18 Things You Can Expect Atheists to Say or Ask & How to Respond

I’ve participated in hundreds of discussions and had thousands of replies with atheist. You have ones who are sincere and others who are trolls. Be mindful, it isn’t your job to convince them of anything. However, what is important is to represent yourself as a loving human being, demonstrate a willingness to exchange, and emulate what you claim are the principles you live your life by.

Based on my experience here are 21 things they say and some tips on how to respond.

#1. Jesus never existed:

You can use these points in conversation:

Here is an article by an atheist outlining the case for Jesus existing. Ask what points in this article they disagree with https://t.co/ihuzKfIyeU

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Scholars who specialise in the origins of Christianity agree on very little, but they do generally agree that it is most likely that a historical preacher, on whom the Christian figure “Jesus Christ” is based, did exist.  The numbers of professional scholars, out of the many thousands in this and related fields, who don’t accept this consensus, can be counted on the fingers of one hand.  Many may be more cautious about using the term “historical fact” about this idea, since as with many things in ancient history it is not quite as certain as that.  But it is generally regarded as the best and most parsimonious explanation of the evidence and therefore the most likely conclusion that can be drawn.

The opposite idea – that there was no historical Jesus at all and that “Jesus Christ” developed out of some purely mythic ideas about a non-historical, non-existent figure – has had a chequered history over the last 200 years, but has usually been a marginal idea at best.  Its heyday was in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when it seemed to fit with some early anthropological ideas about religions evolving along parallel patterns and being based on shared archetypes, as characterised by Sir James Frazer’s influential comparative religion study The Golden Bough (1890). But it fell out of favour as the twentieth century progressed and was barely held by any scholars at all by the 1960s.

More recently the “Jesus Myth” hypothesis has experienced something of a revival, largely via the internet, blogging and “print on demand” self-publishing services.  But its proponents are almost never scholars, many of them have a very poor grasp of the evidence and almost all have clear ideological objectives.  Broadly speaking, they fall into two main categories: (i) New Agers claiming Christianity is actually paganism rebadged and (ii) anti-Christian atheist activists seeking to use their “exposure” of historical Jesus scholarship to undermine Christianity.  Both claim that the consensus on the existence of a historical Jesus is purely due to some kind of iron-grip that Christianity still has on the subject, which has suppressed and/or ignored the idea that there was no historical Jesus at all.

#2. Why aren’t there more ancient writings about Jesus?:

An atheist answers this here: https://historyforatheists.com/2017/05/did-jesus-exist-the-jesus-myth-theory-again/

Beyond that a few additional considerations.

There was no cloud computing, typewriters or significant elements of storage back then. The literacy rate was low and storage of the written word was extremely rare.

The oldest writings in Rome about Christianity outside of Paul’s writings are dated to after 100 AD. Based on what we know about the spread of Christianity in Rome we know it was already an established faith by 100 AD and can safely assume many people wrote about it, however; those writings are all lost to us.

During 70 AD the Jewish temple was lost to us and with it any potential writings during the time of Jesus life. In fact we have little writing fragments and no significant writings prior to 200 AD from Pharisees and they were among the most literate people of the time.

Other historical figures like Hannibal have no contemporary writing during their lives as well. The standards and practices of the ancient world is foreign to modern society, creating often a level of skepticism that is unfounded.

#3 Faith has no value:

Here is scientific evidence faith has value: https://news.stanford.edu/2020/11/13/deep-faith-beneficial-health/

Additionally anecdotal evidence of significant historical figures and how faith empowered them. Individuals like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Dr. King, Harriet Tubman, and Barack Obama are a few.

#4 The belief in God is just based in brainwashing:

This research from Oxford suggest humans are pre-disposed to believe in God. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110714103828.htm#:~:text=New%20research%20finds%20that%20humans,spirit%20lives%20on%20after%2Ddeath.

#5 Bible isn’t reliable:

Based on comparative archeological standards. The bible is the most reliable book from the ancient world.

#6 Personal experience shouldn’t be weighed:

We allow eyewitnesses to testify in court. Often times their testimony is not substantiated by any objective piece of data.

If we believe personal experiences shouldn’t be weighed it would be the equivalent of suggesting that a person claiming they were sexually harassed should not be allowed to make any claim because they don’t have physical evidence.

Lastly, any atheist would have to admit that if they did have a one-on-one experience with God that they believed were authentic they would have no way of scientifically demonstrating it to other people. It would be true to them, but not to others.

#7 God can’t be scientifically proven:

Dr. Michio Kaku one of the leading Theoretical Physicist in the world says this:

“Can you prove the existence of God? Probably not. Science is based on evidence which is testable, reproducible, and falsifiable. So God is outside the usual boundary of science. Also, it is impossible to disprove a negative, so you cannot disprove the existence of God, either.”

One of the big issues is that if you assume one or even several people had an actual experience with God since it wasn’t recorded, replicable, or testable even if legitimate it would not fit the standard for being scientifically tested. You can see Dr. Kaku tweet here: https://twitter.com/michiokaku/status/1071826559974166528

#8 No Need for God: Spontaneous Generation

Pasteur Experiment

In 1861, Louis Pasteur presented evidence that would virtually put an end to the debate. He designed an experiment similar to Spallanzani’s, however, Pasteur’s experiment implemented a way to filter out microorganisms. Pasteur used a flask with a long, curved tube called a swan-necked flask. This flask allowed air to have access to the heated broth while trapping dust containing bacterial spores in the curved neck of the tube. The results of this experiment were that no microbes grew in the broth. When Pasteur tilted the flask on its side allowing the broth access to the curved neck of the tube and then set the flask upright again, the broth became contaminated and ​bacteria reproduced in the broth. Bacteria also appeared in the broth if the flask was broken near the neck allowing the broth to be exposed to non-filtered air. This experiment demonstrated that bacteria appearing in broth are not the result of spontaneous generation. The majority of the scientific community considered this conclusive evidence against spontaneous generation and proof that living organisms only arise from living organisms.

Additional info here: https://webprojects.oit.ncsu.edu/project/bio183de/Black/cellintro/cellintro_reading/Spontaneous_Generation.html

Abiogenesis is slightly different. The challenge here is primordial earth was way more hostile to living creatures than today: https://www.sciencealert.com/there-was-probably-less-lightning-on-the-early-earth-and-here-s-why

There is no true proven explanation for how life as complicated as that appears on earth could spur without divine intervention. Even assuming microbes from meteorites came to the planet its a long journey from there to here. There is currently no evidence advanced life anywhere near on the scale of earth exist elsewhere in the cosmos. This lack of evidence standard is the same atheist use in their debates.

#9 We know how the universe started

Yes we have a few theories that give us an idea of how our universe started. However, our universe is note representative of all existence. The Big Bang is an expansion theory. It is the beginning of time and space as we experience it. However, whatever pre-dated the beginning of our universe existed independent of time and space as we know it today. One could argue that would make it eternal and interdimensional in nature.

You can see some additional thoughts here: https://spiritualinferences.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/how-a-quantum-portal-infers-gods-existence-and-why-arguing-there-is-no-god-when-95-of-the-universe-is-not-observable-is-just-an-assumption/

#10 DNA Proves The Bible Is Wrong

At first glance this seems like a logical theory. However there are a couple of major gaps/challenges:

A) When Cain slays Abel he ask God for protection from other people on earth. This tells us there were other people on the planet.

An atheist recently responded and said that this could have been other children of Adam and Eve. While this cannot be completely dismissed. Seth is described as the next child.

B) Another consideration is that to believe in a God would be to believe in God’s ability to extend beyond traditional science. Meaning putting the biodiversity of all future humans into a few of the earliest humans.

C) The Old Testament if you read it neutrally is the story of Jewish lineage. As you follow it you notice there isn’t an emphasis on what is happening with the Chinese, Europeans, and Central/South Africa which the writers of the bible were all aware of. It is a regional focus and so all references to “The world” are references to the region.

#11 Why does suffering occur?

This question makes sense. It is something that demands compassion. Especially for those who have lost children or parent children that have severe disabilities.

A) Bad things may happen to good people in this world, but this world is not the end. 

B) Jesus was Righteous, yet He suffered more than we can imagine. We follow in His footsteps: “If you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats.

C) Free will cannot exist on earth without there being consequences. Sadly the free will of others impacts our very own lives.

D) 80 years or less of existence on earth helps prepare us for what’s next. 80 years in a world with suffering is like the size of a pebble in the ocean when you compare it to billions of years+ in eternity

#12 There are so many Gods why is yours right?

There are a few key things that significantly differ Jesus teachings from other deities.

A) At the time his teachings were completely counterinitiative to humanity at the time. It’s easy to validate this based on how the Pharisees and Sadducees responded to him.

B) He called for people to go against things that seem natural. No more eye for an eye. Turn the other cheek. Look inward before judging others. This along with other teachings was a paradigm shift.

C) Every other religion I’m aware of uses what I call “scale theory.” This means a person’s place in eternity is determined by how good vs bad they are. The problem with this is what is that standard? Do you have to be 80% good, 60% good or 51% good? If you were 80% good but on the last day of your life you did something bad does that now disqualify you? Jesus standard was simple. Belief! Such a standard is upsetting but it also at least is predictable and measurable. It also meant to the dismay of many that anyone can be redeemed.

#13 Noah’s Flood is Fake

A) There is numerous pieces of evidence suggesting there was a major regional flood at the time Noah describes.

B) The writers knew the region. They only had visibility of their lens. The OT is referencing the experience of Jewish people and those who interacted with them.

C) This interpretation removes the need to be concerned about all people coming from Noah as this interpretation leaves other people on the planet.

#14 Why Doesn’t God Reveal Self and Clear All This U:

A) The bible says faith is an important principle in life. If God was known there would be no need for faith.

B) Someone might revert back to well what is the benefit of faith? This article clears that up: https://news.stanford.edu/2020/11/13/deep-faith-beneficial-health/

C) If God did reveal himself one time. How long do you think it be before atheist reappeared? They wouldn’t certainly return so it wouldn’t clear up the matter.

#15 God’s None Presence Proves He doesn’t Exist

See answer #14

#16 God is either not all powerful or is evil

The term all powerful or omnipotent is ascribed to God and used by atheist to say God can do anything. This misses some important contextual clues laid out in the Bible and by basic logic.

A) God is eternal. Therefore God cannot commit suicide. Therefore God cannot do anything. So words like all powerful and omnipotent like any other human word cannot give full justice to God. No word describing God is complete

B) God can bind himself. When he granted humans free will on earth it meant not overriding that free will on earth

The consequences that occur are tied to free will. Not to God wanting there to be evil.

C) Understandably there is a ton said about Old Testament behavior. This is not easily reconcilable. This is a ponit where leaning on we don’t know all of God’s ways may be reasonable. In addition there are some thoughtful writings on the topic worth discussing and seeing what resonates in your heart. Here for example is one that resonates with me:

“So one possible resolution to the moral and theological dilemma raised by the texts is that Old Testament passages about violence and war thus tell us more about the people who wrote them and the times they were living in than about the God in whose name they claimed authority to do these things.”

#17 The Wisdom From The Bible is Unimportant

A) The Bible has sold 5 billion copies. Making it the top selling book of all time. This by itself shows empirical evidence of importance.

B) There are several unique concepts in the bible. If others have said them previously; the bible is unique in threading the combination of them together. Here are a few examples:

Power is made perfect in weakness.

Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds

He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.

C) There are many list based on categories:

Here are 12 business principles from the bible: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/12-biblical-principles-which-build-business-ken-gosnell/

Here are 21 lessons on marriage from the bible. Even removing the ones that are about God specifically many are very practical: https://connectusfund.org/21-marriage-lessons-from-the-bible

91 verses about wisdom and knowledge and same here. Even removing the ones that reference God there is much value: https://testimon.io/blog/bible-verses-about-wisdom-and-knowledge

#18 The Bible is Full of Contradictions

A) Christians are Christians because they weigh the words of Jesus more. Think of the OT as Windows 3.1 and NT as Windows 10.

B) Anything the NT doesn’t cancel out remains and this is what Jesus means when he says teachings remain true. So many of the commandments still stand and many of the principles

C) To understand the bible use “The Every Verse Method.”

Pick a topic, look up every scripture on it and decide outcome by weighing the majority of the evidence. Things in NT outweigh OT.

How Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 Could Align with Science According to an Astrophysicist

Ankerberg: When it says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” [Gen. 1:1] is it talking about 13.7 billion years ago?

Ross: Yeah, I think Genesis 1:1 is speaking about God bringing into existence the entire physical universe – matter, energy, space and time – 13.7 billion years ago. The perspective is the entire universe. Genesis 1:2 brings us down to the surface of the earth. That’s a clue that we’re to understand by that statement, “the Spirit of God was brooding or hovering over the surface of the waters,” that from there on we’re to understand what God tells us from the perspective of an observer on the surface of the waters. For example, light would have been created in the beginning when God created matter, energy, space and time. But it was dark on the surface of the waters, and the scientists would tell us that the atmosphere of the earth and the interplanetary debris of the early solar system would have prevented the passage of sunlight and starlight to the surface of the earth; hence, darkness.

Ankerberg: Fuz, is the Bible then giving an accurate, scientific summary when it says the earth was void, was empty, and then it was dark, and then the Spirit of God hovered over the waters?

Rana: Yeah. I think that this is one of the most remarkable passages in Genesis 1 in terms of Moses being able to get these initial conditions of the early earth correct. You know, the phrase “formless and empty” comes from this Hebrew expression, tohu wa bohu, which carries with it a kind of a negative connotation or a connotation of wasteness and desolation. It’s something that is kind of lost in the translation. You can’t fully capture the meaning of that word. But as we look back at the early earth’s history, the first few hundred million years of the early earth was essentially, the earth was a place of desolation. Asteroidal impacts, cometary impacts would have rendered the earth unsuitable for life. It’s called the Hadean era after the Greek word Hades. So, this is a remarkable description as well.

Ankerberg: Hugh, is there any other religious book that follows the same “A, B, C, D’s” that the Bible lays out?

Ross: Well, there are other holy writings in different religions that try to lay out a sequence of creation events, but none of them get the initial conditions accurate like the Bible does, and none of them puts it in a correct chronological record with respect to the record of nature.

Ankerberg: Fuz, I wanted to ask you a question: How do you think of Genesis 1:2 in the origin of life?

Rana: Well, I think that Genesis 1:2 may be implying the origin of life. Now, clearly, when you look at the Genesis 1 account, it’s on the third day of creation where there’s a specific direct reference to God creating life. This would be plant life on the land. But in Genesis 1:2 we see this expression, “God hovering over the surface of the deep.” In the King James it talks about God “brooding over the surface of the deep.” And there’s only one other time, to my knowledge, where that Hebrew word that’s translated as “brooding” is used, and this is in Deuteronomy 32, the song of Moses. And in Deuteronomy 32:9-12, Moses is describing the burgeoning nation of Israel as being the apple of God’s eye and that God is “hovering over” this nation, He is “brooding over” the nation of Israel jealously like a mother eagle over her young. And if you take that imagery – and interestingly enough, God’s protecting this nation under conditions that are tohu wa bohu, desolation and wasteness, is implied – if you take that imagery, bring it to Genesis 1:2, God is clearly protecting something that is very precious to Him…

Ross: Under hostile conditions.

Rana: …under hostile conditions of the early earth. And we can infer from that that perhaps indeed this is speaking about the origin of life or the very first appearance of life on earth or the seeds of life on earth.

Ankerberg: Alright, let’s skip to Day 1 here because we’ve got to move on. There is so much you guys could say about this. Here’s the verse: “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” [Gen. 1:3-5] Theologian, what’s going on here? What did God make?

Samples: Again, you have a discussion of the creation. God is the Creator. He’s not only the transcendental Creator, but the sustainer of this beginning of this work. And so we again see God in His work of creation and this discussion of “light” and this beginning of a progression of days that brings us this depiction of God’s work in creation.

Ankerberg: Scientist, if the sun was already created in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, what do the words, “Let there be light,” mean here in Day 1?

Ross: Well, you’re perceptive! It says, “Let there be light.” The text does not say that God “created the light” or that God “made the light.” It’s “let the light be.” Light would have been there in the beginning. When God created the heavens and the earth, there would be light everywhere through the heavens. It was dark on the surface of the waters because of earth’s primordial opaque atmosphere. I believe what God did on the first creation day is He miraculously transformed earth’s atmosphere in the interplanetary medium so that light from the sun and the stars could penetrate through that atmosphere to the surface of the earth. But it’s light coming through in a defused fashion. The observer on the surface of the earth, if an observer was there, would not be able to see the sun, moon and stars, but would be able to see the light defusing through the atmosphere. An overcast sky would be a good image.

Ankerberg: Alright, do you think this is the day that the moon was created?

Ross: Well, the moon was either created before the first creation day or coincident with the first creation day, in my opinion.

Ankerberg: Because the moon is younger than the earth.

Ross: The moon is slightly younger than the earth. If Fuz is right that Genesis 1:2 is a reference to God creating life on planet earth, then the moon would be created before the first creation day. There are two episodes where we know for sure that the earth had this opaque condition blocking out light from the sun, moon and stars. One, of course, would be the event that formed the moon where this Mars-size planet collided with the earth and that would have thrown a huge amount of debris into orbit around the earth.

A second clear episode is something called “the late heavy bombardment,” all these asteroids and comets that pelted the inner solar system immediately previous to the origin of life. And since this is the account of God creating different life forms leading to human beings, it could well be that the first creation day is in reference to the events immediately after the late heavy bombardment. There are chemical things going on in the atmosphere as well, but for sure there would be this debris cloud.

Ankerberg: Photosynthesis was able to take place when the sunlight actually got to the earth. What does that mean?

Rana: Well, that means that life could now sustain itself on the surface of the planet. And we know from the fossil record that very early in earth’s history – between 3.8 to 3.5 billion years ago – we have the first photosynthetic life forms that appear and these life forms were critical in terms of transforming the earth’s atmosphere and introducing oxygen that would allow for advanced life to be created on Day 5 and Day 6.

Ankerberg: We’re also saying they didn’t evolve, because these little critters are so complex that those babies just couldn’t come about by random chance.

Rana: That’s right. What we see when we look at the geo-chemical record and the fossil record is the sudden appearance of complex life forms. Even though they were bacteria and single-celled, biochemically and metabolically, you’re looking at very complex organisms.

Ankerberg: Okay, so, Hugh, but the fact is, then, God created stuff in stages. Why did God create this simple life? You’ve got building blocks actually, but God’s creating; we know it’s so complex that God had to create every stage. But why did He do it in stages?

Ross: Well, the primordial earth wouldn’t have had the oxygen necessary for advanced life, so He creates life forms that will make that oxygen. He’s also concerned about the physics of the sun. The sun is getting, first, dimmer, and then it gets brighter. You want to create just the right life forms at just the right time to compensate for the changes in the sun’s luminosity.

A third thing He is trying to do is prepare the chemistry of the planet for advanced life. When God created these first bacterial life forms, you would have this even distribution of metals upon the face of the earth, a lot of it in soluble form, which would have been deadly to advanced life. Not deadly to the bacteria, but deadly to advanced life. And so one of the things God does early is He creates special metal-eating bacteria, sulfate-reducing bacteria that basically feed on these soluble metals, convert them into insoluble metals and deposit them in concentrated form. So, for example, zinc which was at a level of about one part per million in the environment in soluble form, which would have been deadly to human life, was now reduced to one part per billion and placed in concentrated, insoluble form, so that when we human beings come upon the scene, we can mine rich zinc deposits. None of that zinc would have been there for us to mine if it weren’t for billions of years of previously existing sulfate-reducing bacteria.

And God actually creates bacteria for each specific metal. It makes the environment safe for us but also gives us wealth that we can exploit for technology.

Ankerberg: We’ve been talking about the anthropic principles that are found in the universe – that God, you know, 13.7 billion years ago brought the universe into existence and then has fine tuned the universe and done things specifically all the way along the line. Now, a lot of Christians feel like they’ve got to hold onto “a day is 24 hours.” Now, to start to think about 24 hours, why would it take God, if God is God, 24 hours to do anything? He could have done it in a nanosecond.

Ross: Right.

Ankerberg: So, the 24 hours is nothing special. The question is, what is the age that we’re talking about? What are the tip-offs on the time of a “day” from the text?

Ross: Well, the tip-off is, this is written in Hebrew. The Hebrew language, biblical Hebrew, doesn’t have a word for a long period of time other than the word yom. It’s the only word in the biblical Hebrew language that can refer to a specific long period of time with a definite start point and an end point. The Hebrew word yom has four different literal definitions: part of a day time; a 12-hour period, roughly; 24 hours; or an extended period of time that’s finite in length. All four are literal readings of the texts. So I sign off to a doctrinal statement of belief in six literal creation days. But my understanding is that these are six consecutive long periods of time – which means there is no conflict with the established record of nature.

Ankerberg: Alright. Mr. Scientist, you have said the fact that advanced life can survive only if the evaporation of precipitation averaged between 25 and 60 liquid water inches per year. And then if you want abundance of life, you’ve got to have moisture changing geographically in different parts of the earth, ranging from two inches to 600 inches. And then you’ve got the luminosity of the sun that we know is, what, 17 percent brighter now than it was at the beginning of the earth?”

Ross: Seventeen percent brighter.^[1]

Ankerberg: So you need more moisture. You’ve got to have the sunlight coming in; everything’s got to be balanced. Tell us scientifically what you’re finding out is going on in Day 2 here.

Ross: Well, in Day 2 I believe it is God speaking about water in the atmosphere above and water in the ocean below, and the transfer of water from the ocean to the atmosphere and back. This is the water cycle. One of my friends, Dr. Robert Newman, who is an astrophysicist and a theologian, that was his theology thesis was an analysis of just that Day 2; drawing the strong conclusion it’s a definitive reference to God setting up a stable, long-lasting water cycle. And this really ties into the third creation day in terms of the continents. The only way to get water falling relatively evenly over the whole surface of the earth is if you position the continents just right relative the ocean; and the moon has to be in just the right position to make sure the rotation rate is what you need in order to get this well-distributed water cycle flowing over the face of the earth.

Ankerberg: What else is happening here, Fuz?

Rana: Well, what’s implied here is, as Ken mentioned, God is deeply involved in bringing this about. And just the fine tuning to maintain or even to establish a water cycle and then to maintain it for the entire earth’s history is incredibly remarkable. The atmospheric composition has to be fine tuned; the pressure has to be fine tuned to the earth’s atmosphere; you have to have the right amount of land mass; you have to have the right life forms at the right time. It’s incredible fine tuning and it speaks very powerful of divine design.

Ankerberg: Hugh, you say God had to be involved in this water cycle, because scientists have recently found a deadly imbalance in the water cycle and a remarkable phenomenon that compensates for it, namely, comets.

Ross: Well, the earth loses a tiny amount of water to outer space. It’s a very slow leakage. But over the course of billions of years it adds up. But likewise, there’s a very slow input of water from comets. You know, micro-comets, mini-comets, as well as regular comets bring in this supply of water. And the two are in balance, so earth is able to maintain the water it needs.

Ankerberg: But then, you’ve also got to have the balance, the sun is changing.

Ross: Right.

Ankerberg: Talk about that in relationship to the moisture on the earth – cold, hot and so on.

Ross: Well, the sun, for the last three billion years, has been getting progressively more and more luminous. Now, this would be deadly for life on earth unless the atmosphere of the earth were transformed gradually over those past three billion years so that the greenhouse gases become less and less efficient in their capacity to trap heat. And you want to keep it in perfect balance; otherwise, the water cycle will be disturbed. And so here we see incredible fine tuning from God’s perspective: creating just the right life forms at just the right time, fine tuning the plate tectonics and the volcanism of the earth so that, in combination, life with this plate tectonics and volcanism gradually removes carbon dioxide and water vapor from the atmosphere, transforming into carbonates and sand and coal oil and natural gas. If you get out of sync ever so slightly with the wrong life forms at the wrong time, or in the wrong abundance or the wrong diversity, suddenly you’re going to disturb that water cycle. You’re going to get a runaway greenhouse effect or runaway freeze-up of the planet and all life dies.

Ankerberg: As an astrophysicist, then, is the Genesis record accurate to science?

Ross: It’s in the correct chronological sequence, and it is giving the correct scientific description of each of the events that we see. And moreover, it’s the primary events. And if I were to ask the question, “What are the most significant events in preparing the planet for human beings?” they are the ones we see recorded in Genesis 1: The right chronological sequence, the correct scientific description. Could Moses have pulled that off without God’s divine inspiration? Impossible.

 

Astrophysicist and Astronomer Comment on Intelligent Design and The Ape and Man Origins

You can see the full interview here – https://www.jashow.org/articles/general/can-the-biblical-account-of-creation-be-reconciled-with-scientific-evidence-program-1/

My guests today are astrophysicist and astronomer Dr. Hugh Ross who received his PH.D in astronomy from the University of Toronto and did post doctoral research at Cal-Tech on Quasars, Mr. Fazale Rana who received his PH.D in chemistry at Ohio University, and Philosopher and Theologian Kenneth Samples of Biola University.

Rana: Well, similarity of form, in a logical sense, doesn’t necessarily mean there was an evolutionary connection. Evolutionists interpret that as indicating shared ancestry, and again, in an evolutionary sense. But if you look to the way we do design, the way I worked in product development for a number of years, and the same designer will reuse the same design elements over and over again. And so that’s perfectly consistent with a Creator bringing these different forms into existence along with bringing humanity into existence as special divine fiat acts.

Ankerberg: But even if they go with similarity, the fact is, there are certain things; for example, we’ve got a hand and monkeys have, what would you call it, a paw? hand?…

Rana: Yeah.

Ankerberg: …that is similar, but there are differences, big time, with our human hand, isn’t there?

Rana: Right. Well, there are a variety of differences between chimpanzees and humans. The capacity to walk erect is a huge difference. I mean, to go from a knuckle-walking quadruped – using four limbs to walk – to a bipedal organism involves a complete rearrangement of the skeleton, the musculature; there has to be a rearrangement, even, of the inner ear bones in order to sustain that. So it’s not a trivial difference that you’re looking at, it’s an extensive difference anatomically and physiologically.

Ankerberg: Okay. Hugh, have the paleoanthropologists agreed on the pathway from ape to man in terms of the different ones? Is there an agreement?

Ross: Not yet. I mean, wide dispute.

Ankerberg: Why not?

Ross: I mean, for one, they have only a few fossil finds.

Ankerberg: That’s important for people to understand is that when we’re talking about the “evidence,” the evidence is very slim. How slim?

Ross: Well, if you took all the bones, excepting humans and Neanderthals, and put them into one space, they would fill a reasonably sized closet. So we’re talking a closetful of bones. In most cases you’ve got just tiny pieces of a specimen. The most complete are just 35 to 40 percent. I think there are only two cases that are that complete. And so anthropologists have a difficult time taking this very sparse database and trying to, you know, flesh out some kind of possible sequence.

Ankerberg: Yeah. You said that their proposed evolutionary relationships are highly speculative. What do you mean?

Ross: Well, maybe a better term would be that they’re highly differentiated. They can’t agree on what the pathways would be, because there’s a lot that is missing.

Ankerberg: Alright, if you can’t agree on the pathway, in other words, you can’t agree which one came first, how can they say that evolution is a fact?

Ross: Well, they really can’t. And I would argue, moreover, this very sparse database tells us that the population levels of the different species must have been quite low, and we know the time that they existed was relatively brief. Those are two prescriptions against any naturalistic evolutionary pathway. I mean, the smaller the population size, the shorter the time frame, the less chance you have for mutations to produce any significant change.

Ankerberg: Now, let’s go to the evidence that shows, even though that’s the proposed theory, the scientists are running into big-time blockades. In fact, they’ve been cut-off, if you want, in their path from ape to man. Let’s talk about some of the evidence that has cut them off. One has been the brain size. When they have measured the brain size of these ape-like creatures with man, before they had a kind of an old-fashioned way of measuring. Talk about that way of measuring, and then what’s happened in just the past few years.

Rana: Sure. Well, the old approach would be primarily to have partially deformed, partially missing skulls and from physical features try to make measurements and then infer brain size through the use of some model which never would have been fully validated. And a few years ago a new approach was attempted, and this is essentially to do CAT scan imaging and generate millimeter images of slices of the brain, and then through computer graphics technology to fill in the missing parts, the correct deformations, and then to calculate brain volume. And what emerged from that work was it seemed as if the brain volume was actually over-estimated in many cases.

Ankerberg: Yeah, you have a fancy word for it: “What CTI technology and rapid-prototyping stereo-lithography show about the cranial capacity.”

Rana: Right. And that’s a neat technique where you can take the computer graphics and actually, in rapid time, generate a three-dimensional structure from plastics using lasers to super-heat the plastics and to get it to cure. And from those casts you can actually make very robust measurements of brain volume and brain size.

Ankerberg: And what did they find out? What was the conclusion?

Rana: The volumes were over-estimated. And so instead of having this gradual increase in brain size, it seems as if the brain size from Australopithecines to modern humans would have had to ramp very rapidly toward the appearance of modern humans. So instead of a gradual trend, it was more a discontinuous trend where you have significant leaps. But the final leap in brain size was quite dramatic where modern humans appear on the scene.

Ross: Dramatic and recent.

Ankerberg: Okay. I want to give you a quote here, Hugh, that the National Science Teachers Association stated just recently: “There is abundant and consistent evidence from astronomy, physics, biochemistry, geochronology, geology, biology, anthropology and other sciences that evolution has taken place.” Now, everything that we’re showing is that’s not the case. How come they’re making these statements?

Ross: Well, they could make that statement if they mean that evolution is simply “evidence for change with respect of time.” But clearly, they’re implying a lot more: that is, change with respect of time without divine miraculous intervention. You know, in the first few episodes we were looking at the simple sciences of astronomy and physics where you can describe things with differential equations. And there we see overwhelming evidence for design. Now, as you move from simplicity to complexity, we would expect that that evidence for design would increase. And in fact, that’s what we’re seeing. The problem is, if you ignore the simple sciences, sometimes you can’t see the forest because of the trees. In other words, scientists sometimes aren’t able to look deep enough, because of their narrow perspective, to see the design that’s there.

Ankerberg: Yeah. There’s certain change, Fuz, that we’ll accept in terms of species changing, but only a certain extent. You’ve got to have a species to begin with to have something to change, and that’s one of the problems. We don’t have a mechanism of how to get the species into existence, number one. And number two is, when you have that species, there’s only so much change that you can have, okay? We don’t have what? You explain it.

Rana: That’s exactly right. I mean, we would all say variation takes place within a species. And it’s variation in the genetic material that’s operated on by natural selection. We don’t dispute that mechanism. But what we argue is that there’s no way that that mechanism can actually generate new species; that there’s no demonstration experimentally or observationally that you can extrapolate those types of changes beyond the species level.

Ankerberg: Yeah. Stephen Jay Gould that just died recently, he, therefore, looking at the fossil record said, “Boy, we’ve got to come up with a new theory;” and said, “Let’s try punctuated equilibrium,” which is what?

Rana: It’s basically a description of the way the fossil record is. It doesn’t explain how evolution could have occurred that way.

Ankerberg: Yeah, in other words, what they’re saying is, before you had gradual evolution, we were supposed to look at a fossil record and see all these different modified forms going up to man. Okay, they didn’t find that. All of a sudden they found, boom, certain mammals, certain animals, man, in the fossil record. And there’s no intermediate forms.

Rana: Right.

Ankerberg: And so they had to say, something – the genetic code – had to change real quick. So we had this punctuated equilibrium that went for a long period of time. What’s wrong with that?

Rana: There’s no mechanism that says that evolution could occur that way. It’s really a hand-waving explanation without really a scientific mechanism to undergird that.

Ankerberg: Okay. And further reinforcing that, let’s come back to “ape to man,” the fact is, if we can show that there is no connection between the apes and man, if there is no “missing link” here, the fact is you just had the animals that show up and you have man that shows up relatively recently ago, the fact is, you’ve got a big problem in the evolutionary theory. Let’s talk about one of the evidences that you scientists have actually found and that’s the DNA, and specifically, the mitochondrial DNA of women all over the world. What’s that all about?

Rana: Well, instead of using fossils to try to understand the origin of humanity, anthropologists are now turning their attention to the genetic make-up of human populations by looking at similarities and differences. To the extent of similarities and differences they can basically address questions like: When did humanity originate? What was the original population size? How did humanity spread? And what they discovered is a remarkable result. First, looking at mitochondrial DNA, which traces the origin of humanity through the maternal lineage, through the female lineage. And what they discovered is humanity must have originated from a small population of women in a single region, a single geographical region, and from there rapidly spread to fill the earth. Interestingly enough, all of humanity’s mitochondrial DNA genetic fingerprint can be traced back to a single female individual, which is referred to as “Mitochondrial Eve” by the scientific community.

Ankerberg: And what’s the date?

Rana: In the scientific literature the date comes in under 150,000 years ago. Now, those dates have broad error bars: 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 years, plus or minus. But there’s some more evidence that indicates that actually that date should really be adjusted downwards towards the 50,000 year range.

Ankerberg: Okay, Hugh, we’ve got another one and that’s the genes of men have been analyzed. The “ZFY” gene on the “Y” chromosome passed down from father to son. What’s that all about and what did they find?

Ross: Well, what they’re finding there is that the men on planet earth appear to be descended from one or just a few individuals at one location with a date that comes in at between 37,000 and 49,000 years ago.

Ankerberg: How does that square with the biblical record?

Ross: Well, it squares very well. I mean, you can take the Genesis 11 genealogy, and there’s two individuals there that we can independently calibrate. Abraham from historical records lived about 4,000 years ago. The world was divided in the days of Peleg. Peleg is halfway through the Genesis 11 genealogy [Gen. 11:16]. And Carbon-14 dating establishes the breaking of the Bering land bridge which, I believe, is a reference to the world being divided in the days of Peleg. That comes in at 11,000 years ago. You take those two dates; you presume that the life spans in Genesis 11 are proportional to the passage of time. That gives you a date for the Flood in the neighborhood of 25,000 to 35,000 years ago. And when you add on to it the genealogy of Genesis 5, you get a date for Adam and Eve in the neighborhood of 40,000 to 50,000 years ago. So, the biblical date is consistent with the mitochondrial DNA date, which is consistent with the Y chromosome date. And all three of those dates are consistent with the big bangs of art, language, jewelry and technology.

Ankerberg: Ken, what do you make of all this?

Ken Samples: Well, you clearly have no viable pathway that you can connect between the bipedal primates and modern humans. You have excessive speculation with this regard; problems in DNA; and clearly, you have a big problem – and that is, the human beings in every conceivable way are different in kind, not in just degree but different in kind from the hominids.

Ankerberg: Okay. Fuz, if the Neanderthals are cut off, we don’t have a link between us and the apes. And scientific research, in terms of the genetics of the Neanderthals now has cut them off from being that link. Tell us why.

Rana: This is actually an incredible piece of science that has taken place over the last four or five years where now in five separate Neanderthal specimens scientists have isolated DNA and amplified it and sequenced it – this is mitochondrial DNA – and have shown in every case – and each time they do this, two independent labs carry out the studies to corroborate one another’s result – but in each case they have shown that there is no way that Neanderthals have a genetic connection to modern humans, and therefore they can’t have an evolutionary connection. They now are considered to be an evolutionary side branch. And so, this traditional “missing link” that shows up in high school and college biology texts is really now an evolutionary side branch from an evolutionary perspective.

Ankerberg: Okay. So, if you have the Neanderthals cut off, you’ve got no connection to man. What does that mean, Hugh?

Ross: Well, evolutionists are now trying to claim that maybe Homo erectus gave rise to both Neanderthals and the humans. But now you’re looking at a radically different species morphologically in terms of our bone forms than humans. And it’s not that much time. And therefore the evolutionary model can’t explain the movement in those two different directions that rapidly.

Ankerberg: Fuz, haven’t some of the scientists also taken some of those intermediate forms of the apes out of the categories in terms of progression and pushed them all the way back to the beginning? Can you tell us about that?

Rana: Well, many of the hominids that are part of this “evolutionary pathway” are considered to be side branches. A number of the Australopithecine specimens are considered to be side branches that couldn’t have given rise to humanity. Last summer there was a discovery of something called the “Toumai Man” that dates around six to seven million years in age, and the features of “Toumai Man” seem to be remarkably modern compared to the Australopithecines. And there are some anthropologists who are even suggesting maybe all the Australopithecines really are a side branch. What does that mean? That means that everything that is in the textbooks now is really not, from a scientific perspective, valid any longer. And so this is just an example of the chaos that exists where every time a new fossil is discovered, all the evolutionists run out and redraw their trees – but none of them agree with one another.

Ankerberg: Hugh, look, when we are talking cosmology, if all of the evidence points to God, okay, and if you have the scientific evidence showing that man just shows up, and the apes are by themselves, and you’ve got whales and you’ve got other things, some of these things going back a long time, and no intermediate forms, when does enough evidence pile up that a person that’s an atheist or an agnostic ought to put their faith in the Lord?

Ross: Well, there are two kinds of atheists that I talk to. There are those that say, “No amount of evidence will ever persuade me that a God exists.” There then are those that say, “Show me enough evidence and I’ll change my mind.” I typically discover as you take a group of 1,000 atheists, about one third are in the camp where no amount of evidence will make any difference. Two-thirds can be reached with that kind of evidence. And usually what it takes in that case is an adequate database. In this case we argue we have more than an adequate database to show that human beings must be the product of special creation.

An Astrophysicist Provides His Thoughts on Intelligent Design and The Big Bang Theory

Here are excerpts from someone who has studied the topic extensively you can see the full interview here.  https://www.jashow.org/articles/general/why-is-the-big-bang-evidence-that-god-created-the-universe-program-1/.  Please provide your thoughts.

Dr. John Ankerberg:  My guests are Dr. Hugh Ross, astronomer and astrophysicist; Dr. Fuz Rana, who received his Ph.D. in chemistry

Ross: The big bang is the coming into existence of all matter, energy, space and time a finite time ago, where time itself is created; space, matter and energy along with it. It’s really talking about the transcendent creation, bringing into existence of matter, energy, space and time, then it’s very carefully controlled expansion from that point of beginning. Lawrence Krauss, astrophysicist at Case Western Reserve University, refers to this as “the most extreme fine tuning problem known in physics.”

Dr. Fazale Rana: And Hugh, who is that a problem for?

Ross: It’s a problem for those taking a non-theistic perspective, and what we’re seeing here is design at a level that’s superior to one part in 10¹²⁰.

Ankerberg: Is the big bang theory, and what has been found in science, proof that God created everything?

Ross: Well, it’s certainly proof that there is a transcendent causal agent that’s responsible for bringing the universe into existence. That’s how my peers in astronomy who are not Christians speak about this.

Ross: Well, for example, if the earth were brought one-half percent closer to the sun, it would experience a runaway boiling off of its water – all the water in the earth would enter the vaporous state. But if you move it a half percent farther away, you’d experience a runaway freeze-up, where all the water on the planet would turn into snow and ice.

Ankerberg: So we’re in the right spot, just the right spot. Is that coincidence?

Ross: I would argue it is not a coincidence when you team it up with the other 200 characteristics that also must be fine tuned.

Ankerberg: Yeah, that would be like rolling the dice. If you have three sets of dice and you wanted to come up all three of them on six, and you did it the first time and you say, “Do you want to bet that I’ll do it the second time?” And you say, “Hey, I’m not sure I could do it the second time.”

Ross: Well, the probability of getting all 202 just right by chance is less than one chance in 10²¹⁷. That’s 217 zeroes after the one.

Ankerberg: Impossible, in other words.

Ross: Impossible, right.

Ross: Well, it grows out of the concession that we see overwhelming evidence in the characteristics of the universe that makes life possible in the universe. But those who do not want to go down a theistic or a Christian path would argue that if we have an infinite number of universes, and all those universes have different physical characteristics, then we could possibly conclude that our universe has the “just right” characteristics for life and human beings by pure chance.

Now, when you make that appeal, that is a metaphysical appeal; and that’s because Einstein’s equations of general relativity tell us that once you got observers in universe A, the space-time envelope of that universe cannot overlap the space-time envelope of any other possibly existing universe.

Ankerberg: Alright, so what you’re saying is, okay, we’ve got our universe, and it’s been here, what? 13.7 billion years, our universe? And out of that, the evolutionists, the scientists, would say, “There’s not enough time for life to originate by chance in 13.7 billion years, so we need another spot.” And they’re saying in that first second of the big bang, that through mathematics and so on, other things that you scientists know that are really hard to explain….

Ross: Well, they actually have to appeal to different physics to make it work.

Ankerberg: Okay.

Ross: If you stick with the physics we have, you’ve got a universe. A multiverse is an appeal to a fundamental….

Ankerberg: So you’re stuck. If you have the physics that we have, you’re stuck. You have to postulate a new physics, new quantum mechanics?

Ross: Well, they postulate a breakdown or an alternative to the physics we see very early in cosmic history structured in such a way that you would get this multiverse, this infinite number of universes with possibly different physical characteristics.

Ankerberg: Alright, so they’re postulating a hypothetical set of universes out there, and because we don’t have enough time in our universe to have evolution occur to create life on earth, they’re saying, somehow, in one of these other universes, what?

Ross: Well, one of these other universes, it’s like you’d have all different physical characteristics. But if you got an infinite number of universes, there’s going to be some of those universes with the just-right physical characteristics, and if that “some” is large enough, maybe you can explain these extreme mathematical improbabilities without invoking a personal Divine Being to structure this life. That’s the basic appeal.

Ankerberg: Okay. And what’s the problem with all of this?

Ross: Well, the first problem is, it is a metaphysical appeal; it’s not something that flows out of the physics of the universe we see.

Ankerberg: So the scientists are saying it’s not scientific?

Ross: You’re appealing to something beyond the physics to make this work. The more fundamental problem is it’s a form of the gambler’s fallacy. And a good way to illustrate that would be to flip a coin. I’ve got a quarter here. I flip it. What if I were to flip it 100,000 times and it came up heads all 100,000 times? You’d probably conclude that the coin has been purposed to always come out heads. But someone committing the gambler’s fallacy would speculate that maybe there’s an infinite number of quarters, and if you’ve got enough people flipping them 100,000 consecutive times each, one by pure chance would come up with heads 100,000 consecutive times; therefore, the coin is fair.

Now, that’s basically what the multiverse people are doing. They’re speculating along those lines. And my challenge to them would be, well, before you bet on the 100,001^st flip of the quarter, wouldn’t it be a good idea to pick up the quarter and examine both sides? If you see heads on both sides, then don’t bet on tails. Keep your money.

Now, people say, “Can we really do that with the universe?” I argue that we can. We can examine the universe in greater detail. We’re doing that every day. And if in examining it in greater detail we see that the evidence for design gets stronger rather than weaker, then that tells us that Someone has purposed that the universe take on those characteristics.

Ankerberg: And that’s where everybody started saying, “Okay, now, if the universe hasn’t always been here, it had a start, there had to be a Starter.”

Ross: Right.

Ankerberg: Who was the starter or what was the starter? And what have they come up with?

Ross: We know the Starter must be an agent outside of matter, energy, space and time.

Ankerberg: Why?

Ross: Well, because when you look at the equations of general relativity, it yields what are called the space/time theorems of general relativity. If the universe contains mass – and of course, we know that it does – and if the universe is governed by the equations of general relativity – and now general relativity is the best established principle in physics – these theorems tell us there must exist a Causal Agent responsible for bringing the universe into existence, and that causal Agent did so independent, outside, of matter, energy space, and time.

Ankerberg: Yeah. Even Stephen Hawking at Cambridge and some of the guys came up with their theory that time itself had to start at that moment.

Ross: Well, when he was interviewed by the Reader’s Digest editors, he said, “We proved that time has a beginning. We proved that time was created. Likewise, space.”

Jupiter is 40 light minutes away from earth. That means it takes light from Jupiter 40 minutes to reach the earth. Jupiter is such a colossus that it outweighs by two and a half times all the other planets in our solar system combined. The giant red spot we see as we look at the top of Jupiter’s dense atmospheric layers shows a 2,000-mile per hour hurricane raging for centuries. To give some perspective, that spot is four earth diameters across.

Researchers in the 1990s sought to probe Jupiter’s many mysteries, such as the degree to which light penetrates those thick clouds and whether the planet has a rocky core or just super-dense frozen gases. In the course of their investigation, they discovered evidence of Jupiter’s importance to earth life. Jupiter is positioned and dimensioned to shield earth from collisions. The planet’s nearness and mass typically deflect comets and asteroids that are moving on a collision course with earth. Occasionally, Jupiter itself takes the hit, as in the 1994 encounter with comet Shoemaker-Levy. Though each fragment of Shoemaker-Levy was smaller than Manhattan Island, 21 of them raised fireballs more than 10,000 miles high and made earth-sized bruises in Jupiter’s atmosphere.

Any planet capable of sustaining life needs a just-right-sized Jupiter standing guard to shield it from life-ending asteroid and comet impacts. Jupiter’s size and position are important to earth life for yet another reason. If Jupiter were any larger than it is, or any closer to earth, its gravity would wreak deadly havoc on earth’s orbit. Jupiter is a just-right-sized protector in a just-right location.

[*** end excerpt ***]

Ankerberg: Hugh, when I listen to what you were saying there, Jupiter is just the right size protector in just the right location. Everything is “just right, just right, just right” here. When you astronomers see everything is “just right” out there, what do you make of this?

Ross: Well, my peers call this the “Goldilocks principle,” that everywhere we look in science, everything is “just right” for life. I mean, even the orbit of Jupiter is “just right.” Its eccentricity is just right. And we just see this everywhere – hundreds of characteristics that are lining up to be perfectly fine tuned to make life possible.

These four gas giants – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – travel in unique, almost circular orbits on a horizontal plane around the sun. This stands in stark contrast to gas giants so far discovered outside our solar system which either orbit too close to their stars, or have elliptical and/or non-horizontal orbits. Even a slight deviation from their appointed paths would be catastrophic for life on earth.

Traveling out almost six light hours from earth we come to Pluto and its companion, Charon. Pluto is the smallest planet in our solar system, smaller than our moon, made mostly of ice. Pluto’s moon, Charon, is less than half Pluto’s size. Beyond these frozen outposts lie other tiny bodies orbiting the sun.

Now we reach the last stop before departing our solar system – a vast area of asteroids and comets. The inner ring is called the Kuiper Belt. The density and positions of these asteroids act as a stabilizing force for the orbit of Neptune. Without a finely tuned gravitational tug from these space rocks, Neptune’s orbit would be erratic, potentially catastrophic for our tiny planet. At the outer edge of our solar system orbiting the sun up to two light years away lies a vast area of over 100 billion comets known as the Oort Cloud. Occasionally, some of these comets are disturbed just enough by the gas giant planets to be pulled out of their orbit and hurdled toward the inner solar system, including the earth, replenishing our water supply and delivering other vital nutrients.

Rana: Well, first of all, with respect to what are the facts, a surprising result that’s come out of the last ten years of research with regard to the timing of life’s appearance on earth is that life appears on earth as soon as the earth could even remotely support life. Scientists date the age of the earth around 4½ billion years in age, and from that time until around 3.9 billion years, for a number of reasons the earth could not support life. It was the Hadean era. The conditions were “hellish” conditions, where the rock on the earth was largely in the molten state; the oceans were from time to time in a vapor state. Life could not have survived under those conditions. Around 3.9 billion years ago, the first rocks formed, the oceans become permanent features. And in rocks that date 3.8 billion years in age we see an unequivocal chemical signature for life’s presence; and at 3.5 billion years in age, we see fossilized life forms in the geological record. Life appears dramatically, and suddenly, and very early in earth’s history.

Ankerberg: Yeah. Let’s slow this one down. Hugh, I want to bring you in. First of all, the universe started when?

Ross: 13.7 billion years ago.

Ankerberg: We know that from all the scientific information that’s when it started. And as soon as the astronomers and astrophysicists came out with that date, the biologists hollered and said, “Wait a minute! That’s not enough time! We can’t get life out of chance, by chance, to happen.” Okay, but it’s not 13.7 [billion years] that they’re working with. They’re working with what in terms of earth time?

Rana: No more than 50 million years of time, maybe even less than that.

Ankerberg: Let’s boil that down because earth came into existence, when?

Ross: 4.566 billion years ago.

Ankerberg: Okay. Four billion years ago. And then you have this Hadean, which comes from Hades, this idea that we’re being bombarded, so you’ve got fireballs encircling the earth. Life couldn’t originate under those circumstances. And we’re going to show a little video about this in a minute. Okay? And that lasted up until when?

Ross: About 3.85 billion years ago.

Ankerberg: Okay, about 3.8. And when are the first signs of life that show up in the fossil record?

Rana: Almost immediately after the earth could support life, which is right around 3.8 billion years ago. So, the time that the earth exits this Hadean era and the time that life appears is essentially, in a geological sense, coincidental.

Ankerberg: So, boom, you have a time problem.

Rana: Right.

Ankerberg: It’s impossible “by chance” to get all this stuff just to happen.

Rana: Right. Even the well-known origin of life researcher Stanley Miller acknowledges that life would have to have originated in a time frame less than ten million years.

Ankerberg: Yeah. So the fact is, the first thing is the time problem. The second thing we’re going to show them in this video clip coming up is the fact of all the textbooks – and we’ve got a bunch of the textbooks that are used here in the state of Tennessee and these are also used in California and different places around the country, and I’ve read these things now, and the students are being told about the “prebiotic soup.” I remember the prebiotic soup and the chemicals that were supposed to form, and then somehow we’re supposed to get information into those chemicals and more and more complex life forms. But, boom! All of a sudden you scientists are saying now there’s evidence there was no prebiotic soup. Is that true?

Rana: That’s exactly true. You don’t see any type of geochemical signature in the oldest rocks on earth that indicate there were organic materials produced through non-biological means. All the organic remains were a product of biological activity. Couple that with the fact that we now know that the conditions for the early earth simply could not have sustained the production of prebiotic compounds.

Ankerberg: What’s that thing you look for? Carbon 12?

Rana: Carbon 12, which is a life form of carbon.

Ankerberg: That comes from living material.

Rana: That’s right.

Ankerberg: And you find that, but you don’t find the other.

Rana: That’s right. The ratio of carbon 12 to carbon 13 is an indicator, not only of biological activity, but scientists can even tell you whether it was photosynthesis or some other metabolic process that generated it.

Ankerberg: Okay, if you’ve got a short time line, all of a sudden life just shows up quick in the fossil record, and the fact is that we have no prebiotic soup, then what’s the theory right now?

Rana: Well, origin of life researchers are feverishly looking for a source of prebiotic compounds. Others have just simply said, “Well, there’s no way that these could have formed on earth; therefore, we’re going to appeal to outer space. Maybe these compounds were delivered to earth through comets and asteroids.” And others are even saying, “Well, maybe life originated somewhere else and was transported to earth.” And so now the origin of life becomes not how life emerged on earth, but rather, how life got to earth. But really, that’s just postponing the problem to another location in the universe.

Ankerberg: Fuz, are these the only problems that the evolutionary theory has that life shows up early, and the fact is that there was no prebiotic soup?

Rana: Well, these are just a few of the problems. Another problem is that not only does life appear suddenly and early in earth’s history, but that the first life forms that appear are complex. Now, the first life forms were like bacteria. And we have this perception that bacteria are relatively simple organisms because they’re single celled and small. But in a biochemical sense, they’re incredibly complex organisms. I mean, you essentially have a molecular city at work inside the cell. And in fact, from the geochemical fingerprints and from the fossil record we can infer that these first life forms must have had photosynthetic capability, something called “chemo-autotrophic capability.” They had to be able to undergo cell division; they had to be able to produce proteins in their cell wall; convert small inorganic materials from the environment into life’s building blocks. This is incredibly complex metabolically.

Ross: It’s more than just one bacterial species.

Rana: Yeah, more than one species. But even the simplest forms that can do this have to have about 2,000 genes. And also, you’re looking at a complex ecology. It’s not just the single type of bacterium, but it’s an ensemble of different bacterial species.

Ankerberg: And I’m also understanding from what you’ve written, the fact is that it had to happen almost all at once. In other words, you don’t go “Step A” and you get to “B” going toward a conclusion over here. In order for Step A to work, you’ve got to have B, C, D, already operating.

Rana: Right.

Ankerberg: Okay? How do we get there? How does everything all of a sudden just begin?

Rana: Well, from a naturalistic perspective, there is no way to explain that, and that’s why the evidence is indicating a Creator’s supernatural fingerprint, is everything has to come into existence all at once in order for life to operate.

Ankerberg: Hugh, you said that ecologically, everything has got to be balanced here. What did you mean?

Ross: What I mean is that the Creator brings upon the scene 3.8 billion years ago a suite of different bacterial species that symbiotically work together to rapidly prepare the earth for future human life. So it’s not just the Creator starting off with one bacteria and then waiting some time and doing another one. He creates a whole suite of bacteria, some that begin to work at taking the soluble poisonous metals and converting them into insoluble metals that we can mine. So the Creator is making the planet safe for advanced life.

Ankerberg: Yeah. I want to talk about the information that these little cells, these molecules need as well. In other words, you can have the “stuff” of a computer, you can have the hardware, okay? But you can bang on your computer forever and no system is going to come up unless you’ve got some information, you’ve got a program in there, alright? You can have “stuff” on the earth, but how do you get the “information” that tells every little cell what to do?

And Fuz and Hugh, here’s your new book, Origins of Life. And inside that book you talk about information. We’ve got a problem here in evolutionary theory, that is, that if you have the “stuff” and they somehow replicate, the fact is, you’ve got to have information guiding the replication. Where does the information come from?

Rana: Well, that is a huge problem for origin of life researchers. Assuming you have these prebiotic compounds, they now have to be converted into bio-molecules that can carry out function, and all bio-molecules are information-laden. For example, proteins carry out virtually every activity in the cell, and they’re made by linking together smaller molecules called amino acids – kind of like putting together letters to make words, the cell puts together amino acids to make proteins. Well, the probability of hitting a functional protein through a random assemblage of amino acids is roughly one chance in 10⁷⁵.

Ross: Just one protein?

Rana: This is one protein. Now, what does that probability mean? Well, if you assumed optimal conditions for the origin of life where these amino acids could come together once per second, it would take 10²³ years to have a 95% chance of getting a single protein, but we’re talking about needing maybe almost 2,000 proteins for life to emerge. Now, as Hugh has told us, the universe is 13.7 billion years in age, roughly 1.3 times 10¹⁰ years in age, meaning we’ve gone less than one trillionth of the time we need to produce even a single protein, let alone those 2,000 proteins that need to come together simultaneously for life to emerge.

Ankerberg: Hey, but my philosopher and theologian here, in light of what he’s saying as a scientist, what do you make of the textbooks that we just held up where they say the most important concept in biology is evolution, and nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution?

Samples: Well, there are some very serious problems with a statement like that. And as Fuz has pointed out numerous times, life appears suddenly; it appears in a complex form. And in looking at that kind of statement about evolution, it would seem that the evidence runs against it rather than supporting it. From a logical point of view, it appears to be an assumption rather than the kind of conclusion you draw from strong evidence.

Ankerberg: Hugh, I also have another one for you. This comes from the National Science Teachers Association, a quote that came out just before we did this program and this is going right across the country, advising all the teachers as they’re going to teach our kids in the high schools and colleges: “There is no longer a debate among scientists over whether evolution has taken place, but there is a considerable debate over how evolution has taken place.” How in the world can you have no longer a debate, how can evolution be considered a fact, and yet they don’t know how it happened?

Ross: Well, John, they play a shell game with the term “evolution.” You know, as a physicist, evolution basically means “change took place over time.” And that’s something that all scientists accept; it’s something that all Christians accept. I mean, Genesis teaches that about the history of life on earth. So that’s not up for debate. But there is a debate over how those changes took place, what’s behind those changes, what are the causal agents. That’s where fertile debate needs to take place, and unfortunately, there’s not enough freedom for that debate yet in this country.

Ankerberg: Let me come back to another one. “Scientific disciplines with the historical components such as astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology cannot be taught with integrity if evolution is not emphasized.”

Ross: Well, that would be accurate if we’re talking only evolution as defined, “change with respect to time.” But if you say “change with respect to time without divine miraculous intervention,” now you’ve come up with a theory that is theological as well as scientific that needs to be tested against other explanations for the change with respect to time.

Ankerberg: Fuz, let me ask you this thing about DNA and RNA. You need both to interact with each other. You’ve got neither starting out. How do you get there?

Rana: Well, this is what’s called “the chicken and egg paradox” by origin of life researchers. Everybody thinks that DNA can replicate itself. Well, it really can’t. It needs an ensemble of molecular machines to actually replicate it. But the problem is that the information needed to make those proteins that are involved in replicating DNA are contained by the DNA, so you can’t have DNA replication without proteins, and you can’t have proteins without DNA. And the way that the origin of life community kind of “resolves,” if you will, this “chicken and egg” problem is to say, “Well, there was another molecule that predated DNA and proteins that gave rise to DNA and proteins” and they call this “RNA.” And RNA is found in contemporary biochemical systems as an intermediary between the information in DNA and the production of proteins. And so origin of life researchers said, “Well, maybe there is this RNA world where all these RNA molecules simultaneously served as the information source and as the molecules that carried out the cells’ activity.”

Ankerberg: And what’s wrong with that?

Rana: Well, nobody knows how to produce RNA or the building blocks of RNA on the primordial earth. In fact, Hugh and I, last summer, went to the International Conference on the Origin of Life. And a scientist named Leslie Orgel, who is probably not known as a household name, but in the scientific arena is a well-known origin of life researcher, made the comment in the opening talk that if a strand of RNA would have appeared on the early earth, it would have been a miracle, so great are the problems from a naturalistic explanation.

Ankerberg: Yeah, I’ve got to do this because right now you guys told me something, and the fact is that in reading the high school textbooks, okay, what are the kids being taught in the junior high, high school and college versus what are they being told at MIT and Berkeley? You say it’s different. How is it different? Hugh?

Ross: It’s different in that what we’re talking about is up to date. I mean, there really has been a revolution in origin of life research in the past few years where they’re recognizing that from a naturalistic perspective, it’s an intractable problem. That’s not yet in the textbooks.

Ankerberg: Okay. Pick one more, and that’s homochirality. That’s a fancy word. What does it mean?

Rana: It essentially means “handedness.” You know, like you have a left hand and a right hand….

Ankerberg: You’re referring to proteins.

Rana: Right. These are the mirror images of one another. Well, the building blocks for proteins, amino acids, essentially can exist in two forms that are mirror images of one another; but in all the proteins in living systems, the amino acids are left-handed. There’s no right-handed amino acids that are found.

Ankerberg: You’re telling me that the guys, when they did the experiments – we’ve all seen Urey and Miller’s experiment where you get the flask and you put the fluids and you put the spark, like the primordial earth. Now we know there is no primordial soup, but the fact is, take that experiment and the fact is, you get the chemicals. Okay? The proteins that you get there always are both right- and left-handed.

Rana: Right.

Ross: Well, it’s amino acids. You don’t get proteins.

Ankerberg: Amino acids. Right.

Ross: But you’re right. They come 50/50.

Ankerberg: Okay, and what you need is, you need a hundred percent of one kind.

Rana: That’s right. Because if you don’t, the chains that will result, the amino acid chains that result can’t fold into the proper three-dimensional shape if it’s a mixture of left-handed and right-handed amino acids. It has to be either all left-handed or all right-handed. You can’t have a mixture.

Ankerberg: Okay, you’ve got just an amazing amount of problems for the evolutionary theory. And I asked you guys, “Well, then, where are the scientists going?” And what they’re doing is, they’re getting these off-the-chart theories; namely, it’s got to come from some other planet or outer space or even aliens. Now, people might laugh, but this is really what they’re saying, right?

Ross: These are serious proposals that are being made because of the fact that we can’t explain it from a naturalistic perspective on the surface of the earth. So they’re saying it’s got to come from the distant stars. And they’re actually looking in astronomy to try to find a mechanism to drive homochirality. But all we can find is circularly polarized ultraviolet light that gives you a few percent excess of left-handed relative to right-handed, and in regions where you’re not going to be able to preserve these prebiotic molecules.

Ankerberg: Yeah, you said that’s why NASA is looking for life on Mars. And we need to tell the people that if you hear that they found some kind of life on Mars, in other words, organisms, bacteria or something, okay, you’re saying it could have come from earth, number one.

Ross: Right.

Ankerberg: And number two, the reason that they’re looking for it is because they can’t figure it out from looking at earth.

Ross: Right.

Ankerberg: Explain that again.

Ross: Well, as you point out, you know, about nine million pounds or more of earth-like material has been transported from planet earth to Mars through meteoritic transport. So it’s inevitable that NASA sooner or later will find remains of life on Mars. It’s got to be there because of its proximity to earth. However, if they begin to check the DNA signatures and the protein signatures, they’ll find that this is remnants of earth life rather than indigenous life. But unfortunately, I don’t think they’re going to bother to check, at least not initially, and therefore may give an alarming announcement that they have found indigenous life on Mars.

Eye Witness Account The Book of Matthew Counts!

So many times people say there are not eye witness accounts of Jesus.  They forget about the scriptures written by the disciples.

Gospel of Matthew

For instance with Matthew here is a fact people overlook:  “The early church is unanimous in their acceptance of Matthew as the writer of the First Gospel. Papias, Irenaeus, Pantaenus, and Origen all report Matthew as the writer of the First Gospel. Papias (c. AD 60-130) writes, “Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could.”^[2] While we do not have a Hebrew or Aramaic edition of Matthew’s Gospel, there are reports that one may have existed in the early church.[3]Regardless, one should not be surprised that Matthew, who would need to have great knowledge of Greek in the business world, originally wrote his Gospel in Hebrew or Aramaic, only to revise the Gospel in Greek. Even if his Gospel were written in Greek by another, even say an amanuensis,[4] this would not negate Matthew’s authorship.”

 

Data, Links, and References Proving Jesus Existence

In recent years some Atheist have added suggesting Jesus never existed to their line of attacks.  Here is some alternative perspectives on that: The archaeological proof that Jesus Christ DID exist, here is an evidence from a synagogue Jesus preached at according to archeologist:

https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/704303/The-archaeological-proof-that-Jesus-Christ-DID-exist

5 Non-Christian Sources on Jesus Existence – https://www.bethinking.org/jesus/ancient-evidence-for-jesus-from-non-christian-sources

Aquinas Argument for Existence of God

Aquinas had Five Proofs for the Existence of God. Let us consider his First argument, the so-called Argument from Motion. Aquinas begins with an observation:

Of the things we observe, all things have been placed in motion. No thing has placed itself in motion.

Working from the assumption that if a thing is in motion then it has been caused to be in motion by another thing, Aquinas also notes that an infinite chain of things-in-motion and things-causing-things-to-be-in-motion can not be correct. If an infinite chain or regression existed among things-in-motion and things-causing-things-to-be-in-motion then we could not account for the motion we observe. If we move backwards from the things we observe in motion to their cause, and then to that cause of motion within those things that caused motion, and so on, then we could continuing moving backwards ad infinitum. It would be like trying to count all of the points in a line segment, moving from point B to point A. We would never get to point A. Yet point A must exist as we know there is a line segment. Similarly, if the cause-and-effect chain did not have a starting point then we could not account for the motion we observe around us. Since there is motion, the cause and effect chain (accounting for motion) must have had a starting point. We now have a second point:

The cause and effect relationship among things-being-moved and things-moving must have a starting point. At one point in time, the relationship was set in motion. Thus, there must be a First Cause which set all other things in motion.

What else can we know about the First Cause? The first cause must have been uncaused. If it were caused by another thing, then we have not resolved the problem of the infinite regression. So, in order to account for the motion that we observe, it is necessary to posit a beginning to the cause and effect relationship underlying the observed motion. It is also necessary to claim that the First Cause has not been caused by some other thing. It is not set in motion by another entity.

The First Cause is also the Unmoved Mover. The Unmoved Mover is that being whom set all other entities in motion and is the cause of all other beings. For Aquinas, the Unmoved Mover is that which we call God.

For Aquinas the term motion meant not just motion as with billiard balls moving from point A to point B or a thing literally moving from one place to another. Another sense of the term motion is one that appreciates the Aristotelian sense of moving from a state of potentiality towards a state of actuality. When understood in this way, motion reflects the becoming inherent in the world around us. God as First Cause becomes that entity which designed and set in motion all things in their quest to become. In the least, it is a more poetic understanding of motion.

St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) was a theologian, Aristotelian scholar, and philosopher. Called the Doctor Angelicus (the Angelic Doctor,) Aquinas is considered one the greatest Christian philosophers to have ever lived.

Much of St. Thomas’s thought is an attempt to understand Christian orthodoxy in terms of Aristotelian philosophy. His five proofs for the existence of God take “as givens” some of Aristotle’s assertions concerning being and the principles of being (the study of being and its principles is known as metaphysics within philosophy). Before analyzing further the first of Aquinas’ Five Ways, let us examine some of the Aristotelian underpinnings at work within St. Thomas’ philosophy.

Aristotle and Aquinas also believed in the importance of the senses and sense data within the knowing process. Aquinas once wrote nothing in the mind that was not first in the senses. Those who place priority upon sense data within the knowing process are known as empiricists. Empirical data is that which can be sensed and typically tested. Unlike Anselm, who was a rationalist, Aquinas will not rely on non-empirical evidence (such as the definition of the term “God” or “perfection”) to demonstrate God’s existence. St. Thomas will observe the physical world around him and, moving from effect to cause, will try try to explain why things are the way they are. He will assert God as the ultimate Cause of all that is. For Aquinas, the assertion of God as prima causa (first cause) is not so much a blind religious belief but a philosophical and theoretical necessity. God as first cause is at the very heart of St. Thomas’ Five Ways and his philosophy in general.

One last notion that is central to St. Thomas’ Five Ways is the concept of potentiality and actuality. Aristotle observed that things/substances strive from an incomplete state to a complete state. Things will grow and tend to become as they exist. The more complete a thing is, the better an instance of that thing it is. We have idioms and expressions within our language that reflect this idea. For example, we might say that so-and-so has a lot of potential. We might say that someone is at the peak of their game or that someone is the best at what they do. We might say It just does not get any better than this if we are are having a very enjoyable time. Aristotle alludes to this commonly held intuition when he speaks of organisms moving from a state of potentiality to actuality. When Aquinas speaks of motion within the First Way (the cosmological argument) he is referencing the Aristotelian concepts of potentiality and actuality.

How A Quantum Portal Infers God’s Existence and Why Arguing There is No God When 95% of the Universe is Not Observable is Just An Assumption

Physicists have discovered a quantum portal into a separate, dark universe, bringing them closer to understanding the first moments of creation. One physicist and man of faith thinks this discovery could offer partial proof of God.

Quantum physicists have speculated that in the early days of the universe, visible particles were formed along with hidden, or dark particles, which, though completely unobservable, would have had to exist in order to make the universe expand at the known rate.

The dark particles are beyond the limits of scientific observation, but their effects on our universe are enormous, so great that physicists believe that roughly 68 percent of the universe is dark energy, with dark matter making up about 27 percent. The rest, everything observable with man-made instruments, adds up to less than five percent of the universe.

Quantum scientists theorized dark matter and dark energy exist in a parallel, though not symmetrical, universe. This separate dark universe is connected to ours via quantum portals.

Scientists at the Center for Theoretical Physics of the Universe believe they have discovered one of these portals via a newly discovered subatomic particle called a heavy quark. It is believed that heavy quarks have a “dark charge” which allows them to act as a bridge between the two universes, but as scientists are unable to observe dark particles or dark energy, no more is known about the parallel universe other than the fact of its existence.

Physicists have discovered a quantum portal into a separate, dark universe, bringing them closer to understanding the first moments of creation. One physicist and man of faith thinks this discovery could offer partial proof of God.

Quantum physicists have speculated that in the early days of the universe, visible particles were formed along with hidden, or dark particles, which, though completely unobservable, would have had to exist in order to make the universe expand at the known rate.

The dark particles are beyond the limits of scientific observation, but their effects on our universe are enormous, so great that physicists believe that roughly 68 percent of the universe is dark energy, with dark matter making up about 27 percent. The rest, everything observable with man-made instruments, adds up to less than five percent of the universe.

Quantum scientists theorized dark matter and dark energy exist in a parallel, though not symmetrical, universe. This separate dark universe is connected to ours via quantum portals.

Scientists at the Center for Theoretical Physics of the Universe believe they have discovered one of these portals via a newly discovered subatomic particle called a heavy quark. It is believed that heavy quarks have a “dark charge” which allows them to act as a bridge between the two universes, but as scientists are unable to observe dark particles or dark energy, no more is known about the parallel universe other than the fact of its existence.

The grander his claims become, the less plausible they seem. Still, Verlinde has captured theorists sense that cosmological mysteries signal a new era of physics. The impulse to explain dark matter and dark energy as signatures of a deeper reality, rather than a bolt-on to current theories, arises not only in string theory but also in alternatives such as loop quantum gravity and causal set theory. And if Verlinde is wrong and spacetime really is a root-level feature of our world, what other intuition will have to give way? What other thing that we thought we knew for sure is wrong?

Whether you believe in spiritual realms — e.g., Heaven or Hell — I think we can all agree that we cannot see them in our universe. We will never see far enough using telescopes to physically observe the existence of some other dimension or universe. However, there exists an entity that may point toward the presence of other universes, which we call “dark matter.” Allow me to elaborate on what exactly dark matter is before moving on.

As you may or may not know, our sun is actually orbiting around the center of our galaxy. Now, our galaxy is huge. In fact, it is 100,000 lightyears in diameter. It would take our sun 230 million years to complete one orbit around the center of the galaxy. Astronomers can use the orbital speed of the sun to calculate how much mass is inside its orbit. That makes sense, right? Since more mass creates a stronger gravitational pull, a faster orbital speed means there is more mass within the orbit. Based on the amount of mass that astronomers are able to detect inside the sun’s orbit, the sun itself orbits the center of the galaxy at a much higher velocity than astronomers predict. The question is, why is it moving so fast? Answer: we aren’t sure. At this point, we have no absolute explanation for the cause of this phenomenon. The most sufficient theory so far is that there exists some matter that we can’t physically detect — matter that is completely dark, reflecting no light at all. This seems to be the most realistic explanation in terms of our universe’s laws of physics.

OK — so what’s this “stuff” made of?

At this point, we only have evidence of its gravitational effects and not much more. Therefore, astronomers and physicists have come up with a few different theories as to what causes this strange phenomenon. Many believe that there may be other universes that exist, and that dark matter is the physical effect that those universes have on ours. If other universes do exist, the reason we can only feel their effects is because they exist in other physical dimensions. In other words, rather than space being three-dimensional as we understand it, there could be a fourth dimension in which other physical matter exists that we can never see. But what are these multi-dimensional universes like? And what could exist in them? I have developed a theory of my own, stemming from this idea of multi-dimensional universes.

In the Bible, Heaven and Hell are depicted as places that one can never physically reach in our universe. At this point, most people probably think they’re just entirely separate from the world we know — that each is not a physical dimension at all, but rather some type of spiritual realm. But, what if they are physical? What if those other universes that scientists are postulating are actually the universe that exists as Heaven, and another that is Hell?

Feeling the effects of Heaven.

The Bible leads us to believe that Heaven is going to be so amazing that we could never begin to fathom its glorious beauty. Similarly, in our three-dimensional universe, it is physically impossible for us to ever make sense of what a fourth spatial dimension would look like. Though not in any way definitive, the correlation is staring us in the face. Based on these parallels, it would make a lot of sense if Heaven were to be a universe consisting of more physical dimensions than our universe, whether that be four or four hundred. It doesn’t matter how many spatial dimensions it may or may not have. The key to this theory is that I am suggesting that Heaven is a realm with physical properties.

“So, what if it is? Why do I care?”

Great question! Remember that dark matter I was discussing a couple paragraphs ago, that we have no definitive explanation for? Well, this could be the answer! If Heaven and/or Hell exist as multi-dimensional universes, dark matter may very well be the matter within those universes. Step back for one moment, and allow me to make a comparison. Picture a two-dimensional coordinate system on a piece of paper, with x and y-axes. Let’s say you look at a dot located at a point with specific values of x and y. If you continue to stare at that point, but the dot moves off the paper, in a third dimension, you will never see that dot unless it returns to the exact spot in that third dimension. Likewise, if something exists in that fourth dimension of space, and it is always moving in that fourth dimension, we will never be able to see it. So, if anything exists in another dimension, it would only make sense that we don’t see it. So this effect that our universe is feeling from “dark matter” could potentially be the gravitational effect of the matter that exists in Heaven and/or Hell. Think about it. Just as the sun holds the planets in our solar system together through gravitational force, God may be quite literally holding our galaxy together while in Heaven.

Heavenly matter theory.

I will call my theory the heavenly matter theory. At least, that’s what I’ll name it for now. To conclude what I’ve discussed, what follows is a concise form of my entire theory.

In order to explain the phenomenon of accelerated expansion in our universe, I propose that what astronomers now refer to as ‘”dark matter” could actually be the physical effects of Heaven and Hell. This suggests that these realms are physical, and that they exist in multi-dimensional space around our universe. Therefore, the “dark matter” that we refer to would actually be matter that is simply not observable within our three-dimensional universe.

The Law of Cause and Effect and How It Infers God’s Existence

The universe consists of a series of events stretched across time in a long causal chain. Each one of these events is the cause of the event that comes after it, and the effect of the event that comes before it. The world as it is came from the world as it was, which came from the world as it was before.

If we trace this series of events back in time, then what do we find? There seem, at first glance, to be two possibilities: either we eventually reach the first event in the series, the cause at the beginning of the universe that set everything going, or there is no first event in the series and the past stretches back into infinity.

The first cause argument tells us that the second of these is not possible, that the past cannot stretch back into infinity but rather must have a beginning. The argument then proceeds by suggesting that if the universe has a beginning then there must be something outside it that brought it into existence.

This being outside the universe, this Creator, the first cause argument tells us, is God.

f I told you that I had just counted down from infinity to zero, starting with “infinity minus zero” and carrying on until I reached “infinite minus infinity, i.e zero”, then you would know that this claim is false. Just as it is impossible to count up from zero to infinity, so it is impossible to count down from infinity to zero. If I had started counting down from infinity and kept going, then I would still be counting to this day; I would not have finished. My claim to have counted down from infinity to zero must be false. This is because it is impossible to traverse an infinite series.

The Past Therefore Cannot be Infinite

The idea that the universe has an infinite past is just as problematic as the idea that I have just counted down from infinity. If the universe had an infinite past, then time would have had to count down from infinity to reach time zero, the present, and so would not have reached it. The fact that we have reached the present therefore shows that the past is not infinite but finite. The universe has a beginning. This claim, of course, has been confirmed by modern science, who trace the universe back to a point of origin in the ‘big bang’.

The past cannot go back forever, then; the universe must have a beginning. The next question is whether something caused this beginning, or whether the universe just popped into existence out of nothing. We all know, though, that nothing that begins to exist does so without a cause; nothing comes from nothing. For something to come into existence there must be something else that already exists that can bring it into existence. The fact that the universe began to exist therefore implies that something brought it into existence, that the universe has a Creator.

The First Cause Must be Uncreated, Eternal

If this Creator were a being like the universe, a being that exists in time and so that came into existence, then it too would have to have been created by something. Nothing comes from nothing, not even God.

This tells us that the ultimate cause of the universe must never have come into existence; the ultimate Creator must be a being that exists outside of time, an eternal being with neither beginning nor end.

 

How Inflation Infers The Existence of God

Quoted from CNN:

Opinion by Leslie A. Wickman, special to CNN

(CNN) The remarkable discovery, announced this week, of ripples in the space-time fabric of the universe rocked the world of science – and the world of religion.

Touted as evidence for inflation (a faster-than-the-speed-of-light expansion of our universe), the new discovery of traces of gravity waves affirms scientific concepts in the fields of cosmology, general relativity, and particle physics.

The new discovery also has significant implications for the Judeo-Christian worldview, offering strong support for biblical beliefs.

Here’s how.

The prevalent theory of cosmic origins prior to the Big Bang theory was the “Steady State,” which argued that the universe has always existed, without a beginning that necessitated a cause.

However, this new evidence strongly suggests that there was a beginning to our universe.

If the universe did indeed have a beginning, by the simple logic of cause and effect, there had to be an agent – separate and apart from the effect – that caused it.

So this latest discovery is good news for us believers, as it adds scientific support to the idea that the universe was caused – or created – by something or someone outside it and not dependent on it.

Atheist-turned-agnostic astronomer Fred Hoyle, who coined the term “Big Bang,” famously stated, “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics.”

As Hoyle saw it, the Big Bang was not a chaotic explosion, but rather a very highly ordered event – one that could not have occurred by random chance.

In the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, the writer tells us that God “established (his) covenant with day and night, and with the fixed laws of heaven and earth.”

As we observe the complexity of the cosmos, from subatomic particles to dark matter and dark energy, we quickly conclude that there must be a more satisfying explanation than random chance. Properly practiced, science can be an act of worship in looking at God’s revelation of himself in nature.

If God is truly the creator, then he will reveal himself through what he’s created, and science is a tool we can use to uncover those wonders.

Thoughts?