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“Does God Exist?”“Does God Exist?”

(A Series Examining the Reliability of the Truth, As It Is Taught in the Scriptures)

“The Fingerprint of God”

Scripture Reading: x

Accompanying Song: #x “”

Subject:

Objective: x

Location: x

Introduction: 1. Continue examining the evidence that surrounds us to see whether the universe and all

that is in it points toward proof that life came about as a result of random chance or as a result of intelligent design?

2. My proposition: We can see evidence of a creator all around us.

Body: I. I. Reliable Science Points to GodReliable Science Points to God

A. Science can be used to support the Bible, but it is not the basis of our faith. 1. Keep in mind that science can also prove to be wrong as more discoveries are made.2. Science can reveal information that, when properly understood, will often point to the

existence of a creator.3. Those who reject the existence of a deity claim:

a. Science has proven the Bible to be scientifically inaccurate. Let us carefully examine it.b. Some claim that evolution is science, but creation is religion. (We demonstrated in our

previous lesson that evolution is very much a religion from which one derives their world views. In fact, it requires much more faith to believe in atheism than in the Bible.

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4. First, the Bible is not a book on paleontology, archaeology, biology, or astronomy. Neither is it a scientific textbook. However, when the Bible does teach on scientific matters, it has proven to be completely accurate.

5. “Science” comes from a Latin word, scientia, from scient-, sciens ‘having knowledge,’ from present participle of scire ‘to know.’”a. Webster’s dictionary defines science as “the state of knowing: knowledge as

distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding.”b. But over the past 200 years, during the so-called Scientific Revolution, the

word science has come to mean a method of knowing, a way of discovering truth. Moreover, many people assume that modern science is the only way to discover truth. - http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n3/science-or-the-bible

6. Two schools of thought today:a. Origin Science: Relying on relics of the past and historical records to discover the truth.b. Operational Science: Discovering truth through using observable, repeatable

experiments. i. Of course, evidence can always be misinterpreted in the case of origin science, so

operational science is the only reliable science.ii. For example, what would the fossil record look like after a world-wide cataclysmic

flood? No one can know for certain because we have never witnessed and studied one.

iii. What would the evidence look like if the earth were created in 6 literal days? What would that series of miracles make the earth look like? We could never know with 100 percent certainty because we have not witnessed it.

iv. Thus operational science (sticking to what we can prove) is the only reliable science.

B. Consider fingerprints of God all around us: Examples indicating purposeful design:1. Design demands a designer!

2. Order and organization are found throughout the universe

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a. Entropy: the second law of thermodynamics. Essentially, it observes that energy is always in a state of transferring from one source to another. During this process we

see that nature tends to move from order to disorder in a system. i. From the moment we are conceived, we begin to die.ii. The core of the earth is cooling downiii. The sun has reached half its life expectancy.iv. The rotation of the earth is slowing downv. The earth is losing its magnetism

b. Leave anything just sit. It will degrade, wear out and return to its basic components.

c. The “Big Bang” theory and the theory of evolution are offered as the definitive answers:

d. In fact, the “Big Bang Theory” does not even meet the criteria as a true theory. A theory, by scientific terms, is founded upon observable data. Since the explosion is not observable, the “theory” is nothing more than an improvable hypothesis based upon the observation of remaining evidence from the creation of the universe.

e. The “Big Bang” is an improvable hypothesis because in order to prove a hypothesis, the hypothesis must be demonstrated and be repeatable under strict scientific standards. Until science can recreate the universe from an explosion, their hypothesis remains nothing more than some fanciful suppositions and imaginations.

3. The Earth a. Its size:

i. The earths atmosphere only extends about 50 miles above its surface. If it were smaller, the atmosphere would be impossible, like the planet Murcury.

ii. If larger, its atmosphere would contain high amounts of hydrogen, like Jupiter

b. Its gasses: It holds just the proper proportions of gas to sustain life

c. Its atmosphere: i. The earth’s atmosphere contains a layer of ozone made up of O3 (trioxygen) which

is a pale blue gas that filters out 97-99% of the suns harmful ultraviolet light.ii. The layer of ozone in our atmosphere normally ranges from 300-500 Dobson units,

or about 3mm. In other words, if the layer of ozone was compressed under the

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same pressures found in the earth’s atmosphere, the ozone layer would only be about as thick as two pennies stacked on top of one another. Where holes in the ozone exist, its thickness is only about 1mm, or the thickness of a dime.

iii. In essence, there is a small membrane of gas protecting the earth. iv. High doses of ultraviolet radiation from the sun would make life on earth as we

know it impossible. In fact, ultraviolet light is used to for air-purification systems, water purification, aquarium and pond maintenance, laboratory hygiene and food and beverage protection. It destroys the DNA of and destroys the cells it contacts. That is why just even 1-3% of the suns rays are considered dangerous. Anyone with a sunburn can attest to that. This is why the best sunscreens have a higher UV protection rating.

d. Its uniqueness: Earth is the only known planet that is entirely suitable for sustaining life.

e. Its position: i. The earth is located just the perfect distance of the sun.

a.) We experience temperatures on earth that average between -30 to +120 Celsius.

b.) If the planet were further away from the sun, temperatures would be too cold to sustain life; any closer, and it would be too hot.

ii. The earth is the perfect distance from the moona.) Much closer to the moon, and the moon’s gravity would cause enormous tidal

waves bringing the waters of the earth to flood the land.b.) Much further away and it would not pull the ocean tides in and out and create

waves. Without this constant moving of water to replenish the oxygen in the water, the oceans would stagnate, making life in them impossible.

f. Its water: i. Fortunately, the earth contains water. Every living organism needs it to sustain life. ii. Water also has a unique surface tension. Water in plants can flow upward against

gravity, bringing life-giving nutrients to the top of even the tallest trees.iii. Water freezes from the top down and floats, so fish can live in water , protecting

them during winter.iv. 97% of the earth’s water is salt water in the oceans. 3% is fresh water. The earth

and its organisms would quickly run out of fresh water but fortunately the earth

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has a built in hydrological cycle that not only returns the fresh water to land, but also removes many of the harmful contaminants so that life may continue.

g. It’s rotation: i. Rotates at just the right speed: 24 hour days give time for rest, plant growth, etc. on

both sides of the planet, allowing the surface perfect time to be warmed and cooled in a day.

ii. The earth “wobbles” just enough to create seasons perfect for growth. If the seasons changed any sooner, not enough time would pass to grow crops. If the seasons changed any later, the other hemisphere would encounter serious food shortages before winter was over and spring arrived to begin growing new crops.

4. The Moon: a. Evolutionary hypothesis claim that during the big bang, the earth and the moon were

made at the same time.b. However, if this is true, then the explosion should have a similar composition…but

they don’t .i. They have different gasses.ii. There is no water on the moon’s surface while there is on earth.iii. There is no oxygen on the moon.iv. Minerals that do not occur on earth have been discovered on the moon.

5. The Laws of the Universe a. Gravity remains stable , constantb. The laws concerning physics and the world around us remain constant.c. The speed of light remains the same wherever we are, on earth or in galaxies far from

us.d. Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner for quantum electrodynamics, said, "Why nature is

mathematical is a mystery...The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle."i

6. Our Bodies a. Protein

i. According to Fred Hoyle, author of The Intelligent Universe, the odds of just one of our bodies proteins having evolved randomly are about 50,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1.

ii. That is just one protein. We use about 200,000 types of protein in our cells

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iii. The chance of finding our 2,000 enzymes by stringing together amino acid beads at random is very, very small. About 1 x 1040 . a.) To put this in perspective, there are 1 x 1023 stars in the universe. b.) In other words, a chance much less than 1 in twice as many stars in the

universe

b. DNA i. DNA contains the “blueprint” that tells our body how it should be designed. From it

our bodies are “assembled” in the proper order: feet, then legs, then torso, arms and legs, then head and then the internal organs in their proper place inside.a.) A typical strand of DNA is about 50-250 million pairs long

i.) Each pair contains code, much like code in a computer, that contains information for the building blueprint for life. It determines how each cell will go, what it will do, etc. right down to the last detail. Unless something is wrong, human DNA produces just the proper amount

and proportion of what the body needs: one heart, two lungs, just the right amount of nerves, blood vessels, etc.

ii.) If all the cells in one strand of DNA were stretched out in a length, they would be about one meter long.

b.) We would not believe that a blue-print came as a result of a cup of pencils spilling onto a paper, so why do we believe that our body parts not only came into being through random chance, but then organized (“assembled”) themselves in the proper order?

c.) We also see very complex systems, most of them necessary in the body. i.) Circulatory system contains ii.) Nervous system contains

ii. It would be utterly amazing if just one body part came into existence by mere coincidence. Consider the complexity of just the eye, for example.

iii. Not only did these amazing things need to come about by chance, but also for every other living organism on the planet.

iv. If not God, how did all of this information get put in DNA in its complexity and proper order?

v. Consider this:a.) Consider the following sequence: 1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0. You

would be utterly amazed if we took all of these numbers and scattered them outside and later returned to see that the wind had all blown them right-side-up, straight and in this sequential order. The odds would be enormous.

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However, the earth and all that is in it is far more complex than this! And it resides in every cell on your body.

b.) DNA is much like computer code. It is made up by four chemaicals represented by the letters A, C, G, and T. There are three billion of these letters in every human cell that give specific instructions to your body about how to develop.

vi. Our Eyes a.) Able to distinguish between 7 million colors and is estimated to be able to

handle about 1.5 million messages – simultaneously.b.) Only later developments in modern cameras have auto-focus but the eye can.

vii. Our brain: a.) We would never believe that a computer came into exisatence by chance, yet

our brain is far more complex than the most powerful supercomputers created through design by man.

b.) Simultaneously:i.) Maintains a constant precise body temperature of 98.6 degrees.ii.) Continues functions such as respiratory and circulatory functions

automatically adjusting them to the amount of oxygen your body needs.iii.) Takes in and processes all of the information you see, the sounds you hear,

the temperature, the pressure of your feet on the floor, the dryness of your mouth, the amount of energy your body needs (hunger) and an almost endless list of other things including balance, speech, logical reasoning, etc. every moment of the day and process it all into usable information. In fact, it is estimated that your brain processes more than a million messages a second.

iv.) How could random molecules know to form such a complex part of our bodies?

7. How could the Bible be right about all of these facts centuries before modern science had discovered them? Only one logical conclusion comes to mind…that the writers of the Bible were inspired by the creator of the universe Himself!

C. The dishonesty of the evolutionary movement:

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1. Piltdown man: a. Bones found in a gravel pit in Sussex, England in 1912. b. Touted as the second-most important fossil proving the evolution of man.c. Found to be a forgery 41 years later.

i. Skull – of modern ageii. Fragments chemically stained to give the appearance of age and the teeth had

been filed down!

2. Nebraska Mana. The Nebraska Man tooth, as shown in the Illustrated London News, June 24, 1922

b. Henry Fairfield Osborne, paleontologist and president of the American Museum of

Natural History announces the discovery. c. Illustration of Nebraska Man done for the Illustrated London News by Amedee Forestier

containing a full drawing of Nebraska man and his wife…all from one tooth!

i. Evolutionist argument: The information was merely given to the London news but Osborne or the evolutionists had nothing to do with promoting this lie…

ii. The news reporter got wind of the report somehow and the publication built their article uupon facts provided by someone. Who do you suppose that was? Were they made up out of thin air?

3. Java man:a. Discovered by Dutchman Eugene Dubois in 1891.

b. Discovery claimed to be the originator of humans. c. All the bones that were found were the skullcap, three teeth and a femur.

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d. From only a few bones, this mockup has been suggested: i. Femur: found 50 feet away from the original skullcap and a full year later.ii. For nearly 30 Dubois downplayed the fact that two modern human skulls were

found very close to this so-called “missing link.”

4. Orce man:

a. Found in southern Spanish town of Orce in 1892 b. Hailed as the oldest fossilized human remains ever found in Europe.c. A year after announcing such a claim, they admitted the skull was not human but

probably came from a four month old donkey.d. The original reports claimed that it was probably a 17 year old male who lived 900,000

– 1.6 million years ago. e. They came out with detailed drawings to demonstrate what he would have looked like.

5. Neanderthal Man: a. First remains found in France, 1908. b. Thought to be brutish, almost ape-like, ignorant, knuckle dragging.c. Much evidence now suggests that he was just as human as we are.

i. Stooped appearance was due to arthritis and ricketsii. Were skilled hunters, believers in an afterlife, even skilled surgeons as seen in one

withered right arm had been amputated above the elbow.

6. Theory of embryonic recapitulation asserts that the human fetus goes through

various stages of its evolutionary history as it develops.

a. Ernst Haeckel proposed this theory in the late 1860’s, promoting Darwin’s

theory of evolution in Germany.

b. He made detailed drawings of the embryonic development of eight different embryos in three

stages of development, to bolster his claim.

c. His work was hailed as a great development in the understanding of human evolution.

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d. A few years later his drawings were shown to have been fabricated, and the data manufactured. He

blamed the artist for the discrepancies, without admitting that he was the artist.

7. Archaeoraptor a. Appeared in National Geographic in November 1999b. Dinosaur bones were put together were put together with the bones of a newer

species of bird and it was promoted as a very important new evolutionary intermediate

8. Brontosaurus:a. One of the best-known dinosaurs in books and museums for the past 100 years, yet

such a creature never really existed. + = b. The dinosaur skeleton was found with the head missing. c. To complete the skeleton, a skull was taken from a site 3-4 miles away and added. No

one knew this for years. d. The body has now been discovered to have belonged to a Diplodocus and the head

from a Apatosauraus.

9. One question: If all of the evidence supports the evolutionary argument, then why would scientists need to create such hoaxes to support their theory.

II. II. Archaeological Evidence Supports the BibleArchaeological Evidence Supports the BibleA. Disbelievers sometimes try to discredit the accounts of the O.T. and criticize its text as

unreliable

B. Scoffers: the Bible repeats writings also contained in other ancient artifacts. The assumption is that the writers merely borrowed from other sources.1. Enuma Elish and the Ebla Creation Tablet —This is the Babylonian Creation Record.

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a. The Bible record is clearly superior to this as the Enuma Elish has creation from pre-

existing matter, which really isn’t creation at all.

C. The Epic of Gilgamesh includes the Babylonian Flood Story. Again, the biblical record is greatly superior. As Nozomi Osanai wrote in her master’s thesis on a comparison between Noah’s Flood and the Gilgamish Epic, “According to the specifics, scientific reliability, internal consistency, the correspondence to the secular records, and the existence of common elements among the flood traditions around the world, the Genesis account seems to be more acceptable as an accurate historical record.”

Part of the Gilgamesh Epic

D. Long-living Kings at Kish (Sumer)—These kings supposedly lived from 10,000 to 64,000 years ago. The Bible’s record is conservative and is the true account, while the Babylonian and other traditions have been embellished over time. It was later realized that the Babylonians had two bases for arithmetic calculations, based on either tens or sixties. When the records were retranslated using the system of tens rather than sixties, they came to a total within 200 years of the biblical record.

E. Some have questioned the story of Josh. 6:1-21 when the Israelites seiged the seemingly

inpenetrable Jericho. 1. They march around the city each day for six days accompanied by priests blowing horns.

On the seventh day, the army breaks its silence with a battle cry and the walls collapse, leaving the city defenseless. Believe it or not?

2. Took place over 3,5000 years ago.3. Higher critics consider this to be wrong.

a. British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon excavated the Jericho site and stated, “The excavation of Jericho, therefore, has thrown no light on the walls of Jericho of which the destruction is so vividly described in the Book of Joshua.”

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b. Years after that statement was made, the digging continued and further discoveries were made. However, Bryant Wood of Answers in Genesis reports, i. “‘fallen red bricks piling nearly to the top of the revetment” were found. In other

words, she found a heap of bricks from the fallen city walls! An Italian team excavating at the southern end of the mound in 1997 found exactly the same thing.

c. Additionally the report says,” According to the Bible, Rahab’s house was incorporated into the fortification system (Joshua 2:15). If the walls fell, how was her house spared? As you recall, the spies had instructed Rahab to bring her family into her house and they would be rescued. When the Israelites stormed the city, Rahab and her family were saved as promised (Joshua 2:12–21; 6:17, 22–23). At the north end of the tell of Jericho, archaeologists made some astounding discoveries that seem to

relate to Rahab. The German excavation of 1907–1909 found that on the north a short stretch of the lower city wall did not fall as everywhere else. A portion of that mudbrick wall was still standing to a height of over two meters (eight feet).4 What is more, there were houses built against the wall! It is quite possible that this is where

Rahab’s house was.

d. It goes on to report that, “The Israelites burned the city and everything in it (Joshua 6:24). Once again, the discoveries of archaeology have verified the truth of this record. A portion of the city destroyed by the Israelites was excavated on the east side of the tell. Wherever the archaeologists reached this level they found a layer of burned ash and debris about one meter (three feet) thick.

e.

III. III. Geologic Evidence Supports the BibleGeologic Evidence Supports the BibleA. Geologists once thought that the study of rivers would explain the layers of sedimentary

rock that is found in the earth’s rock layers. 1. However, they have more recently discovered that major cataclysmic events are a better

explaination for many of the earth’s rock layers.

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IV. IV. The Dangers of EvolutionThe Dangers of EvolutionA. David Berlinski criticizes Darwinian theory as, “ a kind of amusing 19th century collection of

anecdotes that is utterly unlike anything we see in the serious sciences…Here are some points you should consider as well: 1) the theory doesn’t have any substance 2) it’s preposterous 3) it’s not supported by the evidence and 4) the fact that the biologists are uniformly in agreement about this issue could as well be explained by some solid Marxist interpretation of their economic interests.”

Important question to ask. One country did just that in the not-so distant past…

If evolution is true, then there are no morals. If no morals, then what is so wrong with the idea of helping the evolutionary process along, creating a more genetically advanced and ridding ourselves from what atheists like Margaret Sanger, head of Planned Parenthood, called “feeders on society” or human rats.Geronticide, genocide, euthanasia, abortion…all is justifiable in a world where the doctrines of those who believe in the survival of the fittest reign strong.

Conclusion:Conclusion:

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1. Evolution vs. creation may be a boring study…2. Need to be made aware of the dishonest war against humanity being waged3. Dangerous, deadly advance against the human race. 4. Unless it is defeated, history doomed to repeat itself.

Invitation:Invitation: 1. Bumper sticker once read: No Jesus, No God. Know Jesus, Know God

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i Richard Feynman, The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist (New York: BasicBooks, 1998), 43.