What of science?

Science in our modern age has been put on a pedestal.  The media and our educational systems have succeeded to a very large degree in convincing most people that unless something can be quantified and experienced by our five senses, it cannot possibly be for real.  Or at least this is the argument that science uses to try to discredit the unseen, for example things like spiritual experiences and God and the credibility of the Bible.

Yet it is science that attempts to explain and rationalize ideas like the Big Bang and the Theory of Evolution, ideas that are just that - ideas, not facts.  They have required creative imagination and great "faith" in light of their alarmingly conspicuous absence of conclusive, quantifiable scientific evidence.

Yet proponents of these ideas - these pipe dreams, really - appeal to "science" in order to support their existence.

Call me naive, but when I was a science student in public school and in university, I recall that one's hypothesis in a science experiment had to be backed up by quantifiable, visual evidence resulting from the conducting of the experimental procedure in order for it to be considered "scientific" evidence.  How is such evidence possible when one is trying to scientifically explain or rationalize the Big Bang, the Theory of Evolution, or even the Bible and the existence (or non-existence) of God?

In an article entitled "Can We Still Believe in Demons Today?" by Clinton E. Arnold (Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, Talbot School of Theology, California), the argument is made that science "is inherently incapable of answering" the question of whether demons exist.  He further argues:

"Some critics grant science authority to make judgments on issues it is incapable of judging.  Just as science is incompetent to adjudicate on morality, so it is also beyond its jurisdiction in trying to decide the question of demonic existence.  Science seeks to describe and explain natural phenomena.  There is no reason to assume it has the power to answer questions regarding the supernatural, such as whether these beings exist."

This argument can be extended to include the fallacy of using the guise of science to try to explain and rationalize the things I've mentioned above, things like the Big Bang, the Theory of Evolution, and the Bible and the existence (or non-existence) of God.  Science has it limitations, yet its disciples persist in thinking that it is the be-all and end-all of standards by which we can judge something as being true or real.

Scientists and their disciples mock and reject any notion of God or the writings of the Bible because they require non-tangible concepts like faith and belief.  They think that ideas like the empty tomb suggest that Jesus didn't actually exist or that his body was stolen and buried elsewhere.  In their minds, it would be too fanciful to take the Biblical account at face value, to actually accept its claim that Jesus rose physically from the dead and ascended to Heaven forty days later and after being witnessed by over 500 people and even physically touched by a few of them.  They ignore the historical, archaeological, and legal evidences of this and all other Biblical accounts because they can't put them in a test tube or analyze them under a microscope.  Or even if they can, in the case of archaeological evidences, they ignore them and move on to try to poke more holes instead of accepting that they might have been wrong in their assumptions.

In any case, such people are quick to embrace accounts of the Jewish Holocaust of World War II because there are several witnesses to this atrocity who are still alive, who we can still see and touch.  But years after these survivors are gone, you can bet that the detractors, those who deny the Holocaust - who existed even during WW II - will gain followers simply due to the lack of witnesses to stand up against them.

Funny thing, there were still several witnesses to the life and miracles of Jesus - believing and non - while every one of the New Testament letters were being penned, yet somehow none of the skeptics decided to write things contrary to the claims they presented, such as the deity of Jesus Christ.  It has been suggested that there were simply too many witnesses that would have made them appear as fools and thus, knowing they didn't have a case, therefore didn't make one.

So why do skeptics in this day and age think they have a legitimate case against the claims of the Bible?  Why do they think the historical, archaeological, and legal evidences that have always supported its claims are somehow null and void just because two millenia have passed?  It's sure easy to try to discredit something once the living witnesses have all died off, and so the non-believers and mockers of this generation follow in vain the footsteps of those before them, often dredging up old arguments that were put to rest in generations past.

However, their greatest fallacy is the claim that there is no "scientific evidence" for the Bible and therefore the credibility of its God and its claims.  They tend to overlook the scientific evidence that abounds with respect to archaeology, and the historical and legal evidences that many have undertaken through history and found to overwhelmingly support the credibility of the Bible.

But as believers let's face it:  Jesus could appear to each and every skeptic on this planet and perform miracle after miracle and claim after each one that they are the result of being the one and only Son of God - the ultimate display of evidence - but there would still be skeptics not because of lack of evidence, but because of a lack of desire born out of pride and ego that would prevent them from believing.

Oh, but wait a minute, Jesus did appear to believers and skeptics alike during his first time here on earth, and guess what:  some of those who saw him and his miracles and heard his claims were also skeptical despite this ultimate display of evidence!  Why?  How could this possibly be the case in light of the overwhelming evidence?  Because - ta da! - they lacked a desire to believe that was born out of pride and ego, not because of a lack of evidence.  Or to put this another way, it's not that they couldn't believe, it's that they wouldn't. 

Some of these people had a lot of worldly status, prestige, and possibly wealth to lose - or so they thought - if they believed that Jesus is the Messiah and the one true Son of God, and so they simply chose not to believe in order to try to protect themselves.  Not to mention their fear of ridicule and the possibility of losing the respect of family and so-called friends.  The exact same is true in this day and age when people are presented with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So what of science and its supposed lack of ability to give credibility to the Bible and thus God and Jesus?  Well, it ultimately doesn't matter.  What matters is individual men and women getting over themselves and making a decision in their heart to accept or reject the claims of the Bible regarding Jesus Christ.  Science can't make this decision for them, but only their desire to believe or not believe can.  And no amount of scientific thought or reasoning will be able to rescue them from their fate should they ultimately choose not to believe.

Old vs. outdated

Some people make the assumption that the Bible is outdated simply because it's old, because the last book accepted into the canon of Scripture occurred nearly 2,000 years ago.  But when you think about it, being outdated has nothing to do with age but entirely to do with not being relevant to today.

Consider the fascination with Shakespeare in drama and English classes worldwide hundreds of years after the bard's death.  Think about how the original design of things like the light bulb and the camera are still recognizable in modern light bulbs and cameras over 100 years later.  These things might be considered as old, but their modern relevance and influence prove that they are not outdated.

If you question the relevance of the Bible in our modern world, do the following:

• Read the first ten verses of 2 Timothy chapter 3 and ask yourself if this doesn't with absolute precision describe the world of today, "the last days" that the Bible repeatedly refers to.
• Read Romans chapter 1 from verse 18 to the end of the chapter and ask yourself if the moral abyss the world currently finds itself in has ever been better explained than in this portion of Scripture.

What some people fail to realize is that although cultures, nations, technology, and trends have changed immensely since the time the Messiah walked this planet, human nature has not changed one bit.  As soon as a humanist claims that our species has "evolved" to some higher level of intelligence or sophistication, we read some news headline about a genocide or other unthinkable act of evil that sound  no different from such accounts in the Bible.

The only difference between these modern acts and those recorded in the Bible are the fact that they are being committed by people in different cultures and nations using different technology and following different trends.  Whereas in ancient times some cultures burned their babies alive in the arms of scalding hot idols, we allow girls and women in our civilized, sophisticated modern age to have their unborn child ground into bits and vacuumed from their innards using some of the most intricate surgical instruments and techniques.  Such a practice is not considered barbaric because it is so methodical and sterilized.

Apparently, the accounts (actually disproven myths) of women using coat hangers in back alleys was too inhumane and gruesome for those in the women's liberation movement of the early 1970s to stomach, but I digress.  History since that time has proven that the legalization of abortion was done to serve selfish political, financial, and scientific interests among others, but I raise this issue as an example of how the mere acceptance of this practice is one of countless proofs of how human nature - in this case lying, greed, and selfishness - have only changed in form, not in substance.

While I'm on the topic of relevance, I can't help but question that of the Theory of Evolution in our modern age.  (You can look at the keyword archive in this blog for other thoughts that God has revealed to me about this and other topics.)  Scientific understanding of the workings of the human body were elementary at best at the time of the publishing of The Origin of Species in 1859:  scientists knew what was inside the body at a non-molecular level, but little was known about how body systems and organs worked and interacted.  And nobody - including Darwin himself - had any idea of the unfathomable intricacy and sophistication of the workings of the human body that scream "Design!".  In addition, apart from the human body and that of other mammals, the literally infinite vastness of the universe was unknown and atomic structure was unheard of.

Therefore, this theory at its core is based on outdated science despite all claims to the contrary, on assumptions based upon the scientific understandings (and misunderstandings) of the time that modern science has since largely disproven.  Yet you'll rarely hear about anyone who lacks a true understanding of God, any non-Christian, questioning its relevance in this modern age.  The modern proponents of this theory, who continually churn out new sub-theories to cover up the ones that modern science continues to disprove, gain influence and keep the dead horse of evolutionary theory alive as they wax eloquent and get the Oprah seal of approval for their new book about their new theory - as she has largely replaced God and His Word as the beacon of modern moral, spiritual, and scientific wisdom in pop culture, and apparently in the evolutionist community as well.

Yet begin to seriously ask objective, frank questions about their beliefs - which are different in substance but no different in magnitude from those of Christians - and you get accused of being what they themselves are:  narrow-minded, subjective, and worst of all, "religious" (whether you actually believe in God or not).  The saddest part about the believer of evolutionary theory is that they don't realize that they are themselves disciples of a religion, that of Evolution, the new religion of this relativistic and humanistic world we now live in.

So even though some things are considered relevant in this modern age, we see now how they can be outdated.  Fortunately, anyone looking for something solid to stand on, something that won't be disproven 5, 50, 500, or even 5,000 years from now, need look no further than the Bible, the only true Scriptures and truth in existence.  The Bible is the only body of writings whose truth and claims have withstood all persecutions, all examinations, and all other tests of time.  (If you think you've found a new way to poke holes in its truth and absolute integrity and sink it once and for all, I urge you to do so, but I can guarantee that you cannot do so with an objective mind.)

If you haven't dug into the Bible because you believe that it's outdated and therefore irrelevant and a waste of time, or because you believe the hype that it's a book of fairy tales or riddled with "internal contradictions" and so forth rather than just letting it speak to you on its own merit, then you're missing out on the greatest adventure of this life and the one beyond.  But don't just take my word for it:  be objective and find out for yourself.

Perspective changes everything

Before choosing the small-town life, I lived the first 33 years of my life in a city of nearly one million people. After going for several weeks without any sort of trip out of town, I would begin to forget that this city was actually an island in the middle of the prairie with no city larger than it for nearly a thousand miles. Until I actually got out of it and spent some time away, I would almost forget just how out of place it seemed in its vast, sparsely populated surroundings. In other words, it took a change of perspective for me to realize that I really didn't live in an urban environment as much as I was actually living in an island in the midst of a vast rural expanse.

We humans have the same lack of true perspective about who we really are. Many of us think and act as though somehow the world revolves around us, as though it's entirely subject to how we think and act. Yet only once you get up in an airplane or climb to the top of a mountain and look down upon whatever we have created do you realize just how tiny and powerless we actually are. Even though our influence looks expansive and powerful in the form of infrastructure and development like roads and fields and buildings, it takes only one swipe of the hand of nature for people to (temporarily) realize that they really aren't so mighty after all.

The same realization happens when people with immense fame, power, and/or wealth succumb to illness, disease, or untimely death and no amount of money is able to help them. And even if they overcome for a time, they eventually experience the same uncontrollable, unconquerable fate of all humans: death.

Yet despite constant reminders that we are subject to forces infinitely more mighty than us that we have absolutely no way of controlling, we continue to act as though we're invincible. We have this rebellious spirit toward the outside forces that control us as though we'll someday conquer them or be free from their control. We continue to climb treacherous mountains and build taller buildings in vain attempts to defy the force of gravity. We continue to explore hostile environments in vain attempts to conquer the forces of nature. And we propose theories, write books, and form conferences and committees that actively and purposely seek to undermine the belief by some humans that we are created beings, created by a mighty and unfathomable force that in the English language has been given the name of "God".

Forty or so proponents of this belief, over the course of nearly two millennia, claimed to have been spoken to and even visited by this God and recorded their encounters in numerous books that were eventually coalesced into one volume and given the title of "The Bible". In this Bible, there are numerous accounts of people who thought the world revolved around them or were invincible, only to be put in their place by this mighty God who these authors claim is not only the creator of these people, but also of the world and the entire universe. Some of the people most famously humbled by this God include Job, Jonah, and Saul of Tarsus (later named Paul).

These people realized the hard way just how tiny and powerful they were once they encountered this God, causing the likes of Isaiah and Saul to cower in fear, awe, and reverence. They had a radical change of perspective to the point where they tirelessly stood up for God in the face of ridicule, torture, and even death by those who had not encountered Him. They stood up because they knew that He who they had encountered and experienced was for real. They had experienced a miniscule taste of His indescribable power and realized that they really weren't so mighty after all.

The next time you look at the sun, ask yourself what is keeping our planet from being drawn into its fiery inferno. The next time you draw a breath, ask yourself what will allow your lungs to draw the next breath. The next time you curl and uncurl your fingers, ask yourself what series of physiological, biochemical, and neurological processes and components are responsible for this ability plus how they came to be.

In our modern age, phenomena like these are only considered from the scientific perspective and all other perspectives - especially spiritual - are ignored and even ridiculed.  This perspective does not take anything seriously that cannot be quantified, i.e. touched or counted or measured, and will dismiss experiences and emotions for this reason, such as the radical psychological and emotional transformations that countless people have reported throughout history once they've truly opened up to and experienced this God.

Yet this scientific perspective that its proponents claim has all the answers clearly does not.  In fact, an honest scientist would admit that at both the macroscopic level (ex. the universe) and the microscopic level (ex. atomic particles and structures), technological advancements have revealed a vastness and complexity to our universe and world never remotely imagined even a decade ago.  As one school of thought puts it, our universe and world are "irreducibly complex".

So while those who adhere to the scientific perspective find themselves uncovering more questions than answers with each passing minute, people who have decided to view life from the Christian perspective - at least in my experience - have found more of the bigger questions being answered:  I know why I was created.  I know the One who created me.  I know the meaning life.  I also know my fate - and those of non-believers - after this life.  And the list goes on.

Perspective changes everything.  Because I see myself as truly helpless and powerless apart from God, I know who to turn to when life gets tough.  My "crutch" has helped me through numerous struggles that those who say they don't need a "crutch" like God can't seem to find their way through.  Or if they do, it's often at a tremendous cost emotionally, physically, and/or financially.

Sure, I put a good effort into everything I do - God gave me a brain and hands and feet, after all - but I stop when I perceive that I'm on a path that God doesn't want me to be on.  By doing so, I save an incredible amount of stress and emotional investment in things that are a waste of time and energy so that I can focus on the more important things in life - God, family, friends, (this blog!), etc.

You can continue to plod along with the mindset that you're big and tough enough to conquer any obstacle (even though, once again, you'll never conquer death), or you can realize that you're really not so big and tough after all and that God's help will get you through the struggles of this life.  And to top the cake, the Bible also explains how you can enjoy God's presence forever when this life is over.   But this realization takes a change of perspective, and this can only be achieved by having an open mind to the idea that the God whom the authors of the Bible wrote is truly for real.  Actually, this open-mindedness takes faith, and you can read more about this in other posts of this blog.