B. Now let’s look at God’s final creation. Read Genesis 1:26 -28.
U. Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
U. Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
B. Our chart looks like this. How did Moses get the order correct when science didn’t put it in this order until the 19th century?
U. But the Bible doesn’t mention the bacteria and simple creatures. They lived almost 4 million years ago.
B. The Bible is not a science textbook. People didn’t know about these small invisible creatures until the microscope was invented about 3000 years after Moses wrote Genesis. What would the people have understood? I suggest that the creation account talks about what the people could observe when it was written, not what science might discover hundreds or thousands of years later. What do you think about the chart?
U. I’m surprised Moses could get the order correct. How did he know?
B. Perhaps the Holy Spirit helped him. Notice too, that what scientists call the most evolved animal was God’s final creation - Man - who is given dominion over all plants and animals. Something to think about.
U. Then why don’t scientists believe the Bible? Surely they know this.
B. Many do and believe, but I don’t know about all. Many haven’t even read Genesis, let alone compared what it says with their theories. They may base their thinking on what some teacher told them instead of investigating for themselves. Remember from our first chart, the poll says three times as many believe in God or a higher power than are atheists. I can’t explain why other scientists don’t believe.
U. But so many make fun of anyone who doesn’t accept evolution.
B. They sure do. Guess they forgot about making fun of those who didn’t think the earth had been around forever once the Big Bang got accepted. I might accept evolution if someone will explain two things to me. First, since evolution seems to say it all just happened, where is the evidence that something can suddenly come from nothing?
U. I don’t know. But the Big Bang says there was something, all matter was condensed into a tiny spot.
B. And who put it there? Second, how did life first began?
U. It just did
B. Do you have a scientific model about how simple life began?
Look at this simplified picture of a bacteria cell, the most simple form of life we know. Not one or two parts, but every single one must be included for life to persist. Scientists have taken living cells, broken the membrane so all the parts are in the test tube, but they can’t put them back together again. It’s like Humpty Dumpty.
U. But the fossil record shows that animals evolved.
B. That’s what they tell us, like perhaps what this picture which shows Darwin’s theory of how life would develop from one form to more complicated animals. It all starts with a basic life form which slowly evolves over millions of years.
U. But the fossil record shows that animals evolved.
B. That’s what they tell us, like perhaps what this picture which shows Darwin’s theory of how life would develop from one form to more complicated animals. It all starts with a basic life form which slowly evolves over millions of years.
Supposedly, after many years, we find what we have now, but shouldn’t there be many transitional forms of life in the fossils?
U. Yeah, there are some transitional forms.
B. You mean like this picture of man evolving from apes which is very prevalent in science books.
U. Isn’t that what happened? I’ve seen this picture since I was a kid.
U. Yeah, there are some transitional forms.
B. You mean like this picture of man evolving from apes which is very prevalent in science books.
U. Isn’t that what happened? I’ve seen this picture since I was a kid.
B. It’s been around for years, although in recent years, genetic studies have shown it’s false. I’m not sure any practicing biologist would defend it now. At the most, they say that we have a common ancestor with the apes. More recently, scientists have found that man did not descend from Neanderthals either. This picture really should be thrown in the trash instead of touted for evolution. It just has no validity. It has been completely debunked by genetic studies.
U. The fossil record shows animals have been around for millions of years.
B. What about the fossil record? It doesn’t agree with progressive evolution either. During the Cambrian period, many more complicated plants and animals than apparently existed before that time, just seemed to explode onto the scene. So many that it is referred to the Cambrian explosion. In fact, the fossil record looks more like this than what Darwin proposed. There is no one root, they seem to be independent from one another with no missing links.
U. Some biologists have explanations for this, but I can’t remember what they were.
B. Can they explain the explosion of information that this represents?
U. What do you mean, explosion of information?
B. Every new more complicated creature requires much more information. Estimates of the information stored in 1 genome is about 750 megabytes. Where did this information come from? The theory of evolution began when they thought the cell was just simple and it wouldn’t be hard for a few proteins to form and then form a living cell.
U. No one has been able to form life yet in the lab, but maybe they will sometime.
B. Perhaps, but I’m not holding my breath. The information packed into the cell controls how the cell reproduces, what it reproduces into, what it eats, how it disposes of waste, and every aspect of its life. The human body contains about 10 trillion cells which would store about 7.5 billion terabytes. It is estimated that the global digital storage capability in 2012 was 2.7 billion terabytes or enough to store about 1/3 of a body’s data. Where did all this information come from? Just happening is very hard to swallow. Biologists are struggling to explain this.
U. Well, I’m not a biologist.
B. Some scientists have recently put 900 TB into 1 gram of DNA, a thousand times greater than any other storage mechanism known. Yet the first living cell contained information stored at that density. Also some recent data indicates that DNA stores its data in both digital and analog form.
U. Both forms?
B. That means the data is like a CD and a vinyl record at the same time. If you’re old enough to remember vinyl records or tape players.
U. I do, but not many people use analog formats anymore. I know some musicians think analog is superior to digital in listening quality, but digital is so much more compact.
B. Perhaps we don’t use both because we don’t know how to do it on the same recording media. The more we look into the microscopic world, the more systematic organization we find and the more questions evolution can’t answer. Here’s another question. How many 100 year old science text books are in use today?
U. I would guess none.
B. Probably right. Why?
U. Scientific knowledge has increased so the text books would be obsolete. That’s progress.
B. Yet the Bible is 3500 years old and it still relays accurate information about the order in which the earth and life developed. Can science explain how this man Moses got it right?
U. Science doesn’t deal with religion.
B. Can science observe the past?
U. Well no. They observe the present and use theories and laws to predict how it happened in the past.
B. Right. So science can’t say what makes people happy and what our purpose is.
U. Of course not. But by putting the theories and measurements together, it can do a good job of telling us how everything came to be.
B. Except how matter first came into existence or how life first began. How can you accept evolution when it can’t explain the origins of anything?
U. But my teachers said it evolved.
B. You have a mind, use it and decide for yourself, but don’t rely on what some other person tells you, not even me. When you ask evolutionists how anything that has a complicated relationship came to be, they just wave their hands and say it evolved.
U. If you have billions of years, why couldn’t it?
B. If it ever accidently began in the first place, which is so highly unlikely that it boggles the mind. Where did matter come from, how did life began, and why does it still reproduce after its own kind like the Bible says? Those are critical questions.
U. I don’t know.
B. Can science tell us how to live fulfilling lives or what our purpose in life is?
U. No.
B. The Bible can and does. Why does it understand human nature so well?
U. I’m not sure it does. It still says creation took 6 days.
B. Is that human nature? The Bible is not a science book. It deals with humans and our basic needs. Whether it took 6 days or billions of years doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that Moses got it right way before science thinks it has, and he declared that God is the creator of everything. Creation is the only explanation for how life and matter came about.
There probably won’t be any 2014 science text books around in 2114, but the Bible will still be there and it will still proclaim that “God created the heavens and the earth and that 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 display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
And the Bible will still be the basic handbook for telling us the meaning of life and why this world is in existence.
U. I will admit it got the right order and did so long before science figured it out. But why is the world what it is?
B. Read Isaiah 45:18
U. For this is what the LORD says-- he, who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited-- he says: "I am the LORD, and there is no other.
So God made the earth for people?
B. You see, you can look as long as you wish, but you will never find any scientific fact that contradicts the Bible. You may find a theory, but science is full of theories that have been shown wrong and abandoned. Archeology has sometimes come up with findings that seem to contradict the Bible but so many have been later found to be wrong that you hardly ever hear of them anymore.
Why do we call evolution science?
U. Because it’s based on observations.
B. Is it? Every scientific experiment proves that something can’t come from nothing and that life only comes from preexisting life. Evolution denies both facts with no evidence to back its theory up. That’s not science, its godless religion.
U. So if God created everything, what did he create them from?
B. The Bible doesn’t say. The word created indicated he made it from nothing instead of shaping it from something already in existence.
U. But you said something could not come from nothing.
B. You’re right. That’s what I said and it’s true. God is not nothing.
U. So he created the world from himself?
B. I can’t be sure, but Einstein gave us an equation which says matter can be created from energy and God has all power, therefore all energy. Perhaps he used some of his energy to create everything.
U. But that’s an incredible amount of energy. Do you know how much energy is required to create one gram of matter?
B. No.
U. It’s as much as 100 atom bombs. I can’t imagine how many grams there are in the universe, or how much energy would be required to create everything.
B. Me either, nor can I imagine God’s power. That’s why I worship him, he is all powerful.
U. I understand your thinking and I am amazed at the agreement between modern science and the Bible. That is hard to believe, but it seems to be true. I see why you said God created everything and since his spirit told the writers, that’s how they knew and got it right.
B. It’s really easy to believe, but I know it is a big step right now for you. Let’s continue to study.
U. OK, I want to. Earlier, you said the Old Testament had over 300 references to Christ written before he was born. Were they accurate and what did they say?
B. We may not be able to cover them all, but let’s look at some next week.
U. This is what we have covered.
· We wanted to demonstrate that the Bible does accurately describe how the earth began in spite of what you may read in secular literature.
· It’s not only accurate, but the Bible described it long before any scientist even dreamed of how it began. It does this although the Bible is not a book of science.
· Science can’t answer why and it can’t tell us how to live full lives which bring happiness, but the Bible does.
· There is no scientific fact which disproves any statement of the Bible, when it is taken in context and properly interpreted.
B. (To the audience) I think setting the 6 day theory in concrete is dangerous. Consider that many practicing scientists believe the Bible and find no contradiction with their work. Many will never have to make a decision as to whether the earth was created or evolved. However, some disciplines will make it very difficult for creationists. That’s why I think we should be cautious when we dogmatically declare our convictions about the creation being done in 6 - 24 hour days. We may damage a child’s faith, because he or she will hear many times in school how foolish that belief is. The Bible is not all literal; some of it is figurative, such as 1 Peter 1:2, "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass." Another example is when Jesus said "You are a temple of God," in 1 Corinthians 3:16, or when Jesus took a loaf and said this is my body and he took a cup and said this is my blood of the covenant, in Matthew 26:26-28. We need to be careful of binding anything on others since we could have the wrong interpretation. Believing that God created the world does not require believing he did it in 6 literal days.
U. There are many questions about the dating methods that are used. Sometimes rocks are dated by the fossils in them and fossils are dated by the rocks they are found in. That’s circular reasoning and certainly leads to questions. Sometimes, it seems, ancient dates are attributed to new finds because there is no news unless the archeologists find something very old and even older than anything else. Brad Harrub has documented many discoveries which question the accuracy of how rocks, artifacts, and fossils are dated. You can find them in his book Convicted which should be available in the library. A prime example is the dating of a rock from the 1980 Mt. Helen’s eruption as between 350 thousand and 2.8 million years old when it was only 10 years old. You can find the documentation by googling Mt. St. Helen’s dating problems and looking under Radio Dating in rubble. So don’t set the so-called scientific dates in concrete either.
U. The fossil record shows animals have been around for millions of years.
B. What about the fossil record? It doesn’t agree with progressive evolution either. During the Cambrian period, many more complicated plants and animals than apparently existed before that time, just seemed to explode onto the scene. So many that it is referred to the Cambrian explosion. In fact, the fossil record looks more like this than what Darwin proposed. There is no one root, they seem to be independent from one another with no missing links.
U. Some biologists have explanations for this, but I can’t remember what they were.
B. Can they explain the explosion of information that this represents?
U. What do you mean, explosion of information?
B. Every new more complicated creature requires much more information. Estimates of the information stored in 1 genome is about 750 megabytes. Where did this information come from? The theory of evolution began when they thought the cell was just simple and it wouldn’t be hard for a few proteins to form and then form a living cell.
U. No one has been able to form life yet in the lab, but maybe they will sometime.
B. Perhaps, but I’m not holding my breath. The information packed into the cell controls how the cell reproduces, what it reproduces into, what it eats, how it disposes of waste, and every aspect of its life. The human body contains about 10 trillion cells which would store about 7.5 billion terabytes. It is estimated that the global digital storage capability in 2012 was 2.7 billion terabytes or enough to store about 1/3 of a body’s data. Where did all this information come from? Just happening is very hard to swallow. Biologists are struggling to explain this.
U. Well, I’m not a biologist.
B. Some scientists have recently put 900 TB into 1 gram of DNA, a thousand times greater than any other storage mechanism known. Yet the first living cell contained information stored at that density. Also some recent data indicates that DNA stores its data in both digital and analog form.
U. Both forms?
B. That means the data is like a CD and a vinyl record at the same time. If you’re old enough to remember vinyl records or tape players.
U. I do, but not many people use analog formats anymore. I know some musicians think analog is superior to digital in listening quality, but digital is so much more compact.
B. Perhaps we don’t use both because we don’t know how to do it on the same recording media. The more we look into the microscopic world, the more systematic organization we find and the more questions evolution can’t answer. Here’s another question. How many 100 year old science text books are in use today?
U. I would guess none.
B. Probably right. Why?
U. Scientific knowledge has increased so the text books would be obsolete. That’s progress.
B. Yet the Bible is 3500 years old and it still relays accurate information about the order in which the earth and life developed. Can science explain how this man Moses got it right?
U. Science doesn’t deal with religion.
B. Can science observe the past?
U. Well no. They observe the present and use theories and laws to predict how it happened in the past.
B. Right. So science can’t say what makes people happy and what our purpose is.
U. Of course not. But by putting the theories and measurements together, it can do a good job of telling us how everything came to be.
B. Except how matter first came into existence or how life first began. How can you accept evolution when it can’t explain the origins of anything?
U. But my teachers said it evolved.
B. You have a mind, use it and decide for yourself, but don’t rely on what some other person tells you, not even me. When you ask evolutionists how anything that has a complicated relationship came to be, they just wave their hands and say it evolved.
U. If you have billions of years, why couldn’t it?
B. If it ever accidently began in the first place, which is so highly unlikely that it boggles the mind. Where did matter come from, how did life began, and why does it still reproduce after its own kind like the Bible says? Those are critical questions.
U. I don’t know.
B. Can science tell us how to live fulfilling lives or what our purpose in life is?
U. No.
B. The Bible can and does. Why does it understand human nature so well?
U. I’m not sure it does. It still says creation took 6 days.
B. Is that human nature? The Bible is not a science book. It deals with humans and our basic needs. Whether it took 6 days or billions of years doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that Moses got it right way before science thinks it has, and he declared that God is the creator of everything. Creation is the only explanation for how life and matter came about.
There probably won’t be any 2014 science text books around in 2114, but the Bible will still be there and it will still proclaim that “God created the heavens and the earth and that 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 display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
And the Bible will still be the basic handbook for telling us the meaning of life and why this world is in existence.
U. I will admit it got the right order and did so long before science figured it out. But why is the world what it is?
B. Read Isaiah 45:18
U. For this is what the LORD says-- he, who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited-- he says: "I am the LORD, and there is no other.
So God made the earth for people?
B. You see, you can look as long as you wish, but you will never find any scientific fact that contradicts the Bible. You may find a theory, but science is full of theories that have been shown wrong and abandoned. Archeology has sometimes come up with findings that seem to contradict the Bible but so many have been later found to be wrong that you hardly ever hear of them anymore.
Why do we call evolution science?
U. Because it’s based on observations.
B. Is it? Every scientific experiment proves that something can’t come from nothing and that life only comes from preexisting life. Evolution denies both facts with no evidence to back its theory up. That’s not science, its godless religion.
U. So if God created everything, what did he create them from?
B. The Bible doesn’t say. The word created indicated he made it from nothing instead of shaping it from something already in existence.
U. But you said something could not come from nothing.
B. You’re right. That’s what I said and it’s true. God is not nothing.
U. So he created the world from himself?
B. I can’t be sure, but Einstein gave us an equation which says matter can be created from energy and God has all power, therefore all energy. Perhaps he used some of his energy to create everything.
U. But that’s an incredible amount of energy. Do you know how much energy is required to create one gram of matter?
B. No.
U. It’s as much as 100 atom bombs. I can’t imagine how many grams there are in the universe, or how much energy would be required to create everything.
B. Me either, nor can I imagine God’s power. That’s why I worship him, he is all powerful.
U. I understand your thinking and I am amazed at the agreement between modern science and the Bible. That is hard to believe, but it seems to be true. I see why you said God created everything and since his spirit told the writers, that’s how they knew and got it right.
B. It’s really easy to believe, but I know it is a big step right now for you. Let’s continue to study.
U. OK, I want to. Earlier, you said the Old Testament had over 300 references to Christ written before he was born. Were they accurate and what did they say?
B. We may not be able to cover them all, but let’s look at some next week.
U. This is what we have covered.
· We wanted to demonstrate that the Bible does accurately describe how the earth began in spite of what you may read in secular literature.
· It’s not only accurate, but the Bible described it long before any scientist even dreamed of how it began. It does this although the Bible is not a book of science.
· Science can’t answer why and it can’t tell us how to live full lives which bring happiness, but the Bible does.
· There is no scientific fact which disproves any statement of the Bible, when it is taken in context and properly interpreted.
B. (To the audience) I think setting the 6 day theory in concrete is dangerous. Consider that many practicing scientists believe the Bible and find no contradiction with their work. Many will never have to make a decision as to whether the earth was created or evolved. However, some disciplines will make it very difficult for creationists. That’s why I think we should be cautious when we dogmatically declare our convictions about the creation being done in 6 - 24 hour days. We may damage a child’s faith, because he or she will hear many times in school how foolish that belief is. The Bible is not all literal; some of it is figurative, such as 1 Peter 1:2, "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass." Another example is when Jesus said "You are a temple of God," in 1 Corinthians 3:16, or when Jesus took a loaf and said this is my body and he took a cup and said this is my blood of the covenant, in Matthew 26:26-28. We need to be careful of binding anything on others since we could have the wrong interpretation. Believing that God created the world does not require believing he did it in 6 literal days.
U. There are many questions about the dating methods that are used. Sometimes rocks are dated by the fossils in them and fossils are dated by the rocks they are found in. That’s circular reasoning and certainly leads to questions. Sometimes, it seems, ancient dates are attributed to new finds because there is no news unless the archeologists find something very old and even older than anything else. Brad Harrub has documented many discoveries which question the accuracy of how rocks, artifacts, and fossils are dated. You can find them in his book Convicted which should be available in the library. A prime example is the dating of a rock from the 1980 Mt. Helen’s eruption as between 350 thousand and 2.8 million years old when it was only 10 years old. You can find the documentation by googling Mt. St. Helen’s dating problems and looking under Radio Dating in rubble. So don’t set the so-called scientific dates in concrete either.