Did this earth and the universe come into existence by blind chance or by Intelligent Design?
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The Earth:
- Like no other known planet, 98% of the earth is made up of iron, oxygen, sulphur, silicon, magnesium and nickel.
- Like no other known planet, the earth is covered with green vegetation pumping mountains of fresh oxygen into our air and cleaning the atmosphere of harmful carbon dioxide.
- Like no other known planet, earth has an endless supply of oxygen-laden water, circulating in its streams, rivers and oceans teeming with self-sustaining life.
- Like no other known planet, the surface of the earth is a glorious gem in the universe compared to its dull and lifeless counterparts.
- Like no other known planet, life is found in every square inch of the earth even in Antarctica. One acre of farmland six inches thick is estimated to contain several tons of living bacteria, a ton of fungi, 200 pounds of unicellular protozoan animals, about 100 pounds of yeast and 100 pounds of algae.
- Like no other planet, the earth travels at just the right speed in its 292 million-mile-long orbit around the sun. Too much faster and it would be pulled away from the sun and if too far all life would die. And if it travelled slightly slower, it would move too close to the sun and all life would perish.
- Like no other planet, the earth’s rotation on its axis protects the life on it. If slower, all life would die in time by a combination of freezing at night due to a lack of sunlight and burning up during the day due to too much sun.
- Like no other planet, the earth sits perfectly in its environment. For example, if the moon were too close to the earth it would create massive tides which would erode the continents and mountain ridges making the earth flat. It is estimated it would then be covered with one and a half miles of water.
- Like no other planet, 70% of the earth is covered with living water. The water acts as a heat sink absorbing the sun’s energy during the day keeping the earth comfortable and gradually releasing its heat by night keeping the earth from becoming unbearably cold. Without the temperature balancing act of the vast reservoirs of the earth’s water, many parts would be hot enough to boil water during the day and freeze water during the night. Life could not exist.
- Like no other known planet, God’s earth has a built-in thermostat. Just a few degrees change in earth’s average temperature would result in most life roasting or freezing.
- Like no other known planet, the earth’s one-mile thick girdle protects it from the heat of its molten core.
- Like no other planet, the earth touts a radiation shielding ozone layer, without which life could not exist.
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Did this earth and the universe come into existence by blind chance or by Intelligent Design? If we said by Intelligent Design, we would be open to a Christian Spirituality. A Christian Spirituality is built on an understanding that you and all things around you are here by a Special Creator who is the Infinite – Personal God. He is God who can speak and communicate about who He is. A Christian Spirituality is based on what God has revealed initially through His transcendent Word ….. the Bible. This tells of how Man (This is a non-gender description and includes male and female personhood) was created from the earth ….. of the ground. This first earth man was breathed on by the breath (Spirit) of God and was formed in God’s image or likeness. This combination of Earth Man and Spirit Man made this Man into a living being or living soul of mind, will and emotions. He didn’t have an Eternal Soul that went endlessly through reincarnations into one material form after another. He became a Living Soul through a combination of Earth and Spirit coming together.
The whole of this creation and the creation of the first Man was seen as absolutely having great value. It was VERY GOOD. This great sense of value underlies the transcendent Word from beginning to the end from the Special Creator. The first man and woman were placed in a special Garden to be stewards of all the Creator had created. They had a very special identity as they represented the Creator to all of His creation. This first Man and Woman were instructed to multiply and fill the earth as with the rest of the Creation. They had continual special contact with their Creator. There was a real sense of community with their Creator with the rest of the Creation. It was all for the common good.
This Biblical record from the Special Creator begins in Genesis. It is very important as it explains the outworking of all future history, science and of all knowledge. If you do not start here, you end up with nonsensical knowledge as talked about down further.
The Biblical record tells of how a disruption came between the first people in the Garden and their Creator. They disobeyed what their Creator had said to them through what is called ‘sin’ in the Biblical record. SIN is about I …. I being the centre of things versus their Creator God.
The consequence of their disobedience is in that they had to leave their special home in the Garden. Their future progeny began to see themselves as either of the earth only like the rest of the creation or they saw themselves as God as Eternal Souls that went endlessly through reincarnations into one material form after another. The Infinite – Personal God came to be seen as the Infinite – Impersonal God tying all the physical universe together ie. Pantheism.
This disruption in all that was created, affected not only the relationships between people were the people who saw that their will could be imposed on other people. There was no care for what other people felt or valued. You do it my way or else? This is seen today in the wars, mass genocides ie. mass extinctions and millions of people’s deaths.
The promise of the Infinite – Personal God to the first people was that He would bring about the special restoration of His Creation in a new future Recreation of the whole Earth. He regarded it as still having great value. This meant that there were two groups of people …. Those who wanted to stay in community with the Infinite – Personal God and those who wanted to be independent of the Infinite – Personal God.
The Biblical record tells of how it came to such a point of disruption and active opposition to the Infinite – Personal God, that this God brought about a huge worldwide Flood in order to destroy these opposers of God. God however saved a small remnant in a family of Noah. If this worldwide Flood is taken seriously into account, it changes the way we see future history, science and all knowledge.
My friend, Tas Walker is a very competent geologist who has a Bachelor of Science majoring in Earth Science with first-class honours, a Bachelor of Engineering with first-class honours in Mechanical Engineering and a Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering. He has a website ‘Tas Walker’s Biblical Geology’ where he talks at length about the Geology of the Earth. This view of life is in clear contradiction to current evolutionary views on life.
The Biblical record tells of how the Infinite – Personal God had an everlasting covenant. In a covenant, agreements are based on what the person has said. God is a covenant-making God and therefore, we can trust Him to keep the covenant He has made with us. God initiated an everlasting covenant when He created man in the beginning. This covenant exemplifies God’s unconditional love for us, His grace and His mercy towards us.
In contrast, a contract, agreements are based on action, the other person delivering the predetermined goods. It is conditional on performance.
God said He would bring about a special restoration of His Creation in a new future Recreation of the whole Earth. He regarded it as still having great value. God initiated an everlasting covenant finally through the death and resurrection of His son Jesus Christ. He has made a way for us to be accepted for who we are and not what we have done.
The essence of a Spirituality from Jesus Christ is God coming to us in the human form of Jesus Christ. It isn’t about making us so we can find God or Jesus Christ being another spiritual prophet leading us to God. God wants us to be with Him forever ….. He is passionate about us ….. He comes to us. I talk more about a Spirituality from Jesus Christ in this post: JESUS CHRIST SPIRITUALITY
Jesus came 2,000 years ago to call us into a new spiritual family. This new spiritual family was called the Kingdom of God. It was a Third Alternative between the way of violence as advocated by the Roman Empire and the contemporary Jewish Religion of His day.
God has revealed initially through His transcendent Word ….. the Bible. It was a ‘True Truth’ communicated by God who sees the whole Cosmos as the large picture plus you and I as part of the detailed small picture. Seeing God is the Creator of all things, God knows the final truth. This truth was communicated by prophets and seers over many years and finally in the person of Jesus of Nazareth who was God Himself in human form. These truths were collated in the Bible which consists of sixty-six books written by people who didn’t often know each other over 1500 years ++, yet whose writing manifests an amazing unity. In this unity, there is even a mathematical sequence that flows from the beginning to the end. This gives further evidence that these scriptures were totally inspired by the Infinite – Personal Creator and not written by past people who left a historical record behind. To be created in the image and likeness of God means some of these things:
- We are moral agents – justice and morality mean something to us
- We can know God, unlike other animals
- We have an intrinsic spirituality
- We are persons, not cellular machines
- We are capable of language, abstract thought and communication
- We have dominion over the animal kingdom
- We have an ability to exercise control over the natural environment
With this view, there is definitely a material reality to life along with a spiritual reality. The two are concurrent to each other and have an influence on each other. There is a material body to human beings which is quite different to the material bodies of other living things. The Biblical view of humanity is a necessary complement to the mechanism of life. We are human and we need to deal with this level as if it has value and is not simply a consequence of evolutionary processes.
What this means at a practical level are some of these things which come to this viewpoint:
- God can be known as the Infinite – Personal God through the Spirit of Jesus Christ which is the Holy Spirit
- This is in a 24/7 situation …. anytime and anywhere
- God will act throughout your life in real practical ways in the here and now
- Prayer is the vertical interaction between you and this Infinite – Personal God
- You can pray and expect real results ….. my family sees this all the time
As Jesus did 2000 years ago, you can pray for physical healing and see real results in the here and now (I am here today and being the Restored Man because of many people coming and praying for me personally). It is also like electricity ….. you might be an electrician or an electrical engineer who can fix or design electrical devices but it US AS PEOPLE who sees the use of electricity in action lives with everyday usage eg. the lights coming on etc.
It isn’t just a belief system you hold to but there is a real interaction with this God. If you accept this viewpoint that we are here by an original Special Creation, you begin to see the world in a very different way. You will see that everything is made in a beautiful way with an intangible beauty and structure. For example, take on a tree with its many leaves. Each leaf is green from the photosynthetic material in the trillions of single cells in all the leaves. Each leaf is a very complex factory of chlorophyll (the green material in the cells) which converts carbon dioxide in the air around the plant along with water obtained from the soil in which the plants grows. The chlorophyll uses sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and glucose (the most basic of sugars).
The glucose is used for further plant growth and for the growth and maintenance of animals including human beings. The interrelationships between the plants, the animals and the atmosphere become extremely complicated and very finely balanced. To believe this process came about through blind random chances over aeons of time is nonsensical.
DNA: To read more on Christian Spirituality, see this Blog Site. (http://christianspiritualitykog.blogspot.com/). The opposite of this viewpoint is very well articulated into very rational reasons and evidences that we are here instead originated through evolutionary origins of blind chances over vast periods of time. We are here by an original coming together of the right chemicals to make amino acids ….. the basic building blocks of protein which are the foundations of all livings things. Then natural selection went further and selected out the best combinations of those proteins to make the first living organisms. Then natural selection went even further and began to select out new combinations (mutations) of all living organisms including us as people.
In summary, the standard model of science from the beginning of science to the mind runs something like this:
- Big bang at time zero (creation of space & time)
- Small inhomogeneities in the hot gas of 1 part in 100,000 are the ‘seeds’ for the formation of galaxies and stars in the first billion years.
- Nucleosynthesis (combining hydrogen into heavier elements – nuclear fusion – energy source).
- Radiation pressure.
- Stellar collapse
- Supernovae explosions
- Heavier elements ejected into space
- Accretion by proto-planets
This viewpoint is foundational in most of the University educational systems of the world, in much of what we read in magazines, books and what we see on TV. All spirituality is seen as a product of the human psyche. The world and universe is a material entity. It can therefore be explored by the mind in a purely rational scientific manner. All living things are simply complexes of material organic molecules arranged through purely material means ie. materialistic evolution. All consciousness and mind are the same as the material world ie. there is nothing outside a materialistic worldview.
The implications of this are:
- That all mental processes are purely psychological and therefore purely deterministic and behavioural
- There is no inner spirit to man, no Spirit Realm beyond Man and certainly no God
- You are hereby chance and gone tomorrow
- Despair and hopelessness, no final future, when your dead you are dead
- There is no final meaning to life
- Life is in a black box. There are no absolute values in life to guide your life with. It is all relative according to the surrounding society
- Continuing self-focus, “What can I get off this for me = No. 1?” This is why I believe so many marriages with brain-injured people break up. There is no commitment to the relationship in the final end
It is no difference between the impersonal nothing of the Universe and the personal something of the Universe. They are both the same. In a general way, is responsible for the Materialistic Outlook in our Western World. This Worldview assumes that this material world is all we have and is one of the most powerful conditioning forces.
The one basic flaw in this foundational viewpoint is that there is no evidence for it actually working in the actual world. The driving force of natural selection on mutations for the very best doesn’t actually work. Mutations do not give better combinations but always result in the opposite effect of the lessening of life possibilities.
There many numbers of very educated people who not accept this philosophical viewpoint. See the websites below:
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Life Is Here With A Purpose …Websites on the Creator and Creation Science:
- www.answersingenesis.org ….. Psalm 11:3 If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? ….. Welcome to the Answers in Genesis Web site! Have you ever been asked questions like these:
- How do dinosaurs fit with the Bible?
- What are the scientific and Biblical objections against evolution?
- Does Carbon dating disprove the Bible?
- Where did the different ‘races’ come from?
- Where did Cain get his wife?
Perhaps you’ve had these questions yourself. Answers in Genesis provides Biblical answers to these and the tough questions about Creation, Evolution, and the Bible. This Web site features thousands of articles covering dozens of scientific and Biblical topics, plus media programs, daily devotionals, resources, and much more.
Download the wonderful article ‘Dinosaur soft tissue and protein—even more confirmation!
Mary Schweitzer announces even stronger evidence, this time from a duckbilled dino fossil, of even more proteins—and the same amazingly preserved vessel and cell structures as before ….. by Carl Wieland. Carl is the CEO of Answers in Genesis in Brisbane, Australia.
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www.creationresearch.net …. ‘We exist to seek evidence for the Biblical Account of Creation, Noah’s Flood. Hear and download the video on this website as John Mackay International Director of Creation Research where it says: ‘Creationist Debates With Evolutionist’ …. A key challenger to the theory of evolution is in Britain, John Mackay is touring our schools. The Sky Report’s Robert Nisbet brought Mackay together with one of Darwin’s biggest supporters.
ASK JOHN MACKAY TV CHANNEL YOUTUBE PREVIEWS and freely available FULL-LENGTH quality DVDs/Videos produced by the Creation Research team worldwide which includes TV interviews and debates from around the world on creation versus evolution. © Copyright Creation Research.
Click for your choice of PREVIEWS or FULL LENGTH
The Creation Event FREE lectures on our Youtube (full-length videos)
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There is much information on this website about evidence for a Biblical Creation and a universal Noah’s Flood. See the website at this section: Properly Understanding the Rocks.
‘See here how easy it is to develop a simple, powerful model for classifying rock formations within a biblical framework.
A biblical geological model: What is a model? Is a biblical geological model scientific? More
The linking problem: A biblical geological model links two sources of information, namely, the written biblical history and the observed geological data. It is vital to get the link right. More
Major Dimensions: When we start with the Bible we can work out a broad framework for Earth history. And we can be confident it is correct because we believe the biblical record is accurate. More.Biblical chronology: Before you or I or anyone else can develop a geological model we need to know what happened on the earth in the past—we need an earth history. The Bible is an accurate record from which we can obtain a detailed chronology. More
Development of the model: Drawing on our understanding of geological processes we will think about the biblical text from a geological point of view. In particular, we will ask the question “What would we expect to find?” More
Overview of the model: The basic concept of the geological model is quite simple and transforms the way we look at geology. More
Detail of the model: To be useful for scientific research, the broad framework must be expanded to provide detail of specific events and processes and their time relationships. More
Classification criteria for connecting to geology in the field: Past geologic processes varied in nature and intensity at different times. We can use this to identify geologic characteristics that will help classify rocks in accordance with the biblical geological model. More
Geological environments and processes: Different phases of Earth history experienced different geological environments and processes. What characteristics would we expect for rocks deposited during each phase? More
Application to the Great Artesian Basin, Australia: Now that the biblical model is finished we can classify rocks in the field. Every rock formation on the earth can be placed somewhere within the biblical model because the model covers the entire geological history of our planet from its initial creation to the present time. Let’s see how it works on the rocks of the Great Artesian Basin, Australia. More
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The Creation Evidence Museum of Texas is a 501(c)3 non-profit educational museum chartered in Texas for the purpose of researching and displaying scientific evidence for creation. See the website: http://www.creationevidence.org
Creation Model:
The question is often asked, “What do you mean by the term creation model”? A model is a framework around which observations and facts are organized. Thus, the creation model is a framework of information in which the universe and its living systems are explained as having been designed and sustained.
In the course of forty years involving Biblical and scientific research, our Director has formulated a composite Creation Model. Its basic tenets are held by leading creationists. In addition to these basic pillars, distinctive research programs have led to specific areas of refinement in this particular model. An outline of this model follows.
A tremendous pyramid of evidence for design and recent creation is available for detailed study. Romans 1:20 states: “For the invisible things of him from the creation are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead: so that they are without excuse.”
Scientific evidence for creation abounds in areas of objective observation. Scholars in various scientific disciplines have written about the incredible complexity in living systems and the structure of the universe. This complexity is beyond the possibility of natural development.
In the panel to the right, we begin with a brief summary of the Creation in Symphony Model by our Director.
See more at: http://www.creationevidence.org/evidence/creation_model.php#sthash.2c17VDPg.dp
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Case For A Creator, By Strobel Lee. During his academic years, Lee Strobel became convinced that God was outmoded, a belief that coloured his ensuing career as an award-winning journalist at the Chicago Tribune. Science had made the idea of a Creator irrelevant – or so Strobel thought.
But today science is pointing in a different direction. In recent years, a diverse and impressive body of research has increasingly supported the conclusion that the universe was intelligently designed. At the same time, Darwinism has faltered in the face of concrete facts and hard reason. Has science discovered God? At the very least, it’s giving faith an immense boost as new findings emerge about the incredible complexity of our universe. Join Strobel as he re-examines the theories that once led him away from God. Through his compelling and highly readable account, you’ll encounter the mind-stretching discoveries from cosmology, cellular biology, DNA research, astronomy, physics, and human consciousness that present astonishing evidence in The Case for a Creator.
The book is available from Koorong Bookshops in Australia …. see http://www.koorong.com or a Christian bookstore overseas.
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A Spirituality from Jesus Christ and the Creation is not an abstract, philosophical Christian teaching but is a very practical, applied way of seeing the world. The Bible is full of a real practical appreciation of the Creator God. A psalm of David says: Psalms19:1 NIV ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
The apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20 (Message Bible) ‘By taking along and thoughtfully looking at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse’
See the following natural areas I have been through as illustrated by my new personal experiences website at http://www.kenaitken.net. (Since Christmas 2015 this website was hacked and was non-operational until my son Anthony got me a new one just very recently (this website). This website is a free one downloaded from Word Press. On this website are a number of pages with multiple posts under each page. I have been rewriting or copying posts off old Google Blogs. Many of the posts I am still to write up:
- Alpine Landscapes at Thredbo In the Snowy Mountains of Australia …1992 ….. An environmental meditation ……
- Alpine Landscape Thredbo 2008
- Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia …..
- Wategos Beach ….. September 2009 ….. Below the Byron Bay Lighthouse …..
- AUSTRALIAN BUSH AREAS: Tamborine ….. A Drive through Closed Forest in 2005
- AUSTRALIAN BUSH AREAS: Queensland Brisbane: Pettwin Park in November 2007
- AUSTRALIAN BUSH AREAS: ….. Blue Mountains: May 2009
- AUSTRALIAN BUSH AREAS: Kendall Beach … December 2006
- AUSTRALIAN BUSH AREAS: Ocean Shores Beach April 2008
- AUSTRALIAN BUSH AREAS: Minyon Falls Forest Walk ….. March Easter 2008
- AUSTRALIAN BUSH AREAS: Numinbah Natural Arch … A Visit in August 2014
- AUSTRALIAN BUSH AREAS: Tallebudgera ….. Gold Coast
- Roma St. Parklands Public Park in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
- The NATURAL ENVIRONMENT …. A Philosophical Comment
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