I entered my Ethics class at the University of Akron. Day one we had to get something out of the way. We needed to get God out of this discussion. After all, what does God know about Morals? Here was their excuse to get God out of the Ethics discussions:
1. There are so many denominations. If people can’t agree on God then he doesn’t exist.
2. There are universal truths (like don’t murder). Did God invent these truths, or did he just relay them?
3. There are no hard facts that God exists. You can run an experiment in a lab and prove God.
No we don’t want to put our faith into something we can’t see. Yes God is all around. To start this podcast we first have to start where everything starts: God.
If I walked through the forest and found a watch, would I go, “Wow this dirt has turned into a watch! – Amazing!” No, I’d go, “Someone lost their watch.” It’s obvious that somenoe created this watch. It didn’t evolve over billions of years from a frog. It’s to integrated. It’s too intelligent. Even after billions of years, a watch did not evolve from a frog.
OK, I know this is dumb. There are birds who have had their beaks evolve over time. However, they are still BIRDS.
If we evolved from a big bang, and energy and matter just landed here and we arose from a bunch of goo, I say the complexity is to great. Christians look at God’s designs and praise the creator. They put their faith in someone they can’t see, but they can see a reflection of his mighty hand in his creations. A non believer puts their faith in time. How did this happen? Their answer is time. Over time everything “just happened.”
For today, let’s just look at a few things. Let’s cover how the planet got here. Let’s go back to the beginning.
Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Science wants to prove that you can create life by chance. One widely used example of how life could have formed by natural processes is the Miller-Urey experiment, performed in the early 1950s.
Miller’s objective was not to create life but to simulate how life’s basic building structures (amino acids) might have formed in the early earth. In the experiment, Miller attempted to simulate the early atmosphere of earth by using certain gases, which he thought might produce organic compounds necessary for life. Since the gases he included (water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen) do not react with each other under natural conditions, he generated electrical currents to simulate some form of energy input (such as lightning) that was needed to drive the chemical reactions. The result was production of amino acids. Many textbooks promote this experiment as the first step in explaining how life could have originated. But there is more to this experiment than what is commonly represented in textbooks.
In the experiment, Miller was attempting to illustrate how life’s building blocks (amino acids) could have formed by natural processes. However, throughout the experiment Miller relied on years of intelligent research in chemistry. He purposely chose which gases to include and which to exclude. Next, he had to isolate the biochemicals (amino acids) from the environment he had created them in because it would have destroyed them. No such system would have existed on the so-called primitive earth. It appears Miller used intelligent design throughout the experiment rather than chance processes.
Now let’s look at the Earth
The Earth…its size is perfect. The Earth’s size and corresponding gravity holds a thin layer of mostly nitrogen and oxygen gases, only extending about 50 miles above the Earth’s surface. If Earth were smaller, an atmosphere would be impossible, like the planet Mercury. If Earth were larger, its atmosphere would contain free hydrogen, like Jupiter. Earth is the only known planet equipped with an atmosphere of the right mixture of gases to sustain plant, animal and human life.
The Earth is located the right distance from the sun. Consider the temperature swings we encounter, roughly -30 degrees to +120 degrees. If the Earth were any further away from the sun, we would all freeze. Any closer and we would burn up. Even a fractional variance in the Earth’s position to the sun would make life on Earth impossible. The Earth remains this perfect distance from the sun while it rotates around the sun at a speed of nearly 67,000 mph. It is also rotating on its axis, allowing the entire surface of the Earth to be properly warmed and cooled every day.
And our moon is the perfect size and distance from the Earth for its gravitational pull. The moon creates important ocean tides and movement so ocean waters do not stagnate, and yet our massive oceans are restrained from spilling over across the continents
It’s hard to believe we evolved from “goo.”
Now Let’s Look at Man
Evolutionary Developmental Biology
I am aware of Sean Carrol and his Pulitzer Prize-winning studies where “modifying a single gene during a fly’s embryonic development could transform the insect’s body plan: Instead of becoming an antenna, a body extension could develop into a leg.” This does not answer the question, “Where did the DNA come from?” It also shows points to Carrol (by intelligent design) modifying the fly’s gene. It also seems as if you e
nd up with a five-legged fly, but a bee.
In his book, The Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask: (With Answers) Mark Mittelberg states this:
Consider what you’d need for a protein molecule to form by chance. First, you need the right bonds between the amino acids. Second, amino acids come in right-handed and left-handed versions, and you’ve got to get only left-handed ones. Third, the amino acids must link up in a specified sequence, like letters in a sentence. Run the odds of these things falling into place on their own and you find that the probabilities of forming a rather short functional protein at random would be one chance in a hundred thousand trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion. That’s a ten with 125 zeroes after it! And that would only be one protein molecule—a minimally complex cell would need between three hundred and five hundred protein molecules. . . . To suggest chance against those odds is really to invoke a naturalistic miracle.
Looking at one cell there there is an identifying string is 3 billion letters long, and written in a strange and cryptographic four-letter code. Such is the amazing complexity of the information carried within each cell of the human body, that a live reading of that code at a rate of three letters per second would take thirty-one years, even if reading continued day and night. Printing these letters out in regular font size on normal bond paper and binding them all together would result in a tower the height of the Washington Monument.
God is saying “Hello?” Duh?
Psalm 19: 1 “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
When you walk out on a clear night and see the stars, realize this is God’s work. It didn’t just happen. It is in fact God saying, “Hey! Look at me! I exist! It’s impossible to deny!”
Sources:
The Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask: (With Answers)–-Mark Mittelberg
