DOES GOD EXIST

Posted on by

To whet your appetite I have given a summary of four good arguments for the existence of God and hope they will prompt you to go to http://www.creation.com and or http://www.answersingenesis.org for more information.

THE DESIGN ARGUMENT

The universe has clear organizational structures and intricate laws that control it indicating an intentional complex plan. How can such high-level design exist without a designer? To claim that chance accounts for the world’s order and extreme complexity is irrational.

http://www.encodeproject.org The discovery of DNA and the electron microscope rang the death knell of evolution. DNA stores information in the form of a four-character digital code, with strings of precisely sequenced chemicals that transmit detailed assembly instructions. DNA builds protein molecules, the intricate machinery that allows cells to survive. Consider the most complex software program you’ve ever used. Could it have developed on its own, without an intelligent designer? Of course not. How much more ridiculous is it to suppose that time, chance, and natural forces—on their own—produced the far more complex DNA?

Scientists once likened the components of living cells to simple LEGO blocks. Now they know that “cells have complex circuits, sliding clamps, energy-generating turbines, rotors, stators, O-rings, U-joints, and drive shafts.” None of those tiny engines work unless all parts are present. Hence, they must have coexisted from the beginning. That’s what biochemist Michael Behe calls, in his book Darwin’s Black Box, “irreducible complexity.”

Non-Christian physicist Paul Davies writes, “We now know that the secret of life lies not with the chemical ingredients as such, but with the logical structure and organizational arrangement of the molecules…. Like a supercomputer, life is an information-processing system…. It is the software of the living cell that is the real mystery, not the hardware…. How did stupid atoms spontaneously write their own software?… Nobody knows.”

I think there’s a better answer than “Nobody knows”; namely, the atoms didn’t write their own software. God did.

THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

The Cosmological argument cites the world’s existence as evidence of an uncaused, eternal being who created and sustains it. Either, something comes from nothing (an unscientific notion), or a first cause or “prime mover” existed before everything else. Francis Schaeffer argued in He Is There and He Is Not Silent that a personal first cause, God, could account for both the material and personal elements of life, while a material first cause only accounts for the material.

THE TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENT

The transcendental argument says that no part of human experience and knowledge has meaning apart from God’s existence. Without God, we have no basis for or explanation of order, logic, reason, intelligence, or rationality. Since Christians and atheists agree there is order and basis for reasoning, this is evidence for God.

THE MORAL ARGUMENT

The moral argument claims the existence of universal moral values—what humans generally recognize as right and wrong—has no explanation or objectivity without God.

1. Objective Moral Values Exist

  • Premise: Objective moral values (i.e., moral values that are true regardless of human opinions or beliefs) exist. For example, things like “murder is wrong” or “kindness is good” are often considered to be universally true.
  • Argument: If objective moral values exist, they need a grounding or source that transcends human subjectivity.

2. Moral Values Require a Foundation

  • Premise: If there are objective moral values, they must be grounded in something beyond mere human preference or societal conventions.
  • Argument: Naturalistic or atheistic explanations often struggle to account for objective moral values because they typically reduce moral values to evolutionary or sociological constructs, which are seen as subjective or relative.

3. God Provides a Foundation

  • Premise: The existence of God (or a transcendent, morally perfect being) is proposed as the best explanation for the existence of objective moral values.
  • Argument: A moral lawgiver (God) is posited to be the source of objective moral values because a perfectly good and just being can provide a foundation for these values, ensuring their objectivity and universality.

4. Conclusion

  • Conclusion: Therefore, the existence of objective moral values is best explained by the existence of God.

RUSSELL BRAND SPEAKS ON HIS COMING BAPTISM

Posted on by

Brand says many returning to Christianity as the world crumbles.

Actor and comedian Russell Brand announced Friday that he is going to be baptized this weekend, the culmination of his months-long public wrestling with the tenets of Christianity.

“This Sunday, I’m taking the plunge,” Brand, 48, said in a video he posted to X. “I’m getting baptized.”

Listen to what he has to say. I think you will be pleasantly surprised. I was.

WHAT IS YOUR WORLDVIEW BASED ON?

Posted on by

Armand Nicholi, the Harvard psychiatrist and the author of The Question of God says that our worldview informs our personal, social, and political lives. It helps us understand our purpose. Further, he said that our worldview determines our ethics, our values, and our capacity for happiness. It helps us answer the big questions of life: How did I get here? How am I to live? Where do I find meaning in life? What is my ultimate destiny? Basically, Nicholi is telling us that our worldview is more telling than perhaps any other
aspect of our lives.

Another way to understand our worldview is to see it as a map, a mental map that helps us navigate life effectively. As author Nancy Pearcey says, “…we need some creed to live by; some map by which we chart our course.” This is a worldview. In forming our worldviews, Dr. Nicholi says that we make one of two assumptions about life. The first is that we live in a godless universe; we are a product of nature that has evolved over time. This is a secular worldview that emphasizes scientific knowledge and its motto is “What do science and nature have to say?”
The second assumption is that there is a supernatural intelligence (God). He gives the universe order and life meaning. This is a spiritual worldview that is rooted in Biblical revelations. It places emphasis on spiritual truth and wisdom and its motto is: “What does God have to say about this?”

I have concluded that every person has an opinion on God and spiritual reality, even if it is a belief that He is non-existent. We all have a faith view of reality and it trickles down into our lives and influences the choices we make.

Author Tim Keller says, “How we relate to God is the foundation of our thinking because it determines the way we view the world. Whether you believe God exists or not, this belief is the foundation on which all of your reasoning proceeds. For instance, if you do not believe that God exists, it is a belief taken by faith and it becomes your faith view of reality. Whether you realize it or not, all your reasoning proceeds from this belief. You end up screening out all that does not fit with this view of life.”

Your worldview will ultimately explain where life originated, what life means, and what we are supposed to be doing with the years we are given. English mathematician John Lennox says: “What divides us is not science . . . but our worldviews. No one wants to base their life on a delusion, but which is the delusion? Christianity or atheism? This is what God has to say about the issue.

“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. His invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” Romans 1:19-23

MOST ADULTS SAY BELIEF IN GOD IS NOT NECESSARY TO HAVE MORAL VALUES

Posted on by

Adults in more than a dozen countries say it’s not necessary to believe in God to lead moral lives or have good values, according to a recent study. 

The majority of respondents were based in secular Western European countries of Sweden (90%), France (77%), the United Kingdom (76%), the Netherlands (76%), Spain (74%), Belgium (69%), Italy (68%), Germany (62%) and Greece (60%). Most respondents in other countries located outside Western Europe but still considered to be part of Western civilization, including Australia (85%), Canada (73%), and the United States (65%), also maintained that a belief in God is not necessary to “be moral and have good values.” Majorities of respondents in the Eastern European nations of Poland (67%) and Hungary (63%), which have governments sympathetic to traditional values and religion, said the same.

People in Israel and Singapore were more evenly divided on the question, with 50% and 54% of those surveyed, respectively, saying that a belief in God was a prerequisite for morality and having good values. Malaysia, a Muslim country, was the only country where the overwhelming majority of participants (78%) saw belief in God as necessary for leading a moral life with good values.

In the U.S., those who believe religion is not important (92%) and the religiously unaffiliated (88%) were most likely to view a belief in God as unnecessary for living a moral life and having good values. Majorities of all subgroups based on partisan identification, education level, gender, and age group indicated that a belief in God was not necessary to live a moral life. Even among those who described religion as “important” to them, a narrow majority (51%) suggested that a moral life is possible in the absence of a belief in God.

If God does not exist then how do we know what is good or bad or right or wrong? To say that something is objective is to say that it is independent of what people say or think, e.g. the Holocaust was objectively wrong even though the Nazis thought it right. To say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is good or evil independently of whether or not any human believes it to be so.

The atheist Richard Dawkins says, “There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference… we are machines for propagating DNA… It is every living object’s sole reason for being.”

Without God, there is no basis for the objective moral values that do exist.

Paul wrote about “liars whose consciences are seared” (1 Tim. 4:2 ESV). What did he mean? What is a seared conscience? For that matter, what is the conscience? Our conscience is given by God; the inner voice that inflicts us with feelings of guilt when we have sinned.

“They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.” Romans 2 :15-16

If you want proof that we are living in the prophesied last days before Jesus returns these Poll results are just one of the prophesied signs being revealed in our day.

“But understand this, that in the last days, there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.” 2 Timothy 3:1-7

“For in those days, there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now and never will be. And if the Lord had not cut short the days, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days.” Mark 13:19-20