i find that i understand how ppl think that God is like some stupid genie in the bottle fairy tale, so i hope to change this mindset. i saw comments by an atheist on youtube and find how they dun understand christians at all. i hope that ppl would stop insulting something or someone without any knowledge of what they are insulting...
first and foremost, i would like to insist that im not a SOT graduate or super bible-knowledgable, but smth i realised for the past few days is like what the song sang by don moen, indeed "God works in ways we cannot see." we may not always understand God(Lev. 11:20-3), or the way he does things(10 plagues of Egypt), but bible loopholes doesn't prove God inexistence!
my friend fabian told me after the last day of FOP that our God is poetic, pst Kong also once said that one cannot possibly make a doctrine out of a single verse! hence certain verses by alone makes no sense, or seemed absurb, but the truth of the matter is, when you read the bible as a whole, it is a beautiful masterpiece, self proven and explanatory.
in case some of you ppl still ponder abt how could God possibly make a mistake on his creation, this website might be helpful (:
http://www.tektonics.org/af/buglegs.html
obviously no one can technically prove the existence of God, unless he/she died(presumly went to heaven or hell) and rose again.
but let us look at this at a more naive point of view, if it could actually be proven, wouldn't the whole world be christians? but den why do millions if not billions of people(for ur info, christianity is the largest religon in the world) around the world believes in someone whom no historian have any detailed records of? are christians ignornant? or are they plain stupid? good question. hmm...
firstly, let me remind you of many christian leaders around the world having the status of "Dr" or "Rev." if having a PhD is stupid and ignornant of truth, then what more are the many atheists out there?(now get this straight, i did not say atheists are stupid ok.)
now let's get smth straight: God doesn't need to PROVE to us that he exists. now, what abt science? and evolution?
let me define science:
According to Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, the definition of science is "knowledge attained through study or practice," or "knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world."
http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/science-definition.html
scientists, by their nature, are "truth-seekers." indeed, scientists, according to nature, use nature to explain truth. we cannot explain God or prove Him through natural explainations because He's supernatural !
im not uber religious or bible-trained, but hey i've seen God working in ppl lives! thru the services of pst Benny Hinn, pst Mike Conner etc, along with the thousands who were present.
how can a person born deaf suddenly able to hear? or a crippled bound to a wheelchair able to walk? it is obviously smth we cannot explain. yet it is one of the happening things that keeps our faith going.
evidently smth not natural, how can so many dudes get healed at the same time? no it is definitely not a concidence, it is a mircale.
i understand that many scientists claim that evolution is backed by tons of historical proof, but hey, all these are claimed by men. how can one ensure they make no mistakes? there have been incidents where fossils are assembled wrongly. this shows that man makes mistakes!
and what if they were wrong? fossils can change rite? what if there were earthquakes or landslides or storms or floods that affected the fossils? what if there was corrosion or some parts of the fossil being completely decomposed? what if two different species died on the same spot or near each other? what make us so sure the fossil we see is not something halfway between two different animals?
the bible may not be a history textbook, but what explains the mircales that happens? what explains the peace felt when we come into the presence of God? God doesn't need to be explained, you will know He is true once you experienced it. THAT, is the best evidence of His existence.
in case i haven't convince you, this website:
http://www.crystalinks.com/evolution.html
stats that the theory of evolution cannot be verified as the 'missing link' has not yet been found. there is no conclusive evidence to prove that man evolved from apes.
to further support my stand, i have done some research on evolution.
here are some reasons why natural evolution cannot be the answer to the question of origins:
Natural law
scientists investigate the laws of nature. the very existence of law and order in the universe points to a source or lawgiver.
Law of cause and effect
all current scientific evidence indicates that the universe had a beginning. before this evidence was found, many scientists thought that the universe had existed eternally and had no beginning. according to the law of cause and effect, every effect must have a cause. since we have an effect (the beginning of the universe and life), there must have been a cause. that cause would necessarily be outside the present realm of nature.
First law of thermodynamics
the first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. in the current order of nature, energy is transformed from one form to another, for example from nuclear energy (sun), to light, to chemical energy (in plants), to heat (when the food is eaten and the calories are used to warm the body), to motion (walking) or sound (speaking). electricity is an additional form of energy. energy can never be created or destroyed. this is not a theory, it's a law. matter is related to energy (e=mc2), so energy can sometimes be transformed into matter and vice versa, but the energy itself cannot be created or destroyed. since we have matter and energy, and since the universe has not always been in existence, energy had to have been created at some time in the past. today's natural laws must not have always been in operation.
Second law of thermodynamics
the second law of thermodynamics describes the natural tendency of things to progress from order to disorder. this law states that order does not arise spontaneously from chaos. in other words, the universe is "running down." in the past, there was more usable energy in the universe than there is now. the same amount of energy exists because energy cannot be created or destroyed, but on the whole it is in ever less usable form.
the theory of natural evolution proposes that over millions of years, the universe and life on earth naturally proceeded from chaos (disorder) to the amazing degree of order we observe today. although scientists argue that the excess energy of the sun could have powered these improvements without violating the law, evolution would have required not one but hundreds of millions of small movements "uphill". even a single incidence of this would be unusual! note that the apparent uphill movement of a seed to a tree or a fertilized egg to an adult animal is not random. the seeds contain the design code and instructions for "building" the organism from available materials. the question is, can information come from nothing? can information organize itself in an orderly way?
Law of biogenesis
people once believed that maggots were spontaneously generated from the flesh of dead animals. they thought life could come from non-life. Louis Pasteur proved beyond doubt that life cannot arise from non-life. this is not a scientific theory, but a law. proponents of evolution contend that life did arise spontaneously from non-life at least once in the past, in other words, that this particular natural law was broken or nonexistent sometime in the past.
Complexity of living cell
a single cell is far more complicated than any machine intelligent man has invented. a typical cell contains ten million million atoms (quadrillion). to reconstruct a model of a cell, atom by atom, one atom per second, would take about ten million years to finish. to get a cell by chance would require at least 100 functional proteins to appear simultaneously in one place. even if that happened, would it be alive? a dead body (or a dead cell) has all of the proper proteins, enzymes, the cell wall, and the DNA design in one place, yet it is not alive.
Complexity of DNA code
the capacity of DNA to store information vastly exceeds that of any known system created by intelligent man. if the information in an individual's DNA were in small type in books like the telephone book, it would take a stack of books 46 feet high to hold all the information. yet there is a DNA molecule in every one of the ten trillion cells in a human body. the design information to specify every person who has ever lived and every species of animal and plant which has ever existed would fit into a cup, with room left over.
Sexual reproduction
evolutionists often point out that humans and chimpanzees share 99% of genetic material. yet humans have 26 sets of chromosomes and chimps have 39. for two animals to mate, their chromosomes must match or "zip together." the proposed divergence of chimps and humans from a common ancestor is said to have occurred after sexual reproduction began. if the theory of evolution is true, an animal must have been born at some time in the past with a different number of chromosomes than its parents. unless that animal was able to mate, it would have no adaptive advantage. therefore, if evolution as proposed is true, two animals must have experienced the same change in the number of chromosomes in the same geographic location during the same generation. although "coincidences" such as this have not been observed in nature, they must have happened thousands of times in the course of history if natural evolution is to account for what exists today.
Interdependence of proteins and DNA
the proteins needed for life cannot be manufactured without the design specifications of DNA. DNA cannot replicate itself without enzymes (proteins). according to atheist Richard Dawkins, "DNA and protein are two pillars of a stable and elegant arch, which persists once all its parts simultaneously exist. it is hard to imagine it arising by any step-by-step process unless some earlier scaffolding has completely disappeared." such scaffolding is completely speculative.
Complexity of the brain
microelectronics, created by intelligent man, can pack more than a million circuits within a cubic foot. the brain has been estimated to pack a million million circuits per cubic foot. the human brain contains about ten billion nerve cells, each of which can put out between 10,000 and 100,000 connectors. the number of possible associations, hence the number of potential thoughts a person can think, may exceed the number of atoms in the universe. the brain is by far the most complex thing known to man.
Probability
there are about 1070 atoms in the observable universe. there are only 1090 seconds in the 15 billion years generally said to be the age of the universe. the probability of spontaneously forming the smallest replicating protein molecule by chance is 1 in 10450. the probability of spontaneously forming proteins and DNA for the smallest self-replicating entity is 1 in 10167,626. the probability of a simple living cell reassembling itself under ideal natural conditions if all components were present but chemical bonds were broken is 1 in 10100,000,000,000. mathematicians consider any event with a probability of less than 1 in 1050 to have a zero probability, i.e. to be impossible regardless of how much time is available.
Mutations
mutations are errors in DNA copying. they are very rare and 99.99% of them are harmful or fatal. DNA has a built-in "proofreading" system with such accuracy that a typist would each have to type 20 billion books with only one typographical error for it to be matched. the neo-Darwinian synthesis proposes that mutations are the primary source of improved genetic material.
Natural selection
can select from an existing gene pool that which is "fittest" for a particular environment. it does not even attempt to explain the origin of the material in the gene pool from which selections are made. where did the huge variety of genetic information come from in the first place? information must come from somewhere. it does not arise spontaneously.
Adaptation
or "fit" of organisms to their environment. in many cases, many interlocking parts would have to come about at once for any mutation to be functional enough to be naturally selected.
an example is the bombardier beetle. when threatened by an enemy, it blasts boiling hot gases from two tail pipes into the face of an attacker. the explosive is made inside the beetle's body by mixing together two dangerous chemicals (hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide). in addition to these two chemicals, the beetle manufactures another type of chemical known as an "inhibitor." the inhibitor prevents the chemicals from blowing up and enables the beetle to store the chemicals indefinitely. when the beetle is approached by a predator, he squirts the stored chemicals into the two combustion tubes and at precisely the right moment he adds another chemical (an anti-inhibitor). this knocks out the inhibitor and a violent explosion occurs right in the face of the attacker. how could such as system, utilizing such dangerous chemicals, have evolved randomly step by step? all parts are necessary for any of them to have an adaptive advantage. the probability of more than one advantageous mutation arising at once is incredibly slim.
Darwin himself wrote:
if it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.
Convergence
the eye is an example of an extremely complex organ. yet it is said to have evolved independently numerous times. vertebrate eyes are imperfect. they're wired backwards and have a blind spot. evolutionists argue that God would certainly not have designed them that way. yet these imperfect eyes work better than any camera man has invented. by pure random chance, a single appearance of an eye would be highly improbable, impossible according to mathematicians.
Darwin wrote:
to suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection seems, i freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.
the ability to fly supposedly evolved spontaneously by chance at least four times: for insects, birds, mammals (bats) and reptiles. yet intelligent man did not figure out the principles of flight until the past century.
Transitional species
many of what Darwin considered to be transitional species have been discredited. even Archaeopteryx, once thought to be transitional between reptiles and birds, is not. modern birds have been found deeper in the fossil record. for the most part nature's divisions are not blurred and indistinct, currently or in the fossil record. the phyla appear in the fossil record almost instantaneously in what is known as the Cambrian explosion, with no apparent connections.
Transitional leaps
according to evolutionists, reptiles evolved into birds. yet the lung of a reptile is very different from the lung of a bird. how could one design evolve into the other step by tiny step, with each step being an improvement over the previous one? microevolution cannot be extrapolated to explain macroevolution. microevolution (one species of bird to another closely related species) has been fairly well established. but no natural mechanism has been even been suggested to explain how macroevolution (from reptile to bird, for example) could possibly have happened.
The Anthropic Principle
the more scientists learn, the more it appears that the universe is tailor-made for life. the more accurately and extensively astronomers measure the universe, the more finely tuned they find it to be. there are a minimum of 25 characteristics of the universe which must be "just so" for life of any kind to be possible. there are more than 40 characteristics which must be "just so" for life as we know it on earth to exist.
Here are some examples:
- distance from the moon to earth. if the moon were farther away, there would not be enough mixing of ocean waters by the tides. if it were closer, the tidal effects would be too great.
- atmospheric electric discharge rate. if there were more lightning, there would be too much fire destruction. if less, not enough nitrogen would be fixed in the atmosphere.
- rotational speed of the earth. if it were slower, there would be too much temperature difference between day and night. if it were faster, the wind velocities would be catastrophic.
- surface gravity. if it were greater, the atmosphere would retain too much ammonia and methane. if it were less, the atmosphere would lose too much water vapor.
- tilt of axis and distance from the sun. if it were different, the temperature variations would be too great to support a stable water cycle.
- amount of water vapor. if it were greater, there would be a runaway greenhouse effect. if less, there would not be enough rainfall.
- amount of carbon dioxide. if it were greater, there would be a runaway greenhouse effect. if less, plants would be unable to maintain efficient photosynthesis.
if these things and many others were just slightly different, life as we know it would be impossible.
science itself has proven that chaos does not naturally and normally turn into order. life comes only from life (law of biogenesis). things do not improve naturally as a matter of course (second law of thermodynamics). things improve because of intelligent input. for example, the technology we enjoy in the present age is a result of human intelligence, not random chance.
science has given us a great deal, but not everything that exists can be explained scientifically.
you can read more about it from this website:
http://www.susancanthony.com/aboutSusan/evolution.html
and what of the bible? how do we prove its true? well, as i mentioned, scientifically we cannot.
"The Bible cannot be proved scientifically any more than can the natural origin of life proposed by Darwin. Nor is it possible to prove scientifically that Socrates taught in Athens or that Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. All of these events fall into the realm of history and are not subject to experimental proof. "
http://www.susancanthony.com/aboutSusan/bible.html
in the case of O.J. Simpson, there is no way to know beyond any doubt whether he is innocent or guilty of murder. nor is there any way to know beyond a doubt that the Bible is true. faith is necessary. the best definition of "faith" i've found is, "the leap from where the evidence leaves off to where the evidence seems to be pointing." evolutionists believe much of what they believe on faith, because from their perspective the evidence points in a certain direction. the evidence for evolution is not complete nor, by its nature, can it ever be complete. the natural origin of life, if it occurred, is historical rather than scientific. it cannot be replicated in a laboratory. science cannot tell the whole story.
there is a big difference between faith and blind faith. faith requires gathering all the available evidence and seeing which way it points, then making the leap. blind faith is taking a leap in the dark and hoping everything will be OK.
C.S. Lewis:
christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. the one thing it cannot be is moderately important.
christianity claims to give an account of facts--to tell you what the real universe is like. its account of the universe may be true, or it may not, and once the question is before you, then your natural inquisitiveness must make you want to know the answer. if christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be; if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all.
of a person who chooses not to undertake the investigation, Lewis says:
the man is shirking. he is deliberately trying not to know whether christianity is true or false, because he foresees endless trouble if it should turn out to be true. he is like the man who deliberately "forgets" to look at the notice board because, if he did, he might find his name down for some unpleasant duty. he is like the man who won't look at his bank account because he's afraid of what he might find there. he is like the man who won't go to the doctor when he first feels a mysterious pain, because he is afraid of what the doctor may tell him.
it is impossible to determine whether christianity is true or false without knowing what it is about. in addition, it is not possible to determine that something is false simply because the people who testify to it are flawed or unreliable. it is, of course, easier to believe witnesses with integrity, but truth exists independently of the people who proclaim it.
in the words of Phillip Johnson, "it may be rational to argue about whether God is real or unreal, but it is clearly irrational to assume that a God who is real can safely be ignored." the important thing is to make an informed choice.
now i'm not trying to really evangelize but seriously, think about what i said. it makes sense doesn't it? wouldn't it be too late to regret after we die? its not an attempt to convince any non-believer, but i hoped that i've stimulated some thinking and challenge you to convince yourself whether the bible is true.
would you be the man shriking? are you afraid of what you might discover? if you read read this and close this window although having some thoughts, then believe me, obviously you've missed my whole point...
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