In Defense of Religion - Intelligent Design

Preface:

While I am a Christian, I will not engage in proselyting for any particular religion, so please don’t ever ask me to get into which religion believes what or what religion I belong to, as I don’t think this forum is the proper place for that type of conversation.

I do not have a problem in defending Religion or Christianity in General.

Since there are over 1200 different Christian religions alone here in the U.S., then there are obviously many different positions that are taken by many different denominations. But if they call themselves Christian, then we can assume they agree on the most fundamental position and that is the existence of Jesus Christ.

Some Christian religions engage in “putting down” others views and calling them “cults” and even more hurtful names, so it again is important to talk in generalities so we don’t get into this non Christian activity. This country was founded upon religious tolerance and respect for others views.

However, I may mention what I have read from a few different religions as a way to stimulate thought or present an interesting point of view.

Big Bang. (Infinite Monkeys vs. Intelligent Design)

In the Beginning God created the heaven and the earth. We now know that this event took place approximately 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 seconds (10 to the 18th power) ago.

On April 23, 1992, a group of scientists found proof that the universe was created by the Big Bang. This proof was that the universe was not static, but rather it was decelerating just as Einstein had predicted by his singularity equation, which had convinced Einstein that God exists.

It was so exciting a discovery it led the most famous and brilliant physicist Steven Hawking to exclaim “This is the discovery of the century, if not of all time”, and he is known for his understatements. It further led him to say that “we proved that time was created. We proved that time has a beginning.”

Until this discovery many scientists had believed it possible for the complexities of life to have spontaneously occurred by way of what some have called the “Infinite Monkeys” theorem. This theorem basically says, “An infinite number of monkeys typing for an infinite amount of time will produce a given text.” (Such as a novel or even the collective works of William Shakespeare.)

Well if time was not infinite as the Big Bang theory states, then there is not sufficient time for all of the “random events” necessary to sustain life to occur, i.e., Evolution.

Science also says that the “Law of Cause and Effect” states that for every effect there must be a cause. So, if Length, width, height, and time all were created at the Big Bang, then what or who was around to “cause” the Big Bang?

More and more scientists are concluding that there had to be something or someone outside the universe to cause this event, but if all exotic matter and all ordinary matter had a beginning, then who or what could have caused the Big Bang. The answer to this is in the only book that I have found that actually makes the claim that everything but God had a beginning, and that God caused the Big Bang, i.e., created the heaven and earth.

Organize/Make Earth:

There are some who speculate that when God organized the Earth he gathered parts from other worlds. Perhaps these worlds had skeletons that predated man. It would explain why some levels of earth are newer than some that are closer to the surface.

The dilemma of the age of the Earth continues to be a mystery. Many different postulates have been put forth to explain the questions that seem to indicate that the earth is older than the date the Bible says that Adam was created. I kind of like the idea above that the elements of the earth are older than Adam, because they came from other planets, but who knows? All I do know is that there is an answer to this question and we need to be patient about finding it out.

Adam & Eve:

According to the chronology of the Bible, Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden approximately 4000 B.C. or 6000 years ago.

When reading the Bible, it is important to understand the concept of the word translated as “Day.” In some places in the Bible it means literally 24 hours, in other places it means a “Year” and in other places it means “a thousand years” such as in this quote, “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” ( 2 Peter 3:8 )

I have read where some people say that when God was talking about the creation process; it was where each day was a thousand years.

They reason thusly: God told Adam, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Gen 2:17)

Now Adam lived to be 930 years old, so if he lived less than a thousand years, then he indeed did die in less than a day. But even with this possible view, it would mean that the earth is only approximately 6000 years older than Adam since he was created on the 6th day, unless you again consider the possibility that the earth was made up of components from other planets that were perhaps older than the earth.

And lastly, maybe we just won’t know until we have it explained to us by God.


One Religion - Others are offshoots:

One attack of religion is that man makes it up. If that is the case then God does not exist.

But if God does exist then one could easily speculate that if one single religion were given to man in the Garden of Eden, then all others would spring from that one. Perhaps as humans moved into different areas of the planet, they changed the dogmas of the one religion and it became something else. This might explain how the concept of “Reincarnation” is so similar to the concept of “Resurrection.”

The Hebrews were told about a Messiah coming to “save” them. They were told about two different times he was coming. They were told he would come first to fulfill the concept of the Sacrifice, and he would come again to be their “King” and rule the world. They focused upon only the one where he would be their King.

Christians believe in both and are looking forward to the “Second Coming.” So, in some regards it is one religion that has two different views of the coming of the Messiah.

The significance of the “Sacrifice” is lost on most people. Let us consider the seemingly contradiction between the concepts of “Justice” and “Mercy.”

If we rob a bank, Justice demands that the victim be made “whole.” Mercy says to forgive the person and not make them suffer. But if the robber gets off without any consequences, then Justice is foiled.

The “Sacrifice” makes it possible for both to occur. Jesus, who never committed a sin, pays the bank back the amount that was stolen. Or, in other words, the “pay back” serves Justice and then Mercy can be given since the proxy of the Sacrifice pays the debt of sin.

Cycle of Humility:

One thing the Bible tells us in many different stories is what has been called the “cycle of war” or the “cycle of humility.”

This is where the religious people have very little and are thus on their knees often to thank God for their existence.

Next God blesses these same people and they become wealthy and healthy.

Then finally because they think that they are well off and no longer need God’s help, they become what the bible calls “stiff necked”, meaning they no longer bow their heads in prayer, so God will allow the consequences of the effects of this move towards selfishness and egotism to occur.

This effect is the wars, plagues/viruses and other events that cause people to once again loose their possessions and their health to where they must once again bend their knees in prayer.

And then the cycle repeats.



Will it End:

There are some Christians that believe in what is called the “End Time” and others who don’t.

Some of those who believe that eventually Jesus will return believe that it will happen on the beginning of the “Seventh Day” or in other words the Seventh Thousandth year. They call this period of a thousand years, “Gods day of rest” or the “millennium.”

There you have it, a short synopsis of a generalization of many peoples worldview and why so many people believe in God.

Many Christians may differ on some of the points above, but in general we all believe in Creationism, God, and in Jesus Christ and I have presented a summation of what one of these worldviews might be.