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Faithful
09-27-2007, 04:26 PM
"From a knowledge of God's work, we shall know Him."
- Robert Boyle, Father of modern chemistry

"There is no ground for supposing that matter and energy existed before and were suddenly galvanized into action. It is simpler to postulate creation 'ex nihilo'...Divine will constituting nature from nothingness."
- Edmund Whittaker, Physicist"The chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of energy and light."
- Robert Jastrow, Astronomer

"We can't understand the universe in any clear way without the supernatural." (sounds a lot like the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis to me.)
- Allan Sandage, Cosmologisthttp://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZPVPKFHX (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZPVPKFHX)
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http://torrentspy.com/torrent/1105661/The_Case_For_A_Creator

http://torrentspy.com/torrent/830151/Lee_Strobel_The_Case_For_A_Creator

Damaging Evidence for Atheists:

1) Negative evidence - amino acids are light years away from producing a living cell. Non-living chemicals cannot arrange themselves into a living cell.

2) Cambrian explosion of life about 53 million years ago - in a sudden geological instant equivalent to about 2 minutes in a 24 hour period from the first single-celled organism about 3.8 billion years ago, a great explosion of life occurred accounting for most animal forms and body plans today. (The branching tree pattern of Darwin's theory is not seen anywhere in the fossil record unless we impose it with our own minds.)

3) 600 scientists with P.H.D.'s from major universities have signed a document called "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" which says, "We are skeptical of the claims for random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination for Darwinian Theory should be encouraged."

4) Exponential expansion of the universe - then, at the beginning was an infinitely small in size but infinitely large density of singularity which can only, therefore, be derived from that which is or Whom is infinitely existing. The temporal finitude, hence, is established in the past.

5) Background microwave radiation - this remnant heat from the universe's early history helps us see the ancient Kalam Cosmological Argument, which says: a) whatever begins has a cause, b) the universe began to exist, therefore, c) the universe has a cause; which points to a transcendent reality beyond space and time.

Evidence from Physics:

1) Life depends on many constants such as gravity - to show how extremely necessary this is, imagine a ruler stretched out in one inch increments all the way back to the center of the universe. To show how fragile life is where we exist in that one inch increment, if it was shifted just one inch back in terms of gravity, life could not exist. All life forms would literally be crushed.

2) Cosmological Constant - the expansion of the universe has a certain exponential rate that if it were to go faster, stars, galaxies and planets could not form. The equivalent to this fine tuning is like throwing a dart at earth from orbit and hitting a spot on the ground that is about the size of an atom. Similarly, the strong nuclear force binds atoms together. If it were to decrease even slightly, the only element left in the universe would be hydrogen. Chemical life could not be possible. If the universe is so fine tuned, maybe it has a Fine Tuner.

3) Escape Hatch Fails - the most popular theory to try to circumvent this fine tuning is Multiple Universes which says by chance ours is the one that came into being for us that could sustain life, but then you still have to ask the question who built the generator for all these different universes?

Fact: "The universe is finely tuned to sustain complex life by an intelligence that is beyond the constraints of time and space".

4) What would it needed to sustain life on a planet (the study of astrobiology)? E.g. oxygen rich atmosphere, liquid water, right land mass size, home star of the right temperature and mass, orbital path at the right distance to the sun, a moon large enough to stabilize the tilt of the planet and its tides, magnetic field strong enough to deflect the sun's radiation, habital regional zone of a spiral galaxy. All these are needed for complex life. The number comes to 20 variables. A conservative estimate for life on a planet is a chance of 1 to the power of 10 to the negative 15th. It makes life on another planet very improbable.

5) Why can we understand such complex quantum and large scale movements of the universe? It points to no fluke, but underlying purpose that it is designed for our discovery of it. Some evidences for this are:

Life sustaining transparent atmosphere allows us to explore the distant universe.
Precise distance of the earth and moon from the sun that help us gain unique data from solar eclipses.
Earth's location in the Galaxy Way which gives the clearest view possible of our galaxy and the cosmos.Hence, by doing science in these optimal conditions, we find God, as God intended!

Microscopic Universe Evidence:

1. Cells are like complex machines - but with billions of parts. These could not be chance combination of parts, but they are a complex assemblage of parts. e.g. the flagellum cell operates at 100,000 rpm's. It is the most efficient machine in the universe. It has two gears, forward and back. It has sensory mechanisms to gain feedback from its environment. It uses a flow of acid from outside the cell to motor the propeller. It has a water coolant, proton motor, stater, rotor, u-joint, drive shaft. Altogether there are 40 parts needed to build a flagella motor. And it has constructor proteins that build all these parts.

2. Irreducible Complexity - If you remove just one part of that system, the system ceases to function or exist. Like a mouse trap, if you take out even one of parts it will never work.

Charles Darwin admitted the failure of his own theory when he said: "if it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not have possibly been formed by numerous, successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."

3. DNA - DNA operates like a software program with a 4 digital code more complex than any software ever devised. For a biological system to run it needs the genetic information to build the protein machines to cause the cells to maintain their functions. It is the language of life. All the information contained in a teaspoon of DNA can contain all the information in all the books ever written and to produce every creature on the planet.

4. Where did DNA come from? There is a problem with answering this question by saying the various properties make up DNA. It is like saying the information in this morning's New York Times can be understood by understanding the how the ink bonds with the paper. But that does not explain how the information got arranged so it could be understood and used. The information in the New York Times requires a medium of paper and ink, but it also transcends the medium.

5. Intelligence - there is only one known cause for information, which is Intelligence, e.g. computer code or lines in the pages of a book. Invariably you always come back to the cause which is intelligence. The information inscribed along the backbone of DNA based on our repeated experience is that there is an Intelligence behind it.

"The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech. Night after night they proclaim knowledge. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the end of the world" (Psalms 19).

Purpose of God:

Series of Clues - One of the purposes of God is for us to find Him. He has left behind a series of clues. We have to take our blinders off and take our suppositions and put them aside, and be willing to go where science shows us. And if we come to the very uncomfortable position there is a Creator, then that is the way we should go and maybe it would not feel so uncomfortable after awhile.

Churchwork
09-27-2007, 05:07 PM
It is my belief in studying this video and reading the book that atheism and agnosticism will be a dwindling faith, because it is embarrassing. So the battle rages on who is God if you don't already know.

My Observation:

Lee Strobel seems to leave the most powerful speaker near the end of his book or video. Before it was Gary R. Habermas, the leading scholar on resurrection, who for me stood out as he counted the number of ancient sources and what they believed or said on various points. He does the same thing with the scholars of the past half century.

Similarly, in The Case for a Creator, the person who stood out to me with his words was at the end of the book and video, who was Stephen C. Meyer, Philosopher of Science Discovery Institute. He pointed out the difference between faith in Intelligent Design and implications of the evidence which leads to Intelligent Design.

Just as I began reading Habermas' books, I am intrigued by more of what Meyer has to say.