripture4. Perhaps the serpent is not identified as Satan in this small section, but it is simply not true that the serpent is not identified in scripture. Jesus appears to be referencing the serpent when speaking of the devil in  John 8.44; and he clearly does so in his revelation to John:

The great dragon was hurled down–that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.
Rev 12.9

Only those who don’t know their bible well or are actively trying to deny the connection can miss this clear identification of the serpent as Satan. But that’s the easy identification. Let’s press on to the deeper questions:

Who did Eve speak with? A snake, the Serpent or something else?

You may wonder what’s the difference between a snake and the serpent? Let me suggest that the term “the serpent” acts as a technical term, a code word that in many place in scripture refers specifically to Satan. We see the key to the code in Rev 12.9 (above) – the serpent=Satan (as does the dragon=Satan)5.  Now let’s go back and re-read the passage in light of that understanding – that “the serpent” refers to “Satan”. Continue Reading

Earth 2.0 and ETs: another scientific pipe dream

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Some scientists need to be reminded that it’s ill-advised to count your aliens before they’re discovered.
 Artist conception of Kepler-452b with Earth for size comparison.
  Clouds, continents and oceans depicted on Kepler-452b are included though there is no evidence for them.

 

With the discovery of the earth like planet Kepler-452b, we have the opportunity for a valuable object lesson. Contrary to what scientists are hoping for – this will not be a lesson to Creationists that evolution is true and extra-terrestrial life has been found, thus validating evolution. No, the lesson this discovery affords is a demonstration of the foolishness of trying to disprove anything (much less the Bible) when:
1. Your primary evidence has yet to be discovered; and
2. You’re arguing from a scientific theory that flies in the face of the established laws of science.

The object for today’s lesson will be Jeff Schweitzer’s article in the Huffington Post, “Earth 2.0: Bad News for God“.  Schweitzer makes a number of mistakes common to scientists and others trying to debunk the Genesis account of origins. We’ll use his mistakes to identify these common errors so 1. You’re aware these are not unique earth shattering questions, they’ve all been handled before, and 2.  You can more easily identify them, and respond appropriately when next you see them. We’ll look first at the problem with his whole approach and in the process answer his objections. Schweitzer believes he has mounted a serious challenge to the Genesis account. He’s seriously mistaken.

 

1. Lack of Objectivity
Most people believe scientists are objective, impartial promoters of the truth –  whatever the truth turns out to be – because that is the image scientists have projected since the dawn of the modern scientific age. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Exhibit one: an example of a scientists who is biased and has obvious preferences as to what the truth is: Schweitzer himself.  Schweitzer can’t hide his obvious glee at the mere prospect of proving Bible believers wrong.

I would like here to preempt what will certainly be a re-write of history on the part of the world’s major religions. I predict with great confidence that all will come out and say such a discovery is completely consistent with religious teachings.1

“Preempt” the world’s religions? In other words he anticipates the world’s religions being wrong, and he wants to afford them no wiggle room to claim they were not, and thus this “preemptive” strike. An attempt to box them in; and to create the strongest case to say “see you’re wrong, and I told you so.” Hardly an objective position for a scientist. But Creationists and Intelligent Design theorists have been saying that the average scientist is neither objective nor unbiased for a long time. Creationist Ken Ham has been making this point for over a quarter century:

Many think of scientists as unbiased people in white laboratory coats objectively searching for truth. However scientists come in two basic forms, male and female, and they are just like you and me. They have beliefs and biases. A bias determines what you do with the evidence, especially the way in which you decide that certain evidence is more relevant or important than other evidence.2

One’s bias is of critical importance because it determines not only what evidence will be accepted3  but also the a-priori assumptions use in interpreting the evidence. For instance some look at the Grand Canyon and see a little bit of water acting over a long period of time (millions of years). Others see a lot of water (as in a world wide flood) acting over a short period of time. Same evidence, but a-priori assumptions determine how the evidence is interpreted. Clearly such assumptions are critical to one’s approach to both science and life.

2. Incorrect a-priori assumptions

Schweitzer is convinced that life exists out there in the universe, and one day we’ll discover it:

As I stated at the beginning, none of this will matter upon life’s discovery elsewhere.4

I make the case in the Waning, Great Scientific Hope  that the search for life on other planets is a hopeless one, with no chance of success. Why does Schweitzer consider it a certainty, and one day we’ll discover it? It’s based on his a-priori assumptions. Most scientists are naturalists – meaning they will allow only natural causes as scientific explanation. This forces them to adopt an anti-God, pro-Big Bang, pro-evolutionary world view which assumes: Continue Reading