Operation 513 - Apologetics Blog

"But Who Created God?"

2011-03-31T14:18:00.003+10:00

It is likely that you have heard atheists say to Christians, "But who created God?" They ask this usually when the Christian has shown that the universe had a beginning, and so in the atheist's mind it's a little like, "If I can't have an eternal universe, then you can't have an eternal God." But does this question really present a problem for Christianity? In this video, Randall Niles explains the impossibility of infinite regression, showing there must be an uncaused God.

There are arguments that can be given which show that the uncaused cause of the universe must be personal, meaning that it must refer to God and not simply to a singularity. Check out the Kalam Cosmological argument article for more information.

Why does the Bible mention Unicorns?

2011-02-23T17:13:00.003+10:00

If you've ever been reading some of the Old Testament books of the Bible in the King James Version you might have come across something you found very strange, and that is that it speaks about unicorns. Why does the Bible talk about them? And what is a unicorn in the first place? The following video will endeavour to answer the important question of 'Why does the Bible mention Unicorns?"

Is the God of Islam Unjust?

2010-11-23T12:52:00.003+10:00

How does divine justice compare in Christianity compared to Islam? Does Allah always act in a way that is just. Or does he sometimes act deceptively? This is what the following video will discuss. It is a snippet from the Operation 513 Gold Coast outreach held on the 23rd July 2010, where Ryan Hemelaar responds to Muslim hecklers.

A Muslim asks: Why can't God simply forgive sin?

2010-11-19T00:43:00.007+10:00

On 23rd July 2010, as part of the Gold Coast Operation 513 outreach, there were a few Muslims heckling the preacher, Ryan Hemelaar. One of the questions they asked was: "Why God can't simply forgive sin if someone repents? For that way, Jesus didn't have to die." Watch the follow video to hear how Ryan responds.

How Can God Die?

2010-08-08T13:57:00.002+10:00

Muslims often ask the question, "If Jesus is God, how is it that God can die?" This argument is based on a misunderstanding of the incarnation of Jesus, as David Wood explains in the following video:

Does God Exist? Post-Debate Footage

2010-08-06T12:55:00.004+10:00

On the 28th July 2010, Operation 513 held a debate on the existence of God. It was between Ryan Hemelaar (from Operation 513) and Wayne Cunningham (a former Catholic, now an atheist).

Many have wondered what the outcome of the debate was last week. Here is what one person said:

The DVD of the debate can now be purchased for only $6 from the Operation 513 Web Store.

How is Christianity Different?

2010-08-02T11:05:00.003+10:00

Ever wondered how different Christianity is to all the other religions in the world? Why is it any better? Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason endeavours to answer this question in the following short video.

Are the passion narratives in the Gospels early and accurate?

2010-06-29T18:26:00.003+10:00

Have you ever wondered why scholars today consider the passion narratives in the Gospels to be early and accurate? The following clip is from an interview with Dr. William Lane Craig on the John Ankerberg show which seeks to answer this question.

Were Believers the only Witnesses to the Resurrection?

2010-06-24T13:38:00.003+10:00

Often atheists like to dismiss the testimony of the eye-witnesses of Jesus' resurrection by saying that the only people who saw Jesus alive were those who were already believers. But John Warwick Montgomery in this video shows why this is not the case, and why that objection in the first place is not logically valid.

Are Miracles Unscientific?

2010-06-22T13:07:00.003+10:00

Are miracles inconsistent with science? The philosopher David Hume thought it was. Was he right? John Lennox in this video discusses why David Hume was incorrect about the impossibility of miracles and shows that miracles are not at all incompatible with the things we have learned from science.

Do Miracles Violate the Laws of Nature?

2010-06-20T12:58:00.003+10:00

Have you ever heard the argument that since matter cannot be created nor destroyed, this universe must be eternal? Or since miracles go against the laws of nature, therefore miracles cannot occur? William Lane Craig, John Kennedy, Alvin Plantinga, and Doug Thrower in this video discuss whether miracles do actually violate the laws of nature.

Richard Dawkins admits Faith has Evidence

2010-06-18T12:49:00.002+10:00

Richard Dawkins is well-known for saying that faith is irrational and not based on evidence. Here though, he comes unstuck, and admits that faith does have evidence.

Naturalism Requires Faith

2010-06-16T12:36:00.003+10:00

Have you ever heard someone say that the physical world is all there is? That belief is called naturalism. But as William Lane Craig proves in this minute and a half video is that naturalism is not based on evidence, but on faith.

Does Archaeology have anything to do with the Bible?

2010-06-09T12:29:00.003+10:00

John Dickson, of the Centre for Public Christianity, interviews Karin Sowada on the relationship between archaeology and the Bible. Karin has been a politician in Australia, is Assistant Curator of the Nicholson Museum at Sydney University and is a researcher in Egyptian archaeology with Macquarie University in Sydney. She has carried out excavation work in Jordan, Egypt and Israel and is a specialist in the foreign relations of Egypt and the Near East during the Bronze Age.

Atheists, How is the Existence of God and Evil Incompatible?

2010-05-29T00:51:00.003+10:00

Many people mistakenly think that if evil exists, then therefore God cannot exist. But the question must be asked, "How are the two incompatible with each other?" Dr. William Lane Craig in this short two-minute video shows that the atheist is actually the one who has the burden of proof to shoulder, showing that the two cannot co-exist.

Evil, a Proof of God's Existence

2010-05-20T17:51:00.005+10:00

For sure one of the most common arguments used against the existence of God is the fact that there is evil in the world. But in actuality, evil much less than being an argument against God's existence, actually proves His existence. Dr. William Lane Craig and Dr. Greg Koukl in this close to 3 minute video explain how this is the case.

The Ontological Argument & Refuting Dawkins

2010-05-10T11:29:00.002+10:00

The Ontological Argument for God's existence is one that has been greatly discussed as to its validity ever since its first formation by Anselm in the 11th century AD. Since then, the argument has been developed further by various philosophers in response to some of the criticism the argument has received. Dr. William Lane Craig in the following 5 minute video lays out the Modal Ontological Argument, and then addresses some of the criticism that Richard Dawkins has made against the argument.

A Brief Overview of Islam

2010-05-07T10:20:00.004+10:00

With the sheer amount of Muslims migrating to Western countries these days, undoubtedly you have seen many in your day to day life. But would you know how to witness to a Muslim? Are there any points of commonality? Do they have different concept of God and salvation? Dr. R.C. Sproul, from Ligonier Ministries, with special guest Abdul Saleeb have recently given an 8-part lecture series (20 some minutes each) answering these sorts of questions. This dialogue was recently broadcast on Dr. Sproul's Renewing Your Mind Podcast.

Alternatively, you can subscribe to the Renewing Your Mind Podcast through iTunes and download them all there.

How to respond to "But who Created God?"

2010-05-02T13:36:00.004+10:00

If you have talked with an atheist before about the existence of God, undoubtedly you have heard them respond with, "But who created God?" This is usually in the context of presenting the cosmological argument, explaining that all things that have beginnings have causes, the universe had a beginning and therefore must have had a cause. Atheists strangely think by saying, "What caused God?" they have found a defeater for this cosmological argument. But as Dr. William Lane Craig explains in the following one minute video, the question the atheist is asking there is completely irrelevant, and therefore not a defeater to the cosmological argument.

What does the Roman Catholic Church teach?

2010-04-08T10:51:00.006+10:00

Have you ever wondered what the Roman Catholic Church teaches? Do you know how it differs from Protestantism and why the Reformers labelled it as non-Christian? Dr. R.C. Sproul, from Ligonier Ministries, has given an informative 10-part lecture series (20 some minutes each) on this very topic and broadcast it recently on his Renewing Your Mind Podcast. Very well worth the listen.

Alternatively, you can subscribe to the Renewing Your Mind Podcast through iTunes and download them all there.

When Jesus died, did both of his Natures die?

2010-03-31T10:56:00.006+10:00

Q&A with Dr. William Lane Craig

Question:

My question is one I have never been able to get a clear answer on. When Jesus died on the cross, did God die? That being, did the essence of Jesus actually die?

This question really bothered me after hearing the song "And Can it Be?" There's a line in there towards the end of the chorus "Amazing Love! How can it be that Thou my God shouldst die for me? Amen?"

I've never really been able to get a clear and concise answer to this question and there seems to be some differing opinions among theologians as to the nature of this question. Pastor John MacArthur seems to think God did die because Jesus is God. But R.C. Sproul on the other hand disagrees and believes that God cannot die.

I don't see how it's possible that God could actually die. For if God were to die then He wouldn't be a necessary Being. But this is impossible because God must be necessary by definition. So when Christ died on the cross, was it just the human part that died?

Jesse

Dr. Craig responds:

I couldn't resist your question, Jesse, since it appeals to my favorite hymn, the magnificent "And Can It Be?" by Charles Wesley. I urge anyone who knows only praise songs and choruses to listen to this hymn and contemplate the wonderful lyrics about God's amazing love.

Your question is one that also troubles our Muslim friends and is therefore very urgent. Fortunately, the historic Christian church has addressed this question clearly.

The Council of Chalcedon (451) declared that the incarnate Christ is one person with two natures, one human and one divine. This has very important consequences. It implies that since Christ existed prior to his incarnation, he was a divine person before taking on a human nature. He was and is the second person of the Trinity. In the incarnation this divine person assumes a human nature as well, but there is no other person in Christ than the second person of the Trinity. There is an additional human nature which the pre-incarnate Christ did not have, but there is no human person in addition to the divine person. There is just one person who has two natures.

Therefore, what Christ said and did, God said and did, since when we speak of Christ we're talking about a person. For that reason the Council endorses speaking of Mary as "the mother of God." She bore the person who is a divine person. Unfortunately, this language has been disastrously misleading because it sounds as though Mary birthed the divine nature of Christ when in fact she birthed Christ's human nature. Mohammed apparently thought that Christians believed that Mary was the third member of the Trinity, and Jesus was the offspring of God the Father and Mary, a view which he rightly rejected as blasphemous, though no orthodox Christian holds it.

To avoid such inevitable misunderstandings it is helpful to speak of what Christ does or how he is relative to one of his two natures. For example, Christ is omnipotent relative to his divine nature but he is limited in power relative to his human nature. He is omniscient with respect to his divine nature but ignorant of various facts with respect to his human nature. He is immortal with regard to his divine nature, but mortal with regard to his human nature.

You can probably see now where I'm headed. Christ could not die with respect to his divine nature but he could die with respect to his human nature. What is human death? It is the separation of the soul from the body when the body ceases to be a living organism. The soul survives the body and will someday be re-united with it in a resurrected form. That's what happened to Christ. His soul was separated from his body and his body ceased to be alive. He became temporarily a disembodied person. On the third day God raised him from the dead in a transformed body.

In short, yes, we can say that God died on the cross because the person who underwent death was a divine person. So Wesley was all right in asking, "How can it be, that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?" But to say that God died on the cross is misleading in the same way that it is misleading to say that Mary was the mother of God. So I think it better to say that Christ died on the cross with respect to his human nature but not with respect to his divine nature.

Source: ReasonableFaith.org

Ancient Evidence for Jesus from Non-Christian Sources - Part 6

2010-03-08T12:19:00.004+10:00

By Michael Gleghorn

Conclusion

Let's summarize what we've learned about Jesus from this examination of ancient non-Christian sources. First, both Josephus and Lucian indicate that Jesus was regarded as wise. Second, Pliny, the Talmud, and Lucian imply He was a powerful and revered teacher. Third, both Josephus and the Talmud indicate He performed miraculous feats. Fourth, Tacitus, Josephus, the Talmud, and Lucian all mention that He was crucified. Tacitus and Josephus say this occurred under Pontius Pilate. And the Talmud declares it happened on the eve of Passover. Fifth, there are possible references to the Christian belief in Jesus' resurrection in both Tacitus and Josephus. Sixth, Josephus records that Jesus' followers believed He was the Christ, or Messiah. And finally, both Pliny and Lucian indicate that Christians worshipped Jesus as God!

I hope you see how this small selection of ancient non-Christian sources helps corroborate our knowledge of Jesus from the gospels. Of course, there are many ancient Christian sources of information about Jesus as well. But since the historical reliability of the canonical gospels is so well established, I invite you to read those for an authoritative "life of Jesus!"

< Read Part 5

Source: BeThinking.org

Ancient Evidence for Jesus from Non-Christian Sources - Part 5

2010-03-03T14:20:00.004+10:00

By Michael Gleghorn

Evidence from the Lucian

Lucian of Samosata was a second century Greek satirist. In one of his works, he wrote of the early Christians as follows:

The Christians ... worship a man to this day – the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account.... [It] was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws.^[27]

Although Lucian is jesting here at the early Christians, he does make some significant comments about their founder. For instance, he says the Christians worshipped a man, "who introduced their novel rites." And though this man's followers clearly thought quite highly of Him, He so angered many of His contemporaries with His teaching that He "was crucified on that account."

Although Lucian does not mention his name, he is clearly referring to Jesus. But what did Jesus teach to arouse such wrath? According to Lucian, he taught that all men are brothers from the moment of their conversion. That's harmless enough. But what did this conversion involve? It involved denying the Greek gods, worshipping Jesus, and living according to His teachings. It's not too difficult to imagine someone being killed for teaching that. Though Lucian doesn't say so explicitly, the Christian denial of other gods combined with their worship of Jesus implies the belief that Jesus was more than human. Since they denied other gods in order to worship Him, they apparently thought Jesus a greater God than any that Greece had to offer!

Notes

^[27] Lucian, "The Death of Peregrine", 11-13, in The Works of Lucian of Samosata, transl. by H.W. Fowler and F.G. Fowler, 4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1949), vol. 4., cited in Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 206.

< Read Part 4 | Read Part 6 >

Ancient Evidence for Jesus from Non-Christian Sources - Part 4

2010-03-01T03:55:00.004+10:00

By Michael Gleghorn

Evidence from the Babylonian Talmud

There are only a few clear references to Jesus in the Babylonian Talmud, a collection of Jewish rabbinical writings compiled between approximately A.D. 70-500. Given this time frame, it is naturally supposed that earlier references to Jesus are more likely to be historically reliable than later ones. In the case of the Talmud, the earliest period of compilation occurred between A.D. 70-200.^[20] The most significant reference to Jesus from this period states:

On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald ... cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy."^[21]

Let's examine this passage. You may have noticed that it refers to someone named "Yeshu." So why do we think this is Jesus? Actually, "Yeshu" (or "Yeshua") is how Jesus' name is pronounced in Hebrew. But what does the passage mean by saying that Jesus "was hanged"? Doesn't the New Testament say he was crucified? Indeed it does. But the term "hanged" can function as a synonym for "crucified." For instance, Galatians 3:13 declares that Christ was "hanged", and Luke 23:39 applies this term to the criminals who were crucified with Jesus.^[22] So the Talmud declares that Jesus was crucified on the eve of Passover. But what of the cry of the herald that Jesus was to be stoned? This may simply indicate what the Jewish leaders were planning to do.^[23] If so, Roman involvement changed their plans!^[24]

The passage also tells us why Jesus was crucified. It claims He practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy! Since this accusation comes from a rather hostile source, we should not be too surprised if Jesus is described somewhat differently than in the New Testament. But if we make allowances for this, what might such charges imply about Jesus?

Interestingly, both accusations have close parallels in the canonical gospels. For instance, the charge of sorcery is similar to the Pharisees' accusation that Jesus cast out demons "by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons."^[25] But notice this: such a charge actually tends to confirm the New Testament claim that Jesus performed miraculous feats. Apparently Jesus' miracles were too well attested to deny. The only alternative was to ascribe them to sorcery! Likewise, the charge of enticing Israel to apostasy parallels Luke's account of the Jewish leaders who accused Jesus of misleading the nation with his teaching.^[26] Such a charge tends to corroborate the New Testament record of Jesus' powerful teaching ministry. Thus, if read carefully, this passage from the Talmud confirms much of our knowledge about Jesus from the New Testament.

Notes

^[20] Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 202-03.
^[21] The Babylonian Talmud, transl. by I. Epstein (London: Soncino, 1935), vol. III, Sanhedrin 43a, 281, cited in Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 203.
^[22] Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 203.
^[23] See John 8:58-59 and 10:31-33.
^[24] Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 204. See also John 18:31-32.
^[25] Matthew 12:24. I gleaned this observation from Bruce, Christian Origins, 56.
^[26] Luke 23:2, 5.

< Read Part 3 | Read Part 5 >

Ancient Evidence for Jesus from Non-Christian Sources - Part 3

2010-02-26T10:16:00.005+10:00

By Michael Gleghorn

Evidence from Josephus

Perhaps the most remarkable reference to Jesus outside the Bible can be found in the writings of Josephus, a first century Jewish historian. On two occasions, in his Jewish Antiquities, he mentions Jesus. The second, less revealing, reference describes the condemnation of one "James" by the Jewish Sanhedrin. This James, says Josephus, was "the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ."^[14] F.F. Bruce points out how this agrees with Paul's description of James in Galatians 1:19 as "the Lord's brother."^[15] And Edwin Yamauchi informs us that "few scholars have questioned" that Josephus actually penned this passage.^[16]

As interesting as this brief reference is, there is an earlier one, which is truly astonishing. Called the "Testimonium Flavianum," the relevant portion declares:

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he ... wrought surprising feats.... He was the Christ. When Pilate ...condemned him to be crucified, those who had . . . come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared ... restored to life.... And the tribe of Christians ... has ... not disappeared.^[17]

Did Josephus really write this? Most scholars think the core of the passage originated with Josephus, but that it was later altered by a Christian editor, possibly between the third and fourth century A.D.^[18] But why do they think it was altered? Josephus was not a Christian, and it is difficult to believe that anyone but a Christian would have made some of these statements.^[19]

For instance, the claim that Jesus was a wise man seems authentic, but the qualifying phrase, "if indeed one ought to call him a man," is suspect. It implies that Jesus was more than human, and it is quite unlikely that Josephus would have said that! It is also difficult to believe he would have flatly asserted that Jesus was the Christ, especially when he later refers to Jesus as "the so-called" Christ. Finally, the claim that on the third day Jesus appeared to His disciples restored to life, inasmuch as it affirms Jesus' resurrection, is quite unlikely to come from a non-Christian!

But even if we disregard the questionable parts of this passage, we are still left with a good deal of corroborating information about the biblical Jesus. We read that he was a wise man who performed surprising feats. And although He was crucified under Pilate, His followers continued their discipleship and became known as Christians. When we combine these statements with Josephus' later reference to Jesus as "the so-called Christ," a rather detailed picture emerges which harmonizes quite well with the biblical record. It increasingly appears that the "biblical Jesus" and the "historical Jesus" are one and the same!

Notes

^[14] Josephus, Antiquities xx. 200, cited in Bruce, Christian Origins, 36.
^[15] Ibid.
^[16] Yamauchi, "Jesus Outside the New Testament", 212.
^[17] Josephus, Antiquities 18.63-64, cited in Yamauchi, "Jesus Outside the New Testament", 212.
^[18] Ibid.
^[19] Another version of Josephus' "Testimonium Flavianum" survives in a tenth-century Arabic version (Bruce, Christian Origins, 41). In 1971, Professor Schlomo Pines published a study on this passage. The passage is interesting because it lacks most of the questionable elements that many scholars believe to be Christian interpolations. Indeed, "as Schlomo Pines and David Flusser...stated, it is quite plausible that none of the arguments against Josephus writing the original words even applies to the Arabic text, especially since the latter would have had less chance of being censored by the church" (Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 194). The passage reads as follows: "At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. His conduct was good and (he) was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive; accordingly he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders." (Quoted in James H. Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism, (Garden City: Doubleday, 1988), 95, cited in Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 194).

< Read Part 2 | Read Part 4 >

Ancient Evidence for Jesus from Non-Christian Sources - Part 2

2010-02-22T08:57:00.006+10:00

By Michael Gleghorn

Evidence from Pliny the Younger

Another important source of evidence about Jesus and early Christianity can be found in the letters of Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan. Pliny was the Roman governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor. In one of his letters, dated around A.D. 112, he asks Trajan's advice about the appropriate way to conduct legal proceedings against those accused of being Christians.^[8] Pliny says that he needed to consult the emperor about this issue because a great multitude of every age, class, and sex stood accused of Christianity.^[9]

At one point in his letter, Pliny relates some of the information he has learned about these Christians:

They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food – but food of an ordinary and innocent kind.^[10]

This passage provides us with a number of interesting insights into the beliefs and practices of early Christians. First, we see that Christians regularly met on a certain fixed day for worship. Second, their worship was directed to Christ, demonstrating that they firmly believed in His divinity. Furthermore, one scholar interprets Pliny's statement that hymns were sung to Christ, "as to a god", as a reference to the rather distinctive fact that, "unlike other gods who were worshipped, Christ was a person who had lived on earth."^[11] If this interpretation is correct, Pliny understood that Christians were worshipping an actual historical person as God! Of course, this agrees perfectly with the New Testament doctrine that Jesus was both God and man.

Not only does Pliny's letter help us understand what early Christians believed about Jesus' person, it also reveals the high esteem to which they held His teachings. For instance, Pliny notes that Christians "bound themselves by a solemn oath" not to violate various moral standards, which find their source in the ethical teachings of Jesus. In addition, Pliny's reference to the Christian custom of sharing a common meal likely alludes to their observance of communion and the "love feast."^[12] This interpretation helps explain the Christian claim that the meal was merely "food of an ordinary and innocent kind". They were attempting to counter the charge, sometimes made by non-Christians, of practicing "ritual cannibalism."^[13] The Christians of that day humbly repudiated such slanderous attacks on Jesus' teachings. We must sometimes do the same today.

Notes

[8] Pliny, Epistles x. 96, cited in Bruce, Christian Origins, 25; Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 198.
[9] Ibid., 27.
[10] Pliny, Letters, transl. by William Melmoth, rev. by W.M.L. Hutchinson (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1935), vol. II, X:96, cited in Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 199.
[11] M. Harris, "References to Jesus in Early Classical Authors," in Gospel Perspectives V, 354-55, cited in E. Yamauchi, "Jesus Outside the New Testament: What is the Evidence?", in Jesus Under Fire, ed. by Michael J. Wilkins and J.P. Moreland (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995), p. 227, note 66.
[12] Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 199.
[13] Bruce, Christian Origins, 28.

< Read Part 1 | Read Part 3 >

Ancient Evidence for Jesus from Non-Christian Sources - Part 1

2010-02-19T18:10:00.009+10:00

By Michael Gleghorn

Introduction

Although there is overwhelming evidence that the New Testament is an accurate and trustworthy historical document, many people are still reluctant to believe what it says unless there is also some independent, non-biblical testimony that corroborates its statements. In the introduction to one of his books, F.F. Bruce tells about a Christian correspondent who was told by an agnostic friend that "apart from obscure references in Josephus and the like," there was no historical evidence for the life of Jesus outside the Bible.^[1] This, he wrote to Bruce, had caused him "great concern and some little upset in [his] spiritual life."^[2] He concludes his letter by asking, "Is such collateral proof available, and if not, are there reasons for the lack of it?"^[3] The answer to this question is, "Yes, such collateral proof is available," and we will be looking at some of it in this article.

Evidence from Tacitus

Let's begin our inquiry with a passage that historian Edwin Yamauchi calls "probably the most important reference to Jesus outside the New Testament."^[4] Reporting on Emperor Nero's decision to blame the Christians for the fire that had destroyed Rome in A.D. 64, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote:

Nero fastened the guilt ... on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of ... Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome....^[5]

What can we learn from this ancient (and rather unsympathetic) reference to Jesus and the early Christians? Notice, first, that Tacitus reports Christians derived their name from a historical person called Christus (from the Latin), or Christ. He is said to have "suffered the extreme penalty," obviously alluding to the Roman method of execution known as crucifixion. This is said to have occurred during the reign of Tiberius and by the sentence of Pontius Pilatus. This confirms much of what the Gospels tell us about the death of Jesus.

But what are we to make of Tacitus' rather enigmatic statement that Christ's death briefly checked "a most mischievous superstition," which subsequently arose not only in Judaea, but also in Rome? One historian suggests that Tacitus is here "bearing indirect ... testimony to the conviction of the early church that the Christ who had been crucified had risen from the grave."^[6] While this interpretation is admittedly speculative, it does help explain the otherwise bizarre occurrence of a rapidly growing religion based on the worship of a man who had been crucified as a criminal.^[7] How else might one explain that?

Notes

[1] F. F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1974), 13.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Edwin Yamauchi, quoted in Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1998), 82.
[5] Tacitus, Annals 15.44, cited in Strobel, The Case for Christ, 82.
[6] N.D. Anderson, Christianity: The Witness of History (London: Tyndale, 1969), 19, cited in Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus (Joplin, Missouri: College Press Publishing Company, 1996), 189-190.
[7] Edwin Yamauchi, cited in Strobel, The Case for Christ, 82.

Read Part 2 >

Does Science Prove Atheism?

2010-02-15T14:22:00.002+10:00

Have you ever encountered an atheist who claimed that he doesn't believe in God because of 'science'? Dr. William Lane Craig in this 3 minute video objectively examines whether science actually does prove the non-existence of God, and comes to the conclusion that it is actually logically impossible for it to do so.

Examining Truth Claims - Dr. Ravi Zacharias

2010-02-05T16:45:00.006+10:00

When you are presented with a particular truth claim, do you know how you would go about discovering its truthfulness? Dr. Ravi Zacharias in this short 3-minute video outlines three tests, which any proposition should be compared against.

Could Jesus' Postmortem Appearances have been Hallucinations?

2010-02-02T11:20:00.004+10:00

The gospel accounts and Paul's first letter to the Corinthians contain very clear statements about Jesus appearing alive to people after His death. But is it possible that these were just hallucinations? Dr. William Lane Craig discusses this hypothesis to see whether it is actually historically tenable.

Is Baptism Necessary for Salvation? Part 4

2010-01-15T16:23:00.003+10:00

So far in this series you might be asking, but what about the really tricky verses like 1 Peter 3:21 which explicitly states that "baptism now saves you". Matt Slick from CARM.org embarks on the task of explaining these verses, and then goes onto addressing the consequences of believing that a person must be baptised to be saved.

This is a four part video series, with this one being the last in the series. So if you haven't seen the previous parts, you can by clicking the following links: Part one, two, and three.

Is Baptism Necessary for Salvation? Part 3

2010-01-14T16:23:00.002+10:00

What about the verses in the Bible that seems to teach that baptism is a requirement for salvation? In this video, Matt Slick from CARM.org continues discussing this important topic, addressing those tricky verses that seem to contradict the clear teaching of Scripture regarding baptism.

The next video in the series will be posted tomorrow. This is part 3:

Is Baptism Necessary for Salvation? Part 2

2010-01-13T16:23:00.003+10:00

In this video, Matt Slick from CARM.org continues discussing the important topic of whether baptism is a requirement for someone to be saved. He begins by comparing new covenant baptism to the circumcisions which was performed in the old covenant.

The next video in the series will be posted tomorrow. This is part 2:

View Part 3

Is Baptism Necessary for Salvation?

2010-01-12T16:23:00.009+10:00

The belief that a person must be baptised to be saved is not an uncommon one. It has been taught by the Roman Catholic Church for centuries and many of the cults teach the same thing. This is why Matt Slick from CARM.org has taken on the task to examine what the Bible has to say about this issue in four short videos.

The next video in the series will be posted tomorrow. This is part 1:

View Part 2

Isn't it Unscientific to posit God at the Beginning of the Universe?

2009-12-21T10:36:00.003+10:00

In this short 2 minute video, Dr. William Lane Craig responds to the objection that it is unscientific to say that God is the creator of the universe.

Is the Roman Catholic Church the same as Christianity?

2009-12-15T22:15:00.002+10:00

Many people assume that Roman Catholicism is the same as Christianity. Thus, many unbelievers try and accuse Christians for the bad actions of the Roman Catholic Church. To counter this assumption, Matt Slick from CARM.org explains in this video why it is simply not true to say that the two are the same. He does this by giving various examples of key doctrines of which the Bible affirms and yet the Roman Catholic Church denies.

What about those who've never heard?

2009-12-11T19:41:00.005+10:00

An objection that is brought up commonly in conversations with unbelievers is one regarding those that live in remote villages or islands and the fact that they have never heard of Jesus or the Bible. The question is raised, "How can God judge them for their actions when they have never heard about Him?" Greg Koukl, from Stand to Reason, in this 4-minute video provides us with an answer to this question.

Is the Christian Faith blind?

2009-12-09T17:41:00.004+10:00

Does someone have to check their brain at the door in order to become a Christian? In this 2-minute video, Greg Koukl from Stand to Reason, addresses this question and outlines what the Biblical definition of faith is.

If Eveything Needed a Creator, Then Who Created God?

2009-12-06T15:41:00.003+10:00

This is a very common objection that people bring up when discussing the Cosmological Argument. In this 1-minute video, Dr. William Lane Craig refutes the idea that God would did a creator for Himself.

"As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God"

2009-11-30T15:08:00.005+10:00

Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa's biggest problem - the crushing passivity of the people's mindset

By Matthew Parris

Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it's Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump Aid helps rural communities to install a simple pump, letting people keep their village wells sealed and clean. I went to see this work.

It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I've been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I've been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

I used to avoid this truth by applauding - as you can - the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It's a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith.

First, then, the observation. We had friends who were missionaries, and as a child I stayed often with them; I also stayed, alone with my little brother, in a traditional rural African village. In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers. The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world - a directness in their dealings with others - that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.

At 24, travelling by land across the continent reinforced this impression. From Algiers to Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and the Central African Republic, then right through the Congo to Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya, four student friends and I drove our old Land Rover to Nairobi.

We slept under the stars, so it was important as we reached the more populated and lawless parts of the sub-Sahara that every day we find somewhere safe by nightfall. Often near a mission.

Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers - in some ways less so - but more open.

This time in Malawi it was the same. I met no missionaries. You do not encounter missionaries in the lobbies of expensive hotels discussing development strategy documents, as you do with the big NGOs. But instead I noticed that a handful of the most impressive African members of the Pump Aid team (largely from Zimbabwe) were, privately, strong Christians. “Privately” because the charity is entirely secular and I never heard any of its team so much as mention religion while working in the villages. But I picked up the Christian references in our conversations. One, I saw, was studying a devotional textbook in the car. One, on Sunday, went off to church at dawn for a two-hour service.

It would suit me to believe that their honesty, diligence and optimism in their work was unconnected with personal faith. Their work was secular, but surely affected by what they were. What they were was, in turn, influenced by a conception of man's place in the Universe that Christianity had taught.

There's long been a fashion among Western academic sociologists for placing tribal value systems within a ring fence, beyond critiques founded in our own culture: “theirs” and therefore best for “them”; authentic and of intrinsically equal worth to ours.

I don't follow this. I observe that tribal belief is no more peaceable than ours; and that it suppresses individuality. People think collectively; first in terms of the community, extended family and tribe. This rural-traditional mindset feeds into the “big man” and gangster politics of the African city: the exaggerated respect for a swaggering leader, and the (literal) inability to understand the whole idea of loyal opposition.

Anxiety - fear of evil spirits, of ancestors, of nature and the wild, of a tribal hierarchy, of quite everyday things - strikes deep into the whole structure of rural African thought. Every man has his place and, call it fear or respect, a great weight grinds down the individual spirit, stunting curiosity. People won't take the initiative, won't take things into their own hands or on their own shoulders.

How can I, as someone with a foot in both camps, explain? When the philosophical tourist moves from one world view to another he finds - at the very moment of passing into the new - that he loses the language to describe the landscape to the old. But let me try an example: the answer given by Sir Edmund Hillary to the question: Why climb the mountain? “Because it's there,” he said.

To the rural African mind, this is an explanation of why one would not climb the mountain. It's... well, there. Just there. Why interfere? Nothing to be done about it, or with it. Hillary's further explanation - that nobody else had climbed it - would stand as a second reason for passivity.

Christianity, post-Reformation and post-Luther, with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being, smashes straight through the philosphical/spiritual framework I've just described. It offers something to hold on to to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink. That is why and how it liberates.

Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted.

And I'm afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.

Source: Times Online

An Overview of Hinduism

2009-11-25T20:53:00.000+10:00

Hinduism is the world's third largest religion. As of 2004 there were approximately 800 million Hindus worldwide. What is Hinduism? What do its adherents believe? How do the teachings of Hinduism square with the Scriptures and how can a Christian best witness to a follower of Hinduism?

The following resource from AlwaysBeReady.com attempts to answer these questions and the resource can either be read or listened to:

Listen or Read the transcript

Dawkins et al bring us into disrepute - By Michael Ruse

2009-11-22T20:34:00.002+10:00

Dr. Michael Ruse, an atheist philosopher of biology, speaks out against the "New Atheists".

As a professional philosopher my first question naturally is: "What or who is an atheist?" If you mean someone who absolutely and utterly does not believe there is any God or meaning then I doubt there are many in this group. Richard Dawkins denies being such a person. If you mean someone who agrees that logically there could be a god, but who doesn't think that the logical possibility is terribly likely, or at least not something that should keep us awake at night, then I guess a lot of us are atheists. But there is certainly a split, a schism, in our ranks. I am not whining (in fact I am rather proud) when I point out that a rather loud group of my fellow atheists, generally today known as the "new atheists", loathe and detest my thinking. Richard Dawkins has likened me to the pusillanimous appeaser at Munich, Neville Chamberlain. Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True, says (echoing Orwell) that only someone with pretensions to the intelligentsia could believe the silly things I believe. And energetic blogger PZ Myers refers to me as a "clueless gobshite" because I confessed to seeing why true believers might find the Kentucky Creationist Museum convincing. I will spare you what my fellow philosopher Dan Dennett has to say about me.

There are several reasons why we atheists are squabbling – I will speak only for myself but I doubt I am atypical. First, non-believer though I may be, I do not think (as do the new atheists) that all religion is necessarily evil and corrupting. This claim is on a par with golden plates in upstate New York. The Quakers and the Evangelicals were inspired and driven by their religion to oppose slavery, and a good thing too. Of course there has been evil in the name of religion – the pope telling Africans not to use condoms in the face of Aids – but as often as not religion is not the only or even the primary force for evil. The troubles in Northern Ireland were surely about socio-economic issues also, and the young men who flew into the World Trade Centre towers were infected by the alienation and despair of the young in Muslim countries in the face of poverty and inequalities.

Second, unlike the new atheists, I take scholarship seriously. I have written that The God Delusion made me ashamed to be an atheist and I meant it. Trying to understand how God could need no cause, Christians claim that God exists necessarily. I have taken the effort to try to understand what that means. Dawkins and company are ignorant of such claims and positively contemptuous of those who even try to understand them, let alone believe them. Thus, like a first-year undergraduate, he can happily go around asking loudly, "What caused God?" as though he had made some momentous philosophical discovery. Dawkins was indignant when, on the grounds that inanimate objects cannot have emotions, philosophers like Mary Midgley criticised his metaphorical notion of a selfish gene. Sauce for the biological goose is sauce for the atheist gander. There are a lot of very bright and well informed Christian theologians. We atheists should demand no less.

Third, how dare we be so condescending? I don't have faith. I really don't. Rowan Williams does as do many of my fellow philosophers like Alvin Plantinga (a Protestant) and Ernan McMullin (a Catholic). I think they are wrong; they think I am wrong. But they are not stupid or bad or whatever. If I needed advice about everyday matters, I would turn without hesitation to these men. We are caught in opposing Kuhnian paradigms. I can explain their faith claims in terms of psychology; they can explain my lack of faith claims also probably partly through psychology and probably theology also. (Plantinga, a Calvinist, would refer to original sin.) I just keep hearing Cromwell to the Scots. "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken." I don't think I am wrong, but the worth and integrity of so many believers makes me modest in my unbelief.

Fourth and finally, I live in the American South, surrounded by ardent Christians. I want evolution taught in the schools and I can think of no way better designed to make that impossible than to spout on about religion, from ignorance and with contempt. And especially to make unsubstantiated arguments that science refutes religion. I never conceal my nonbelief. I defend to the death the right of the new atheists to their views and to their right to propagate them. But that is no excuse for political stupidity. If, as the new atheists think, Darwinian evolutionary biology is incompatible with Christianity, then will they give me a good argument as to why the science should be taught in schools if it implies the falsity of religion? The first amendment to the constitution of the United States of America separates church and state. Why are their beliefs exempt?

Back in 1961, in the depths of the cold war, terrified as we were by the threat of nuclear annihilation, John Whitcomb Junior and Henry Morris published The Genesis Flood, a six-day-creationist account of origins. Because of its dispensationalist message – God clears things out every now and then, as he did at the time of Noah, and we should expect the next (literal) blow up fairly shortly – it became the fundamentalist bible. But don't worry. It's all part of God's plans, even the Russian bomb. Today, nearly a decade after 9/11, terrified as so many still are by the terrorist threat, the atheistic fundamentalists are finding equally fertile soil for their equally frenetic messages. It's all the fault of the believers, Muslims mainly of course, but Christians also. But don't worry. In the God Delusion, we have a message as simplistic as in The Genesis Flood. This too will solve all of your problems. Peace and prosperity await you in this world, if not the next.

Forgive me if I don't sign on.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

Q&A with William Lane Craig: Fine Tuning and Morality

2009-11-20T14:21:00.005+10:00

Question:

Fine Tuning: This argument (based on my understanding) is based on the assumption that life can only form under the conditions of our universe and only takes into account life as we know it. Is it not possible for life to form under different physical constants? If so, wouldn't the fine tuning of our universe be irrelevant to the question of God's existence?

Moral Argument: You assert that objective morality comes about through God (to put it very simply). Isn't it just as plausible to see morality as something evolving from early homo sapiens and the development of different societies and civilizations and the necessities that follow from living in those societies? Couldn't morality have come about naturally through the demands of a society to conform to the norms?

Nathan

Dr. William Lane Craig responds:

1. Fine-Tuning. Your understanding of the argument is incorrect. See my exposition of the argument in Reasonable Faith, 3rd ed. When scientists talk about a universe's being life-permitting, they're not talking about just present forms of life. By "life" scientists just mean the property of organisms to take in food, extract energy from it, grow, adapt to their environment, and reproduce. Anything that can fulfill those functions counts as life. And the point is, in order for life so-defined to exist, whatever form it might take, the constants and quantities of the universe have to be unbelievably fine-tuned. You suggest that if the constants and quantities had had different values, then different forms of life might have evolved. But you're underestimating the truly disastrous consequences of a change in the values of these constants and quantities. In the absence of fine-tuning not even matter, not even chemistry, would exist, much less planets where life might evolve.

Someone might think, "But maybe in a universe governed by different laws of nature, such disastrous consequences might not result." But this objection also betrays a misunderstanding of the argument. We're not concerned with universes governed by different laws of nature. We have no idea what such universes might be like! Rather we're concerned solely with universes governed by the same laws of nature but with different values of the constants and arbitrary quantities. The philosopher John Leslie gives the following illustration: imagine a solitary fly, resting on a large, blank area of the wall. A single shot is fired, and the bullet strikes the fly. Now even if the rest of the wall outside the blank area is covered with flies, so that a randomly fired bullet would probably hit one, nevertheless it remains highly improbable that a single, randomly fired bullet would strike the solitary fly within the large, blank area.

In the same way, we need concern ourselves only with universes governed by the same laws of nature in order to determine how likely it is that one of them should be life-permitting. Because the laws are the same, we can determine what would happen if the constants and quantities were to be altered. And the results turn out to be disastrous. A life-permitting universe is like that solitary fly on the wall.

2. Morality. The answer to your questions is: It all depends! If God does not exist, then, as I've argued, what you say is exactly what moral values are: mere byproducts of biological and social evolution. But if God exists, then they're not. For the truth of a belief is independent of how you came to hold that belief. You may have acquired your moral beliefs through a fortune cookie or by reading tea leaves, and they could still be true. In particular, if God exists, then objective moral values and duties exist, regardless of how we come to learn about them. The socio-biological account at best proves that our perception of moral values and duties has evolved. But if moral values are gradually discovered, not invented, then our gradual and fallible perception of those values no more undermines their objective reality than our gradual, fallible perception of the physical world undermines its objective reality.

So the real question is: do you think there is an objective distinction between good and evil, right and wrong? I'm sure you do. Philosophers who reflect on our moral experience see no more reason to distrust that experience than the experience of our five senses. I believe what my five senses tell me, that there is a world of physical objects out there. Similarly, in the absence of some reason to distrust my moral experience, I should accept what it tells me, that some things are objectively good or evil, right or wrong.

Extracted from ReasonableFaith.org

Jesus in the Bible and the Qu'ran

2009-11-14T16:37:00.003+10:00

Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries recently debated Imam Syed Z. Sayeed in Queens, NY, looking at the topic of Jesus in both the Bible and the Qur'an.

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

Is God a Delusion? Discussion

2009-11-04T19:47:00.005+10:00

William Lane Craig vs Lewis Wolpert

In 2007, Professors William Lane Craig and Lewis Wolpert undertook to debate each other on the topic of the existence of God. Below is a series of 4 reasonably short videos of the pretty humorous discussion that took place after the debate, moderated by BBC's John Humphrys.

The Age of the Earth - Human History

2009-10-30T15:29:00.003+10:00

By Dr. Don Batten

Human history is consistent with a young age of the earth

Human population growth. Less than 0.5% p.a. growth from six people 4,500 years ago would produce today’s population. Where are all the people? if we have been here much longer?
“Stone age” human skeletons and artefacts. There are not enough for 100,000 years of a human population of just one million, let alone more people (10 million?). See Where are all the people?
Length of recorded history. Origin of various civilizations, writing, etc., all about the same time several thousand years ago. See Evidence for a young world.
Languages. Similarities in languages claimed to be separated by many tens of thousands of years speaks against the supposed ages (e.g. compare some aboriginal languages in Australia with languages in south-eastern India and Sri Lanka). See The Tower of Babel account affirmed by linguistics.
Common cultural “myths” speak of recent separation of peoples around the world. An example of this is the frequency of stories of an earth-destroying flood.
Origin of agriculture. Secular dating puts it at about 10,000 years and yet that same chronology says that modern man has supposedly been around for at least 200,000 years. Surely someone would have worked out much sooner how to sow seeds of plants to produce food. See: Evidence for a young world.

Source: Creation.com

<< Part 1 | < Part 6

The Age of the Earth - Astronomical evidence

2009-10-25T21:03:00.003+10:00

By Dr. Don Batten

Astronomical evidence

Evidence of recent volcanic activity on Earth’s moon is inconsistent with its supposed vast age because it should have long since cooled if it were billions of years old. See: Transient lunar phenomena: a permanent problem for evolutionary models of Moon formation and Walker, T., and Catchpoole, D., Lunar volcanoes rock long-age timeframe, Creation 31(3):18, 2009.
Recession of the moon from the earth. Tidal friction causes the moon to recede from the earth at 4 cm per year. It would have been greater in the past when the moon and earth were closer together. The moon and earth would have been in catastrophic proximity (Roche limit) at less than a quarter of their supposed age.
Slowing down of the earth. Tidal dissipation rate of Earth’s angular momentum: increasing length of day, currently by 0.002 seconds/day every century (thus an impossibly short day billions of years ago and a very slow day shortly after accretion and before the postulated giant impact to form the Moon). See: How long has the moon been receding?
Ghost craters on the moon’s maria (singular mare: dark “seas” formed from massive lava flows) are a problem for long ages. Evolutionists believe that the lava flows were caused by enormous impacts, and this lava partly buried other, smaller, impact craters, leaving “ghosts”. But this means that the smaller impacts can’t have been too long after the huge one, otherwise the lava would have hardened before the impact. This suggests a very narrow time frame for lunar cratering, and by implication the other cratered bodies of our solar system. They suggest that the cratering occurred quite quickly. See Fryman, H., Ghost craters in the sky, Creation Matters 4(1):6, 1999; A biblically based cratering theory (Faulkner); Lunar volcanoes rock long-age timeframe.
The presence of a significant magnetic field around Mercury is not consistent with its supposed age of billions of years. A planet so small should have cooled down enough so any liquid core would solidify, preventing the evolutionists’ “dynamo” mechanism. See also, Humphreys, D.R., Mercury’s magnetic field is young! Journal of Creation 22(3):8–9, 2008.
The outer planets Uranus and Neptune have magnetic fields, but they should be long “dead” if they are as old as claimed according to evolutionary long-age beliefs. Assuming a solar system age of thousands of years, physicist Russell Humphreys successfully predicted the strengths of the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune.
Jupiter’s larger moons, Ganymede, Io, and Europa, have magnetic fields, which they should not have if they were billions of years old, because they have solid cores and so no dynamo could generate the magnetic fields. This is consistent with creationist Humphreys’ predictions. See also, Spencer, W., Ganymede: the surprisingly magnetic moon, Journal of Creation 23(1):8–9, 2009.
Volcanically active moons of Jupiter (Io) are consistent with youthfulness (Galileo mission recorded 80 active volcanoes). If Io had been erupting over 4.5 billion years at even 10% of its current rate, it would have erupted its entire mass 40 times. Io looks like a young moon and does not fit with the supposed billions of year’s age for the solar system. Gravitational tugging from Jupiter and other moons accounts for only some of the excess heat produced.
The surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Studies of the few craters indicated that up to 95% of small craters, and many medium-sized ones, are formed from debris thrown up by larger impacts. This means that there have been far fewer impacts than had been thought in the solar system and the age of other objects in the solar system, derived from cratering levels, have to be reduced drastically (see Psarris, Spike, What you aren’t being told about astronomy, volume 1: Our created solar system DVD, available from CMI).
Methane on Titan (Saturn’s largest moon)—methane would all be gone because of UV-induced breakdown to ethane in just 10,000 years. And large quantities of ethane are not there either.

Saturn’s rings are increasingly recognized as being relatively short-lived rather than essentially changeless over millions of years.

The rate of change / disappearance of Saturn’s rings is inconsistent with their supposed vast age; they speak of youthfulness.
Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, looks young. Astronomers working in the “billions of years” mindset thought that this moon would be cold and dead, but it is a very active moon, spewing massive jets of water vapour and icy particles into space at supersonic speeds, consistent with a much younger age. Calculations show that the interior would have frozen solid after 30 million years (less than 1% of its supposed age); tidal friction from Saturn does not explain its youthful activity (Psarris, Spike, What you aren’t being told about astronomy, volume 1: Our created solar system DVD; Walker, T., 2009. Enceladus: Saturn’s sprightly moon looks young, Creation 31(3):54–55).
Miranda, a small moon of Uranus, should have been long since dead, if billions of years old, but its extreme surface features suggest otherwise. See Revelations in the solar system.
Neptune should be long since “cold”, lacking strong wind movement if it were billions of years old, yet Voyager II in 1989 found it to be otherwise—it has the fastest winds in the entire solar system. This observation is consistent with a young age, not billions of years. See Neptune: monument to creation.
Neptune’s rings have thick regions and thin regions. This unevenness means they cannot be billions of years old, since collisions of the ring objects would eventually make the ring very uniform. Revelations in the solar system.
Young surface age of Neptune’s moon, Triton—less than 10 million years, even with evolutionary assumptions on rates of impacts (see Schenk, P.M., and Zahnle, K. On the Negligible Surface Age of Triton, Icarus 192(1):135–149, 2007. <doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2007.07.004>.
Uranus and Neptune both have magnetic fields significantly off-axis, which is an unstable situation. When this was discovered with Uranus, it was assumed by evolutionary astronomers that Uranus must have just happened to be going through a magnetic field reversal. However, when a similar thing was found with Neptune, this AD hoc explanation was upset. These observations are consistent with ages of thousands of years rather than billions.
The orbit of Pluto is chaotic on a 20 million year time scale and affects the rest of the solar system, which would also become unstable on that time scale, suggesting that it must be much younger. (See: Rothman, T., God takes a nap, Scientific American 259(4):20, 1988).
The existence of short-period comets (orbital period less than 200 years), e.g. Halley, which have a life of less than 20,000 years, is consistent with an age of the solar system of less than 10,000 years. AD hoc hypotheses have to be invented to circumvent this evidence (see Kuiper Belt). See Comets and the age of the solar system.
“Near-infrared spectra of the Kuiper Belt Object, Quaoar and the suspected Kuiper Belt Object, Charon, indicate both contain crystalline water ice and ammonia hydrate. This watery material cannot be much older than 10 million years, which is consistent with a young solar system, not one that is 5 billion years old.” See: The “waters above” .
Lifetime of long-period comets (orbital period greater than 200 years) that are sun-grazing comets or others like Hyakutake or Hale–Bopp means they could not have originated with the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. However, their existence is consistent with a young age for the solar system. Again an AD hoc Oort Cloud was invented to try to account for these comets still being present after billions of years. See, Comets and the age of the solar system.
The maximum expected lifetime of near-earth asteroids is of the order of one million years, after which they collide with the sun. And the Yarkovsky effect moves main belt asteroids into near-earth orbits faster than had been thought. This brings into question the origin of asteroids with the formation of the solar system (the usual scenario), or the solar system is much younger than the 4.5 billion years claimed. Henry, J., The asteroid belt: indications of its youth, Creation Matters 11(2):2, 2006.
The lifetime of binary asteroids—where a tiny asteroid “moon” orbits a larger asteroid— in the main belt (they represent about 15–17% of the total): tidal effects limit the life of such binary systems to about 100,000 years. The difficulties in conceiving of any scenario for getting binaries to form in such numbers to keep up the population, led some astronomers to doubt their existence, but space probes confirmed it (Henry, J., The asteroid belt: indications of its youth, Creation Matters 11(2):2, 2006).
The observed rapid rate of change in stars contradicts the vast ages assigned to stellar evolution. For example, Sakurai’s Object in Sagittarius: in 1994, this star was most likely a white dwarf in the centre of a planetary nebula; by 1997 it had grown to a bright yellow giant, about 80 times wider than the sun (Astronomy & Astrophysics 321:L17, 1997). In 1998, it had expanded even further, to a red supergiant 150 times wider than the sun. But then it shrank just as quickly; by 2002 the star itself was invisible even to the most powerful optical telescopes, although it is detectable in the infrared, which shines through the dust (Muir, H., 2003, Back from the dead, New Scientist 177(2384):28–31).
The faint young sun paradox. According to stellar evolution theory, as the sun’s core transforms from hydrogen to helium by means of nuclear fusion, the mean molecular weight increases, which would compress the sun’s core increasing fusion rate. The upshot is that over several billion years, the sun ought to have brightened 40% since its formation and 25% since the appearance of life on earth. For the latter, this translates into a 16–18 ºC temperature increase on the earth. The current average temperature is 15 ºC, so the earth ought to have had a-2 ºC or so temperature when life appeared. See: Faulkner, D., The young faint Sun paradox and the age of the solar system, Journal of Creation (TJ) 15(2):3–4, 2001.
Cometesimals. From his studies, astronomer Louis Frank says that 100 million tonnes of water is being added to Earth every year in cometesimals (small comet remnants). This has strong implications for the supposed age of the oceans, if confirmed. See: Bergman, J., Advances in integrating cosmology: The case of cometesimals, Journal of Creation (CENTJ) 10(2):202–210, 1996.
The giant gas planets Jupiter and Saturn radiate more energy than they receive from the sun, suggesting a recent origin. Jupiter radiates almost twice as much energy as it receives from the sun, indicating that it may be less than 1 % of the presumed 4.5 billion years old solar system. Saturn radiates nearly twice as much energy per unit mass as Jupiter. See The age of the Jovian planets.
Speedy stars are consistent with a young age for the universe. For example, many stars in the dwarf galaxies in the Local Group are moving away from each other at speeds estimated at to 10–12 km/s. At these speeds, the stars should have dispersed in 100 Ma, which, compared with the supposed 14,000 Ma age of the universe, is a short time. See Fast stars challenge big bang origin for dwarf galaxies.
The ageing of spiral galaxies (much less than 200 million years) is not consistent with their supposed age of many billions of years. The discovery of extremely “young” spiral galaxies highlights the problem of this evidence for the evolutionary ages assumed.
The number of type I supernova remnants (SNRs) observable in our galaxy is consistent with an age of thousands of years, not millions or billions. See Davies, K., Proc. 3rd ICC, pp. 175–184, 1994.
The rate of expansion and size of supernovas indicates that all studied are young (less than 10,000 years). See supernova remnants.

Source: Creation.com

<< Part 1 | < Part 5 | Part 7 coming soon.

The Age of the Earth - Radiometric dating

2009-10-19T10:34:00.004+10:00

By Dr. Don Batten

Radiometric dating

Carbon-14 in coal suggests ages of thousands of years and clearly contradict ages of millions of years.
Carbon-14 in oil again suggests ages of thousands, not millions, of years.
Carbon-14 in fossil wood also indicates ages of thousands, not millions, of years.
Carbon-14 in diamonds suggests ages of thousands, not billions, of years.
Incongruent radioisotope dates using the same technique argue against trusting the dating methods that give millions of years.
Incongruent radioisotope dates using different techniques argue against trusting the dating methods that give millions of years (or billions of years for the age of the earth).
Demonstrably non-radiogenic “isochrons” of radioactive and non-radioactive elements undermine the assumptions behind isochron “dating” that gives billions of years. “False” isochrons are common.
Different faces of the same zircon crystal and different zircons from the same rock giving different “ages” undermine all “dates” obtained from zircons.
Evidence of a period of rapid radioactive decay in the recent past (lead and helium concentrations and diffusion rates in zircons) point to a young earth explanation.
The amount of helium, a product of alpha-decay of radioactive elements, retained in zircons in granite is consistent with an age of 6,000±2000 years, not the supposed billions of years. See: Humphreys, D.R., Young helium diffusion age of zircons supports accelerated nuclear decay, in Vardiman, Snelling, and Chaffin (eds.), Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: Results of a Young Earth Creationist Research Initiative, Institute for Creation Research and Creation Research Society, 848 pp., 2005
Lead in zircons from deep drill cores vs. shallow ones. They are similar, but there should be less in the deep ones due to the higher heat causing higher diffusion rates over the usual long ages supposed. If the ages are thousands of years, there would not be expected to be much difference, which is the case (Gentry, R., et al., Differential lead retention in zircons: Implications for nuclear waste containment, Science 216(4543):296–298, 1982; DOI: 10.1126/science.216.4543.296).
Pleochroic halos produced in granite by concentrated specks of short half-life elements such as polonium suggest a period of rapid nuclear decay of the long half-life parent isotopes during the formation of the rocks and rapid formation of the rocks, both of which speak against the usual ideas of geological deep time and a vast age of the earth. See, Radiohalos: Startling evidence of catastrophic geologic processes, Creation 28(2):46–50, 2006.
Squashed pleochroic halos (radiohalos) formed from decay of polonium, a very short half-life element, in coalified wood from several geological eras suggest rapid formation of all the layers about the same time, in the same process, consistent with the biblical “young” earth model rather than the millions of years claimed for these events.
Australia’s “Burning Mountain” speaks against radiometric dating and the millions of years belief system (according to radiometric dating of the lava intrusion that set the coal alight, the coal in the burning mountain has been burning for ~40 million years, but clearly this is not feasible).

Source: Creation.com

<< Part 1 | < Part 4 | Part 6

The Age of the Earth - Geological Evidence (continued)

2009-10-17T10:11:00.009+10:00

By Dr. Don Batten

Further Geological evidence for a young age of the earth

Existence of significant flat plateaux that are “dated” at many millions of years old (“elevated paleoplains”). An example is Kangaroo Island (Australia). C.R. Twidale, a famous Australian physical geographer wrote: “the survival of these paleoforms is in some degree an embarrassment to all the commonly accepted models of landscape development.” Twidale, C.R. On the survival of paleoforms, American Journal of Science 5(276):77–95, 1976 (quote on p. 81). See Austin, S.A., Did landscapes evolve? Impact 118, April 1983.
The recent and almost simultaneous origin of all the high mountain ranges around the world—including the Himalayas, the Alps, the Andes, and the Rockies—which have undergone most of the uplift to their present elevations beginning “five million” years ago, whereas mountain building processes have supposedly been around for up to billions of years. See Baumgardner, J., Recent uplift of today’s mountains. Impact 381, March 2005.
Water gaps. These are gorges cut through mountain ranges where rivers run. They occur worldwide and are part of what evolutionary geologists call “discordant drainage systems”. They are “discordant” because they don’t fit the deep time belief system. The evidence fits them forming rapidly in a much younger age framework where the gorges were cut in the recessive stage / dispersive phase of the global Flood of Noah’s day. See Oard, M., Do rivers erode through mountains? Water gaps are strong evidence for the Genesis Flood, Creation 29(3):18–23, 2007.

Measured erosion rates at places like Niagara Falls are consistent with a time frame of several thousand years since Noah’s Flood.

Erosion at Niagara Falls and other such places is consistent with just a few thousand years since the biblical Flood.
River delta growth rate is consistent with thousands of years since the biblical Flood, not vast periods of time. The argument goes back to Mark Twain. E.g. 1. Mississippi—Creation Research Quarterly (CRSQ) 9:96–114, 1992; CRSQ 14:77; CRSQ 25:121–123. E.g. 2 Tigris–Euphrates: CRSQ 14:87, 1977.
Underfit streams. River valleys are too large for the streams they contain. Dury speaks of the “continent-wide distribution of underfit streams”. Using channel meander characteristics, Dury concluded that past streams frequently had 20–60 times their current discharge. This means that the river valleys would have been carved very quickly, not slowly over eons of time. See Austin, S.A., Did landscapes evolve? Impact 118, 1983.
Amount of salt in the sea. Even ignoring the effect of the biblical Flood and assuming zero starting salinity and all rates of input and removal so as to maximize the time taken to accumulate all the salt, the maximum age of the oceans, 62 million years, is less than 1/50 of the age evolutionists claim for the oceans. This suggests that the age of the earth is radically less also.
The amount of sediment on the sea floors at current rates of land erosion would accumulate in just 12 million years; a blink of the eye compared to the supposed age of much of the ocean floor of up to 3 billion years. Furthermore, long-age geologists reckon that higher erosion rates applied in the past, which shortens the time frame. From a biblical point of view, at the end of Noah’s Flood lots of sediment would have been added to the sea with the water coming off the unconsolidated land, making the amount of sediment perfectly consistent with a history of thousands of years.
Iron-manganese nodules (IMN) on the sea floors. The measured rates of growth of these nodules indicates an age of only thousands of years. Lalomov, A.V., 2007. Mineral deposits as an example of geological rates. CRSQ 44(1):64–66.
The age of placer deposits (concentrations of heavy metals such as tin in modern sediments and consolidated sedimentary rocks). The measured rates of deposition indicate an age of thousands of years, not the assumed millions. See Lalomov, A.V., and Tabolitch, S.E., 2000. Age determination of coastal submarine placer, Val’cumey, northern Siberia. Journal of Creation (TJ) 14(3):83–90.
Pressure in oil / gas wells indicate the recent origin of the oil and gas. If they were many millions of years old we would expect the pressures to equilibrate, even in low permeability rocks. “Experts in petroleum prospecting note the impossibility of creating an effective model given long and slow oil generation over millions of years (Petukhov, 2004). In their opinion, if models demand the standard multimillion-years geochronological scale, the best exploration strategy is to drill wells on a random grid.” Lalomov, A.V., 2007. Mineral deposits as an example of geological rates. CRSQ 44(1):64–66.
Direct evidence that oil is forming today in the Guaymas Basin and in Bass Strait is consistent with a young earth (although not necessary for a young earth).
Rapid reversals in paleomagnetism undermine use of paleomagnetism in long ages dating of rocks and speak of rapid processes, compressing the long-age time scale enormously.
The pattern of magnetization in the magnetic stripes where magma is welling up at the mid-ocean trenches argues against the belief that reversals take many thousands of years and rather indicates rapid sea-floor spreading as well as rapid magnetic reversals, consistent with a young earth (Humphreys, D.R., Has the Earth’s magnetic field ever flipped? Creation Research Quarterly 25(3):130–137, 1988).

Along the mid-ocean ridges, the detailed pattern of magnetic polarisation, with islands of differing polarity, speaks of rapid changes in direction of Earth’s magnetic field because of the rate of cooling of the lava. This is consistent with a young Earth.

Measured rates of stalactite and stalagmite growth in limestone caves are consistent with a young age of several thousand years. See also articles on limestone cave formation.
The decay of the earth’s magnetic field. Exponential decay is evident from measurements and is consistent with theory of free decay since creation, suggesting an age of the earth of less than 20,000 years.
Excess heat flow from the earth is consistent with a young age rather than billions of years, even taking into account heat from radioactive decay. SeeWoodmorappe, J., 1999. Lord Kelvin revisited on the young age of the earth. Journal of Creation (TJ) 13(1):14, 1999.

Source: Creation.com

<< Part 1 | < Part 3 | Part 5 >

The Age of the Earth - Geological Evidence

2009-10-14T18:35:00.005+10:00

By Dr. Don Batten

Geological evidence for a young age of the earth

Radical folding at Eastern Beach, near Auckland in New Zealand, indicates that the sediments were soft and pliable when folded, inconsistent with a long time for their formation. Such folding can be seen world-wide and is consistent with a young age of the earth.

Lack of plant fossils in many formations containing abundant animal / herbivore fossils. E.g., the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) in Montana. See Origins 21(1):51–56, 1994. Also the Coconino sandstone in the Grand Canyon has many track-ways (animals), but is almost devoid of plants. Implication: these rocks are not ecosystems of an “era” buried in situ over eons of time as evolutionists claim. The evidence is more consistent with catastrophic transport then burial during the massive global Flood of Noah’s day. This eliminates supposed evidence for millions of years.
Thick, tightly bent strata without sign of melting or fracturing. E.g. the Kaibab upwarp in Grand Canyon indicates rapid folding before the sediments had time to solidify (the sand grains were not elongated under stress as would be expected if the rock had hardened). This wipes out hundreds of millions of years of time and is consistent with extremely rapid formation during the biblical Flood. See Warped earth.
Polystrate fossils—tree trunks in coal (Auracaria spp. king billy pines, celery top pines, in southern hemisphere coal). There are also polystrate tree trunks in the Yellowstone fossilized forests and Joggins, Nova Scotia and in many other places. Polystrate fossilized lycopod trunks occur in northern hemisphere coal, again indicating rapid burial / formation of the organic material that became coal.
Experiments show that with conditions mimicking natural forces, coal forms quickly; in weeks for brown coal to months for black coal. It does not need millions of years. Furthermore, long time periods could be an impediment to coal formation because of the increased likelihood of the permineralization of the wood, which would hinder coalification.
Experiments show that with conditions mimicking natural forces, oil forms quickly; it does not need millions of years, consistent with an age of thousands of years.
Experiments show that with conditions mimicking natural forces, opals form quickly, in a matter of weeks, not millions of years, as had been claimed.
Evidence for rapid, catastrophic formation of coal beds speaks against the hundreds of millions of years normally claimed for this, including Z-shaped seams that point to a single depositional event producing these layers.
Evidence for rapid petrifaction of wood speaks against the need for long periods of time and is consistent with an age of thousands of years.
Clastic dykes and pipes (intrusion of sediment through overlying sedimentary rock) show that the overlying rock strata were still soft when it happened. This drastically compresses the time scale for the deposition of the penetrated rock strata. See, Walker, T., Fluidisation pipes: Evidence of large-scale watery catastrophe, Journal of Creation (TJ) 14(3):8–9, 2000.
Para(pseudo)conformities—where one rock stratum sits on top of another rock stratum but with supposedly millions of years of geological time missing, yet the contact plane lacks any significant erosion; that is, it is a “flat gap”. E.g. Coconino sandstone / Hermit shale in the Grand Canyon (supposedly a 10 million year gap in time). The thick Schnebly Hill Formation (sandstone) lies between the Coconino and Hermit in central Arizona. See Austin, S.A., Grand Canyon, monument to catastrophe, ICR, Santee, CA, USA, 1994 and Snelling, A., The case of the “missing” geologic time, Creation 14(3):31–35, 1992.
The presence of ephemeral markings (raindrop marks, ripple marks, animal tracks) at the boundaries of paraconformities show that the upper rock layer has been deposited immediately after the lower one, eliminating many millions of “gap” time. See references in Para(pseudo)conformities.
Inter-tonguing of adjacent strata that are supposedly separated by millions of years also eliminates many millions of years of supposed geologic time. The case of the “missing” geologic time; Mississippian and Cambrian strata interbedding: 200 million years hiatus in question, CRSQ 23(4):160–167.
The lack of bioturbation (worm holes, root growth) at paraconformities (flat gaps) reinforces the lack of time involved where evolutionary geologists insert many millions of years to force the rocks to conform with the “given” timescale of billions of years.
The almost complete lack of clearly recognizable soil layers anywhere in the geologic column. Geologists do claim to have found lots of “fossil” soils (paleosols), but these are quite different to soils today, lacking the features that characterize soil horizons; features that are used in classifying different soils. Every one that has been investigated thoroughly proves to lack the characteristics of proper soil. If “deep time” were correct, with hundreds of millions of years of abundant life on the earth, there should have been ample opportunities many times over for soil formation. See Klevberg, P. and Bandy, R., CRSQ 39:252–68; CRSQ 40:99–116, 2003; Walker, T., Paleosols: digging deeper buries “challenge” to Flood geology, Journal of Creation 17(3):28–34, 2003.
Limited extent of unconformities (unconformity: a surface of erosion that separates younger strata from older rocks). Surfaces erode quickly (e.g. Badlands, South Dakota), but there are very limited unconformities. There is the “great unconformity” at the base of the Grand Canyon, but otherwise there are supposedly ~300 million years of strata deposited on top without any significant unconformity. This is again consistent with a much shorter time of deposition of these strata. See Para(pseudo)conformities.
The amount of salt in the world’s oldest lake contradicts its supposed age and suggests an age more consistent with its formation after Noah’s Flood, which is consistent with a young age of the earth.
The discovery that underwater landslides (“turbidity currents”) travelling at some 50 km/h can create huge areas of sediment in a matter of hours (Press, F., and Siever, R., Earth, 4^th ed., Freeman & Co., NY, USA, 1986). Sediments thought to have formed slowly over eons of time are now becoming recognized as having formed extremely rapidly. See for example, A classic tillite reclassified as a submarine debris flow (Technical).
Flume tank research with sediment of different particle sizes show that layered rock strata that were thought to have formed over huge periods of time in lake beds actually formed very quickly. Even the precise layer thicknesses of rocks were duplicated after they were ground into their sedimentary particles and run through the flume. See Experiments in stratification of heterogeneous sand mixtures, Sedimentation Experiments: Nature finally catches up! and Sandy Stripes Do many layers mean many years?
Observed examples of rapid canyon formation; for example, Providence Canyon in southwest Georgia, Burlingame Canyon near Walla Walla, Washington, and Lower Loowit Canyon near Mount St Helens. The rapidity of the formation of these canyons, which look similar to other canyons that supposedly took many millions of years to form, brings into question the supposed age of the canyons that no one saw form.
Observed examples of rapid island formation and maturation, such as Surtsey, which confound the notion that such islands take long periods of time to form. See also, Tuluman—A Test of Time.
Rate of erosion of coastlines, horizontally. E.g. Beachy Head, UK, loses a metre of coast to the sea every six years.
Rate of erosion of continents vertically is not consistent with the assumed old age of the earth. See Creation 22(2):18–21.

Source: Creation.com

<< Part 1 | < Part 2 | Part 4 >

The Age of the Earth - Biological Evidence

2009-10-12T11:10:00.007+10:00

By Dr. Don Batten

Biological evidence for a young age of the earth

The finding of pliable blood vessels, blood cells and proteins in dinosaur bone is consistent with an age of thousands of years for the fossils, not the 65+ million years claimed by the paleontologists.

DNA in “ancient” fossils. DNA extracted from bacteria that are supposed to be 425 million years old brings into question that age, because DNA could not last more than thousands of years.
Lazarus bacteria—bacteria revived from salt inclusions supposedly 250 million years old, suggest the salt is not millions of years old.
The decay in the human genome due to multiple slightly deleterious mutations each generation is consistent with an origin several thousand years ago. Sanford, J., Genetic entropy and the mystery of the genome, Ivan Press, 2005; see review of the book and the interview with the author in Creation 30(4):45–47,September 2008. This has been confirmed by realistic modelling of population genetics, which shows that genomes are young, in the order of thousands of years. See Sanford, J., Baumgardner, J., Brewer, W., Gibson, P. and Remine, W., Mendel’s Accountant: A biologically realistic forward-time population genetics program, SCPE 8(2):147–165, 2007.
The data for “mitochondrial Eve” are consistent with a common origin of all humans several thousand years ago.
Very limited variation in the DNA sequence on the human Y-chromosome around the world is consistent with a recent origin of mankind, thousands not millions of years.
Many fossil bones “dated” at many millions of years old are hardly mineralized, if at all. This contradicts the widely believed old age of the earth. See, for example, Dinosaur bones just how old are they really?
Dinosaur blood cells, blood vessels, proteins (hemoglobin, osteocalcin, collagen) are not consistent with their supposed age, but make more sense if the remains are young.
Lack of 50:50 racemization of amino acids in fossils “dated” at millions of years old, whereas complete racemization would occur in thousands of years.
Living fossils—jellyfish, graptolites, coelacanth, stromatolites, Wollemi pine and hundreds more. That many hundreds of species could remain so unchanged, for even up to billions of years in the case of stromatolites, speaks against the millions and billions of years being real.
Discontinuous fossil sequences. E.g. Coelacanth, Wollemi pine and various “index” fossils, which are present in supposedly ancient strata, missing in strata representing many millions of years since, but still living today. Such discontinuities speak against the interpretation of the rock formations as vast geological ages—how could Coelacanths have avoided being fossilized for 65 million years, for example? See The “Lazarus effect”: rodent “resurrection”!
The ages of the world’s oldest living organisms, trees, are consistent with an age of the earth of thousands of years.

Source: Creation.com

< Part 1 | Part 3 >

The Age of the Earth - An Introduction

2009-10-10T17:21:00.013+10:00

This post begins a series on the Age of the Earth. Many scientists say the Earth is millions, if not billions of years old, but this series of posts will provide 101 scientific reasons as to why that common belief is actually wrong.

By Dr. Don Batten

No scientific method can prove the age of the earth and the universe, and that includes the ones we have listed here. Although age indicators are called “clocks” they aren’t, because all ages result from calculations that necessarily involve making assumptions about the past. Always the starting time of the “clock” has to be assumed as well as the way in which the speed of the clock has varied over time. Further, it has to be assumed that the clock was never disturbed.

There is no independent natural clock against which those assumptions can be tested. For example, the amount of cratering on the moon, based on currently observed cratering rates, would suggest that the moon is quite old. However, to draw this conclusion we have to assume that the rate of cratering has been the same in the past as it is now. And there are now good reasons for thinking that it might have been quite intense in the past, in which case the craters do not indicate an old age at all (see below).

Ages of millions of years are all calculated by assuming the rates of change of processes in the past were the same as we observe today—called the principle of uniformitarianism. If the age calculated from such assumptions disagrees with what they think the age should be, they conclude that their assumptions did not apply in this case, and adjust them accordingly. If the calculated result gives an acceptable age, the investigators publish it.

Examples of young ages listed here are also obtained by applying the same principle of uniformitarianism. Long-age proponents will dismiss this sort of evidence for a young age of the earth by arguing that the assumptions about the past do not apply in these cases. In other words, age is not really a matter of scientific observation but an argument about our assumptions about the unobserved past.

The assumptions behind the evidences presented here cannot be proved, but the fact that such a wide range of different phenomena all suggest much younger ages than are currently generally accepted, provides a strong case for questioning those accepted ages (about 14 billion years for the universe and 4.5 billion years for the solar system).

Also, a number of the evidences, rather than giving any estimate of age, challenge the assumption of slow-and-gradual uniformitarianism, upon which all deep-time dating methods depend.

Many of these indicators for younger ages were discovered when creationist scientists started researching things that were supposed to “prove” long ages. The lesson here is clear: when the evolutionists throw up some new challenge to the Bible’s timeline, don’t fret over it. Sooner or later that supposed evidence will be turned on its head and will even be added to this list of evidences for a younger age of the earth. On the other hand, some of the evidences listed here might turn out to be ill-founded with further research and will need to be modified. Such is the nature of science, especially historical science, because we cannot do experiments on past events (see “It’s not science”).

Science is based on observation, and the only reliable means of telling the age of anything is by the testimony of a reliable witness who observed the events. The Bible claims to be the communication of the only One who witnessed the events of Creation: the Creator himself. As such, the Bible is the only reliable means of knowing the age of the earth and the cosmos. See The Universe’s Birth Certificate and Biblical chronogenealogies (technical).

In the end the Bible will stand vindicated and those who deny its testimony will be confounded. That same Bible also tells us of God’s judgment on those who reject his right to rule over them. But it also tells us of his willingness to forgive us for our rebellious behaviour. The coming of Jesus Christ, who was intimately involved in the creation process at the beginning (John 1:1–3), into the world, has made this possible (see Good news).

Source: Creation.com

Part 2 >

A Mormon Came to Visit

2009-10-08T17:04:00.007+10:00

In a lot of places in the world, Mormons come knocking on your door to spread their faith. Josh Williamson, along with Jon Speed, had a Mormon come to visit on the 7th October 2009 while in Dallas, Texas. They were able to record the discussion and undoubtedly, you'll sure be shocked at some of the things that the Mormon elder admits by the end of the conversation.

Listen (38:06 mins - 8.7MB)

For more Operation 513 resources, visit the Audios and Videos page.

An Overview of Buddhism

2009-10-04T21:05:00.003+10:00

Buddhism is a religion that is definitely growing. It is now the 4th most practiced religion in America and has 350-500 million adherents worldwide. Because of this, one must be prepared to be able to respond to a Buddhist's objections to the Christian message and respond accordingly. To do this, it is very good to have a grasp of the teachings of Buddhism.

The following resource from AlwaysBeReady.com can either be read or listened to, and contains a great overview of the history of Buddhism and its teachings. Also it contrasts the Buddhist religion to Christianity and gives tips on how to witness to people of that faith.

Listen or Read the transcript

Was Jesus a Myth? Debate

2009-09-30T15:15:00.006+10:00

Dr. James White vs Dan Barker

Dan Barker, from the Freedom from Religion Foundation, has written a number of works where he argues that Jesus never existed. In this debate, James White, from Alpha and Omega Ministries, challenged Mr Barker on his claims.

Amazingly, while James White was beginning his opening speech, Dan Barker objected to the quoting of his own book! Even though it was on sale that very day!

The Consequences of Leaving Islam

2009-09-28T10:34:00.003+10:00

In response to Rifqa Bary's claims that her life is in danger for converting to Christianity, many Muslims in the West are denying the fact that Muhammad commanded his followers to kill those who leave Islam. In this video, David Wood proves that, according to Muhammad himself, the penalty for apostasy is death.

Why is Richard Dawkins so Popular?

2009-09-22T18:33:00.003+10:00

In this four minute video, Dr. William Lane Craig responds to the question about why Richard Dawkins seems to be so popular among atheists.

Things Science cannot Prove

2009-09-18T20:51:00.003+10:00

This 3-minute video is a snippet of a debate between Dr. William Lane Craig and Dr. Peter Atkins, addressing the important issue of: 'Are there things that Science cannot prove?'

Richard Bauckham on the Gospels

2009-09-13T22:10:00.005+10:00

The leading New Testament scholar from Cambridge, Dr. Richard Bauckham, was recently on the radio program 'Unbelievable?' which is on the Premier Christian Radio network. Bauckham was arguing that the Gospels are based on eyewitness accounts and therefore should be regarded as fundamentally trustworthy.

Joining in on the discussion was also New Testament historian, Dr. James Crossley, discussing the implications of Bauckham's work and whether the Gospel of John was written by the disciple John himself, as Bauckham claims.

It is well worth the listen.

Part 1 - (1 hr 20 mins)
Part 2 - (1 hr 20 mins)

What do the Jehovah's Witnesses teach?

2009-09-08T17:36:00.004+10:00

Do you want a 4-minute crash course in what the Jehovah's Witnesses believe?

Then watch this video by Matt Slick of CARM.org.

The Concept Of God In Islam and Christianity Debate

2009-09-04T22:50:00.008+10:00

William Lane Craig vs. Shabir Ally

The concept of God is remarkably different between the two biggest religions of the world, Islam and Christianity. However, the question must be asked: Which one is true, as both religions claim there is only one God?

This debate was held at McGill University, in Quebec, Canada in February 2009.

Download Audio (Thanks to Apologetics 315)

Note: Not all the views expressed in this debate by Dr. Craig are shared by Operation 513.

The Book of Mormon vs. the Bible

2009-09-01T21:24:00.003+10:00

How historically accurate is the Book of Mormon compared to the Bible? Do the places and events described in the Book of the Mormon have archaeological evidence backing them up? How does this compare to the Bible? Find out by watching this 1-hour video documentary by Living Hope Ministries.

Quote of the Day - The Limitations of Science

2009-08-28T20:46:00.004+10:00

"What's life all about? This and others like it are questions that science cannot answer, and no conceivable advance of science would empower it to answer." - Sir Peter Medawar (Nobel Prize for Medicine winner).

Reference: R. Stewart, The Future of Atheism: Alister McGrath & Daniel Dennett in Dialogue (London: Fortune Press, 2008), 33.

Is there Really No Evidence for the City of Jericho?

2009-08-26T21:05:00.005+10:00

Many people have claimed for hundreds of years that there has been no evidence found of the City of Jericho and its destruction, as written about in the Book of Joshua. This has lead to a number of people dismissing the Bible, by saying it is inaccurate.

But in this 33 minute video made by Living Hope Ministries, they follow a number of the leading scholars and archaeologists into the land of Israel to see where the evidence actually points.

Watch video

The New Testament or the Qur'an? Debate

2009-08-24T10:39:00.003+10:00

Dr. James White vs. Abdullah Kunde

This debate was held at the The University of Sydney on the 17th August 2009 on the topic of "What is the Guidance and Light for Mankind, the New Testament or the Qur'an?"

Quote of the Day - Michael Ruse on the New Atheists

2009-08-19T13:00:00.006+10:00

"Their [the new atheists] treatment of the religious viewpoint is pathetic to the point of non-being. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion would fail any introductory philosophy or religion course. Proudly he criticizes that whereof he knows nothing." -- Michael Ruse (a skeptic himself)

Reference: Michael Ruse's article - Why I think the New Atheists are a Disaster.

Can Atheism Account for Morality?

2009-08-17T19:05:00.003+10:00

Why is it wrong to steal or murder? Is it just because that is the cultural norm? Or is there actually an objective moral standard? Matt Slick from CARM.org in this 5-minute video will address this topic and provide a convincing case for the existence of God from morality.

Converts Debate: Christianity vs. Islam

2009-08-14T12:07:00.005+10:00

Dr. Nabeel Qureshi vs. Paul Williams

Both these gentlemen are converts from each other's religion. Nabeel Qureshi, once a professing Muslim, is arguing for the truth of Christianity. While Paul Williams, once a professing Christian, is debating for the validity of Islam.

Opening Statements

Rebuttals, Crossfire, and Conclusions

Do Improbable Events Necessitate Design?

2009-08-10T19:17:00.006+10:00

Question:

I'm interested in how the teleological argument can escape the criticism of some who would argue that if an infinitesimally improbable event such as a finely-tuned Universe could warrant belief in a God, then how what about other incomprehensibly improbable events?

For instance, imagine a possible Universe that is much larger than our own, in which there are only two small space rocks in existence, but they are located on different edges of the Universe. The possibility of these two small rocks colliding is fantastically improbable, but if it did theoretically happen, would that warrant a supernatural explanation?

Ariel

Dr. William Lane Craig responds:

If you read the work of Intelligent Design theorists, Ariel, you’ll find that none of them appeals to the simple high improbability of an event or thing as a basis for a design inference. Your own existence, for example, is due to the incredibly improbable union of a certain sperm and a certain egg, yet we would not infer on that basis that your conception was intelligently designed.

The dean of the contemporary Intelligent Design movement William Dembski argues that in addition to high improbability there also needs to be conformity to an independently given pattern. When these two elements are present, we have what Dembski calls “specified complexity,” which is the tip-off to intelligent design. Thus, for example, in a poker game any deal of cards is equally and highly improbable, but if you find that every time a certain player deals he gets all four aces, you can bet this is not the result of chance but of design.

Now in your example, if the two rocks collided, you would infer neither design nor chance as the best explanation, but the third alternative, physical necessity. Since gravitation acts over infinite distances, it is actually inevitable that those two masses will eventually collide. What would warrant a design inference would be if the rocks were to break into pieces which then came together to spell “Welcome to the Milky Way.”

To detect design look for high improbability conjoined with an independently given pattern.

Source: ReasonableFaith.org

The History of Mormonism

2009-08-07T13:00:00.001+10:00

A 4-minute video by Matt Slick of CARM.org outlining the history of Mormonism.

Mormonism in a Nutshell

2009-08-05T12:25:00.006+10:00

Matt Slick of CARM.org explains the main doctrines of Mormonism in 4 minutes.

Was Muhammad a True Prophet? Debate

2009-07-31T22:09:00.003+10:00

David Wood vs. Yahya Seymour

Opening Statements

Rebuttals and Conclusions

Another Verse Proving the Deity of Christ

2009-07-29T17:00:00.005+10:00

By Ryan Hemelaar

"Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood." - Acts 20:28 (ESV)

Here Paul equates Jesus' death as being God's death. Therefore, it is clear that Jesus is God.

The New World Translation (the Bible of the Jehovah's Witnesses) has once again erroneously translated this verse, by rendering the last phrase of it as: "...which he purchased with the blood of his own [Son]." For the Greek is: τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ ἰδίου. Since there is a definite article (τοῦ) before both the word that means 'blood' (αἵματος) and the word that means 'own' (ἰδίου), the construction clearly shows that ἰδίου ('own') is an attributive adjective. What this means, as the name implies, is that a quality is attributed to the noun (eg: "the good man"), unlike a predicate adjective (eg: "the man is good"), and a substantive (eg: "only the good die young"), where an adjective stands in the place of a noun. This last category is what the translators of the New World Translation think this adjective is, that is, a substantive. However, it is clear that there is a noun with an article preceding the adjective and its article, so therefore it simply cannot stand there as a substantive. Instead the last phrase of Acts 20:28 should be translated: "...which he obtained with/through his own blood", which the ESV has nicely done.

Moreover, to expose the New World Translation's double standard, it translates John 10:11a as "I am the fine shepherd" even though it's in the exact same restrictive attributive position (ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός) as Acts 20:28! That is clearly a double standard; translating one as a substantive, and the other as an attributive.

Has the Qur'an Really Never been Changed?

2009-07-27T16:09:00.011+10:00

Professor James A. Bellamy writes:

These variants, however – I have counted more than two-hundred that make a difference in the meaning - are important in that they tell us there was no solid oral tradition stemming directly from the prophet to prove which variant was correct.

For example:

In Surah 6:63, of the seven readers, the two from Kufah recite ‘njyn‘ (anjana) “he saves us.” and the other five ‘njytn’ (anjay- tana) “you (sg.) save us.” These two words sound so dif- ferent that no one, unless he were deaf, could mistake one for the other, and the words on both sides of the word in question are unambiguous. One cannot argue that the prophet used one variant one day and the other the next. Nor can one maintain that there is a firm oral tradition that guarantees the reading of the unambiguous words but breaks down when more than one reading is possible.

Reference: James A. Bellamy (2001), ‘Textual Criticism of the Koran’. Journal of the American Oriental Society. Vol. 121 No. 1 (Jan-Mar. 2001), pp. 1-6.

Understanding Universalism, Inclusivism, Pluralism, and Exclusivism

2009-07-24T18:40:00.003+10:00

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has recently released an MP3 of a talk that outlines the different viewpoints on salvation. If you don't understand what Universalism, Inclusivism, Pluralism, and Exclusivism means, you need to listen to this audio.

Download MP3 (55 mins - 12.5MB)

Are there Objective Truths about God?

2009-07-19T20:37:00.005+10:00

Over the centuries and even today, many people claim that it is impossible to know anything about God. Dr. William Lane Craig, in this audio, examines and sufficiently refutes each one of these opposing worldviews.

Download MP3 (1 Hour - 14.1 MB)

What to say to a Jehovah's Witness (Part 3)

2009-07-15T20:00:00.002+10:00

By Andre Holwerda

Continued from Part 2

The third and final argument requires the following verses:

Thus says the Lord (i.e. Jehovah), the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord (Jehovah) of hosts: "I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god. (Isaiah 44:6)

Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I am he; I am the first, and I am the last. (Isaiah 48:12)

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8)

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” (Revelation 1:17-18)

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.” (Revelation 21:5-6)

"Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." (Revelation 22:13)

"I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star." (Revelation 22:16)

He who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:20)

In Isaiah 44 and 48, as well as in many other parts of Isaiah, Jehovah identifies Himself as ‘the first and the last’. A similar title appears in Revelation 1:8 where, in the New World Translation, it reads: “I am Alpha and Omega”, says Jehovah God…”. This is seen again in Revelation 21:5-6, where the one sitting on the throne of God says: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end”. So, ‘Alpha and Omega’, ‘the first and the last’ and ‘the beginning and the end’ are all titles of Jehovah. You cannot have two alphas and two omegas, or two firsts and two lasts, or two beginnings and two endings. Therefore, these titles belong only to Jehovah and nobody else!

Now, in Revelation 22:13, someone speaks and declares Himself to be ‘the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end’. He also says, in this verse, that He is ‘coming quickly’. So who is this person who claims the titles that belong only to Jehovah and says that He is coming quickly? Revelation 22:20 answers this question with the words, ‘He who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!’ The one who is coming, who claims the titles of Jehovah for Himself, is none other than Jesus Christ. Therefore, Jesus Christ is Jehovah!

Notice also that in Revelation 1:17-18, this person who calls Himself ‘the first and the last’ also mentions that He died and is now alive again. We have established that Jehovah alone is the first and the last. So that brings up the question, ‘when did Jehovah die and rise again?’ If Jesus Christ is not Jehovah, then this question remains unanswered and the statement made in these verses makes absolutely no sense and is therefore an error in the Bible. Either Jesus is Jehovah or the Biblical author was wrong or lying at this point. There simply are no other options.

Some other useful arguments:

- Isaiah 48:11 and John 17:5: In John 17:5, Jesus asks the Father to glorify Him with the glory He had with the Father before the world existed. So Jesus shared the Father’s glory before He came to earth. But in Isaiah 48:11 Jehovah God says He ‘will not give His glory to another’. He gave His glory to Jesus. Therefore, either Jesus is Jehovah or Jehovah lied when He said He would not give His glory to another. Since the latter is unacceptable, Jesus must be Jehovah.

- Hebrews 1:8: This verse quotes the Father saying to the Son, ‘your throne O God, is forever and ever.’ Thus, the Father Himself calls the Son God.

- Colossians 2:9: This verse clearly states that ‘all the fullness of deity’ dwelt in Jesus bodily. In other words, everything God is dwelt in Jesus. The NWT mistranslates the word ‘deity’ as ‘divine quality’ but the Watchtower’s own Kingdom Interlinear Translation correctly translates it as ‘deity’ or ‘divinity’.

- John 20:27 – 28: In verse 27 Jesus appears to Thomas and proves to Him that He really has risen from the dead. Verse 28 is Thomas’ response in which he says, ‘my Lord and my God.’ The Greek ‘ho kurios mou kai ho theos mou’ is literally rendered ‘The Lord of me and The God of me.’ The definite article is present for emphasis, so that we don’t miss the fact that Thomas was calling Jesus ‘The God’ (i.e. Jehovah). Now, had that been merely Thomas’ opinion and not the truth, Jesus, as a good rabbi, would have immediately rebuked him for blasphemy. Instead He commended Thomas! Thus, Jesus confirmed Thomas’ statement.

John 5:17 – 18: In verse 17 Jesus calls God His Father. In verse 18 John makes a comment in which he mentions that by calling God His Father Jesus was ‘making Himself equal with God.’ Thus, John teaches us that calling yourself the Son of God is no different to calling yourself God.

<< Part 1 | < Part 2

What to say to a Jehovah's Witness (Part 2)

2009-07-12T19:53:00.005+10:00

By Andre Holwerda

Continued from Part 1

In my previous article on witnessing to Jehovah’s Witnesses I stressed the need to remain focussed on two topics only; namely, the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ and also His deity. In that article I gave some tips on presenting JWs with arguments for the resurrection. In this one it is my purpose to provide evangelical Christians, who wish to witness to JWs, with some basic arguments supporting the Christian understanding of the deity of Christ.

Let us start, then, by getting a clear understanding of the difference between what JWs believe about the person of Jesus and what we who call ourselves evangelical Christians typically believe. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society teaches that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God and based on that we might make the mistake of thinking that they believe the same as we do. However, the Watchtower defines the title ‘Son of God’ as referring to a created being who, while the first and greatest creation of Jehovah, is nevertheless a creature, not God, and is not to be worshipped. Two thousand years of orthodox Christianity, on the other hand, has consistently defined the Son of God as a being who is uncreated, eternally begotten, co-equal with the Father and of the very same nature and substance as the Father, while remaining a distinct person. What these two wildly different definitions serve to demonstrate is that JWs believe in one version of Jesus, while evangelicals believe in another. This is one instance in which Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 11:4 ring true, in which he indicated that it is possible to be deceived by someone who preaches ‘another Jesus’ (literally ‘a different Jesus’).

With our terms defined, then, let us move on to the nuts and bolts of how to present a cogent argument for the deity of Christ to JWs. Many arguments have been formulated for this task and most of them hold some value for the defence of this doctrine, however there are a select few that I find to be the most powerful when dealing with JWs. In this article I will present what I feel are the best three and then give some additional arguments at the end for those who wish to delve deeper.

The first argument involves the following verses (I am quoting from the ESV but this argument can also be made using the Watchtower’s own translation, the NWT):

"O my God," I say, "take me not away in the midst of my days-- you whose years endure throughout all generations!" Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end. (Psalm 102:24-27)

But of the Son he (i.e. the Father) says, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions." And, "You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands; they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end." (Hebrews 1:8-12)

Thus says the Lord (i.e. Jehovah), your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: "I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself,...(Isaiah 44:24)

In Psalm 102 we learn that it was Jehovah God who created the heavens and the earth. Get your JW friend to read those verses and acknowledge that indeed Jehovah God is the creator. Now, turn in your Bible to Hebrews 1 and get them to read verses 8-12. Verses 8 and 9 give us the context by showing us that this is a quote of God the Father saying something to His Son. Then in verses 10 to 12 we have God the Father taking those verses from Psalm 102 and applying them to the Son! So Jehovah God himself attributes the creation of the universe to the Son. There are profound Christological riches in these verses that could form separate arguments on their own but be sure to stick to the main point, which is that Jesus is called the creator by no less of an authority than the Father himself!

Now, this alone may seem to be a powerful argument for the deity of Christ. However, the JWs have formulated a response to this by saying that the Father created through the Son; that the Father was kind of like the chief architect, while the son was merely the builder. This is where Isaiah 44:24 comes into play. By taking your JW friend to this verse in Isaiah you can prove to him that Jehovah created all things all by himself! So, pulling the argument together, Psalm 102 says that Jehovah is the creator, Hebrews 1:8-12 says that Jesus is the creator and Isaiah 44:24 says that Jehovah created the universe all on his own. Therefore, Jesus and the Father are both Jehovah God! There is simply no other way to reconcile those verses.

For our second argument, the following verses are needed:

And Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.'" (Luke 4:8)

And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, "Let all God's angels worship him." (Hebrews 1:6)

Now the argument is this; in Luke 4:8 Jesus, being tempted by the devil, refused to worship Satan because Deuteronomy 6:13 clearly stated that one is to worship Jehovah God and only Jehovah God. Comparing that with Hebrews 1:6, however, we see that God the Father commanded the angels to worship Jesus. The conclusion then is that either the Father commanded His angels to commit idolatry or else Jesus is Jehovah! And since the Father does not command anyone to sin, therefore the latter conclusion must be the correct one. Jesus is Jehovah! There is no other option. Even if a JW will not admit that Jesus is Jehovah, on the basis of Hebrews 1:6 he or she must at least admit that Jesus is to be worshipped.

< Part 1 | Part 3 >

Is Absence of Evidence, Evidence of Absence? Part 2

2009-07-09T22:05:00.000+10:00

Continued from Part 1

4. Some Examples: Tooth Fairies, Leprechauns, Santa Claus, Teapots, and Invisible Objects

Let me see if I can put all this together to answer your question with some examples which are thought to pose a problem for the line of thought defended thus far. Your question basically was when absence of evidence counts as evidence of absence. Answering this will depend upon whether our epistemic situation satisfies the Evidence Expectation and Knowledge Expectation Criteria for the object in question: Should one expect to possess evidence sufficient to know that object O exists? If a rhino were in the room, then the answer is “Yes.” Thus, looking about and seeing no rhino, that itself is evidence there is none present.

But what about things like the Tooth Fairy, leprechauns, and Santa Claus? Atheists claim they don’t need to disprove God for the same reason they don’t need to disprove the existence of Tooth Fairies, leprechauns, and Santa Claus. The problem with the comparison with the last two items is that, while our epistemic situation regarding God doesn’t always satisfy the Evidence Expectation and Knowledge Expectation Criteria, our epistemic situation regarding leprechauns and Santa Claus does — we can, and do, disprove them all the time; it’s just that there are few, if any, people arguing for their existence so we’re never called upon to give those reasons. If Santa existed we should expect to see, but don’t, lots of evidence of that fact, including warehouses at the North Pole, a large sleigh, and so forth; similarly, were there biologically tiny human beings on this planet we should expect to see, but don’t, their evidence: miniature villages, waste products, the bones of their deceased — evidence similar to what we have for mice, hamsters and other small critters. If there were more people today who made a case for leprechauns and Santa Claus then it would be entirely appropriate for us to enter into dialogue with them, giving reasons for their non-existence.

At this point an atheist might object that the Tooth Fairy is different from leprechauns and Santa Claus because she’s invisible. (Is she invisible in the story?) Suppose she is invisible. According to the tale she collects teeth left under children’s pillows leaving behind a reward (usually money). Evidence we should expect to see if she existed then would be money left behind, stolen teeth, etc. Do we find such evidence? Well, no we don’t, but we would expect to if she existed. So, even the Tooth Fairy satisfies the Evidence Expectation and Knowledge Expectation Criteria. So because we lack evidence of her, we say she doesn’t exist (sorry kids!).

Suppose the atheist agrees that the reason why we deny Tooth Fairies, leprechauns and Santa Claus is because we do have evidence for their absence. He might nonetheless insist that the situation is significantly different for other objects which are causally isolated from us. A case in point is Russell’s famous teapot which circles about the sun, an object which is (for the most part) causally isolated from us. Do we need to be agnostic about it? Can we say it doesn’t exist? I think we know it doesn’t exist because it wasn’t put there by the Russian or American astronauts; and we know that matter in the universe does not self-organize into teapot shapes. So really, we have a great deal of evidence that Russell’s teacup doesn’t exist; and since our discussion is confined to cases where we infer the non-existence of something simply on the basis of absence of evidence for it, the example is irrelevant.

Another Objection and a Reply

But now imagine the atheist objecting:

OK, very well, I grant everything you say thus far about Santa Claus, and all the rest; but we don’t have to abide by your Criteria when it comes to objects which are both invisible (like the Tooth Fairy) and causally undetectable (like the teapot). For example, an invisible floating, pink elephant over my head. There’s no such thing.

The theist could reply:

Your example is charming and rhetorically clever but incoherent. Can something that is invisible even be an elephant? If so, then it surely isn't very much like a normal elephant— a massive, material object which exhibits all sorts of physical properties. Your “invisible elephant” question is really just a rhetorically clever sleight of hand; the question doesn’t make much sense in the first place and perhaps should be rephrased as something like: "Do we know there are not immaterial things around us?" to which the answer should be "No" in either of two senses: (i) No, because we have no evidence that there are not immaterial things, or (ii) No, because there are immaterial things around us, e.g. God, angels, immaterial minds, qualia, abstract objects like numbers or propositions, etc.9

Source: ReasonableFaith.org

Is Absence of Evidence, Evidence of Absence? Part 1

2009-07-05T21:42:00.007+10:00

By Shaun

1. Introduction

The famous British philosopher Bertrand Russell was asked what he would say if he found himself before God on Judgment Day and God said to him, “Why didn’t you believe in Me?” Russell shot right back: “Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence!”

Many have taken what they consider to be an apparent lack of evidence for God as evidence that God doesn’t exist; that is, they look around, don’t see “enough” evidence and conclude that atheism is true.

But Russell realized that the inference from apparent lack of evidence for God to atheism is fallacious. That’s why in his famous debate in 1948 with Frederick Copleston he preferred the label “agnostic” instead of “atheist.” Yet today, many call themselves “atheists” when really they are agnostics.

Let’s first define some terms around the question “Does God exist?”

"Does God exist?"

Theism: "God exists"		Non-theism: "I don't believe in God"

	Agnosticism: “I don’t know if God exists”			Atheism: “God does not exist”

Hard Agnosticism: "I don't know if God exists and no one else can know either."			Soft Agnosticism: "I don't know if God exists, but it's possible for someone to know."

Notice a few things about these definitions. First, non-theism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive because you could be a non-theist and so fail to believe in God (i.e., you could lack belief in God) but you might also be an agnostic saying, “For all I know, God exists. I just don’t know.” Notice also how extreme hard agnosticism is, since it claims even more than atheists do; the hard agnostic says that everyone is wrong, both atheists and theists, and that they cannot know what they claim, even if they have apparently sound arguments! Little wonder, then, that hard agnosticism is sometimes called “ostrich agnosticism!”

There are sound arguments for God’s existence. Some of them are very good. But suppose it were not so; suppose all the arguments for God fail and there are no further good reasons to believe in God. What follows?—Atheism? It’s very important to realize that the answer to this question is NO. What follows is, at most, soft agnosticism.

2. When Does Absence of Evidence = Evidence of Absence? (Or, when is the inference from “I see none” to “there is none” valid?)

What I have said so far raises the question, When does the absence of evidence become evidence of absence? This is a good question because sometimes (but not always) the former implies the latter. Let’s start with some examples to work with.

Example 1. Elephants in the Room (Absence of Evidence = Evidence of Absence)
Someone asks, “Are there any elephants in the room?” After looking about and seeing none, I say, “No, I see none. There are no elephants in the room.”

The inference from “I see none” to “There are none” in this example is justified. With respect to elephants in this room, I’m not agnostic; rather, I positively affirm: There are no elephants in the room. In this case, absence of elephants in the room is evidence of their absence. But this inference doesn’t hold for Example 2.

Example 2. The Grand Canyon Fly (Absence of Evidence ≠ Evidence of Absence)
We’re standing atop the Grand Canyon and someone asks, “Is there a fly way down there?” After a quick glance I say, “No, I see none. There is no fly down there.”

As in the last example we move from “I see none” to “There is none”—but unlike the last example the conclusion is unjustified. Agnosticism regarding the fly is the appropriate response here. So in the Elephant Example we don’t have to be agnostics, but in the Grand Canyon Fly Example we do. Why? Notice that it is not the relative size of the object which creates the difference (The zookeeper might have asked you on your zoo trip, “Do you think an elephant is in the cage in the next room?” to which your reply might be agnosticism: “I have no idea. Maybe.”)

The salient difference between these two examples has entirely to do with your epistemic situation — which is, roughly, the extent and limits of your ability to know something through your primary sources of knowing (i.e. perception, memory, introspection, testimony, etc.) — and the fact that only in one situation (Elephants in the Room) do we expect to have knowledge which we lack. My epistemic situation regarding knowing whether an elephant is in the room is quite good, while my epistemic situation regarding knowing whether a fly resides at the bottom of the Grand Canyon is quite poor. Why? When are we in an epistemically good situation in order to say, “There is no X”? What conditions have to be met? At least two. In the absence of evidence of an object O you may deny that O exists only if these Criteria are met:

Evidence Expectation Criterion. If an object O existed, then we would expect there to be evidence for it.

Knowledge Expectation Criterion. If there were evidence of object O, then we would expect to have knowledge of the evidence.

In short, in the absence of evidence, we can deny the existence of something O only if we should expect to possess evidence sufficient to know that O exists but in fact lack it.

To prove his position the atheist has his task cut out for himself: What he must do is show that (a) the epistemic situation in which we find ourselves with respect to belief in God’s existence satisfies the above Criteria; and (b) demonstrate that we lack sufficient evidence for knowing that God exists. Equivalently, he must show that all the arguments for God are unsound and then argue that if God existed then we would expect to be in a position to know whether God exists. But as we’ll see, there is good reason to think (a) is false because our epistemic situation in which we find ourselves with respect to belief in God’s existence does not satisfy the above Criteria.

Source: ReasonableFaith.org

Read Part 2

Is the Bible a Reliable Historical Account?

2009-07-01T22:48:00.002+10:00

An interview with Lee Strobel about the Reliability of the Bible in Comparison with the Gnostic Gospels.

The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God

2009-06-26T23:58:00.001+10:00

Matt Slick on the the Transcendental Argument for God's Existence:

An Atheist's Attempt at Refuting the Kalam Argument by Disproving the Universe

2009-06-22T16:50:00.006+10:00

By Ryan Hemelaar

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is a very strong argument for God's existence. However, the leader of the Brisbane Atheists thinks that he has found a way to refute it. To summarise his argument:

1. There is an equal amount of matter and anti-matter in the universe.
2. Negative one plus one equals zero.
3. Therefore, the sum of the total matter of the universe is equal to zero.
4. Therefore the universe does not exist.
5. Therefore the universe never had a beginning.
6. Therefore there was no cause to the universe

As you can probably already see, there are many problems with this argument.

Firstly, there is no evidence to think that there is an equal amount of matter and anti-matter in the universe. Some Big Bang theorists speculate that there should have been equal amounts of matter and anti-matter made at the Big Bang. However, no anti-matter domains have been detected in space within 20 megaparsecs (6.17*10^20 km) of the Earth.

Even one of the leading advocates in the search for antimatter in space, Samuel Ting, laments:

"At the beginning, equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created [in the “big bang”]. Now there seems to be only matter. There have been theoretical speculations about the disappearance of antimatter, but no experimental support." ^[1]

Secondly, it is a total misunderstanding to think that even if there was an equal amount of matter and anti-matter in the universe that therefore nothing exists. That is as illogical as saying that if I have a certain amount of debts and a certain amount of money, therefore I have zero money. Even if on balance it does equal out as nothing, the debts still exist and the money still exists, they're not nothing. Similarily, even if the matter and anti-matter were on balance, equal, the anti-matter still exists and the matter still exists!

Thirdly, his conclusion that the universe does not exist I think is absurd. As Descartes said, I at least exist. Even when I doubt that I exist, who is there to do the doubting? I doubt, therefore I am. There simply must be something that exists.

So in conclusion, this Atheist's attempt at refuting the Kalam Cosmological Argument falls down at numerous points. Therefore, if one cannot refute the Kalam argument, a rational person is still obligated to believe that God exists.

Notes

^[1] Antia, M., Ready to takeoff, antimatter experiment takes some flak, Science, 280:1339, 1998.

Seven Signs of Evolution Refuted - Part 7

2009-06-13T18:43:00.001+10:00

The last sign, #7, is “Lizards lose limbs”

Australian lizards called skinks are dropping their limbs to become more like snakes. And, according to a genetic family tree, some skinks have gone snaky in just 3.6 million years, relatively fast in evolutionary time. Scientists said the skinks’ lifestyle appears to be driving the change: They spend most of their time swimming through sand or soil. Limbs are not only unnecessary for this, they may be a hindrance. Once a skink goes snaky, they never go back, the researchers add. One of the snakelike skinks is shown here.¹²

If amoebas are going to evolve into avocados and archaeologists the organisms continually need to produce new structures. For natural selection to change a fish into an amphibian, for example, it needs to put legs on a fish. But here we see a process, a mutation that takes legs off. Mutations also remove eyes from fish. Mutations are going the wrong way. So, how did the legs get on the lizard in the first place? Not by natural selection. Note too that it does not take millions of years for a lizard to lose its legs. Just one mutation in one generation will do the trick. The loss of legs on lizards is consistent with, and thus points to the truth of, the biblical account of how the world came to be the way it is today—lizard leg loss is not a “sign of evolution”.

Source: Creation Ministries

< Part 6

Seven Signs of Evolution Refuted - Part 6

2009-06-12T20:49:00.002+10:00

Sign #6: “Intermediate form supports flatfish evolution”

Flounder, sole, halibut and other flatfish have long struck biologists as evolutionary oddities: Both their eyes are on one side of the head, an adaptation that allows them to lie flat on the ocean bottom while keeping their eyes on the lookout for passing prey. The transition happens in the youth of flatfish, one eye migrating up and over the top of the head. Opponents of evolution argued that this curious anatomy could not have evolved gradually, as suggested by the theory of natural selection. That’s because there would be no advantage for an intermediate form –a fish with an only partially migrated eye. But now scientists have found those intermediate forms in museum collections. The 50 million-year-old fossils, including Heteronectes chantei shown here, have a partially displaced eye.

When flatfish die today they are not generally fossilized. Scavengers continue to eat their remains until there is nothing left. To fossilize a flatfish you need to bury it under sediment quickly. If a young flatfish was suddenly buried when its eye had only migrated part of the way around its head it would look just like the fossil pictured. It would not be a new species.

The sedimentary rocks of the world are filled with fossils that point to rapid burial. One example is a fish entombed in the act of swallowing another fish. Another is an ichthyosaur snap frozen in sediment while giving birth. The global Flood described in the Bible explains why we find so many fossils buried in sediment laid down by water all over the earth. Buried only 4,500 years ago, not 50 million years, sign # 6 is a powerful sign for creation.

Source: Creation Ministries

< Part 5 | Part 7 >

Seven Signs of Evolution Refuted - Part 5

2009-06-11T19:10:00.003+10:00

Sign #5 is “Toxic toad evolves longer legs”

A toxic toad, introduced in 1936 to wipe out a beetle species wreaking havoc on Australia’s sugar cane crop, has become an uncontrollable pest itself, evolving longer legs to help it hop across the country at an ever-increasing clip. For their first 20 years or so in the country, they spread at a pace of 6 miles per year. They now cruise at about 30 miles per year. Why? Researchers found that the toads leading the cross-country march had legs that were 6 percent longer than those of the stragglers. The added length gives more speed, which permits the long-legged toads to secure the best habitat at the newly conquered terrain.

A toad with longer legs is just a toad. It is not evolution—I.e, a process of unlimited change, with the capacity for adding lots of new information (and thus potentially turning a toad into something radically different in time). It’s clear that all that is happening is a simple genetic shift in the proportion of a population having a particular characteristic that already exists in that population—in this case, long legs. The genetic information for long-leggedness has not appeared out of nowhere (i.e. evolved) but is part of the variation built into the toad kind at Creation.

Such simple shifting of relative gene frequencies can go either way. A year after the invasion front arrived at their research site near the city of Darwin, researchers found that the average fell back to 40% of body length, as the shorter-legged toads caught up.

A long-legged toad is still an amphibian and is not evolving into something else, such as a reptile, as the evolutionists claim happened in the past. Think of the fundamental design changes needed to transform an amphibian into a reptile. For example, toads grow from tadpoles whereas lizards hatch straight from eggs. A toad with longer legs is no closer to becoming a new species than a human with longer arms. The remarkable life cycle of the toad is an example of intelligent design and points to creation.

Source: Creation Ministries

< Part 4 | Part 6 >

Seven Signs of Evolution Refuted - Part 4

2009-06-10T18:58:00.003+10:00

Sign #4: “Butterflies rapidly evolve resistance to killer bacteria”

A population of tropical butterflies on a South Pacific island evolved resistance to a killer bacteria in the span of a single year – a blink of the eye in evolutionary time. The bacteria infects females and selectively kills males before they hatch. The strategy reduced male Blue Moon butterflies to just 1 percent of the population. But just 10 generations later – a year’s time – males made up nearly 40 percent of the population. Scientists said the rebound is due to the evolution of a so-called suppressor gene that keeps the killer bacteria in check.

Genetic variation is always present within any population of organisms. That’s the starting point for natural selection. In other words, some of this population of butterflies was already resistant to the “killer bacteria” when it was introduced, so they survived. The butterflies did not wait until after the killer bacteria were introduced before evolving the resistant gene, otherwise they would have all died. From the 1% of individuals that survived the number of resistant butterflies quickly multiplied until they repopulated the island.

In other words, no new genetic information was produced by this event. In fact, the genetic information within the non-resistant butterflies was lost. If natural selection removes genetic information then how did the genetic information get into the butterflies in the first place? And it all happened quickly, within a few generations. Insect resistance is a sign that points to creation.

Source: Creation Ministries

< Part 3 | Part 5 >

Seven Signs of Evolution Refuted - Part 3

2009-06-09T19:09:00.003+10:00

The third sign is “Human evolution speeding up?”

With more people crowding into ever more ecological niches over the past 10,000 years, humans appear to be evolving more rapidly than in the distant past, according to scientists. What’s more, as people adapt to different regions, cultures and diets, they are becoming increasingly different from people elsewhere. For example, Europeans have evolved a tolerance for dairy products into adulthood, whereas people in China and most of Africa have not.

These sorts of cultural differences provide absolutely no support to Darwin’s suggestion that humans evolved from apes.

All the people alive today are descended from the original human population of eight individuals that survived the global Flood, and later from those that migrated across the earth after the confusion of languages at the tower of Babel. That we are all “one blood” is supported by the latest genetic findings, and demonstrated by the fact that individuals from different cultures and different continents can marry and have children. The reason that many people in China and Africa cannot tolerate milk is that their genes controlling lactase production are functioning as originally designed, i.e. to switch off lactose production after weaning. In stark contrast, adult milk-drinkers are “mutants”—see Can’t drink milk? You’re normal! A mutation is a loss of information—just the opposite of what is needed in order to specify new design features in organisms. A random change in a complicated piece of machinery will degrade its performance, not enhance it. (So, in this case, the ability to digest lactose in adulthood is the result of a loss of information, not a gain.) And there are thousands of genetic mutations that have accumulated and cause diseases within humans since the time the original pair were created, perfect, about 6,000 years ago.

Human genetics is a sign of creation, not evolution.

Source: Creation Ministries

< Part 2 | Part 4 >

Seven Signs of Evolution Refuted - Part 2

2009-06-08T18:34:00.007+10:00

The second sign is “Humans influence natural selection”

Is human activity “natural”? Scientists say human activity is indeed affecting the evolution of other species. In one example, the human preference for large snow lotus plants, which are used in traditional Tibetan and Chinese medicine, has meant that only the smaller plants go to seed. Hence, the snow lotus is getting smaller. In another example, scientists have found that human preference for trophy game such as big fish and caribou is driving these species to become smaller and reproduce at younger ages.

Yes, human selection pressures can cause lotus plants, fish and caribou to become smaller—see, e.g., Smaller fish to fry. But what evolutionists want you to think is that fish, lotus plants and caribou evolved from a single celled protozoan over millions of years. It’s a tactic called “bait and switch”. They tempt you with a Cadillac but give you a bicycle. If you accept the bait then you will think they can explain everything according to the laws of nature without any need for God creating. It’s a strategy in the cultural war designed to make people abandon their Christian heritage.

As explained above, the process of variation and natural selection is going in the wrong direction for bacteria-to-biologist evolution. It points to the fact that lotus plants, fish and caribou are derived from the separate kinds of organisms that were created at the beginning.

Source: Creation Ministries

< Part 1 | Part 3 >

Seven Signs of Evolution Refuted - Part 1

2009-06-07T11:42:00.013+10:00

MSNBC recently published an article showing seven signs that proves evolution is true.

The first “sign of evolution” is Darwin’s finches

The seed-crushing bills of little songbirds called finches, which were adapted to various niches throughout the Galapagos Islands, proved integral to the formulation of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. And the birds haven’t stopped evolving. For example, the medium ground finch (Geospiza fortis), shown here, recently downsized its beak to exploit small seeds more efficiently after a larger finch arrived on its island and began competing for food. The smaller beaks on the smaller birds allowed them to thrive, while the big birds ate all the big seeds and nearly went extinct, scientists say.

Finch bills changing size is totally uncontroversial. Such variation is an amazing design feature that allows the original created kinds of creatures to adapt to different ecological niches.¹ But the genetic processes behind these changes do not support the evolutionist’s claim that reptiles evolved into birds over millions of years. These tiny variations are not like the fundamental design modifications needed for bird evolution, such as changing scales into feathers, heavy reptilian bones into hollow bird bones, and the reptilian lung into an avian lung. The process affecting the bills reduces the genetic information in the finches instead of increasing it as required. Even with millions of years of time it is not going to work because the process is going in the wrong direction.

On the other hand, the biblical creation model explains these changes without any problem. All the finches on the Galapagos Islands are descended from birds that survived Noah’s Flood on board the Ark, some 4,500 years ago. After the Flood, the birds multiplied and gradually migrated away from the Middle East. Some eventually reached the islands where they rapidly diversified into different environmental niches. Darwin’s finches are not a sign of molecules-to-man evolution but a sign of creation.

References

1 Williams, A., Facilitated variation: A new paradigm emerges in biology, Journal of Creation 22(1):85–92, 2008.

Source: Creation Ministries

Read part 2

Is Ida the Missing Link?

2009-05-31T20:56:00.003+10:00

By Don Batten

I don’t think I have ever seen such blatantly over-stated claims on a fossil find, and I have seen a few, including one by a major co-author of this paper: Philip Gingerich’s claims for Pakicetus back in 1983. Gingerich had a couple of scraps of a skull of a mammal from Pakistan and claimed it as the evolutionary precursor of whales. He embellished the story with an artist’s drawing of what Pakicetus (“whale from Pakistan”) looked like, with legs becoming flippers, a tail fluke developing and the imaginary creature diving for fish. Cute. Gingerich claimed it was “perfectly intermediate, a missing link between earlier land mammals and later, full-fledged whales”. With such a strong, confident claim from the fossil expert, who could doubt that evolution was true? Seven years later, other paleontologists published a paper describing the rest of Pakicetus and the now almost complete fossil showed that Gingerich’s imagination had really run away with him and the animal was not the missing link he thought it was. See: Not at all like a whale.

Apparently many paleontologists appreciate this sort of over-the-top, publicity-seeking behaviour in support of evolutionary story-telling, because they recently elected Gingerich the president of the American Paleontological Association.

Gingerich likened finding Ida to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in archaeology (which finally enabled the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphics)! His collaborators on this paper are willingly joining in the hyping. In a televised meet-the-press, co-author Dr Jørn Hurum said, “It’s really, really hard to pinpoint exactly who gave rise to humans at that point, but this is as good as it gets, really.” According to ScienceNews, Hurum said, “This is the first link to all humans … truly a fossil that links world heritage.”² And, “It is the scientific equivalent of the Holy Grail. This fossil will probably be the one that will be pictured in all textbooks for the next 100 years.”³

Hurum has a reputation in his own right in Scandinavia for frequent appearances on television and radio to promote his views of evolution and paleontology.⁴ At the press conference with the researchers, a journalist asked about the appropriateness of all the hype over a supposedly scientific discovery and Hurum told The New York Times, “Any pop band is doing the same. We have to start thinking the same way in science.”

Hurum also likened the find to discovering the “lost ark of archaeology”⁵ while co-author Jens Franzen hailed it as “the eighth wonder of the world.”³ Wow!

The claims

An article in the New York Daily News summarized the claims as follows [numbering added]:³

“… the long-sought missing link between humans and apes.
“… the fossil of the lemur-like creature dubbed Ida shows it had opposable thumbs like humans and fingernails instead of claws.
“… hind legs offer evidence of evolutionary changes that led to primates standing upright—a breakthrough that could finally confirm Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.”

Comments:

To be fair, the paleontologists did not actually say it was a link between humans and apes, but it is understandable that journalists might interpret what they said in this way.⁶ They were claiming that Ida might shed some light on what might have been the connection between mankind’s supposed evolutionary ancestry, as a primate, and non-primates. Dr Jens Franzen said at the press conference at the celebratory “launch” in New York, “We are not dealing with our grand-grand-grandmother, but perhaps with our grand-grand-grandaunt.” Note that Franzen here admits that the creature is not an ancestor of humans, so Ida is not a link between humans and anything, not even with the hypothetical precursors of primates in general.
Lemurs have opposable thumbs (hallux) and fingernails instead of claws too, but almost no-one has considered them to have anything to do with man’s ancestry. Furthermore, like other primates, but not humans, they have them on their feet, which is good for grabbing onto branches, but makes walking upright rather difficult.
Note the careful wording. The authors imagined some hint of characteristics that might be relevant to walking upright tens of millions of evolutionary years later. I could find nothing in the published paper that substantiated this conjecture.⁷ And note that this “could finally confirm Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.” This tacitly admits that it has not yet been confirmed, contrary to many other hyped-up fossil finds that have been paraded as “proof” of evolution (the story of human evolution has been a very adaptable, ever-changing story—see Anthropology and apemen Q&A).

What did they find?

The scientific paper⁸ does not contain any hint of the over-the-top statements (above) that we have been hearing in the media blitz. The paper describes an exceptionally well preserved fossil of a lemur-like creature (95% complete), which is unusual for primate fossils.

The authors of the paper did not find the fossil; Dr Jørn Hurum convinced the University of Oslo to purchase the main part from private collectors (it cost a million dollars!). That means that the taphonomy (the exact location/situation) of the fossil is not known with certainty, although it apparently came from the Messel Pit in Germany, which has been well-studied. When collected in 1983, the collectors split it into two pieces and sold them separately. The lesser half ended up at a private museum in Wyoming, USA, and had been studied by Jens Janzen (a co-author of this current paper) in the early 1990s. He recognized that there had been some doctoring of it to make it look as complete as possible. The researchers brought the two parts together for study. They used X-radiography to distinguish the real fossil from doctored parts.

With such a complete fossil, the detailed description took a large part of the paper. The fossil has a basic body pattern and toe and finger nails like lemurs, but lacks two features that are peculiar to lemurs: a toilet claw on a toe and grooming teeth (a row of fused teeth), both used for grooming, so it is not “just a lemur”.

There is nothing in the paper that substantiates the outlandish statements made to the lay public. The only relevant section includes a table and discussion that claims that the creature has more similarities to the Primate suborder Haplorrhini (which includes tarsiers, monkeys, apes and humans) than the other suborder, Strepsirrhini (which includes lemurs, lorises, etc.). However, the authors classified Darwinius as belonging to the Strepsirrhini and said they are not advocating otherwise. Strange. Maybe they said this to get it through the referees, because a proposal to shift the group that includes Darwinius (Infraorder Adapiformes) from one suborder of the primates to the other would certainly have been controversial, as well as very difficult to justify. With the public media fest orchestrated, a delay in the publication of the paper would have been embarrassing. Nevertheless, the claim that Ida is at all relevant to the evolutionary story of human origins depends on the authors establishing what they expressly disavowed in their paper.

Furthermore, there are absolutely no other fossils connecting Darwinius, or its kin, to humans or even to any of the claimed evolutionary ancestors of man. There is a gap of some 40 million evolutionary years!

Drawing: Bogdan Bocianowski. See Ref. 8.

Reconstruction of what Darwinius masillae could have looked like. Commissioned by the paleontologists, it does not support the media hype about its relevance to human evolution; it is so similar to creatures living today.

Looking at the fossil and the artist’s reconstruction, it strikes me as absolutely unremarkable in appearance. If you saw this creature in the jungle, you would think “lemur” or similar. It should be of concern to evolutionists that something they say is 47 million years old is so similar to modern primates like lemurs.

Evolutionist skeptics of the hype

Interestingly, a number of evolutionists are criticizing the over-hyping of this fossil. Ann Gibbons, in a commentary on ScienceNow⁹ gave air to some criticism:

“‘It’s an extraordinarily complete, wonderful specimen, but it’s not telling us too much that we didn’t know before,’ says paleoanthropologist Elwyn Simons of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

“‘This is the first link to all humans,’ said Hurum at the press conference.

“Many paleontologists are unconvinced. They point out that Hurum and Gingerich’s analysis compared 30 traits in the new fossil with primitive and higher primates when standard practice is to analyze 200 to 400 traits and to include anthropoids from Egypt and the newer fossils of Eosimias from Asia, both of which were missing from the analysis in the paper. ‘There is no phylogenetic analysis to support the claims, and the data is cherry-picked,’ says paleontologist Richard Kay, also of Duke University. Callum Ross, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago in Illinois agrees: ‘Their claim that this specimen should be classified as haplorhine is unsupportable in light of modern methods of classification.’”

[Note added: Brian Switek, science writer, in The Times online 26 May criticized the hyping of Ida. Following mention of other hyped discoveries (a mammoth and a marine reptile), he wrote, “Frozen mammoths and giant marine reptiles are fascinating, but they do not strike at the heart of the evolution/creationism culture war in the way that a potential human ancestor does. This is why I wish more care had been taken in promoting Ida. ... Likening Ida to the Holy Grail and the Lost Ark only compounds the problem; creationists will undoubtedly argue that these metaphors reveal that evolution is a religion with its own holy relics.” This shows that the concern from evolutionists over the hyping of Ida does not necessarily stem from concern for truthfulness, but from the realization that this will backfire in the “culture war”, which is really the war against the God of the Bible.]

Preservation in shale?

The fossil is embedded in shale. The Messel shale has yielded many other interesting and very well-preserved fossils. The shale is supposed to have formed in a lake bed created by volcanic activity. This lake bed, “filled with water, which seemingly, one way or another, accumulated gases that poisoned the animals individually, episodically, or periodically [refs]. The result is a diverse fauna of exceptionally preserved insects, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals [refs].”⁸ [my emphasis]. It stretches the imagination to think what gas could have killed such a wide range of creatures in repeated episodes. ScienceNews reported,

“The scientists believe she was overcome by carbon dioxide gas whilst drinking from the Messel lake: the still waters of the lake were often covered by a low lying blanket of the gas as a result of the volcanic forces that formed the lake and which were still active. Hampered by her broken wrist, Ida slipped into unconsciousness, was washed into the lake, and sunk to the bottom, where the unique conditions preserved her for 47 million years.”²

There is a mixture of fossils of terrestrial and aquatic creatures. Did carbon dioxide gas kill fish as well? It would have to be a prolonged period of carbon dioxide blanketing to de-oxygenate the water for the fish to be killed. And such fish would bloat and float, which is not conducive to being buried and preserved/fossilized.

Also, how could the creatures then get preserved with such detail, with the slow accumulation of sediment in the lake, as per the deep-time evolutionary approach to the geology? Even the soft body outline of Ida is preserved, and remnants of her last meal (fruit and leaves).

Wikipedia commons

A fossil from the Messel oil shale of a bat that is very similar to today’s microbats.

This could be yet another example of catastrophic burial associated with Noah’s Flood. Recent studies have shown how fine-grained rocks like shale can form very quickly, contrary to long-standing evolutionary notions. See: Mud experiments overturn long held geological beliefs.

Stasis

Many other interesting and well-preserved fossils have been found in the Messel bed. Some of the best preserved are clearly recognizable, such as a bat, which is clearly a bat—a microbat that probably had echolocation. Fish found include bowfin, perch, gar and eel. Reptiles include crocodiles, alligators, turtles and a snake. And there are quite a few birds and mammals. Considering the supposed 47 million years of time, the similarity of so many of these creatures to today’s survivors speaks of stasis—creatures reproducing “after their kind”, not evolution.

Summary

Sadly, the gullible will be further convinced with all the bravado that evolution explains our origins and they therefore have no need for a Creator. But this is much ado about almost nothing other than a nicely preserved fossil for which they had paid a lot of money. And in the Year of Darwin, evolutionists, and especially atheists, are keen to milk it for what it is worth to push evolution to the public. If this is the best they have, Bible-believing creationists have nothing to fear.

Source: Creation Ministries

Who was Jesus? A Christian-Muslim Debate

2009-05-25T20:38:00.005+10:00

Nabeel Qureshi vs. Farhan Qureshi

Held on May 10th, 2009 at Jackson Memorial Baptist Church, Chesapeake VA.

Case for Christ: Gnostic Gospels vs Synoptic Gospels

2009-05-22T19:24:00.005+10:00

This short clip is from the Case for Christ movie, by Lee Strobel. Lee investigates what curent-day scholarship says in regards to the reliability of the gnostic gospels in comparison to the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke).

What will happen to our culture if Atheism takes root?

2009-05-17T14:49:00.004+10:00

Is the Bible Full of Contradictions?

2009-05-12T20:44:00.003+10:00

By Rev Dr Justin Thacker

For those of us who hold to the full trustworthiness of the Scriptures, one of the most difficult challenges is how to account for the apparent contradictions found in the Bible. So, when we are asked whether Jesus entered Jerusalem on two donkeys (Matthew 21.7) or one (Mark 11.7), and whether Jehoiachin was 8 years old when he became king (2 Chronicles 36.9) or 18 (2 Kings 24.8), we are often left floundering.

On its own, of course, the issue of Jehoiachin's age is of little importance. It is not a central truth of the Christian faith. However, its importance is that it may cause us to doubt the full reliability of the Scriptures. If they are not trustworthy on these small points, then how can we be sure that they are trustworthy at all?

When this question is posed at the general level, I usually draw attention to the apparent contradiction in Proverbs 26.4-5. The first half of each of these two verses flatly contradict each other — "Do not answer a fool according to his folly" and "Answer a fool according to his folly" — however, the second half of each verse indicates that they are to be applied in different circumstances or for different reasons. So when the context and purpose of each verse is taken into account, there is no contradiction. This is all the more obvious as the two verses are deliberately placed together to draw out their different applications.

Many of the alleged contradictions in the Bible follow a similar pattern. What on the surface appears as a contradiction disappears once the context and purpose of the verses are taken into account.

A further point worth making is that even if you are faced with an apparent contradiction that at the time you cannot answer, then there are always two things you can say to your challenger: (1) the contradiction does not concern any major point of Christian doctrine; and (2) you will go away, study the particular point in question and then return to your questioner. Of course, it is imperative that you then do this, both to answer your challenger, and to equip yourself better for the future.

Specific problems

In relation to specific contradictions, it is worth noting that they often fall into the same category of problem. I will illustrate two of them - copyist error and misinterpretation - using the examples mentioned earlier.

1. Jehoiachin's age: copyist error. This is the simplest type of alleged error to address. The Bible that you hold in your hands is an English translation of Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic texts. While we do not possess the original manuscripts, we do possess many thousands of copies of those original manuscripts. The process of translation begins when these different manuscripts are brought together, compared, and a definitive Greek or Hebrew version of the Scriptures is assembled.

During this process, it becomes apparent that not all of the ancient manuscripts that we possess agree in their entirety with one another. The ending of the Gospel of Mark is a good example where the manuscripts differ.

It is important to stress that the degree to which these manuscripts agree far outweighs the degree to which they disagree, and none of the discrepancies concern major theological issues. Nevertheless, both the Old and New Testaments have a range of variant readings scattered throughout. One reason for this is that scribes made errors as they copied the manuscripts across the centuries. The contradiction regarding Jehoiachin's age is probably this type of error.

For a number of numerical discrepancies in the Old Testament, it is almost certainly this kind of copyist mistake that is responsible. Should this make us doubt that the Bible is "fully trustworthy"? No - because these kinds of textual variations are usually highlighted in our English translations, and as a result we can appreciate that the differences that exist are merely minor errors that do not impugn the reliability of the text as a whole.

2. Number of donkeys: misinterpreted text. Matthew appears to suggest that Jesus rode two animals (a donkey and its colt) into Jerusalem, while Mark and Luke make reference to just one (the colt). Which is correct? Well, if I go to the cinema with my daughter, and the following day I am asked what I did the previous night, then I am being perfectly truthful if I say either "I went to the cinema" or "My daughter and I went to the cinema". The first statement would only contradict the second if I explicitly stated that I went to the cinema "alone". So when Mark and Luke mention only the colt and not the accompanying donkey, there is no contradiction — merely two different ways of talking about the same event.

Apparent contradictions due to misinterpretation frequently occur because we are separated historically and linguistically from the biblical authors. In any text, we must always ask what the author is trying to convey and what theological point he is seeking to make. In Matthew's account, at least part of his intention was to draw attention to the fulfilment of the prophecy in Zechariah. This does not mean his account contradicts that of Mark and Luke, but it does explain why he has then chosen to narrate the event in the particular way he has.

We don't have space to address every apparent contradiction in the Bible. There are good explanations for many of them, if not all (see 101 Cleared-up Contradictions by Jay Smith and others, which is available online).

However, one stubborn discrepancy should not make us doubt the reliability of God's Word. God has demonstrated His trustworthiness to us in so many ways that our difficulties in answering one specific point should not be allowed to trump the vast weight of evidence that exists elsewhere. We must also remember that the reliability of God's Word is most evident as the Spirit helps us understand and apply that Word. It is not a dry textbook to be probed for inaccuracies, but a blueprint for life.

Source: BeThinking.org

How do we know the Gospels are not Fabricated?

2009-05-08T22:25:00.003+10:00

By Paul Copan

In the book The Da Vinci Code the author Dan Brown poses a question and suggests an answer, in a discussion between the characters of Teabing and Sophie, that could, if it holds true, mean the total collapse and refutation of orthodox Christianity.

'At this gathering,' Teabing said, 'many aspects of Christianity were debated and voted upon…the administration of the sacraments, and, of course, the divinity of Jesus.'
'I don’t follow. His divinity?'
'My dear,' Teabing declared, 'until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet… a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal.'
'Not the Son of God?'
'Right,' Teabing said. 'Jesus establishment as ‘the Son of God’ was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea.'
‘Hold on. You’re saying Jesus’ divinity was the result of a vote?’
'A relatively close one at that,' Teabing added.

Dan Brown isn’t the only one who takes this view. Thomas Sheehan, Loyola philosophy professor and author of The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God became Christianity, also maintains that, ‘Jesus did not think he was divine, nor did he assert any of the messianic claims that the New Testament attributes to him.’

So why does the Bible seem to tell a different story? Is the Biblical Jesus, who claims to be God, really an exaggerated and embellished victim of well meaning but corrupt early journalists? Did the church or disciples really change things? This is a good question. Most Christians tend to assume that this didn’t happen. But is this a reasonable view to take? Does it make any sense? And what might a thoughtful person say in response?

Firstly, the Christian can offer good reasons for taking the Gospels to be historically reliable. This may provide a platform for speaking about the claims and deeds of Christ.

Secondly, the claim that the early Christian communities read back into Jesus’ teachings their own concerns and controversies won’t withstand scrutiny. For a few different reasons:

Many of the controversial issues in the Epistles aren’t even mentioned in the Gospels (circumcision, speaking in tongues, eating meat offered to idols, etc.).
Matthew, Mark, and Luke offer a portrait of Jesus within one generation of his death. Note the case of Acts, which was likely written before Paul’s death (A.D. 64), which means that Luke’s gospel was written earlier than this and that Mark, which Luke follows, was written even earlier.
First-century Palestinian Jews were concerned about accurately preserving tradition, and this concern is reflected in the epistles – for example, themes from the Sermon on the Mount are reflected in James and the tradition of the last supper is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 11.
The gospels do not reflect a fabrication. There is a simplicity to them, making fabrications unlikely. (Note the women as witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection despite their lower societal status, or the 'embarrassing' points that would probably be deleted if the Gospel stories or sayings were fabricated – Jesus’ baptism by John, his ignorance of the time of his own return, his not doing miracles in some places).
Why invent so many miracle stories, when most Jews expected a political deliverer as Messiah, not a wonder-worker?

Thirdly, the gospels – primarily Mark, Matthew, and Luke – offer a portrait of Jesus within one generation of his death, which tends to ensure the accurate transmission of the Jesus-tradition.

Fourthly, the simple unsophisticated nature of the Gospels attests to their reliability rather than to their being fabrications.

In summary, to say that someone writes with evangelistic or apologetical purpose doesn’t mean that what is written is unreliable. Passion or zeal – as with the Holocaust survivors – need not entail distortion of data. And you can point out places where the Gospels show themselves to be reliable historically and archeologically. This lends credibility to what cannot be directly verified – Jesus’ claims and deeds.

Source: BeThinking.org

Is there any Hope in Atheism?

2009-05-04T08:55:00.001+10:00

Question:

Hello Dr. Craig,

I read your article “Does God Exist” and in it you stated this:

“If God does not exist, then we must ultimately live without hope. If there is no God, then there is ultimately no hope for deliverance from the shortcomings of our finite existence.”

I have to simply disagree with this. I think as an atheist one can certainly live with tremendous hope. I mean if there is no God then there is no ultimate accountability. No fear going before a Just and Holy God to give an account of one’s life. One can live the life of their choosing as a result of this, with no fear of retribution. This is hope to the atheist.

Can you refute this kind of hope?

Thank You,

Bill

Dr. William Lane Craig responds:

Well, Bill, yours is certainly a novel defense of the atheist’s hope: hope of escaping the judgement of God! I must concede that the atheist may--indeed, must--hope that he will not fall into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10.31)!

But that doesn’t really negate what I said. I identified specific senses in which atheism is a philosophy without hope:

2. If God does not exist, then we must ultimately live without hope. If there is no God, then there is ultimately no hope for deliverance from the shortcomings of our finite existence.

For example, there is no hope for deliverance from evil. Although many people ask how God could create a world involving so much evil, by far most of the suffering in the world is due to man’s own inhumanity to man. The horror of two world wars during the last century effectively destroyed the 19th century’s naive optimism about human progress. If God does not exist, then we are locked without hope in a world filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering, and there is no hope for deliverance from evil.

Or again, if there is no God, there is no hope of deliverance from aging, disease, and death. Although it may be hard for you as university students to contemplate, the sober fact is that unless you die young, someday you—you yourself—will be an old man or an old woman, fighting a losing battle with aging, struggling against the inevitable advance of deterioration, disease, perhaps senility. And finally and inevitably you will die. There is no afterlife beyond the grave. Atheism is thus a philosophy without hope.

Notice that I’m talking about the shortcomings of our finite existence. I identify two in particular: (i) evil and (ii) aging, disease, and death. It seems to me that atheism is hopeless in these matters. In a famous passage, the atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell lamented,

That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; . . . that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins--all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.1

Sartre, Camus, and many other atheists have eloquently expressed the despair to which atheism leads. In this sense atheism is hopeless.

Ironically, Christianity, by contrast, not only provides hope of deliverance from evil and from aging, disease, and death, but it also furnishes the hope which you yourself cherish: deliverance from the hands of a just and holy God. This was Martin Luther’s great insight. The same righteousness of God that wrought his condemnation as a sinner outside of Christ, that very same righteousness became the source of salvation for him as one who by faith is united with Christ. For when you trust Christ as your Savior and Lord, God reckons to your account Christ’s righteousness. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8.1).

Thus any hope the atheist might entertain is enjoyed many times over by the Christian, for we enjoy, not merely escape from judgement, but positive salvation. You might say that Christians thereby give up being able to act with impunity, as the atheist can. Granted; but, Bill, I wouldn’t want to act that way! When you come to Christ, God changes your desires so that you want to live a righteous and blameless life. The Bible says that the fruit of God’s Spirit’s filling your life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5. 22). Think about that list of personal virtues. Isn’t that really the kind of person you’d like to be?

One final point: you’ve described the atheist’s hope. How firm is that hope? How well-founded is it? Most atheists I’ve talked to admit that atheism cannot be proven; indeed, many insist on it. But then how do you know atheism is true? The Christian’s hope is firmly founded, not only on the witness of the Holy Spirit, but on the arguments of natural theology and the evidence for Jesus and his resurrection. But the atheist’s hope is by his own admission without strong foundation. So what if your hope is ill-founded? What if you’re wrong?

Endnotes

1 Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship,” in The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, eds., Robert E. Egner and Lester E. Denonn (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961), p. 67.

Source: ReasonableFaith.org

Has the Bible been Corrupted?

2009-04-30T18:24:00.000+10:00

Undoubtedly, if you have had discussion with a Muslim regarding the Bible, you would have heard them say that the Bible has been corrupted. This brief video will examine that claim and you'll soon realise that that position is simply untenable.

How many Wives did Muhammad have?

2009-04-28T17:53:00.003+10:00

By James Gee

On a Muslim website there was a question in the category of "Many Allegations from a Christian." The question was answered in a very dishonest way.

16) Why did he instruct Muslims to only have 4 wives yet he changed it for himself to have more than 20?

The author answers, "This is yet another lie against Prophet Muhammad as he never married more than 20 wives."

The author intentionally avoids answering the question. It is a fact that the Qur'an stated that a man should have only up to four wives (Surah 4:3). Muhammad even forced men to divorce wives so they had less than four:

Narrated Al-Harith ibn Qays al-Asadi
I embraced Islam while I had eight wives. So I mentioned it to the Prophet (peace be upon him). The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: Select four of them.
Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 12, Number 2233

However, Muhammad, who is exhorted as being the perfect example for human kind took more than four wives. This is attested to by mulitiple authentic hadith and accepted by Muslims:

Narrated Qatada:
Anas bin Malik said, "The Prophet used to visit all his wives in a round, during the day and night and they were eleven in number." I asked Anas, "Had the Prophet the strength for it?" Anas replied, "We used to say that the Prophet was given the strength of thirty (men)." And Sa'id said on the authority of Qatada that Anas had told him about nine wives only (not eleven).
Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 5, Number 268

Narrated 'Ata:
We presented ourselves along with Ibn 'Abbas at the funeral procession of Maimuna at a place called Sarif. Ibn 'Abbas said, "This is the wife of the Prophet so when you lift her bier, do not Jerk it or shake it much, but walk smoothly because the Prophet had nine wives and he used to observe the night turns with eight of them, and for one of them there was no night turn."
Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 5

Narrated Anas bin Malik:
The Prophet used to pass by (have sexual relation with) all his wives in one night, and at that time he had nine wives.
Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 142

Once again, we find the author employing deception to hide the hypocrisy of Muhammad.

Source of the article: The Logos Blog