Apologetics 9 – Creation or cosmic accident?
Last week’s conclusion: how do we filter information?
READ – Creation account in Genesis 1
World view again all important role
Example : Foundation of a building determines the direction
of the build
TRUTH OR LIE in life – illustration
Choose: Truth OR Lie (find the lie)
1. You only use 10 percent of your brain.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-really-use-only-10/
1. Eating carrots improves your eyesight.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-carrots-improve-your-vision/
1. Vitamin C cures the common cold.
https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/cold-guide/vitamin-c-for-common-cold#1
1. Crime in the United States is at an all-time high. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/30/5-facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/ft_17-02-15_crime_640px/
QUOTES
But the facts don’t always matter: People repeat them so often that you believe them. Welcome to the “illusory truth effect,” a glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth. Marketers and politicians are masters of manipulating this particular cognitive bias—which perhaps you have become more familiar with lately.https://www.wired.com/2017/02/dont-believe-lies-just-people-repeat/
Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161026-how-liars-create-the-illusion-of-truth
“Our brain interprets that fluency as a signal for something being true”—Whether it’s true or not. In other words, rationality can be hard. It takes work. Your busy brain is often more comfortable running on feeling.
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/dont-believe-lies-just-people-repeat/
TRUTH be told….
2 PETER 3
5 But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. 6 By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. 7 By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
ROMANS 1:20
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
Back to the reality PARADIGMs ( interprets the data )
2 opposing models
1) bottom up , phyisical procesest
Simple to complex
No mind, no creator, accidental
2) Creator / Divine mind – intentional
Begins fully formed functional system
We have a witness to the events …. GENESIS 1
HISTORY
Not science vs religion, but 2 competing views of history !!
Darwin leaned on Lyell’s millions of years idea and then came up will evolution to work within that criteria.
The role of ASSUMPTIONS
Radiometric dating ( Carbon dating)
All dating methods built on assumptions
– initial conditions ( assumptions)
– rate of change ( assumptions)
– closed-ness of the system ( assumptions)
Some initial challenges for those who see our existence as accidental and uncaused:
Problems in RADIOMETRIC DATING
Illustration : example in familiar terms
Suppose a room has 5 millimeters of dust on its surfaces. If dust accumulates at one millimeter per week and always has, if no one has disturbed the room, and if the room started with zero dust at the time of its cleaning, we can reasonably estimate the time since the last cleaning as five weeks. Our estimate will be as good as our assumptions. If any of the assumptions is wrong, so will our age estimate be wrong. The problem with scientific attempts to estimate age is that it is rarely possible to know with any certainty that our starting assumptions are right. https://biblicalscienceinstitute.com/origins/creation-101-radiometric-dating-and-the-age-of-the-earth/
HOSEA 4:6
my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.
“Because you have rejected knowledge,
I also reject you as my priests;
because you have ignored the law of your God,
I also will ignore your children.
GENESIS 1
Narratives ( not poetry ) vs . Ancient bear east is done in epic poetry ( makes Genesis unique.
Hebrew uses word for day ( 24 hr) not ‘age’ which is an alien concept imposed on the text
ROMANS 1:20
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
We are to look at the Bible as History – real people, places and events.
Look at Bible for the framework (paradigm) of a understanding.
CONCLUSION
If inspired, ( as we have argued over preceding 9 weeks), and God ordained:
1. then why would we look elsewhere for answer?
2. why would we follow any advice which presumes as a foundational principle to find ways of explaining existence w/o God involved?