Issac Newton who is widely recognised as one of the greatest mathematicians, physicists and most influential scientists of all time commented, ‘gravity explains the motion of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion?’
The universe is too incredibly complex to not have a creator. Look at these scientific facts:
- Oxygen comprises 21% of the atmosphere-if it were 25% spontaneous fires would break out; if it were 15% we would suffocate.
- If the universe were expanding one-millionth slower than what it is now, the temperature on earth would be 10,000 degrees.
- If the rotation of the earth took longer than 24 hours, the temperature difference would be too great between night and day. If the rotation period were shorter, atmospheric wind velocities would be too great.
- If the thickness of the earth’s crust was greater than it is now, too much oxygen would be transferred to the crust to support life. If it were thinner, volcanic and tectonic activity would be too great.
WHAT ABOUT DARWIN AND EVOLUTION?
Darwin himself admitted in his book Origin of Species, ‘if it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly be formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, then my theory would absolutely break down.’ More than 120 years after it was published, David Raup, the curator of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago said, ‘we now have a quarter of a million fossil species and even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time.’ What the fossil record does show is that rocks dated back some five hundred and seventy million years, there is the sudden appearance of nearly all the animal phyla, and they appear fully formed,’ without a trace of the evolutionary ancestors that Darwinist require’. As further proof, Bio-Chemist, Michael Behe’s award winning book showed how recent bio-chemical discoveries have found numerous examples of this very kind of ‘ irreducible complexity’.
So, can science and religion coexist?
As Albert Einstein stated, ‘ Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.‘
Dr Francis S. Collins, leader of the Human Genome Project in his recent book ‘’The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, stated,’ I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God’s majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.’
SUMMARY
Everyone is born with a God-shaped hole in their heart. Some people fill it with drugs, alcohol, pornography, shopping, etc. It is only when you develop a personal relationship with God and accept Jesus Christ as your personal saviour that the void will be filled.
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” C.S. Lewis
- God loves you and has a plan for your life.
- Accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour is the most important issue, everything else is secondary.
- Find a good church family, visit several and find a good fit.
- Now realise that there is no perfect church as they have humans and then realise that Christians are some of the biggest hypocrites going, myself included. But, know this, when the chips are down, your church family is typically the first group of people in your corner.
- Accept you will not get all the answers on this side of heaven and it is not your responsibility to know. As humans, we can’t comprehend God’s full plan. It is like us trying to explain the internet to an ant.
- Now get out there and do your own research. First and foremost pick up a Bible and spend some quality time with life’s instruction manual.
God Bless
commonsensebeliefs@gmail.com
IS THERE A GOD?
If science requires proof and religious belief requires faith are they mutually exclusive?
‘God does not play dice with the universe’, Albert Einstein.
WHAT ABOUT RANDOM CHANCE?
Dr. Walter L. Bradley, author of The Mystery of Life’s Origin argues, ‘the mathematical odds of assembling a living organism are so astronomical that nobody still believes that random chance accounts for the origin of life. Even if you optimised the conditions, it wouldn’t work. If you took all the carbon in the universe and put it on the face of the earth, allowed it to chemically react at the most rapid rate possible, and left it for billions of years, the odds of creating just one functional protein molecule would be one chance in a 10 with 60 zeroes after it.’
Sir Frederick Hoyle put it quite colourfully when discussing the possibility of ‘random chance, ‘ it’s about as likely as a tornado whirling through a junkyard and accidentally assembling a fully functional Boeing 747′.
Cosomotologist Allan Sandage on the origins of life stated, ‘the most amazing thing to me is existence itself. How is it that inanimate matter can organise itself to contemplate itself?’.
Agnostic Astronomer, Robert Jastrow summed it up quite nicely, ‘Astronomers now find that they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which they can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in the cosmos and earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work are now, I think, a scientifically proven fact’.
If you are particularly keen on analogies look to philosopher William Paley’s watchmaker analogy. In a nutshell, if you are walking through a forest and you find a watch, you would look at the order and have to summarize that in fact, it has to have a watchmaker. Therefore, our universe which has far more order and complexity has to have a creator.
WHY CHRISTIANITY?
A common sense approach.
Former White House Special Counsel for President Nixon, Charles Colson served 7 months in prison for his part in the Watergate scandal. He became a born again Christian after being gifted a copy of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and started the nonprofit Prison Fellowship International. Colson stated ,“I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Everyone was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren’t true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks. You’re telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.”
- The New Testament is historically reliable. There are 5686 handwritten Greek New Testament manuscripts (compared to only dozens for most other books from the ancient world).
- A combination of numerous secular sources (Josephus, Tacitus, Lucian, Thallus, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, the Jewish Talmud, etc.) confirms the writings and lives of Jesus and his disciples.
- Archaeologists confirm that the disciple Luke named thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities, nine islands, and hundreds of details without making a single error.
- Jesus Christ did, in fact, rise from the grave as witnessed by over 500 witnesses (including the biggest non-believer of the day and Christian persecutor-Saul).
- Eleven of the twelve disciples died martyrs for what they saw. Although tortured, not one recanted seeing the risen Jesus Christ. No one willing dies for a lie.