Want Some Answers ???

Hi There

You wrote,

>>Seeing as your answer is so long and detailed, I'll skip over some of your arguments, due to time constraints, if that is OK with you, but I will still tackle the important parts.  If you think I have skipped over anything that would really disprove evolution or whatever, just tell me and I'll make an effort on that piece. OK? I might also stop in the middle, take a break and do the other half in a few days.<<

Yes the letters are becoming so long. I'll follow your lead and make them shorter. If you think I have 'skipped over anything' that really would prove evolution just tell me and I'll address that. Anyway you reject anything I write or quote so it's becoming pointless in going over the same details.

I want to pick up from our phone conversation. Nice of you to track me down and phone. As I said, I believe the only reasonable explanation of the world and the existence of life on earth is that there is a God. You said, that is a religious interpretation of life. My comment to that, is that when I look around, I find there is design, order and laws in great abundance. Design is not a religious viewpoint but a statement of observation, a fact.  I understand design order and laws because I use them everyday with my mind. I know they don't just happen by chance. So I believe the evidence is better supported by creation than evolution. 'I don't need 'faith' to believe in a Creator, all I need is eyes that can see and a brain that works'.

Regardless of what I say or quote, you always find it wrong. But that doesn't solve the problem. To me, you appear confused about life, God, and mankind, because you don't accept the truth found in the Bible. When I say "God" you have no clue who or what I'm referring to. He is only a religious idea. Why?

When man sinned in the Garden and disobeyed God he died spiritually [although the body of Adam died sometime after]. So we have death in the world, as a punishment resulting from sin. Evolution says death suffering and struggle are good, to help evolution along. Not true. But from Adam's sin until today, man has been in confusion about who he is, who God is, what's right or wrong, what love is, and what's life all about. Man has been at war with himself and his neighbour ever since. Evolution has no good explanation.

Because man disobeyed God in the Garden he's now enslaved to sin. That's the problem with man. Sin blinds man to the truth it makes man hostile to God and separate from Him. Evolution doesn't tell you this it doesn't help at all. The fact we are God's creatures and have a fallen sinful nature explains a lot.

You will question this, reject that, and share your opinions, but in the end remain hostile to the truth and God. There are reasons why. You don't have any final authority in your understand and thinking. A man says one thing, another says another, who knows the truth? But I have accepted and come to know a final authority - God's Word.

God's Word tells me the truth right from the start. How do I know? Because it's true. I invited Christ into my heart and was born again, a spiritual rebirth. God's Spirit dwells within now, teaching, guiding, revealing God's Word to me. Life makes sense. I know Bible is the genuine article and covers the history of mankind. Having studied and read it I know in my heart [and head] it reveals the facts of what's happen on earth.

Once I saw that man is a sinful creature [which I knew all along] it made sense that God would send His Son to die for me - I a helpless sinner, a rebel and enemy of the truth who could do nothing about it. When Christ came into my life, He slowly changed my life and turned it around [for the better].

You see it's all there in Genesis right at the start. Man sinned!! He died spiritually!! He's an enemy of truth and God. Has God forgotten and left us? No! His love for us is proven by His Son [God in the flesh] dying on the cross as payment for our sin to bring us back to Himself. This world running down, God will make another where there is no sin and death. He has promised this in His Word - the Bible.

Not only do we differ on these things [because of evolution] but we also differ regarding the problems facing society. You see it all depends on the foundation life is based on. Society has problems with an unwillingness to obey authorities, unwillingness to work, marriage abandoned, clothing abandoned, increase in pornography and lawlessness, to name a few areas.

Years ago, our society was based on Christian absolutes. People knew what
was right and wrong. Behaviours such as sexual deviancy, easy divorce, public lawlessness, abortion, pornography and nudity were considered wrong. Varying punishments for offenders were meted out by society. Value judgments were basically built on Biblical principles (ie, The Ten Commandments). Most people accepted or respected a belief in God.

   Recently more and more have rejected the God of the Bible. As belief in God is abandoned, people have questioned the basis of society. For instance, if there's no God, why obey the Ten Commandments? Why is homosexuality wrong? Why can't women have abortions whenever they desire? Once people eliminated God from their consciences, they set about to change any laws based on Christian absolutes that held God as Creator (and thus Owner) of everything.

Christian absolutes have been diluted or removed as the basis of society and replaced with the idea that says, "We need to accept the Christian way of doing things or base our world view on Biblical principles; we must tolerate all religious beliefs and ways of life." However, this "tolerance" really means an intolerance of the absolutes of Christianity.

Christian absolutes - those truths and standards of Scripture, which cannot be altered - are becoming less and less tolerated in society. Eventually this must result in the outlawing of Christianity. When Christian absolutes were the basis of society, immoral activities, homosexuality, pornography etc were outlawed. There has been a fundamental shift. Our society is now based on a relative morality: that is, a person can do what he likes and is answerable to none but himself as long as the majority can be persuaded their interests are not threatened. This results in society's being told that no one can say anything against those who choose to be sexual deviants, go naked publicly or do whatever they wanted (within the limits of the law, which is also changing to become more "tolerant" of people's actions).

God's absolutes dictate that there are rules by which we must abide. Christianity cannot co-exist in a world community with relative morality as its basis. One or the other will yield. There are two worldviews with two totally different belief systems clashing in our society. The real war being waged is a great spiritual war.

I believe that this spiritual conflict is rooted in the issue of origins the creation & evolution debate. Although this may sound strange, this issue is central in the battle for men's souls.

 Most people have the wrong idea about creation and evolution. They have been deceived into believing that evolution is science. It is not a science at all. It is a belief system about the past. We do not have access to the past. We only have the present. All the fossils, the living animals, plants, our planet, the universe, everything exists in the present. We cannot directly test the past using the scientific method (which involves repeating things and watching them happen) since all evidence that we have is in the present.

I admit you are correct. Special creation, by definition, is a belief about the past. The difference is that creationists base their understanding of creation on a book which claims to be God's Word by One who was there, who knows everything there is to know about everything, and who tells us what happened. Evolution comes from the words of men who were not there and who don't claim to be omniscient.  This whole issue revolves around whether we believe the words of God who was there, or the words of fallible humans (no matter how qualified) who were not there.

When people think about scientists they think of one in a White Coat. He's unbiased, objective, infallible and has a white coat. But in reality, he is biased (look at his books), he's not objective. He's human! And rarely wears a white coat.

Many don't know what science is or how it works. They think scientists are unbiased, in white coats objectively searching for the truth. However, scientists are just like you and me. They have beliefs and biases. A bias determines what you do with the evidence, especially the way in which you decide that certain evidence is more relevant or important than other evidence. Scientists are not all objective truth-seekers; they are not neutral.

 An atheist, for example, can he entertain the question, "Did God create?"  No!  As soon as he allows that question, he's not an atheist. So, to an atheist scientist looking at fossils and the world, it wouldn't matter what evidence he finds.  It must have nothing to do with Biblical events, such as Noah's flood. Even if he found a big boat on the top of Mount Ararat he could never allow that evidence to support the claims of the Bible regarding Noah's Ark. As soon as he did, he would have abandoned his atheistic religious framework. An atheist is 100% biased.  Keep this in mind when reading their textbooks or watching television programs produced by atheists.

But what about a revelationist, one who believes God has revealed the truth about Himself via a book? (The Bible claims over 3,000 times to be God's Word.) Can he consider the opposite question, that God did not create?  No! Because he starts with the premise God is Creator and His word is true.

Atheists, agnostics and revelationists hold to religious positions and what they do with the evidence is determined by the assumptions (beliefs) of their positions. It's not a matter if one is biased or not. It is really a question of which bias is the best bias with which to be biased.

There have been occasions where I have given a convincing logical answer to Sceptics on the web. Many of them then looked to their books to try to make some point that could demonstrate where I was wrong. They accept what I say sounds convincing but it must be wrong because they really don't want to believe the Bible is true. When I give a reasonable answer to their challenge - they are back where they started. It is sad to see many have already made up their minds and decided they really do not want to believe the Bible.

Can people change their biases?  The Bible indicates no one is neutral and unbiased.  The best way to change a bias is by the work of the Holy Spirit. Since God's Spirit convicts and convinces people of the truth, it is only through the Holy Spirit's work biases can change. I believe Christians understand bias better than others. Because they were once lost sinners biased against God. They have seen how Jesus Christ can change their bias as He transforms their lives through the power of His Spirit.

One reason why creationists struggle talking to evolutionists is because their bias has affected the way they hear what we say. They already have preconceived ideas about what we do and don't believe. They have prejudices about what they want to understand in regard to our scientific qualifications, and so on.

[1] Atheism
Basis      =  No God Exists
Influence =  Can't consider creation
Bias         = 100%

[2] Agnostic
Basis       =  Don't Care, can't know, don't care.
Influence =  Must exclude definite role of God?
Basis      =  100%

[3] Theism
Basis      =  God deduced
Influence =  No Absolutes
Basis      =  100%

[4] Revealed
Basis     = God revealed to man
Influence = Absolute reference points
Basis      = 100%

There's many examples of evolutionists who misinterpret what creationists say. They read through "evolutionary ears," not comprehending the perspective from which we come from. As creationists, we understand that God created a perfect world, man sinned, and Christ died and rose from the dead. In other words, our message is one of Creation, Fall and Redemption. But because evolutionists think in "uniformitarian" terms [ie the world is millions of years of death and struggle], they don't understand the creationist's perspective of history.

Evolutionists will not admit evolution is really a religion. But whatever you believe about your origins affects everything. If there's no God and life resulted from chance random processes, it means there's no Absolute Authority. If so, then all can do what they like or get away with.  Evolution is a religion, which enables people to justify writing their own rules. Adam's sin was that he did not want to obey God's rules, but did his own will. He rebelled against God, and we all suffer from this rebellion against the Absolute Authority. Evolution has become the so-called "scientific" justification for people to continue in this rebellion against God.

And so secular evolutionists must oppose creation, because if what we say is right - God is Creator - then their whole philosophy is destroyed. The basis for their philosophy decrees there's no God. If evolution is not true, the only alternative is creation. So they will cling to evolutionary philosophy even if the evidence is totally contradictory. It is really a spiritual question.

The evidence is overwhelming that God created -  "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and God-head; so that they are without excuse" (Rom. 1:20). The Bible says there's enough evidence to convince people that God is Creator, and condemn those who don't believe.

So why don't people believe it? Is it because they don't want to? The Apostle Peter states, that in the last days men will deliberately forget God created the world. [2 Pe 3:5] So there's a wilfulness not to believe -  "There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God" [Ro 3:11] and "God, commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." [2Co 4:6]. In other words, God opens our hearts to truth. Romans tells us, "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient" [Ro 1:28].

So, God reveals the truth - the evidence He is Creator. Yet there needs to be a willingness on our part to want to see. Why can humanists and evolutionists see the evidence that supports the Bible? Because they don't want to, not because the evidence isn't there, but they refuse to allow the evidence to be correctly interpreted in the light of Biblical teaching.

As God says in His Word, it is not His desire any should perish. But, God (who is a God of love) is also God the Judge, and cannot ignore sin. Sin must be judged for what it is. However, God in His infinite mercy sent His Son, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" [Jn 3:16].

I don't want this to be too long. Trust I have given something to think about.

Regards
Mark

(Acknowledgments to Ken Ham and John MacArthur for their helpful ideas for this reply)