Showing why belief in Christianity is rational
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
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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
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Both the big bang theory and the creation model of origins have what appear to be fatal flaws. Both issues relate to the speed of light. Are they both fatal? Or is one an actual flaw and the other just an apparent one? |
| A map from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) shows temperatures in the universe vary on average by less than 1/50,000 of a degree |
Nobody likes double standards. There have been long, sometimes bloody, and in some cases – ongoing – battles to make the same rules apply to everyone. This is true in the work place – most want equal pay for equal work. This is true in race relations – no one in this day and age will abide Jim Crow laws or making African Americans sit at the back of the bus. It’s true in sports – no one like cheaters – however they choose to break the rules thus applying a double standard. Why then does it not apply to the sciences of cosmology and evolution? Since the focus of this article is on distant starlight, I will focus in on the double standards used in cosmology, but understand the same points apply equally to evolutionary “scientists” who give explanations which are no more than smoke and mirrors.1
Naturalistic Cosmologists regularly breaks the laws of physics
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Why is it that naturalist cosmologists can break the laws of physics at will and with impunity; and still have it be called “science” (not pseudo-science), but creationist scientists, following the laws of physics are not scientists, and are told they’re not practicing science? No such thing happens you say? Let’s dismiss the notion that creation scientists are treated fairly, and with respect. If they were, there would be no need for the recent article by Creation Ministries titled: Fallacy: creationists can’t be scientists;2 or Ben Stein’s recent movie on the censure faced by scientists who don’t toe the evolutionary line and instead support intelligent design.3 |
The fact that creation scientists are not given the respect they deserve is already well documented. What is not as well documented is the ability for materialist scientists to play fast and loose with the laws of physics and still be considered “scientists” contributing “valid” theories. Consider the following conversation:
Big Bang Theorist: The universe began 13.7 billion years ago when a singularity which consisted of all the energy that will ever exist, which did not exist previously, suddenly exploded into existence out of nowhere (and nowhen4) creating time and space in an event commonly known as the big bang. The universe has been rapidly expanding ever since.
Creationist: No, the universe began about 6,000 years by an act of God as recorded in Genesis 1.1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
Big Bang Theorist: If the universe is only 6,000 years old, how do you explain distant stars whose light has taken million of years to reach earth?
Creationist: There are a number of theories that explain that. How do you explain the big bang’s Horizon problem?
Big Bang Theorist: That’s easy: Inflation.
Creationist: Inflation is not the answer – many scientists don’t believe it, and simply put: the whole theory is impossible. As for distant starlight, there are theories on how to resolve that apparent problem.
For those defending a young earth, creationist world view, this conversation is likely a familiar one. But before I point to some of the answers regarding how distant star light can be seen in a young creation, let’s first look at the many problems for big bang cosmology. Let me start with an overview of the big big as provided by Morgan Freeman from his series, Through the Wormhole
“With the addition of inflation, the big bang became a cohesive three act play.
Act one – a singularity pops into existence out of nowhere and nowhen and containing in one single dot all the energy that will ever be in our universe.
Act two – Inflation suddenly takes hold. An unimaginably rapid expansion of space smooths the spreading out of that energy bringing order to the universe. It’s now a massive soup of evenly expanding plasma.
Act three – the universe cools. Matter begins to clump together under the force of gravity.
Eventually forming stars, galaxies and planets.5
Inflation has been mentioned a couple of times now. If you think it has something to do with your money, the economy or the amount of air in your car’s tire, you clearly need this overview.
The Big Bang theory: Playing fast and loose with the laws of physics
You don’t have to get deep into the big bang theory before scientists have to start playing fast and loose with the recognized laws of physics.
Problem 1: The Singularity
The first one – in act one – is a familiar one. “A singularity pops into existence out of nowhere and nowhen.” Stop. This is impossible. Nothing exists. From nothing comes nothing. How can a “singularity” which consists of “all the energy that will ever exist” be created? It defies the law of conservation of energy which states in a closed system, energy can be neither created nor destroyed.
Problem 2: “Popping into Existence”
Just as importantly how can it “pop into existence” when nothing exists? What is there to pop into? Neither space nor time exists at this point. As our narrator Morgan Freeman points out, there is no “where” for it to pop into, and there is no “when” to pop into since time does not yet exist. Thus there is no “existence” for it to pop into. This breaks the law of causality which states in the cause-effect chain of events – effects follow causes (not the other way around) and those causes are separate from the effects. This is essentially the argument made by the Kalam Cosmological argument for the existence of God. Yet big bang cosmologists essentially want you to believe that the singularity is self caused – because again there is nothing in existence, according to the big bang theorists, so nothing could have caused it but itself.
So here were are in the “first act” of the big bang, we haven’t even gotten to the difficult problems, and already 2 fundamental laws of physics have been broken.
Paul Steinhardt, the Albert Einstein professor of physics at Princeton University explains how physicists allow themselves to get away with this nonsense:
“This is normally referred to as the cosmic singularity, some sort of breakdown in the laws of physics, which in the standard big bang theory you simply ignore.”6
They simply ignore it. Pretend it isn’t a problem or it doesn’t matter. And they call that science, and themselves scientists?
Problem 3: The Horizon problem
The Horizon problem is yet another show stopping issue for the big bang. Big bang theorists will tell you it has been “resolved” by sleight of hand tricks involving the laws of physics with the aforementioned theory of inflation. But before delving into the problems with inflation, you need to understand the problem7 that inflation “solves” for the big bang. Continue Reading
I tend to be hard on watches. The bands break, the crystals crack, they get scratched up – something usually befalls them. So I tend to ask for watches as gifts – especially around Christmas time. This past year was no different. My family gave me an extraordinary gift – two watches – one digital, one mechanical. What’s extraordinary is not that I received two watches (though that was very nice), it’s the type of watch I received.
The one watch – a mechanical one featured above – is an amazing sight to behold. It has a see through design, so you can see the inner mechanisms from both the front and the back. I’m not a watch maker, so bear with me as I try to describe just a few of the marvelous mechanisms in this mechanical wonder with terms borrowed from Wikipedia. Continue Reading
 The Fall of Lucifer Antonio María Esquivel y Suárez de Urbina, 1840 |
Paradoxically, the problem of evil is proof that God exists. |
On Friday, December 14th, 2012 a gunman who shall remain unnamed so as to deny him any further fame, entered the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton Connecticut, and shot and killed 20 students and 6 adults. Before driving to the school for the rampage he had killed his mother, and when finally confronted, he killed himself bringing the death toll to 28. In a news conference that same day, Gov. Dannel Malloy summed it up succinctly: “Evil visited this community today”.
This article is being written, as it turns out, on the 20th anniversary1 of the Oklahoma City Bombing on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building which killed 168 people and caused 680 nonfatal injuries. Additionally it caused an estimated $652 million in damages.
These are but a couple of drops in a sea of evil that in one way or another touches the lives of every single human being that lives and has ever lived. This curse upon humanity is paradoxically an affirmation of the truth of God for Christians, while for those unwilling to believe, it becomes a reason (in their mind) why they shouldn’t believe God exists. Why is it that people can look at the same evidence and come to diametrically opposed conclusions? How can consideration of a single issue – in this case the existence of evil – result in such radically different reactions and beliefs from people? One might ask the same questions of a phenomenon at the other extreme of the moral continuum – miracles.
Why do miracles cause some to believe, while others only see in them only something to either scoff at or be angry at; or to make accusations that people are being “misled”? In both cases (reactions to the problem of evil and the reaction to miracles) the root cause is the same: an unwillingness to acknowledge God as Lord who will bring all created things under his control and under his judgment.
The mere thought of God as Lord manifests itself for many as statements of unbelief. As particles in the atmosphere are the core around which moisture coalesces to form rain drops or snow, likewise miracles and the problem of evil are items around which unbelief can coalesce and be visibly expressed.
For those living in disobedience the prospect of a God who will judge all is a scary one. And their unwillingness to face this truth is not because of their ignorance of God – no God has made his existence plain to all (Rom 1.19). No, it’s not ignorance of God that’s the problem, it’s an unwillingness to be subject to God that causes them to express views inconsistent with their worldview, and thus speak as a hypocrite or express irrational view (or both) as we’ll see. Continue Reading
 Artist’s depiction of the invisible Higgs field which fills the entire universe according to the standard model of particle physics |
Scientists claim to base theories only on science but the fact is they are as faith driven as any fundamental Christian |
There have been many famous creeds offered about science by scientists. And I use creed in the normal sense, which as Google defines it is:
“a system of Christian or other religious belief; a faith.”
So to be precise I’m using it in the sense of the faith of scientists. While they don’t like to admit it, materialists scientists do indeed have faith in a belief that underlies all their theories – the physical world is all there is. This faith is typically encapsulated and expressed in what often becomes a well-known adage. Here’s a couple:
“The COSMOS is all that is or ever was or ever will be.”1
Carl Sagan starts “Cosmos” – both his book and TV Series – with this statement of faith. Here’s another from evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky:
“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”2
In case you didn’t notice, both of these are statements of faith. How can we tell? Easy. These are not testable hypotheses based on specific evidence(s). They are general statements which support a specific worldview (a materialist one) clearly intended to discredit other approaches to science. Another dead give away – when other scientists point out serious problems with the associated theory, instead of re-examining the theory, they get angry with the questioner for daring to question them.
Consider the Cosmos statement. Most materialist scientists are firmly in the big bang camp. Yet such scientists can not say the cosmos always was because according to the big bang, there was a time when the cosmos wasn’t. (For Christian apologists, this leads naturally to the Kalam cosmological argument which I discuss in Enraging the Dragon.) Thus for Sagan, since neither he nor anyone else has any evidence the Cosmos always “was”, (in fact the evidence is to the contrary) that is a statement of faith. As for Dobzhansky, who tries to at once both affirm evolution and discredit creationism, the faith based nature of his statement has become apparent as many biologists, and other scientists have reached the conclusion that evolutionary theory is quite unnecessary for true science to progress.3
Man, being a creature of faith, can’t help but espouse some type of faith, so I don’t begrudge scientists their faith. No, the issue I have is with the various pretenses they don as a masquerade, in efforts to mislead the public. In disguising their faith they also disguise the motivations of the resulting behaviors – such as what to research. What pretenses are donned, you ask? Glad you asked: Continue Reading
 A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun… Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon Rev 12.1, 3 |
When it comes to the Big Bang Theory, better to deny it and enrage the dragon, than God |
I’ve noticed a number of Christians – including some well known defenders of the faith1 – like to use the Big Bang as a way to ease a scientifically minded culture into belief in God since the Big Bang theory requires you believe that 1) the universe began 2) a finite amount of time ago, at a point in time, 3) out of nothing – just like the bible says. That leaves a perfect opening to present the Kalam cosmological argument which, briefly stated, says:
1. Anything that begins to exist has a creator
2. The Universe began to exist
3. Therefore the universe had a creator Continue Reading
