Evidence for God from Science Newsletter December, 2006

Greetings in the name of the Lord! This is the latest update for the Evidence for God website. Welcome to our new subscribers.

Contents (scroll down for descriptions)

News

In November, I participated in a surprise debate with a former Christian, Matthew Rainbow, who is heavily into evolution. Much of the debate involved teaching creation vs. evolution in public schools. As part of my short preparation time, I borrowed my son's California State biology textbook, and thoroughly destroyed the chapter on the history of life on earth. To my surprise, Dr. Rainbow agreed with me! Now, if we can only get the textbook authors to be so honest! See the new article related to our current California state biology textbook below.

Book Reviews

The God Delusion, Richard DawkinsRichard Dawkins has stepped out of his usual area of expertise, biological evolution, and has attempted to become atheism's greatest apologist with his new book, The God Delusion. Unfortunately, like so many other atheists, he picks out the easy targets with blinders fully engaged, to avoid having to deal with any serious challenges to his beliefs. Yes, I did use the "b" word, since Dawkins actively promotes the belief that there is no God (hence the title) and that atheists should "come out" of the closet and exhibit abundant "atheist pride." Dawkins seems to be "preaching to the choir," since the vast majority of his apologetics is either old and refuted or strawman in nature. This is a planned series of articles debunking the atheistic apologetics of The God Delusion. The first article of the series examines chapter 1, in which Dawkins makes claims that are easily documented to be false.

    Debunking Dawkins: The God Delusion Chapter 1: A deeply religious non believer
    http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/the_god_delusion1.html

Future articles in the series will be added to the page:

    Debunking Dawkins: The God Delusion
    http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/the_god_delusion.html

Answers for Atheists

Who created God?

Who created God? It is an age-old question that has plagued all those who like to think about the big questions. Having grown up as an agnostic non-Christian, it provided me with a potential reason why there might not be any god.  In reality, God has no need to have been created, since He exists either outside time (where cause and effect do not operate) or within multiple dimensions of time (such that there is no beginning of a plane of time). Hence God is eternal, having never been created. Although it is possible that the universe itself is eternal, observational evidence contradicts this hypothesis, since the universe began to exist only ~13.7 billion years ago. The only possible escape for the atheist is the invention of a kind of super universe, which can never be confirmed experimentally (hence it is metaphysical in nature, and not scientific).

    If God Created Everything, Who Created God?
    http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/who_created_god.html

Why is the universe so big?

Why is the universe so big?The large size of the universe is often said to be an argument against the existence of the God of Christianity. If the purpose of God were to create a place for humans to live, why didn't God just create one star and one planet? Isn't the existence of trillions of galaxies a complete waste, suggesting that humans are just a cosmic accident? In reality, God has both spiritual and physical reasons to have created the universe so large. The immense size of the universe tells us about His power and authority, and is required for the formation of rocky planets...

    Size of the Universe: Isn't it Too Large to Have Been Created by God for Humanity?
    http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/universe_too_large.html

Revised introductions for non-believers

I received some good feedback from an atheist visitor who complained that the general introduction for non-believers didn't have enough information about the evidence for belief in God. The introduction was really long (about 10 minutes of reading) and according to the stats, visitors were spending only ~3 minutes on the page. So, I have broken the page into two parts and shortened each page significantly. The first page is designed to show atheists that they do not believe in accordance with their own worldview, since at least part of their beliefs are not based upon evidence. The second part is an introduction to the evidence from design that demonstrates the likelihood that a super intelligent Agent designed the universe. Both pages are short reading (about 3 minutes/page), so that non-believers will hopefully read the contents and go on to examine the specific evidence in more detail. A third introduction page is planned, which will be called "Is Christianity True." Your feedback on these new pages would be greatly appreciated, especially if you are/were a non-believer.

    General Introduction for Non-Believers: Part 1, Are Your Beliefs Consistent with Your Worldview?
    http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/atheismintro.html

    Is God Real? Does Science Answer "Is There a God?"
    http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/atheismintro2.html

Design vs. Evolution

Deception in California state biology textbook

Biology: Principles & Explorations (2001) by George B. Johnson and Peter H. Raven, published by Holt, Rinehart, and WinstonThe state of California has adopted the textbook Biology: Principles & Explorations (2001) by George B. Johnson and Peter H. Raven, published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, as its official biology textbook for high school biology classes. This book presents deceptive and misleading information on the possible spontaneous origin of life on earth. The textbook gives the impression that there were a billion years in which chemical reactions could have led to the origin on life. However, scientific studies show that there were at most 200 million years, and likely much less time. The textbook also promotes the Lerman's bubble hypothesis for the synthesis of biomolecules, even though it has never been tested in the lab. RNA is promoted as the first replicator, even though RNA does not spontaneously form chains long enough to produce such a replicator, and a search for replicator sequences has never revealed the existence of a spontaneous replicator. The textbook leaves out any discussion of chemistry that contradicts the hypotheses promoted, giving the impression that the spontaneous origin of life was likely, when, in reality, it is extremely unlikely. Such poor scholarship in our public school textbooks is one of the reasons why intelligent design proponents want to "teach the controversy" in our public school biology classes. If the textbooks did a better job relaying the truth, none of this political jockeying would be necessary.

    Evolution Deception in California State High School Biology Textbook Biology: Principles & Explorations
    http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/biology_holt_rinehart_winston.html

Webmaster Resources

PHP Formmail

With increasing popularity, GodAndScience.org has experienced a proliferation of spam (unsolicited e-mail). Even though our e-mail addresses were not listed on the site, spam robots were sending spam through our contact forms. After much searching, I have found an excellent free script that includes image verification (which blocks the spammers). The PHP-based program from tectite.com will handle just about any of your needs, including sending forms securely.

    Free PHP FormMail With Image Verification (from tectite.com)
    http://www.godandscience.org/general/formmail.html

Hubble Greeting Cards

New images of galaxies and nebulae

Hubble Greeting CardsOver 40 new images have been added to our growing list of Hubble images. Send a free greeting card that proclaims the glory of God's heavenly creation. There are over 200 cards to choose from.

Newsletter Info

New Pages


     http://www.GodAndScience.org/new.html

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Those are the most recent updates and changes since the last e-mail update. If you would like to see anything in particular at Evidence for God from Science, let me know. Now may the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance. The Lord be with you all! (2 Thessalonians 3:16) Merry Christmas!

In Christ,
Rich Deem

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http://www.godandscience.org/newsletters/2006-12.html
Last Modified December 21, 2006

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