Science and Christianity.
Below are some quotes and notes used on a recent talk on the above subject. These are posted for the benefit of those who attended the course.
Werner von Braun the father of space science said ‘the vast mysteries of the universe should only confirm our belief in the certainty of its creator. I find it difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe’
Sir Fred Hoyle former professor of Astronomy in Cambridge and one of the most respected scientists of the 20th century said, “The idea that life was put together by random shuffling of constituent molecules can be shown to be as ridiculous and improbable as the proposition that a tornado blowing through a junk yard may assemble a Boeing 747. The aircraft had a creator – so might life”
Today how many scientists in the field of cosmology and astronomy hold to the theory of a big bang? In truth - virtually all of them, the evidence is very strong that the universe had a beginning and they choose the term big bang.
Over the last 50 years predictions about the Big bang have been consistently verified by scientific data.
William lane Craig a writer for ‘Astrophysics and Space science’ says ‘The big bang was not a chaotic, disorderly event; instead it appears to have been fine-tuned for existence of intelligent life. The big bang was not an accident but designed.’
The big bang model should not make the Christian feel uncomfortable – it does not discredit the bible it affirms it.
Stephen Hawking has said ‘Almost everyone now believe that the universe and time itself had a beginning.’
Many scientists today agree that life had a beginning but they don’t have the slightest idea how…
John Chapter 1v3
All things were made through Him, and without him nothing was made.
There Atheist believes there is not God. That life then came from nothing. That view is not only opposed to Christianity it is opposed to the laws of science. In truth the atheists has greater faith that anyone else.
Evolution of man
Darwin knew the follies records failed to support his tree of life and he hoped future fossil discoveries would vindicate his ‘theory’ – But it has not happened.
One example of this is the evolution of man.
Of all the fossil evidence of human evolution was gathered together you could fit it in a shoe box, and if you opened the shoe box you would find lies, shoddy excavation work and lots of imagination!
The following are still printed in textbooks today:
Nabraska man is said to be 1 million year old missing link. Discovered by Harold Cook what was it that Cook discovered? A tooth! And out of that tooth an artist had imagined an entire race of men and women. The tooth was also later to match that of a pig!
Java man discovered by Dr Eugene Dobois was the top of a skull, a piece of thigh bone and 3 teeth. It was announced to the world as the missing link of a 750,000 year old man.
Truth: The femur didn’t match the skull, the skull matches that of a human beings skull size today, the finding where 12 months apart and would never qualify for even consideration by scientists today.
Piltdown man was discovered between 1906 and 1915. Still in text books today in 1953 it was exposed as a forgery. It was an ape and its teeth had been filed down and artificially coloured.
Am I saying that science is misleading us? Sometimes yes.
Now as Christians we can accept changes in species – a butterfly can change colour or dogs bred for appearance but never a butterfly becoming a chicken. Never that protein cells to green algae to amoeba to fish to reptile to bird to monkey to me!
Jay Gould of Harvard University says text book writers should be ashamed of themselves for using the drawings of Ernest Haeckel’s and others. He said “It is the academic equivalent of murder.”
Dr Etheridge, British Museum of science says ‘nine tenths of the talk of evolution is sheer nonsense, not founded on observation and wholly unsupported by fact. This museum is full of proofs of the utter falsity of their view.’
Sir Isaac Newton the greatest scientist of all time wrote:
This most beautiful system of sun, planets and comets could only proceed from the council and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.
Albert Einstein said “In the absence of any other evidence the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.”
Stephen Hawking – author of the best seller ‘A brief history of Time’ writes this at the end of his conclusion on Quantum physics
‘If we where to discover a complete theory – then we would know the mind of God’ (Note: Capital G)
So why is it that we, and are children are taught a theory which is so often lacking in proofs and evidence?
There is no complete answer to that but I do believe the following quote will help:
Dr George Wald, professor emeritus of Biology at Harvard University, Nobel Prize winner 1967 and one of the top scientists in the world until his death in 1997 wrote this:
There are only 2 possibilities as to how life arose. One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution. The other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility.
Spontaneous generation that life arose from non-living matter was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasteur and others. That leaves us with only one possible conclusion that life arose as a supernatural creative act of God
So far so good. But then Dr Wald goes on to commit intellectual suicide by writing;
I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation arising to evolution.
Dr Wald is like many people today that do not want to believe in God because to do so requires change.
It requires us to worship God and have a change of heart. Jesus is very real and his message demands a response from our live a response that people often do not want to face…
I believe science is highly important and complementary to the Bible but this can only work when there is honesty, integrity and less arrogance from both camps!
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Snatched from the Fire- life with a purpose Chapter 1
Dracula
Hello peeps!
Below is an extract from Chapter 1 of Snatched from the Fire.
The book is available from all good bookshops from 18th Feb 2011 published by IVP
Dracula: The problem is me
The drugs were beginning to ease off, but not fast enough to allow my legs to function. Walking was a challenge, and any change of direction was almost impossible. Like a drunk on a bouncy castle I wobbled and struggled. Failing to negotiate a left-hand turn on the corridor, I almost went to ground. In fact, had I not received some assistance, I would have been flat on my face nursing another wound.
Finally we were outside, and I slumped against the wall while my accomplice waited anxiously for our car. Things were not going to plan. Our rendezvous point was overcrowded, the pick-up was running late again and I was going nowhere fast. It was windy, grey, cold and threatening to rain. Belfast was always threatening something, especially at that time in our history.
At last a red Cavalier pulled up in front. A quick glance at the registration plate confirmed it was our man. DXI 9164. We made our way over, faces screwed up in the rain. I was bundled into the back seat. In the front there was the usual silly argument: ‘You were late, Gerry.’ ‘No, you were in the wrong place!’ I was silent with the exception of the occasional whimper. I was a victim – at least that’s how I felt.
A visit to the dentist is a horrible thing. At least it was for me at the tender age of ten. If my introduction seems like something from an Andy McNab novel then there is good reason for it. My experience of the dentist was one of capture, interrogation and torture. Mum was always the supporting act, while Dad when possible supplied the getaway vehicle. The short walk to the dentist was fine for Mum and me, but while I was coming off the ether (or whatever else they filled my tiny lungs with), I would never manage to climb the hill home. The getaway vehicle was essential.
For all his smiles, my dentist intimidated me. He looked like Dracula – not that I have ever seen Dracula – but the Count from Sesame Street and snooker legend Ray Reardon gave me an idea of his appearance. His surgery was on the first floor, but if you needed a tooth extracted you stayed downstairs. After you passed the reception window you entered the waiting room which was not exactly an explosion on your senses. Once-white net curtains hid a grey outside wall, and hanging on the magnolia walls they had a faded picture of a child. She was dressed in Victorian rags, clutching the arm of a teddy bear and leaning pitifully against a stone wall – perhaps she had visited my dentist too. The furniture was a mixture of plastic chairs and chrome-framed seats with brown padding. In fact, the furniture at our hut in the local dump was better! The waiting was as bad as the extraction – the butterflies in my stomach would eventually leave to be replaced with a thousand flapping seagulls.
Finally, after what seemed like an hour of prayer and fasting, the dentist would escort me into the torture chamber. The room was clinical in appearance, with a large black leather-like chair holding centre stage. Once in the chair there was no return. My dentist would smile (I never trust a man in a white coat who smiles, except of course Mr Ruddock, my woodwork teacher) and place a black rubber mask over my mouth and nose while turning on the gas. I would try to resist, tears running down my cheeks. I would give my mum a look that yelled a million silent cries for help.
What were my parents thinking of? I was terrified. Even now I can smell the rubber mask and hear the sound of the gas. Let’s make no bones about it, the extraction of that tooth at the hands of my dentist was one of the most traumatic moments of my life. He asked me to count to ten slowly, and I felt the seat spinning off into the darkness and a whirring noise developing in my head before I passed out.
Someone asked me recently if I had been afraid of the dentist as a child. I said ‘no’. Fear was too inadequate a word! Petrified, panic-stricken and scared-to-death would be much more apt. No offence to my dentist or my parents, but what were they thinking? I will never put my kids through that … Do dentists still use gas? I don’t know. I don’t plan to find out either.
* * *
Anyway, welcome to my book...
INTER-VARSITY PRESS
Norton Street, Nottingham NG7 3HR, England
Email: ivp@ivpbooks.com
Website: www.ivpbooks.com
© Keith Mitchell, 2011
Keith Mitchell has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or the Copyright Licensing Agency.
Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton, a division of Hodder Headline Ltd. All rights reserved. ‘NIV’ is a trademark of International Bible Society. UK trademark number 1448790.
First published 2011
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978–1–84474–502–9
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