"I began to realize that the evidence uh for the existence of God, while not proof, was actually pretty interesting. seconds And it certainly made me realize that atheism would no longer be for me an acceptable choice, that it was the least rational of the options."
(Everything from something
is much more rational
than everything from nothing.
If thats your argument?
You are already starting off behind.)
"Francis Collins is one of the most respected scientists in the world. He led the human genome project and spent his life studying DNA. For years, he identified as an atheist. Today, he believes in Jesus Christ. what convinced him. I won't go through the whole chronology as it actually happened, but let me summarize for you the kinds of arguments that ultimately brought me around to the position of recognizing that belief in God was an entirely satisfying intellectually uh event, but also something that I was increasingly discovering I had a spiritual hunger for."
(We are made in God's likeness.
character, intellect, morality
awareness, rationality,
creativity, the capacity for loving
spirituality etc...)
"And interestingly,
some of the pointers to God
had have been in front
of me all along coming
from the study of nature."
(Why wouldn't the designee show it to you
if you bothered to look for it?
Modern life has largely
removed man from his relationship
with nature.)
"And I hadn't really thought about them, but here they were.
Here's one which seems like an obvious statement,
but maybe it's not so obvious.
There is something instead of nothing.
No reason that should be.
This phrase of Wignner,
the Nobel laurate in physics,
caught my eye
because I had been involved, of
course, as a graduate student
working with quantum mechanics
with Schroinger's equation."
"And one of the things that had appealed to me
so much about mathematics
sand physics and chemistry
was how it was that
this particular kind of depiction
of matter and energy works.
I mean, it really works well.
And a theory that is correct often turns out to be
simple and beautiful.
And why should that be?
Why should mathematics be
so unreasonably effective
in describing nature? "
(Math was the language
by which God spoke the universe
into existence with.
If it exist?
it has a mathematical component to it.
Whats your answer?
What do you believe?
Why?
None of these scientist
ever wanna talk about
where their main tool
MATH
came from.
I wonder why?)
"There's the big bang.
The fact that the universe had a beginning,
as virtually all scientists
are now coming to the conclusion
about 13.7 billion years ago in an
unimaginable singularity,
where the universe smaller than a golf ball
suddenly appeared
and then began flying apart
and has been flying apart
ever since.
"And we can calculate that singularity by noticing just how
far those galaxies are receding from us
and things like the background microwave radiation,
the echo of that big bang.
And of course that presents a
difficulty because our science
cannot look back beyond that point. "
(There is only on book
that gives you:
Time space energy and matter
bursting forth in a continuum
like it had to have and like we know it did,
along with light on two separate instances
and tells you,
you will never see back to the begining.
Job 38:11
And said, Hitherto shalt thou come,
but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?
"And it seems that
something came out of nothing.
Well, nature isn't supposed to allow that."
(In fact it cant
"do that"
as "nothing"
just does not exist.
The only place
"nothing" exist
is outside of the universe.
Where you see "nothing"
thats what's there.
So "nothing" just does not exist.
So if "everything"
cant come from nothing?
Because there is no nothing?
Then what do you believe
it came from?
And how?
And why do you believe it?
ITS THAT SIMPLE AND OBVIOUS.
IT REALLY IS.
IGNORE AT YOIUR OWN PERIL.
"So if nature is not able to create itself,
(Even if it did?
Then why did it quit?)
how did the universe get here?
You can't postulate that
that was created by some natural force
or you haven't solved the problem
because then okay,
what created that natural force?
"So the only plausible,
it seemed to me,
explanation
is that there must be
some supernatural force that did the creating.
And of course that force
would not need to be limited by space or even by time.
Oh, now we're getting somewhere."
(God exist
outside of
and at the same time
flows through
his creation.
The uncreated creator
is simply not affected by his creations:
Time, Space, Energy and Matter.)
"So, all right, let's imagine there is a creator,
let's call that creator God,
who is supernatural,
who's not bounded by space,
not bounded by time,
and is a pretty darn good mathematician.
And it's starting to make some sense here.
Well, God must also be an incredible physicist
because another thing I began to realize
by a little more reading is
that there
is this phenomenal fine-tuning of the universe
that makes complexity and therefore life possible.
Those of you who study uh physics and chemistry
will know that
there's a whole series of laws
that govern the behavior of matter matter and energy.
There are simple beautiful equations
but they have constants in them
like the gravitational constant
or the speed of light
and you cannot derive
at the present time
the value of those constants.
They are what they are.
They're givens.
You have to do the experiment
and measure them.
Well, suppose they were a little different.
Would that matter?
Would anything change in our universe
if the gravitational constant was a little stronger
or a little weaker?
Some days I think it's a
little stronger, but I don't think it really is.
So that calculation got done
particularly in the 1970s uh by Barrow and Tipler
and the answer was astounding
that if you take any of these 15 constants
and you tweak them just a tiny little bit
the whole thing doesn't work anymore.
(It is completely illogical to assume
that is some kinda random chance event.
So just like everything
cant come from nothing
cause nothing doesn't exist,
Why is this?
What do you believe
and why?)
"Take gravity for instance.
If gravity was just one part in about 10 billion
weaker than it actually is, then after the big bang,
there would be
insufficient gravitational pull to result in the coalescence
of stars and galaxies and planets and you and
me and you'd end up therefore
with a infinitely expanding sterile universe.
If gravity was just a tiny bit
stronger, well, things would coalesce all right,
but a little too soon and the big bang
would be followed after a while
by a big crunch and we would not have the chance
to appear uh because the timing wouldn't be right.
Andt hat's just one example.
You can't look at that data
and not marvel at it.
It is astounding
to see the knife edge of
20 probability
upon which
our existence exists."
So, what's that about?
Well, I can think of three possibilities.
First of all, maybe theory will someday tell us
that these constants have to have the value they have,
that there is some a priori reason for that.
Most physicists I talked to don't think that's too likely.
There might be relationships
between them that have to be maintained, but not the whole
A second possibility,
perhaps we are one of an almost infinite series of
other universes that have different values of those constants.
And of course, we have to be in the one
where everything turned out right
or we wouldn't be having this conversation.
So that's the multiverse hypothesis
(I disagree
Scientific hypothesis
are supposed to be testable.
Thats not.
So it's not even a hypothesis)
and it is a defensible one
as long as you're willing to accept the fact
that you will probably never be
to observe those infinite series of other parallel universes."
(Which makes you an ideologue
instead of a scientist
at that point.)
"So that requires quite a leap of faith."
(I tell you what,
they can keep theirs
and I will take mine.)
"The third possibility is that this is intentional
that these constants have the value they do because that
creator God who is a good mathematician also knew
that there was an important set of dials
to set here."
"If this universe
that was coming into being
was going to be interesting.
So take those three possibilities
and which of them
seems most plausible?
(People just do not
want to admit it to themselves.
And its really gonna suck for them.
It really is.
The evidence is overwhelming.
It really is.
It's not even close.
Not with what we know
scientifically anymore
and actually have
for more than 30 years of so now.
Maybe even 60 or so if you go back to
the discovery of
"apply OCCAM's razor, if you will,
which says that the simplest explanation is most likely correct.
Well, I come down on number three, especially
because I've already kind of gotten there
in terms of the other arguments
about the idea of a creator.
And this is interesting, but of course, so far, how
far have we gotten?
We've gotten to Einstein's God now, because Einstein
certainly marveled at the way in which mathematics worked.
Einstein was not aware,
as far as we know,
of the fine-tuning arguments at quite this
level, but probably would have embraced them in the same way.
But we haven't really gotten to a theist God yet.
We've gotten to a deist God.
So, how do we get there?
Well, now we come back to Lewis in that first chapter of mere Christianity,
which is called right and wrong as a clue to the meaning of the universe.
And here, what is being talked about is the moral law.
I didn't take philosophy in college,
so I didn't really quite know what this was all about.
But as I began to recognize what the argument was, it rang true.
It rang true in a really startling way.
One of those
things where you realize, I've known about this all my life, but
I've never really quite thought about it.
So, what's the argument?
The argument is that
we humans are unique in the
animal kingdom
by apparently having a law
that we are under although we seem free to break it
because that happens every day.
And the law is
that there's something called right
and there's something called wrong
and we're supposed to
do the right thing and not
the wrong thing."
(To look at nature
and to understand
these arguments
are Gods, not mans
And to deliberately
ignore that?
IS WRONG.
To ignore the truth
so plainly obvious
right in front of you
Is wrong.
You are
willingly believing a lie.
2 Thessalonians 2:11-12
And for this cause God
shall send them strong delusion,
that they should believe a lie:
12 That they all might be damned
who believed not the truth,
but had pleasure
in unrighteousness.
"Again, we break that law.
When we do, what do we do?
We make an excuse,
which only means we believe
the law must be true.
when we're trying to be let off the hook.
Now, people will quickly object.
Now, wait a minute. I
can think of human cultures that did terrible things.
How can you say they were under the moral law?
Well, if you go and study those cultures, you will
find out that the things that we consider terrible were
in their column called right
because of various cultural expectations.
So clearly the moral law is universal.
(Murder (not killing) is wrong.
Universal law.
Information always come from an outside source.
Universal law.
Where do theses come from?
What do you believe and why?)
"but it is influenced in terms of particular actions
and how they size up in the right and wrong assessment.
Well the moral law sometimes calls us to do
some pretty dramatic things particularly in terms of altruism
where you do something sacrificial for somebody else.
And what about that?
People may argue and they have and they will continue to
that this can all be explained by evolution.
And those are useful arguments to look at.
So for instance, if you're being altruistic uh to your own family,
you can see how that might make sense
from an evolutionary perspective because they share your DNA.
So if you're helping their DNA survive,
well, it's yours, too. And so that makes
sense from a Darwinian argument about reproductive fitness.
If you are being nice to somebody in expectation they'll
be nice to you later, a reciprocal form of altruism.
Well, okay, you can see how that might also make sense
in terms of benefiting your reproductive success.
You can even make arguments,
as Martin Noak has at Harvard,
that if you do computer modeling of things
like the prisoners dilemma, you can come up with
motivations for entire groups to behave
altruistically toward each other.
But a consequence of that and all the other models
that have been put together is
that you still have to be hostile
to people who are not in your group."
"Otherwise, the whole thing falls apart
as far as the evolutionary drive for successful competition.
Well, does that fit? Is that what we see in our own experience?
Where are those circumstances where we think the moral
law has been most dramatically at work?
I would submit they are not when we're being just nice to our family
or just nice to people who are
going to be nice to us
or even just when we're being nice to other people in our own group.
The things that strike us that cause us to marvel and to say
that's what human nobility is all about
are when that radical altruism
extends beyond those categories."
"When you see Mother Teresa
and the streets of Kolkata picking up the dying.
When you see Oscar Schindler
risking his life to save Jews from the Holocaust,
when you see the Good Samaritan
or when you see Wesley Autry,
a construction worker, African-American,
standing on the subway platform in New York
City and next to him, a young man, a graduate student,
went into an epileptic seizure.
And to the horror of everybody standing there, the student
fell onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train.
Uh with only a split second to make a decision,
Wesley jumped onto the tracks as well, pulled the student,
still having the seizure in that small space
in between the tracks,
covered him with his own body, and the train rolled over both of them.
And miraculously,
there was just enough clearance uh for them both to survive.
And here is a picture of the next day as
Wesley describes the situation standing next to the young man's father.
This was clearly radical altruism.
These people were of uh no acquaintance of each other,
had no likelihood of seeing each other in any other circumstance and belonged to different
uh groups as we seem to define them here in our society.
One being African-American, one being white.
And yet New York went crazy and they should.
What an amazing act.
What an amazing risky thing to do.
Now evolution would say,
Wesley, you what were you thinking?
Talk about ruining your reproductive fitness opportunities.
This is a scandal, isn't it?
So think about that.
Again, I'm not offering you a proof,
but I do think when people
try to argue that morality
can be fully explained
on evolutionary grounds,
that's a little bit too easy.
(And you can add:
Intellect.
Consciousness
and
Rationality as well.
To think all of that
just came from chemicals some how?
is to believe a lie cause you want to.)
"That's a little bit too much of a just so story.
And perhaps it might
ought to be thought about as potentially having some
other reflected uh reason for its presence.
And I would ask the
question because Lewis asked it in his chapter.
If you were looking not just
for evidence of a God who was a
mathematician and a physicist,
but a God who cared about human beings
and who stood for what was good and holy
and wanted his people
yo also be interested
in what is good and holy.
Wouldn't it be interesting to find written in your
own heart this moral law
which doesn't otherwise make sense
and which is calling you to do just that?
That made a lot of sense to me.
So after going through these arguments
over the course of a couple of years,
and it was that long, fighting them,
uh oftentimes wishing
that I had never started down this road
because it was leading me a place
I wasn't sure I wanted to go.
(Intellectual Comfort
is more addictive
that crack.)
"I began to realize
that I had a certain series
of immutable issues
that were leading me
in the direction of awe."
(Thats your fear
of the lord right there.
Proverbs 9:10
The fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom:
and the knowledge
of the holy
(not plain
or common.
is understanding.)
"awe of something
greater than myself,"
(That is peoples
biggest problem.
Their arrogance.
They just can not
bring themselves
to understand
there is an
"unseen power
worth of reverence"
greater than themselves.
Funny the first sin
was in Heaven
by Lucifer
and it was Pride.
And it has only
grown worse since.)
"reflected here uh by this phrase from Emanuel Kant,
the philosopher. Two things fill me with constantly
increasing admiration and awe
the longer and more earnestly
I reflect on them,
the starry heavens without
and the moral law within.
Psalm 19:2
Day unto day they uttereth speech,
and night unto night
sheweth knowledge.
Romans1:20
For since the creation of the world
God’s invisible qualities,
His eternal power
and divine nature,
have been clearly seen,
being understood from His workmanship,
so that men are without excuse.
"CREATION ALONE
IS GOOD ENOUGH
FOR COMDEMNATION."
~
Chuck Missler
"My goodness,
that's just where I was.
But I had to figure out then, okay,
if there is the possibility of this kind of God
and a God who cares about humans,
what is that God really like?
And now it was time to go back to the world's religions
and try to figure out what they tell us about that.
And as I read
through them, now somewhat better prepared,
I could see there were great similarities between
the great monotheistic religions
and they actually
resonated quite well with each other
about many of the principles
and I found that quite gratifying
and was a bit surprised because
I had assumed that they were radically different
but there were differences.
Now about this time
I had also arrived at a point
that was actually not comforting
which was the realization
that if the moral law was a pointer to God
and if God was good and holy
I was not.
And as much as I tried to forgive myself
for actions that were not consistent with that moral law,
they
kept popping up.
And therefore, just as I was beginning
to perceive the person of God in this sort of blurry way, that
image was receding because of my own failures.
And I began to despair of whether this would ever be a relationship
that I could claim or hope to have because of my own shortcomings.
And into that area of increasing anxiety
came the realization that there is a person in one of these
faiths who has the solution to that
and that's the person of Jesus Christ
who not only claimed to know God
but to be God and who in this amazing and
incomprehensible at first but ultimately incredibly
sensible uplifting sacrificial act
died on the cross and then rose from the
dead to provide this bridge
between my imperfections
and God's holiness
(Christ is the bridge
between Heaven and Earth.
A man screwed it up
A man had to fix it.
He did.
You know Christianity
is the only true faith because
its the only one that says
you cant earn your way to heaven.
God himself did that for you
even though you didn't deserve it.
(Grace.)
And that is only available
for a limited time
and it is running out
quick like in a hurry.
The door on the ark shuts.
Matthew 25:11-12
“Later the others also came.
‘Lord, Lord,’ they said,
‘open the door for us!’
“But he replied,
‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’
Matthew 7:22-23
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them,
I never knew you:
depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
(Cause they made it about themselves
and not what was done for them by their creator.
THIS IS FOUNDATIONAL.
YOU CAN NOT GET THIS WRONG
AND EVERYTHING ELSE RIGHT.
IT IS THAT BIG OF AN ERROR:
23 And then will I profess unto them,
I never knew you:
depart from me,
ye that work iniquity)
in a way that made more sense than I
ever dreamed it could.
I had heard those phrases about
Christ died for your sins
and I thought that was so much gibberish
and suddenly it wasn't gibberish at all."
"Francis Collins didn't abandon reason
to believe in Jesus.
He followed the evidence wherever it led.
(It is overwhelming.
To not believe so,
is to believe a lie
and condemn yourself.)
"Every night the stars
porth forth speech"
Creation alone
is good enough
for condemnation.
It's that obvious.)
"He wrestled with morality
and asked where objective
right and wrong come from.
He examined the finetuning of the universe
and the intricate design written into DNA.
(I would also add:
Chirality and
He considered why anything exists
at all. Step by step, he became convinced that God exists.
Since God exists, he is perfectly righteous.
("He is the only
uncreated creator
and as such
he the sole
moral authority
and righteous judge
over his creation."
PERIOD.
IT DONT MATTER
IF YOU DONT LIKE IT.)
"And because he is righteous,
we're held accountable
for breaking his moral laws
and sinning against him."
(Like:
Romans 1:20
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.
Psalm 19
1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
That means we don't simply need more information
about our creator.
We need forgiveness.
We need a savior. And that's what ultimately led him to Jesus Christ,
who lived the perfect life we couldn't live,
died the death we deserved,
and rose again so that sinners like
us could be reconciled to God.
If a world-renowned scientist
followed the evidence to Jesus,
will you
honestly examine it
for yourself?
Or you can keep on
believing a lie.
Your choice.
Decisions have consequences.
This one is eternal.
Choose wisely.
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