Most of us grew up being taught evolution, but what if there’s actual empirical evidence that points toward purposeful design? We’re putting the Bible to the test to see if believing in Creation requires you to check your brain at the door, or if you can believe the Genesis account and still be rational and intelligent. In this video, we’ll see respected scientists who believe the data fits better with Genesis than natural selection, and we’ll discover how the world around us defies random chance, revealing fingerprints of an intelligent Creator behind it all.

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MESSAGE NOTES

Jesus seemed to believe the creation account literally 

[Mark 10:6]

But ‘God made them male and female’ from the beginning of creation.

So did Moses 

[Exodus 20:11] 

For in six days the LORD made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested”.

If they both believed it but it wasn’t true, what does that mean about the rest of things written in the Bible?

Few Observations Of The Biblical Account of Creation

[Genesis 1:1-8]

 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the first day. 

6 Then God said, “Let there be a space between the waters, to separate the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth.” 7 And that is what happened. God made this space to separate the waters of the earth from the waters of the heavens. 8 God called the space “sky.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the second day.”

There was water on the earth, then our atmosphere and then water above it, surrounding the earth

Where is that? It doesn’t exist!

Every culture throughout history has had a flood legend for a reason.

It also explains the ages of people before the flood, fossilization, the geological column looking like it was laid down like mud…

The layers of fossils mimicking the pattern you would see for a “flight for life” if there was a flood…

Tropical plants on Antarctica, animals frozen in ice with blood still in their eye corpuscles and unchecked food in their mouths, etc.

Everything we actually see in nature, is consistent with what you would expect to see from the biblical account

Is there any evidence to support the biblical account of creation?

From the foreword to one of the editions of The Origin of Species:

“When it comes to the origin of life there are only two possibilities: creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance!” – George Wald, Nobel Prize for Physiology (focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out chemical and physical functions in a living system)

The first objection to Creation is a philosophical one rather than a scientific one

  • He acknowledges that the spark of life in the beginning of evolution’s molecule-to-man is contradictory to known scientific facts
  • But because he doesn’t WANT there to be a God, he chooses “to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance”.

Then let my FIRST OBJECTION TO EVOLUTION be a philosophical one as well.

Evolution is basically the survival of the fittest and adaptations to the environment being passed on to succeeding generations for advancement. Mankind is simply an animal, just more advanced

Darwin (Descent of Man): “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world.” [subtitled The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life]

Francis Galton, pioneer of eugenics, “If the unfit survived indefinitely, they would continue to ‘infect’ the fit with their less fit genes.”

Ronald Fisher, English statistician and evolutionary biologist, “The Genetically Theory of Natural Selection”: “Natural selection is the blindest, and most cruel way of evolving new species…The struggle for life and the elimination of the weakest is a horrible process, against which our whole modern ethic revolts…I am surprised that a Christian would defend the idea this is the process which God [would have set up].”

Phillip E. Johnson, law professor UC Berkeley and co-founder of Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute: “An intelligent designer would not have employed such random, cruel experiments to invent life.”

If evolution were true, we should have no problem with extermination of those who are less desirable. 

If creation were true, you would expect people in general to abhor the oppression of the weak by the strong. 

SECOND OBJECTION: FOSSIL RECORD 

NO VERIFIABLE TRANSITIONS from one species to another has ever been found

Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist British Museum of Natural History (houses the world’s largest fossil collection – 60 million specimens), wrote the authoritative book Evolution, confessed: “If I knew of any [evolutionary transitions], fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. 

Darwin himself asked, “Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.” 

David Raup, curator of the Field Museum of Nat History in Chicago: “We are now about 120 years after Darwin…We have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time.”

Punctuated equilibrium was the response to this problem

Niles Eldridge and Steven Jay Gould introduced this concept in 1972

“A species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of ancestors; it appears all at once and fully formed.”

Problem #1: Theory motivated by lack of transitional forms, no evidence at all.

Problem #2: contradicts science of genetics: Dr. Duane Gish (PhD UCBerkeley, biochemist) “genetic apparatus of [an animal] is devoted 100% to reproducing another [exactly like it]

Colin Patterson, evolutionist: “For over 20 years I thought I was working on evolution…but there was not one thing I KNEW about it…So for the last few weeks I’ve tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people. Question is, ‘Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing, any one thing that is true?’ I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said, ‘Yes, I do know one thing – it ought not to be taught in high school’.” During the past few years…you have experienced a shift from evolution as knowledge to evolution as faith…Evolution not only conveys no knowledge but seems somehow to convey anti-knowledge.”

BUT, if creation is true, the fossil record would be exactly as it is

THIRD OBJECTION: TREE OF LIFE

Darwin knew the fossil record failed to support his theory and that the “divisions” (now called phyla) appear in the fossil record suddenly.

Darwin: “If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life all at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory to descent with slow modification though natural selection.”

FOURTH OBJECTION: MILLER’S EXPERIMENT

Miller chose hydrogen-rich mixture of methane, ammonia, and water vaper for his “atmosphere”. Evidence? None.

In fact, according to Science Magazine, 1995, experts now dismiss Miller’s experiment because “the early atmosphere looked nothing like the Miller-Urey simulation.”

Francis Crick, biochemist: “An honest man, armed with the knowledge now available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle…”

Walter Bradley, origin-of-life expert taught at Texas A&M: “If there isn’t a natural explanation and there doesn’t seem to be the potential of finding one, then I believe it’s appropriate to look at a supernatural explanation. I think that’s the most reasonable inference based on the evidence.”

FIFTH OBJECTION: GEOLOGICAL COLUMN

There is no documented proof as to the process that formed the rocks of the geological column or their ages.

They arranged the strata according to the various types of fossils on the assumption that evolution was true. And then used that structure to prove that it was

Problem: Nowhere in the world does the geologic column actually occur 

Polystrata Specimens

No explanation for fossils that exist through multiple layers of strata. Trees are found through millions of years worth of strata and sometimes upside down, with roots up

But if the strata were the result of the flood, as the geological column would look exactly as it does

SIXTH PROBLEM: HAECKEL’S EMBRYOS 

Problem: Photos of actual embryos and Haeckels drawings don’t match.

Similarities in early stages are faked. Exposed in the 1860’s by his colleagues.

Stephen Jay Gould, Harvard evolutionist: Admitted he’d known for 20 years it was a fake

He said academic writers should be ashamed of the way the drawings had been mindlessly recycled for over a century calling it, “the academic equivalent of murder.”

Why still teach it? “Although the drawings are false, they teach a concept that’s basically true.”

WHAT ABOUT HUMAN/APE GENES being so similar?

We share 98-99% of the same genes as chimpanzees

Not surprising to see two organisms, with similar anatomy, to have similar genetics 

Better explanation is that a common designer used the same materials to construct similar, but different structures.

What about the MARCH OF EVOLUTIONARY MAN?

Nebraska man: 1922, single tooth made into NMan. Later, identical tooth found connected to skull…of a wild pig

Homo Erectus: 1891, Eugene Dubois on E. Indian island of Java (Java Man). Skull cap, femur, 3 teeth. Femur found 50’ away and a year later. Downplayed the discovery of two full human skulls in close prox

Selenka Expedition: most thorough fact-finding expedition ever on JMan concluded in a 342-page scientific report beyond doubt that JMan played no part in human evolution.

Piltdown Man: proven to be outright fraud. Orangutan teeth reshaped by file. Molars realigned.

Peking Man: orig based on one tooth, discovered in China by Canadian physician Davidson Black as running out of funds for evol exploration in 1927. 

What are the chances that everything is natural?

Jacques Monod (Nobel prize winning biologist): “Chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, is at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution.”

Is Evolution Logical?

Look at the fine tuning of the entire universe…

  • Imagine suggesting St. Paul’s Cathedral in London has nothing to do with the design of Christopher Wren, 
  • The Messiah composed itself with Handel
  • The Last Supper painted itself without daVinci.

Regarding the human eye…

Darwin, “To suppose the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree possible.”

Dr. James Coppedge (science of probability expert): 

  • Chance requires 10B tries on avg in order to count to ten.” 10 similar sized coins, numbered 1-10, it takes 10B tries to put them in order (arrange every 5 sec – 1,500 yrs for one time!)

Coppedge: “The probability of a single protein molecule being arranged by chance is 1:10(161th)

Not a problem, if creation is true.

1st & 2nd LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS 

Energy Conservation – 1st Law

Energy can be converted from one form to another, but can not be created or annihilated.

  • Isaac Asimov, Biochemist: “…is considered the most powerful and most fundamental generalization about the universe that scientists have ever been able to make.” Neither mass nor energy can appear from nothing.
  • Nothing comes from Nothing. Illogical that something comes from Nothing.
  • Evolution presupposes a contradiction to this scientific law. 

Heb 1:3 says since creation God has been sustaining (conserving) all things by his power

Entropy – 2nd Law

Everything moves from order to disorder and from complexity to decay.

  • In evolution, atoms allegedly self-produce amino acids, to auto-organize amoebas, to apes to lawyers.
  • Evolution requires billions of contradictions for billions of years, for billions of species to the second law of thermodynamics
  • Pile of wood does not become a house but a house will become a pile of wood

Arthur Stanley Eddington, British astronomer/physicist/mathematician: “If your theory is found to be against the 2nd LofT I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.”

4 Examples of Science Pointing To Faith 

New Cosmology – Big Bang theory points to a beginning of the universe. The fact that energy, matter, space and time had a beginning is profoundly anti-materialistic. General relativity points us to something non-material as the cause and theism affirms the existence of such a thing – namely, God.

Arno Penzias, Nobel Prize-winner: “The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted had I nothing to go on but the first five books of Moses, the Psalms and the Bible as a whole.” 

Anthropic Fine-Tuning – the laws and parameters of physics have precise numerical values that could have been otherwise. Yet they all work together to make life possible on earth. If it were changed by one part either way by one part in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, our universe could not support life.

Sir Fred Hoyle, English astronomer noted primarily for his contribution to the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis: “A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as chemistry and biology, and there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.”

Origin of Life – Life at its root requires information which is stored in DNA and protein molecules. Richard Dawkins (famous atheist) said that the “machine code of the genes uncannily computer-like”. Computers run on software designed by intelligent engineers. 

Every piece of information (code, hieroglyphs, a book or cave painting) point toward intelligence. Why wouldn’t the same be true about the info inside every living creature?

Design in Molecular Machines – Integrated, complex, biological organisms need various parts to function. They are irreducibly complex – meaning, they need every part in its perfect spot for it to work at all (like a mousetrap). They perform no function until all the parts are present and working together. 

EVIDENCE FOR RECENT CREATION

Magnetic Field

Earth has a half-life of 1500 years. A Magnetar (neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field) is 15,000 times that of earth. If you go back in time, doubling earth’s magnetic field every 1500 years, you’d only have to go back 21,000 years before we’d have the same magnetic field as a magnetar, making life on earth impossible

Mississippi River Delta

Approx 300M cubic yards of sediment deposit into Gulf of Mexico each year. By studying volume/rate of accumulation of the MS river delta and then dividing the weight deposited annually into the total weight of the delta, it can be determined to be about 4,000 years old

Petroleum and Natural Gas

Contained at high pressure in underground reservoirs. Calculations based on permeability of the cap rock reveal that oil and gas pressures could not be maintained for much longer than 10,000 years. Recent experiments demonstrate conclusively that conversion of marine/vegetable matter into oil/gas can be done in a surprisingly short time. 

Plant-derived material has been converted into a good grade petroleum in as little as 20 minutes under the proper temp/pressure conditions. Wood into coal-like substance in a few hours. This proves that formation of coal, oil, and gas did not necessarily require millions of years.

Creationists believe the great coal deposits of the world are the metamorphosed remains of the extensive vegetation from the flood

Rotation of the Earth

Rotation is slowing down at a consistent rate. 

If Earth is billions of years, then it’s present rotation should be zero. Or, going back at the same rate of change, all land masses would be at the equator and we’d be shaped more like a frisbee than a ball.

Populaton Growth

Henry Morris calculated that an average of .5% growth rate a year would give us our present population of 7B in 4,163 years (allowing for war/disease)

If Man was 1M years old, the number of people on Earth would be 10(2100th). Compare that to 10(130) electrons in the entire universe! So, if Man is 1M years old, where in the world IS everyone

What if you still disagree? Can I be a Christian AND an evolutionist? 

  • Yes
  • To be saved, believe in the death, resurrection of Jesus, repent of sin and follow Jesus

I have a question: WHY do you reject the Creation account

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Application Questions

  1. What stood out to you from this message and why?
  2. What is one thing God is telling you to START doing because of this message?
  3. What is one thing God is telling you to STOP doing because of this message?
  4. How will this message change how you act at home, at work, and in your relationships?