Category: Evolution/Creation


THE INTENTIONAL IGNORANCE OF SCIENCE

Filed under: APOLOGETICS, Evolution/Creation, FAITH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS — Leave a comment
June 20, 2017

How do you lead people to conclude that there’s only one truth, without showing them any real evidence? Answer: you keep them from all dissenting alternatives…

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I was listening to a BBC radio discussion on the subject of parasitism recently (1), the panel being a gathering of very learned and highly credentialed evolutionary scientists. One of the comments which stood out to me was from Steve Jones, Emeritus Professor of Genetics at University College, London. In the course of the discussion host Melvyn Bragg asked the Prof:

So you’re definitely saying that sometimes parasites can have a positive and good effect?

The answer:

Well the trouble is that words like “positive” and “good” don’t really belong in biology-it turns into “theology” then.

In Nick Fisher-ese, the answer was, Hey, lay off of that filthy religious language, and stay well away from that “God” thing: we’re talking “science” now, and the two things  are and must remain separate…

I disagree: God is the master-scientist. No God-no science. In fact, no God, no universe. Great scientists of the past such as Isaac Newton had no mind to censor their beliefs, and no reason to as they do now.

Don’t forget that according to honest evolutionary philosophy you are just another animal, no more important to the universe than a tape-worm, a tadpole, a tomato, a tree or a tic, and there’s no such thing as “good” or “bad” in any absolute sense.

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Picture Copyright © by Nick Fisher

We’re led to believe that scientists have disproved the existence of God-which is actually impossible-and instead they’ve scientifically shown that everything came into existence by itself and evolved all on its own. The truth is that scientists, including those who may quietly be questioning the politically correct view of origins and evolution, are all but forbidden to even suggest the possibility that there could be the remotest chance that there may just be something to that “God” thing.

Stephen Meyer, a leader in the Intelligent Design movement, with a PhD in the philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge, writes about a principle of evolutionary science in his book, “Darwin’s Doubt” (2). “Methodological naturalism”, aka “methodological materialism” is a presumed rule of science, he says. It asserts that to qualify as scientific, a theory must explain phenomena and events in nature…by reference to strictly material causes only:

“According to this principle, scientists may not invoke the activity of a mind or, as one philosopher of science puts it, any “creative intelligence”.

Evolutionary science intentionally dismisses the remotest suggestion of Creation and possibility of intelligent design. No researcher or professor who wants to keep his job or his funding can factor any hint of divinity or design into his work or his pronouncements. The most polite designation by evolutionists for these two views of science and anything like them, held by many fine scientists and scientifically trained individuals in the Creation and Intelligent Design movements, is that they are “unscientific”.

Evolutionists, who hold the political and legal upper hand in all areas of education and the media, intentionally bar the slightest hint of any evidence, opinion, interpretation or line of inquiry which points towards a designer or a creator. In other words, you-and your children, with the help of your tax money, are purposely kept from considering any alternative interpretation of science to the politically correct one which may lead you to conclude that there is a Designer, unless it’s a controlled exposure designed (!) to ridicule and belittle.

Meyer relates a now famous (or infamous) quote by Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin, laying out his own version of the “ban God” rule:

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs…because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism…for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door”

Over nineteen hundred years ago the apostle Peter described this blinkered attitude by saying that people are “willingly ignorant” (KJV): they “deliberately overlook” (ESV) the facts of creation…and the judgment to come (2 Peter 3:5-7).

NOTES

1: BBC Radio 4 “In Our Time”: “Parasitism”-broadcast January 26th 2017.

2: DARWIN’S DOUBT: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design. See also the follow-up, “Debating Darwin’s Doubt” in which Meyer answers his critics.

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WHY DO WE SUFFER? 4: THE CURSE

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June 16, 2017

Why does a new car devolve into a rusted, broken wreck? Why do the weeds keep coming back in the garden? Why do we get sick? Why does life sometimes seem like an unwinnable battle…

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(Picture by Marlith)

I’m tackling the problem of suffering from a Biblical point of view, because I really believe that the Bible gives solid answers, unlike many-or all-of the world’s alternative religions and philosophies.

Perhaps the most hopeless philosophy is that of naturalistic evolution. While some atheists put a brave face on their future by saying that they’re part of the onward and upward evolution of life, they can’t escape their own beliefs. Yes, they can feel good about themselves and their mortality by making the world a better place to live in for everyone else, but according to evolution suffering and death are necessary components of evolution. As individuals we struggle, suffer and die, with no hope of anything afterwards. We are, in this philosophy, no more important or valuable than a tape worm, and we prove to be no more than parasites on the earth.

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Atheists and evolutionists in general tend to dismiss the Biblical God by saying that he isn’t doing his job, which is to stop all suffering and to give everyone a good time. Well excuse me, but who told them that that was God’s “job” description or God’s obligation? And if he doesn’t do it by their prescription (or ours) isn’t that up to him? How are we going to force his hand anyway? Who decides what God “should” do, and how he should run the world that he created and sustains? Where does it say in the Bible that God promised to stop all suffering and give everyone a good time, except at the end of the Revelation? Just because God doesn’t do things our way, it doesn’t mean he isn’t there at all.

The source of most of human suffering is laid out for us clearly in the early chapters of Genesis. I wrote in part two about the free will that God gave to man, to choose between right and wrong, as well as the ability to decide on many things. Genesis tells us that God gave man a simple test of that free will, because without an opportunity to make the wrong choice and disobey, there could be no free-will.

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God gave Adam and Eve a perfect place to live in, with the companionship of a beautiful healthy mate, and his own presence. He also gave them all kinds of delicious and exotic natural foods to eat freely. However, God made one tree that they were not permitted to eat fruit from, and warned them clearly that if they ate from that one tree they would die. They failed the test.

God would not let imperfect man live for ever in a perfect world, so he profoundly changed the order of things. He told Eve that she would bear children in pain (Genesis 3:16). He removed Adam’s access to the tree of life, which would have given him and us health and life without end (Genesis 3:22, 23). He told Adam that he would henceforth have to work hard for a living, until the day he died, and made it clear that the world would no longer be just a playground of pleasure, but was cursed along with his own life. It would actually provide some resistance to him (verses 17 to 19).

Yes, death was and is the result of Adam’s disobedience. Paul stated the situation clearly, when he said “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned…” (Romans 5:12).

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It’s not just humans who suffered from Adam’s decision. Paul explained that “the creation was subjected to frustration” (Romans 8:20), and that “the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (verse 22).  Whereas God created a perfect world with the potential for perpetual fulfillment and happiness, now all of nature is running down and decaying, and is not on an onward and upward journey of evolution.

This may seem to us like very stiff punishment for “one little mistake”. However, decisions do have consequences, and God can do what he wants to do. More than that, God’s action was a road-block to human nature which already tended towards rebellion against the creator. It wasn’t long before the dark side of humanity was at work again, when Cain, Adams’s son, murdered his brother (chapter 4).

And the rest is history, because like it or not we all inherited the same sin nature that Adam had. It’s not just that we have that same willingness to ignore God’s clear guidance which was written into our conscience and later in Scripture, but we’ve inherited that nature just as surely as we inherit genetic material from our ancestors. It’s as if we’re born with a disease, which God calls “sin’.

We’re not left without hope, because right from the beginning God had a plan-as I said before, “Plan B”- to rescue mankind from sin. Paul wrote:

…if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ (Romans 5:17).

We all now have the opportunity to make a very positive choice with our free will: a choice which will ultimately rid us of all suffering and give us eternal life. Jesus said:

I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die (John 11:25, 26).

Paul wrote:

Since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man (1 Corinthians 15: 21).

The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus… (Romans 6:23).

In this provision of forgiveness and eternal life is seen God’s concern and love for us, even while we suffer for now in this fallen, broken world.

 

 

 

 

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WHY I BELIEVE IN GOD

Filed under: APOLOGETICS, Evolution/Creation — Leave a comment
March 3, 2017

If you’re someone who has faith do you get those days when you almost feel like giving up on it, or that it’s almost gone anyway? I do. For such days I’ve prepared myself, over many years, a written reminder of the reasons why I had faith in the first place, and specifically, why I believe in the God of the Bible…

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This little collection of thoughts, observations and information has restored me to my rightful mind many times over, and I offer it here in the hope that it will inspire someone else. This is an edited version of an article I’ve published before, with a more seeker-friendly title. I realize that there are some times of doubt and testing when reason isn’t enough: please see my disclaimer at the end of the article*

I’ve organized my notes under a set of acronyms, or they may be called “initialisms”, depending on your point of view. The acronyms are pretty meaningless on their own, but they serve a purpose. I have four, so far.

ACRONYM 1: DIO APO HAELJASE-E

My first acronym concerns my belief in the existence of a creator. It also indirectly supports my faith in the God of the Bible, since it reflects the nature, character and power of the Biblical God. Consider first that there are three possibilities as to how we all got here. 1: We were created, 2: We evolved, 3: We aren’t really here, we just think we are (!) Other evolution-related concepts such as “Pan-Spermia” (life evolved somewhere else in the universe and was then seeded on earth) are not really alternatives, since all life, wherever it came from, either evolved or was created .

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D is for DESIGN.  I see incredible design in all of nature. Out of the thousands of examples I could give, one of my favorites is a moth I saw late one night near where I live, under a bright light. It was on the ground with its wings fully open and laying flat. It had a five-inch wingspan (12.5 cm), and on the back of each wing it had a large fake fearsome eye, so that you seem to be looking at a formidable, intimidating five-inch wide face, presumably to avoid being eaten. I asked myself how a moth would “evolve” those “eyes” for itself, even given millions of years. And why would it, if it could survive long enough to evolve them?

I is for INFORMATION. A strand of DNA, contained in each of the trillions of cells in our body, is packed with more information than a huge library. Where did that information come from? Information has never been observed to come from chaos. Researchers scan the skies for a radio message from space which, they are convinced, would confirm intelligent life out there, yet ignore the incredible message in plain view within life on earth, as seen in our DNA, in our brains, and in all of life.

O is for ORDER. The universe operates in a very orderly, lawful way, as does our own solar system and our own planet. The laws of nature hold all things together and allow us to exist and function. Sir Isaac Newton, whose laws of motion and gravity are still employable enough to land a man on the moon, attributed that orderliness to a Creator.

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A-P is for “ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE”. This principle, dismissed as mere coincidence by the evolutionist, demonstrates clearly that Earth is uniquely placed and equipped for life in our galaxy and in our solar system. It benefits from many hundreds of extremely fortuitous conditions. As an example, if earth were tilted any more or less in relation to the sun, its temperature ranges would be too extreme to support life. If we didn’t have the moon at just the right distance from us and at just the right relative size with just the right orbital pattern, we would have no tides to keep the oceans alive and fresh, and there would be no life on earth. Earth’s magnetic field protects us from the harmful power of the sun’s radiation. Water is unique in many of its properties, enabling life to exist and continue.

O is for ORIGINS.  Even famous evolutionists admit that they don’t know for sure how life evolved from non-life, and they’ve never seen it happen. Millions of people are convinced that life has been made, or almost made, in the laboratory: this is not the case. The Miller experiments made a few amino acids only. When the proverbial first living cell miraculously produced itself according to evolution theory, defying multitudes of natural obstacles, who did it mate with and what did it eat? I can much more easily believe in an intelligent creator than in a rock producing all the complexity we see.

There’s plenty of scientifically supportable reason to believe in the Biblical view of origins. Try http://www.icr.org for a start, or http://www.answersingenesis.org

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H is for man’s HUNGER for God. Man has an inbuilt hunger for the spiritual, which explains the existence of many religions throughout history and in every culture. Religion is not always a product of superstition: perhaps superstition is born of a longing for God, and the realization that there is something much greater than us.

A is for ATHEISM. The condition of atheistic societies to date has not been impressive or endearing.  Atheistic philosophy has been the cause of far more evil in our world than any religion has. Hitler, in his book “Mein Kampf” expressed the need to “cleanse” the human race for the sake of “Mother Nature” and healthy human evolution. Also refer to the regimes of such men as Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot). Please note I am not saying that every atheist is a “bad” person: they are usually no more evil than anyone else. Instead it demonstrates that having a God-less society is not the answer to our problems.

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Also consider the implications of atheistic philosophy. Think about it: if there is no God or creator who has rules and standards, there is no fixed universal, objective standard of right or wrong. No-one has the moral right to dictate to others what they should or should not do, particularly in a world where the survival of the fittest dictates what goes on. Hitler, then, was not “wrong” in his murder of millions of people, except in our eyes: we just happened to disagree with him. What one person or culture decides is good another may decide is evil, and who has the right to deem it otherwise?

Since life, according to evolution, evolves by means of mutation and natural selection-the survival of the fittest-death, war, murder and even the consumption of our competitors cannot be “wrong”. Our governments are oppressing us by deciding everything for us and by locking us into their system of thought, laws and regulations. Without God’s standards, government has become our Master. Who’s satisfied with the results of that?

In the strictest and most logical view of the evolutionary worldview, I am no more valuable than a worm: in God’s economy, each human life has great value.

E is for EMOTION. Most of our emotions would be superfluous and even detrimental if we were only here to contend with other life forms so as to emerge the winner (as we have, if we evolved). The God of the Bible made us in his image, and is himself a feeling, emotional being.

L is for LOVE. Real love, not sex-and-procreation-only love, produces commitment, caring, empathy, loyalty, faithfulness and truthfulness. Where does love come from if not from a loving, faithful designer? How could chemical reaction and interaction alone-born of rock-produce love? When your significant other asks if you love her or him, do you reply that yes, you are currently experiencing some chemical and hormonal interactions, and as long as they occur you will stick around and refrain from killing and eating him or her? Love in today’s popular definition is a reductionist ploy with the aim of reducing our relationships to temporary mutual use while the going is good. Godly love, as found in the Bible, is that which produces stable relationships, happy kids, and successful societies.

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J is for JUSTICE. Our sense of justice is evidence that we were made by a just, moral God. If we “evolved” a sense of justice, why do we still have crime, war and murder, at every level of every society, no matter how many new laws and regulations are created? And why would or should we care anyway? The fact is that we recognize naturally in our hearts that there is such a thing as evil at large in our world, and that it needs to be controlled. This recognition was given to us by a God of justice.

A is for “AESTHETIC SENSE”. We have an inbuilt appreciation for beauty and for all of creation, and not merely for our mate when we’re having sex, or for the food on our plate. We desire to be creative, to entertain, and to express ourselves, and we appreciate those who do so skillfully. We create and imagine-often without any practical reason. We philosophize and think very deeply (well some of us do anyway).

S and E are for SIN and EVIL. The Bible is right about human nature- just look around. You probably need look no further than the mirror, or your own family and friends.  Those who claim that people only abuse each other when they’re impoverished are often the same people who berate the ultra-rich for abusing the rest of us. If poverty were the cause of crime and terrorism, half of India and Africa would be in absolute turmoil. And if we evolved, why shouldn’t the rich abuse the rest of us, since life is all about the “survival of the fittest”?

E is for EXPERIENCE. In the years I’ve been a Christian I’ve experienced God in many ways. This includes an acute awareness of His presence, a feeling of indescribable completeness at times, an inner peace and joy, and answered prayers. It’s important for me to remember those experiences and continuous states of mind, and not to let them be dismissed as mere superstition, hormonal balance or positive thinking. I’ve seen the difference made by the Spirit of God in people’s lives, in homes, and in areas of society where God has been allowed or invited in.

Thanks for reading my first acronym! Further installments will follow…

*DISCLAIMER

My disclaimer is the acknowledgement that in those awful situations some people face-perhaps all of us at some time in our lives- reason and information are inadequate or even counter-productive.  Sometimes all we can tolerate is some loving, prayerful company, and our own personal brokenness. Many times our brokenness is what our God is looking for.

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THE MEANING OF DEATH

Filed under: APOLOGETICS, Evolution/Creation, FAITH — Leave a comment
February 25, 2017

Most of us have a one-hundred percent chance of dying, and dying is the most common cause of death. So perhaps it requires a little consideration, now and then…

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In five years of blogging my most popular post by far has been “The Meaning of Life According to Hamlet, Paul and Deep Thought”. So I decided it was time to discuss the meaning of death. Unfortunately Deep Thought, an imaginary computer invented to calculate the meaning of life, apparently had no opinion on the meaning of death…

Death is pretty popular these days. That may seem like a rather crass statement, but unfortunately, it’s true. Take, for example, the idea in certain religious circles that you can only be sure of getting to heaven by killing yourself along with other people: you prove how great God is by committing suicide and murdering them. That isn’t, incidentally, the God of the Bible.

Death has been explained and explored in as many ways as the human mind can imagine. One of the most popular ideas about death is that we die because we need to have another go at getting life right: reincarnation. Seems like a good idea, eh? Why shouldn’t we get another chance at life if we blow it? The problem is that according to such philosophies the majority of us are going to “blow it” through tens of thousands of life-times. So if you’re not used to dying yet, you’d better start getting used to it now.

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(Photo Laurent Belanger)

Unless God puts his foot in the door first-or more specifically, on the Mount of Olives-we all have a one-hundred percent chance of dying. Dying is the most common cause of death. And I don’t mean that flippantly either, because when God warned Adam against disobedience, he meant not that Adam would be zapped on the spot by a lightening bolt the moment he disobeyed, but that he would begin to die, and he would keep dying, until he was dead. God was not keeping Adam and Eve from fulfillment in life: he was trying to help Adam make a wise choice and so avoid death. Alas, Adam opted for death.

Another highly popular explanation for death was promoted by Mr. Darwin in the nineteenth century, and of course by all his fans up to the present day. In Darwin’s theory death is nature’s way of disposing of the older, more primitive life forms, and giving rise to the new and more successful. Darwin believed that some races of man were more highly evolved than others, and would soon see their extinction. Yes-he was genuinely biased against certain groups of humans, a fact rarely included in discussions of the “elegance” of evolution theory.

Darwin himself had been influenced by others, particularly Herbert Spencer, who coined the word “evolution” and the phrase “survival of the fittest”. These concepts gave rise to “Social Darwinism” which saw wealthy, successful intellectuals as being more evolved than the poor and the weak, and later “eugenics”- the idea that the weakest in the human race should be discouraged or stopped from breeding. Such ideas were taken up and implemented very successfully by men like Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin*

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The meaning of death in evolution, if we look at it honestly, is that it’s a vital part of the onward-and-upward trend of life on earth, including that of humanity: it’s a good thing. More specifically (and modern evolutionists generally avoid this aspect of the discussion too) the death of the less successful, the less attractive and the weak is necessary and inevitable. No wonder such men as Hitler liked the idea. And by the way, the meaning of life according to evolution is struggle and competition, so better your neighbors if you can.

This view of death demeans you. It makes your life little more than a stepping-stone for someone else’s. In the rising tide of atheism, unbelief and skepticism in our world, there are many who would read what I just wrote and then claim to be more than willing and happy to be one of those stepping stones. But for those who are not, there’s a far better explanation for death, and a hope beyond it which far outweighs any pain experienced on its arrival.

It’s sometimes said by the cynical that heaven is a fairy story for those who can’t face the thought of death. My view is that evolution is a fairy story for those who can’t face the thought of heaven, God or judgment. As I’ve written before many times, I’ve seen no evidence for evolution, and neither have you. Oh, you’ve seen different kinds of dogs, but they’re still dogs. You’ve seen people with black skin and white skin and yellow skin, but they’re still people. In contrast, I’ve seen plenty of evidence that there is an incredibly intelligent and powerful Creator, a creator who is eternal, and who therefore must have power over death.

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The Bible gives an explanation for death which is, I believe, higher, deeper, and more noble than that of the evolutionist. For me it fits the whole claim found in the Bible that there is a holy God who has absolute standards. We as his creation, beginning with Adam and Eve, have failed to live up to those standards, and the result is death:

“The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a)

A perfect God cannot allow a rebellious creation to live for ever: there has to be a check-point: a consequence and an answer to our fallen condition. However, the Bible teaches one death only.

A God who is able to make such an amazing, beautiful universe must also, as the Bible declares, be a loving God. And it’s that love which provides the antidote to death:

“But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (6:23b).

The gift of eternal life comes by a healing of our broken relationship with God in which God chooses to forgive us completely and put us on the right path. Death parts us from our fallen nature which caused the problem in the first place. It’s nothing but good news-the good news about Jesus Christ. Please see my recent post on the gospel:

https://nickyfisher.com/2017/02/12/the-gospel-of-jesus-christ/

*See for more info on the link between the theory of evolution and murderous philosophies, see the following posts:

https://nickyfisher.com/2012/07/15/adolph-hitler-part-5-of-war-religion-and-atheism/

https://nickyfisher.com/2012/06/30/stalin-part-4-of-war-religion-and-atheism/

 

 

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SHOULD WE BELIEVE THAT GOD CREATED?

Filed under: APOLOGETICS, Evolution/Creation, FAITH — Leave a comment
February 4, 2017

Has science proved that the earth and the stars and all of us evolved without any supernatural help? If so, how should we think about the Bible?

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I’m always amazed at how little interest people show in anything I write about the creation/evolution issue. It’s actually vitally important, because if it’s not God who endowed us with the right to pursue “life, liberty and happiness”, then humans have no rights at all apart from the mercies of their fellow human masters, which are at best unreliable. Communist dictators such as Stalin and tyrants such as Hitler were no more “wrong” than you or I, because the only standards of right and wrong, and liberty, are those which man imagines or decides to trash.

This post isn’t intended to be a scientific comparison of the two main options: divine Creation and the evolution of life from non-matter (though I will touch on it). Instead I want to offer a few thoughts for the professing believer-and also for any interested seeker-who may be wondering how to read the Bible in light of secular explanations of our beginnings. I’ve touched on the subject before several times, particularly in my post, “Why I believe in God”.

GETTING IT RIGHT FROM THE START

The Bible states that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). But is the account of creation recorded in Genesis just “poetic language” for evolution as some claim? Is it the imagination of ignorant men who didn’t know much but thought the earth was flat, and was it somehow tacked onto later scriptures?

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If we really want to take any notice of the Bible’s ultimate focus-Jesus Christ- we need to consider that the Bible claims in many places to be the inspired Word of God. The words of Jesus, the account of his life, death and resurrection, and all his promises of an eternal future for us are bound together in this idea that the Bible is the message of God to humanity. It’s impossible to separate those two things: Jesus Christ and the divine inspiration of Scripture. Try it, and you’ll find yourself removing more and more, until there’s really nothing left but a sad story of a warring tribe attempting to make its way in the world, and an uppity young carpenter, opposing the traditions of his day, and getting himself executed by Roman governors anxious to avoid a rebellion.

Take away the miracles, the prophecies, the divine plan, the claims to direct contact with and descent from the Creator, and you will have very little left: you may as well take to some totally fictional classical literature such as Homer’s Iliad, because it will have no less relevance to your life or to our time or the future.

The Bible-written by many different authors over many hundreds of years-tells a unified story, from the creation to the promises and predictions of Revelation. The genealogy of Jesus Christ’s earthly descent begins with Adam and progresses through Noah, Shem, Abraham, Jacob, Judah, and all the way up to Mary and Joseph in the gospel of Matthew. The overriding theme is of the redemption of man, from his Fall in Genesis 3 to the end of Revelation. Jesus Christ quoted frequently from several Old Testament books, as did the apostles: it’s all interrelated.

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What I’m saying is that if you want to believe that a large part of it is untrue and unreliable, you’re close to believing that it’s all untrue and unreliable. Just suppose for a moment that the Bible is in fact the inspired word of God: who are we to pick and choose which parts are the inspired parts? How will we do it without risking calling God a liar, or accusing him of being unable to protect and preserve his message?

If you remove some of it-the parts of your choosing-you may as well forget it all, because it’s all linked and intertwined, moving forward with the same story. It’s all true, or it’s all insignificant at best. At worst it’s a despicable deception.

The claims that the Bible has “all been changed hundreds of times” or that it’s plagiarized from other more ancient beliefs don’t stand up to the facts. It hasn’t been changed (see my  post https://nickyfisher.com/2015/06/14/a-spiritual-defense-strategy-acronym-2/ ) and the Creation and the following genealogy is as ancient as you can get.

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

Here we all are, living, breathing and loving. Either we were created, or we evolved from nothing, or perhaps we only think we’re here. Those are the only alternatives, and it’s my conviction that the latter deserves no consideration at all. So how did we get here?

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The evolutionist and all his spokespersons currently in the media and education establishments, anxious to hang on to their funding, their jobs, their friends, and to promote their godless philosophies, are determined to convince us that we arrived via an expansion of nothing or next to nothing, followed by an incredibly fortuitous event which turned non-life into mind-bogglingly complex living systems, an occurrence only real in the minds of men and has never been observed; countless more incredibly lucky and complex events including mutations which haven’t been observed, until finally, here we are, with billions of brain cells and trillions of connections communicating at the speed of light while we consider where we came from.

EVIDENCE

I have to ask you this: what evidence have you seen of that evolution? I don’t mean, “Have you read Stephen Hawkin’s remarkable book?” or “Did you see that National Geographic special on evolution?”: I’m asking you what have you personally seen taking place with your very own eyes which could be evidence for all of us descending from non-living molecules?” What animal or plant have you seen turning into something else? Yes, there are different breeds of cats and dogs, but they’re still cats and dogs. That’s not evolution, that’s the outworking of variation within DNA.

Darwin Soup

Not wanting this post to be a zillion words long, I need to get to the point(s) a little more quickly. I’ll offer here my own favorite observation in relation to this question. A wonderful creationist once explained at a seminar I attended that despite all the billions of fossils in the world, you can’t go to any museum anywhere and see a series of fossils clearly demonstrating, for example, legs gradually getting shorter until they disappear, showing cows turning into whales. I’ve tested that assertion at the Natural History Museum in London: there were no fossil series at all displaying anything close to macro-evolution. And considering that evolutionists would be deliriously happy to display such a series if they had one, (one!) the most logical explanation for that fact is that it never really happened: it’s a story. It’s a story of beginnings contrived and massaged by people who are convinced or want to be convinced that there’s no God and that there is an alternative explanation for everything.

So I repeat my question: what evidence have you seen for evolution? Is it possible that the same kind of experts who assured you that Donald Trump has “no path to 270” are also wrong in their nightly documentaries about your origins?

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DOES THE BIBLE TEACH THAT THE EARTH IS FLAT?

Nowhere in the Bible do we read that the earth is flat. That may have been the teaching of a certain world-wide church organization for hundreds of years , but they didn’t get that idea from the Bible. And in any case-isn’t that forgivable, considering how little understanding and experience of the universe they had? They didn’t need any more knowledge of the universe: they weren’t going anywhere. All we find in the Bible are similar metaphors to the ones we use today. We speak of the sun “coming up” and “going down”, when we know all along that it doesn’t-it just appears to. In the book of Job, recognized to have been written long before Galileo or Kepler or any of the other pioneers of knowledge came along,  we read of God that:

“He hangs the earth on nothing” (Job 26:7);

and

“He sits upon the circle of the earth” (Isaiah 40:22).

READING SCRIPTURE AS WRITTEN

If you believe that Jesus turned water to wine, ask yourself how many millions of years it took him to do it. How long did it take for water and whatever else may have been floating around in those pots to evolve into wine? Since it must have taken at least many thousands of years, weren’t the guests of the party all gone by the time the transformation was complete?

No, Jesus turned the water into wine instantly (John 2:1-11). Similarly, other miracles Jesus performed were no less than that: miracles. They were signs, confirmation that he was the manifestation of God on the earth. They were evidence that God has power over all things that he created.

Revelation tells us that there will be a “new heavens and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1). I’d like to ask the Bible reader, How many billions of years will it take for the new heavens and the new earth to evolve? Where will we wait in the mean-time? If they’re evolving now, where are they, and how the Dickens will we get there or how will they get to us? Doesn’t a more logical interpretation of this promise tell us that the new heavens and earth will be put together pretty quickly: perhaps, say, in six days?

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NO CREATOR, NO GOD

Those who’ve decided that science (actually science is observable, empirical and repeatable: this is evolution) has proved the earth to be billions of years old and was formed by natural processes, may as well forget all about the Bible and any hope of eternal life. They may as well forget any idea they some things are right and some things are wrong, and that God has endowed us with anything at all, because “science” also concluded long ago that there is no God! Ask Stephen Hawking, after reading his book as though it were gospel truth, if there is a God, and he will answer in the negative. If “science” is true as it relates to the theory of evolution there is no spiritual entity at all of any merit, but only what you can see with your eyes and put under a microscope.

In fact, if you so relegate God and elevate science, science has become your god, and now has free reign to decide how you live your life, and whether you live, and how and when you should die.

BELIEVING WHAT JESUS CHRIST BELIEVES

Most importantly, scripture stands or falls as a unified account of the beginning and the end of the universe, and of everything in between. Jesus, the apostles, and all the prophets all told the same story. That is, that God created the heavens and the earth, and nothing that exists came about but by God’s miraculous power. There are numerous indications that what we read in Genesis about the creation was taken seriously by the prophets, by the apostles, and by Jesus Christ himself. Jesus frequently quoted Pentateuch books and those of the prophets, stating his belief that they were factual. For example, to those questioning him about marriage, he answered:

“Haven’t you read…that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female..?” (Matthew 19:4 NIV).

“Haven’t you read…” Genesis was important reading to Jesus. He expected that any professing child of God should know it and base his or her view of the world on it;

“At the beginning…” Jesus here identified when God made humans;

“God made them male and female…” It was God who created men and women-they didn’t evolve.

I’ll be considering relevant scripture as the second part of this post…

Thanks for reading…

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