Apologetics 14: Science (Objection 2)
Although our culture commonly pits science and faith against each other, as if they’ve been at war for centuries, the truth is that faith gave birth to science. In this lecture, you’ll learn about some of the main science objections that skeptics bring against Christianity and how to respond to them.
If you would like to take this class for credit, please contact the Atlanta Bible College so you can register and do the necessary work for a grade.
Notes:
Why Isn’t God’s Existence Obvious?
- no scientific test you can use to prove God’s existence
- “Confronted with the Almighty, [Bertrand Russell] would ask, ‘Sir, why did you not give me better evidence?'”[1]
- Isaiah 45.15 talks about the hiddenness of God
- Dembski’s point in In Defense of the Bible ch 14 is that
- God is hidden enough not to coerce belief
- God is visible enough to be found by those who seek him
- “This seems to be the pattern in God’s revelation of himself: provide enough evidence to convince those who are honestly seeking truth but not so much evidence as to force belief on those who prefer to believe a lie.”[2]
Theists Pioneered Most Branches of Science
- belief in God led to
- belief in rational universe
- belief that external world cohered w/ our observation/perception
- belief that God used stable physical laws
- belief that studying creation was a good b/c it indirectly extolled the Creator
- Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, James Clerk Maxwell
“To know the mighty works of God, to comprehend His wisdom and majesty and power; to appreciate, in degree, the wonderful workings of His laws, surely all this must be a pleasing and acceptable mode of worship to the Most High, to whom ignorance cannot be more grateful than knowledge.” –Nicolaus Copernicus, the mathematician and astronomer (1473-1543) who formulated a heliocentric model of the universe
“…Those laws are within the grasp of the human mind. God wanted us to recognize them by creating us after his own image so that we could share in his own thoughts.” –Johannes Kepler, the German mathematician and astronomer who discovered the laws of planetary motion
“If you study science deep enough and long enough, it will force you to believe in God.” —Lord William Kelvin, who was noted for his theoretical work on thermodynamics, the concept of absolute zero and the Kelvin temperature scale based upon it.
“In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.”
“I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.”—Sir Isaac Newton, who is widely regarded to have been the greatest scientist the world has ever produced.
“There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other. Every serious and reflective person realizes, I think, that the religious element in his nature must be recognized and cultivated if all the powers of the human soul are to act together in perfect balance and harmony. And indeed it was not by accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were deeply religious souls.” —Max Planck, the Nobel Prize winning physicist considered to be the founder of quantum theory, and one of the most important physicists of the 20th century, indeed of all time.
“The gift of mental power comes from God, Divine Being, and if we concentrate our minds on that truth, we become in tune with this great power.” –Nikola Tesla, the inventor and futurist scientist known for numerous inventions, but best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electrical supply system.
“I have looked into most philosophical systems and I have seen that none will work without God.”
“Science is incompetent to reason upon the creation of matter itself out of nothing. We have reached the utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we have admitted that because matter cannot be eternal and self-existent it must have been created.” —Physicist and mathematician James Clerk Maxwell, who is credited with formulating classical electromagnetic theory
Biblical Culture
chronological snobbery: thinking you’re better than people who lived a long time ago
- how do people in our culture feel about old people
- how do people in our culture feel about people from the year 1075
- no grasp of electricity, internal combustion, computers, or modern building techniques
- yet, in 1075 Anselm of Cantebury wrote the Monologion
- ancient Ephesos had running water throughout city, aqueducts brought water in from far away, sewers, public bathrooms, public baths (caldarium, tepidarium, frigidarium), rich people had heated floors
- had to read Plato in college, in Greek: it sometimes took hours to translate one sentence, could look up every word and still have no idea
- here’s a guy who could sit down and just think
- he could give you a reasoned account for why you should do the right thing even when nobody is watching (The Republic)
- are we getting smarter?
- accumulated knowledge
- which of you could make a toaster from scratch? a light bulb? a shovel?
- which of you could even survive w/o at least a knife or matches?
- we have more time and access to information than ever before
- what do we do with it?
- rot our brains w/ video games
- binge on TV shows and movies
- distract ourselves w/ social media and the trivialities of our age
- when’s the last time you meditated on the big questions?
- their attention spans were longer and their memories were better
- probably the same average intelligence or maybe they were smarter
charitable reading
- skeptics cherry pick a verse here and a verse there to build a case against the bible
- Prov 26.4 Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.
- Prov 26.5 Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.
- is this a genuine contradiction?
- sometimes it’s good to answer a fool and sometimes it’s better to ignore him
- whenever reading someone, you should read charitably
phenomenological reading
- how many of you believe in sunrises and sunsets
- yet you also believe the sun doesn’t rise or set, right?
- it’s the earth rotating that makes it appear like the sun rises
- perspective
- the people who wrote the bible spoke from the perspective of how phenomena appear from earth (phenomenological language)
- they are not scientists in our modern sense
- to read them in such a way would be like criticizing a rap song for bad grammar
naturalism as a worldview
- hard to believe in demons, miracles, prophecy of the future
- but naturalism is extremely difficult to prove
- yet it colors how someone views everything
- yet, most people throughout history and most people today do not subscribe to naturalism
- is everyone really deluded?
Divine Intervention Breaks the Laws of Physics?
- earthquake causes a lamp to fall
- you reach out your hand and catch it
- did you break the law of gravity?
- no! you merely intervened
No Need for God
- believe in God only b/c you can’t explain
- how everything came to be
- why we should live virtuously
- your purpose/meaning
- fear of death
- God of the gaps
- our arguments for God are not based on a lack of understanding, but they are positive (teleological, cosmological, ontological)
Religion is Bad for Society
- crusades, inquisition, persecuting Galileo, etc.
- atheism produces horrible atrocities as well
- Pol Pot: killed 3 million
- Nazi genocide based on social Darwinism: killed 11-14 million
- Mao Zedong: killed 30 million
- Karl Joseph Stalin: killed 50 million
- compared to
- Salem Witch hunt: killed 33
- Spanish Inquisition: killed 5-10,000 (over 2 centuries)
- crusades: killed at most 9 million (over 220 years)
Age of Earth
- bible teaches the earth is 6,000 years old
- science teaches it is 3.5? billion years old
- how do you get an age for the earth?
- radiometric dating assumptions
- uniformitarianism (steady process)
- potato peeling example
- known original conditions (no daughter particles in the originals)
- nothing added or taken away (no leeching)
- use meteorites, but these don’t tell you the age of the earth and they are likely significantly affected by extreme heat conditions
- uniformitarianism (steady process)
- what about global chronometers?
- salinization of the ocean (not salty enough)
- mud on the sea floor (not deep enough)
- magnetic field decays too fast (going back it would be as strong as a star 10,000 years ago)
- layers aren’t so simple
- bent strata
- injected sandstone
- polystrate fossils
- human artifacts like hammers and sandal prints found in billion year old rock
- helium concentration in atmosphere (should be much more from Uranium -> Lead decay)
- population statistics (only 1 million alive in 2,000 bc…works well w/ a flood in 3,000 bc)
- moon dust (should have tons of dust from meteor impacts)
- polonium halos in granite (shouldn’t be there unless rock solidified instantly)
- radiometric dating assumptions
Evolution
- theistic evolution: belief that God used evolution to create
- defined
- genetic mutation
- natural selection (survival of the fittest)
- irreducible complexity: systems that do not provide any advantage unless all of the parts are assembled and functioning
- mouse trap
- eye
- ecological balance
- Cambrian explosion
- first life: evolution’s number one difficulty
- Darwin assumed
- cell was very simple blob
- transitional links would gradually fill in fossil record
- biogenetic law: life comes only from life
- chirality (DNA must be right handed)
- yet amino acids occur naturally in even proportions of left and right
- need 100,000 amino acids to instantiate at the right place/time and all be left handed
- Darwin assumed
- similarities between species
- evidence of common design or common ancestry
- skateboards and cars have 4 wheels
- doesn’t mean skateboard evolved into a car over millions of years
- just means wheels are a common design we use for transport
- evidence of common designer (like cars from same manufacturer)
- vestigial organs
- often just don’t understand function (used to remove tonsils)
- evidence of de-evolution since they don’t work anymore
- embryonic recapitulation
- Ernst Haeckel
- faked wood cuts (1868) to make it look like human embryo traced its evolutionary history
- single cell=>multiple cell=>fish=>amphibian=>reptilian=> mammalian
[1] Leo Rosten, Saturday Review/World (February 23, 1974)
[2] Dembski, p. 354.
As always, I learned a lot and very much appreciate these classes. I would like to address one point that Sean made during this lecture that was a significant learning experience for me. Sean mentioned the sun rising and setting, then made the point that it is the rotation of the earth that makes it look like the sun is moving. Well, according to the actual words of scripture the sun and moon move – and the earth is stationary. An absolute MUST READ for this topic is Robert Sungenis’ book, “Geocentrism 101 – An Introduction to the Science of Geocentric Cosmology”, 9th edition. The scientific community has long known the Copernican heliocentric model is not correct. It is also impossible to prove. I made the topic of a chapter in my book, “Know What You Believe and Why”, and offer it here for everyone to consider. When I wrote my book, I had not yet discovered Sungenis’ book. That is why I do not reference him in this chapter. His book lays out in chronological order all the scientific experiments that repeatedly prove the earth does not move. I highly recommend Sungenis’ book.
THE GEOCENTRIC UNIVERSE
The Geocentric Universe was something completely new to me. Like so many others I observed the lunacy of the internet that seemed to increase around 2013-14, with Christian right wingnuts claiming that the Bible proved the earth was flat. I had never really given it much thought until I read two more books by David Wilcoxson (he used a different pen name, David Nikao) that covered this issue. They were The False Doctrine Of The Flat Earth: A Contextual Biblical Perspective; and The True Doctrine Of The Globe Earth: A Scriptural View Of The Universe. I had certainly read all the scripture in the Bible that in some way referred to this discussion, but I had never really considered looking into them. Does it really matter? Well, it did not, until I realized this is just one more way Satan has so successfully hidden the truth and used idiots on both sides to create a huge chasm between believers and non-believers. The problem is that this issue has NOTHING to do with whether or not one is a believer. It is pure science.
In the first book, Nikao identifies all the verses that the Flat Earthers try to use to justify their position and clearly shows how these scriptures are taken out of context, in some cases ridiculously so, and misinterpreted. In the second book he cites key scientific studies that have been successfully stifled, that clearly demonstrate the earth as the center of our universe. Mr. Nikao is not a scientist and as such has been subjected to much ridicule because what he writes is so clear and easy to understand. As you read him you realize he is a common Joe who simply asks questions then goes searching for the answers. I was easily convinced because his research is thorough and well documented. In his second book, Nikao gives a concise summary of experiments that address this issue:
“In 1871, George Bidell Airy sought to prove that the earth is heliocentric, but instead, he proved that it’s stationary. – – – In 1877, the Michelson Morley Experiment established that the earth is stationary. – – – The Sagnac Experiment (in 1913) debunked Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. – – – Albert Einstein (in 1915) countered with the General Theory of Relativity. – – – The Michelson-Gale experiment in 1925 confirmed the results obtained by Sagnac. – – – Science undergrad students are never taught about the Michelson-Gale Experiment, Airy’s Failure, or the Sagnac Experiment. – – – Every scientific proof for an Earth revolving around the sun has been discredited, and no experiment has provided proof that the Earth is moving. – – – Space probes reveal that the design of the universe points to the earth at the center. – – – It wasn’t until scientific probes produced data about the radiation of the expanding universe, and the orientation of the quasars and radio galaxies; that researchers were able to see that all of those things were pointing back to Earth as the center of the universe. The cover-up of these experiments has been astounding in that students in astronomy and other fields aren’t even taught about them.”
So much for integrity in the scientific community. Nikao concludes that there is a lot of compelling scientific evidence that the Earth is indeed the center of the universe. He points out that shortly after these findings were published in 2013, the flat earth theory began to be aggressively pushed on YouTube and Facebook. This created a false dichotomy between science and religion. And let us keep terms straight, the Bible is NOT synonymous with religion. The battle is not between science and religion. It is between science and scripture. Remember, it was Christian Right Wingnuts (religion) who did God no favors by mutilating the Bible to try to support a stupid narrative of a flat earth. In fact, science agrees 100% with the record in the Bible. These experiments proved it. There are a lot more interesting facts and findings in Nikao’s books that include a Jesuit Deception. This is why I made the distinction between religion and scripture. Remember Proverbs 30:5-6 – “Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to His words or He will reprove you, and you be proved a liar.”
Humans always have the ability to make mistakes, sometimes honestly and inadvertently, but also sometimes intentionally to coincide with an agenda. Nikao quotes some leaders in the Christian creation research community who apparently do not even recognize the clear teachings of scripture and are seemingly adhering to some unknown agenda. A true shame! In closing, Nikao makes these statements,
“No Bible verse says that the earth is moving, in a circuit, or spinning; but they do proclaim that is stands still. – – – Bible verses proclaim that the sun is moving. – – – Bible verses proclaim that the sun was moved back, which is not possible in a heliocentric universe. – – – Bible verses declare that the sun rises and knows it’s going down. – – – Science has confirmed that the earth is not moving and that the earth is the center of the universe.”
This is actually a very interesting topic to study and one can learn a lot from simply visiting Wiki to read about the many theories that came and went down through the ages. There are basically three main theories that were presented by Claudius Ptolemaeus, Nicolaus Copernicus, and Tycho Brahe. The Ptolemaic system, from the second century AD, was a geocentric model with the earth at the center of the universe and everything revolving around it. The Copernican system, published in 1543, was a heliocentric model with the sun at the center of the universe and everything revolving around it. Brahe blended the two with his Tychonic system that was a geoheliocentric system with the earth at the center, stationary, the sun moon and stars revolving around the earth, and all other planets revolving around the sun. He published his findings is the 1570s.
There are many more details and other astronomers who can be studied when you start looking into this topic that can keep you learning for a long time. What is interesting to learn is that the answer cannot be proven from simple observation as had been the mode of study for centuries. From earth one can neither prove nor disprove heliocentrism or geocentrism because observation from earth is the same with either system. There are works written that discuss motive behind Copernicus developing his theory to dispute Ptolemy. The discussions include religious worship of the Greek Sun God Helios and the need to make the sun the center of the universe. This development of course countered the Biblical record of God creating the earth first and “setting” it in space. Brahe came along and recognized pros to the Copernican theory but identified practical problems with regard to physics, astronomical observations of stars, and, of course, religion.
Remember, I do not equate religion with the record in scripture. Scripture is simply a historical record of God interacting with mankind. Yes, there are religious practices included in this record. However, when it comes to believing the Biblical account of creation, this has nothing to do with religious ceremonies or practices. The issue comes down to determining your worldview between Naturalism and Theism. Is there a Creator God or did everything just happen. At the end of the discussion, you can choose geocentrism, heliocentrism, or geoheliocentrism. Science does not prove heliocentrism, it proves geocentrism, which is in keeping with the Biblical account. The beauty of the Tychonic system is that it accommodates what Brahe saw as the mathematical benefits of the Copernican system with the philosophical and physical benefits of the Ptolemaic system.
For the individual, the battle is not in the scientific arena, it is in the heart. Remember, it is in the heart where beliefs are embraced. Once one comes to terms with the facts, that science proves the record in the Bible, by default one must reconcile these facts with “in the beginning God created”, which has aways been the crux of the matter. Remember, the beginning of knowledge is reverence and awe for our Creator God.