CAN'T YOU DO BETTER THAN THAT? 3.0 - Radiometric Dating

I know that some of you will flee from any talk about radiometric dating and that's fine. But you need to understand that this is a spiritual stronghold. When threatened, Darwinists will attack the Bible using the age of the Earth, intimidating the believers with scientific authority. I have seen it work.

You need not feel intimidated. They have real unresolved scientific problems they are not telling you. The following is only one. An article on radiometric dates written by Dr Andrew Snelling,  a creationist geologist, shows potassium/ argon is still unreliable for dating rocks. Unfortunately for Darwinists, 85% of the data used in their justification of evolutionary timescale comes from this method.

Radioactive dating involves elements which are unstable and give off energetic particles from the nucleus of atoms. This changes the atoms from one element or isotope to another. When this process is measured in the laboratory it shows the decay has a half-life pattern. Each radioactive isotope has its characteristic half-life and this can then be applied when these elements are found in the rock to measure its age. However, it is not the half-life that is the problem. What the scientists are measuring in the field is the ratio of the parent element to the daughter element. If the ratio is disturbed with another process the calculated age changes. The dating method works in the laboratory only because all other processes are eliminated. In nature this is not a given.

Potassium is a common element in lavas and other rocks and is the most frequently used method to date rocks. Potassium is the parent element and argon is the daughter element.   Argon is a noble gas. It occurs naturally in the Earth beneath the crust. It does not react with chemicals in the lavas and can quickly and easily escape the rock before it solidifies. Thus it was assumed at first that naturally occurring argon gas would not be trapped in the rock when it finally cools. Thus all argon detected could be used to calculate its age. Well, that turned out to be...well, wrong.

When argon is trapped in the rock the measured Potassium/ Argon ratio is lowered and yields a higher age.  So why not test lavas of historical dates and determine how big the problem is. Historically dated lava flows were studied by Dalrymple (1). His Potassium/ argon results are on the right: 

1. Hualalai basalt, Hawaii (AD 1800-1801)           1.6 Million years±0.16                                                                                1.41Million years±0.08 
2. Mt. Etna basalt, Sicily (122 BC)                         0.25 Million years±0.08
3. Mt. Etna basalt, Sicily (AD 1972)                       0.35 Million years±0.14
4. Mt. Lassen plagioclase, California (AD 1915)     0.11 Million years±0.03
5. Sunset Crater basalt, Arizona (AD 1064-1065)   0.27±0.09 Ma;  and 0.25 Million years±0.15

The smallest error in age in this group is 110,000 years for a 100 year-old lava - an 110,000% error.

In 1998 Snelling (2) reported the following data in regards to the "excess" argon problem. Reported results of  old K-Ar "ages" in recent or young volcanic rocks are as follows:

Kilauea Iki basalt, Hawaii (AD 1959)                                         8.5 Million years±6.8
Mt. Stromboli, Italy, volcanic bomb (September 23, 1963)         2.4 Million years±2
Mt. Etna basalt, Sicily (May 1964)                                             0.7 Million years±0.01
Medicine Lake Highlands obsidian, Glass Mountains (<500 years) 12.6 Million years±4.5
Hualalai basalt, Hawaii (AD 1800-1801)                                   22.8 Million years±16.5
Rangitoto basalt, Auckland, NZ (<800 years old)                        0.15 Million years±0.47 Ma
Anorthoclase in volcanic bomb, Mt Erebus, Antarctica (1984)     0.64 Million years±0.03 Ma
Kilauea basalt, Hawaii (<200 years old)                                     21±8 Ma
Kilauea basalt, Hawaii (<1,000 years old)                                  42.9 Million years±4.2; 30.3 Million year

All these are historical eruptions or ones covering historically datable sites. Other samples from the Pleistocene and dated by evolutionary assumptions, are also grossly in error. They all contain excess argon. Errors range up to 23 million %! It is now general wisdom that this is naturally occurring argon that has not escaped during the cooling of the lavas. It is impossible to separate the naturally occurring argon from the radioactive daughter argon.

Darwinists object to this creationist argument. They say this method does not work on such young rocks because it is too insensitive to the small amounts of argon involved, resulting in ages of zero years. Their response assumes zero ages for young rocks. It does not deal with the non-zero ages in the tables above. Furthermore, according to Genesis all the rocks are young and potassium/ argon should never be used!

Besides the fresh lava flows of known age, how do you know which rocks are young or old? The potassium/ argon method always gives "old" ages. Which rocks are actually "young" but contain excess argon and which are genuinely old?  We do not know. Are scientists using a method that cannot date rocks of known age in order to date rocks of unknown age. If so how much confidence can you put in their conclusions? Ouch!

Let us see how this works in an actual example. Leakey discovered an ape-like fossil in Africa. He thought this ape, Skull 1470, fit into the evolutionary history of man at about 3 million years ago. He called in experts in potassium/ argon dating. Samples of lava rocks called tuff were taken from the strata where Skull 1470 was found. There were five papers published, each of which concluded the fossil layer was about 2.9 million years old.

Later, opinion shifted and Skull 1470 was fitted into evolution at 2 million years ago. Again experts were hired and they found that the initial samples of lava were contaminated with excess argon. Ooops! The potassium/ argon dates were actually out by 1 million years. The fossil strata dated to 2 million years! How pleasing it must have been to Leakey to have unbiased scientists using objective accurate scientific methods to arrive at the date that had already been agreed upon by the Darwinists. It was doubly pleasing to see them do it twice.

Can't you do better than that!

WHY DID CAIN KILL ABEL?

^{The problem with human beings is that they want their own way - all of us, not just the bad among us. Cain in the Bible is the story behind how we start off with our own ideas and but end up where God did not want us to be. In Genesis 4:3-5 we read,}

In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And  Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering,  but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast (NIV).

Cain had received an invitation from God to make a sacrifice to Him. God wanted a relationship with Cain but sin stood in the way. He called both Cain and Abel to bring a sacrifice. In the New Testament we see Jesus is the appropriate sacrifice but in Cain's time God had provided for an animal substitute until He arrived. 

God saw that Abel had been obedient and had brought the right sacrifice - the firstborn of the flock - and looked on the obedience favourably. He also saw the disobedience of Cain and showed displeasure at it. 

Cain was angry. Why? Cain had brought the best fruits of his labour. This Cain reasoned ought to be acceptable to God but it was not. God knew what sacrifice was acceptable to Him. Cain's opinion was not required. The fruit of Cain's best labour was not what was required. What was required was a substitute for Cain's death which justice required in order to pay for his sin. This meant an animal had to die in his place. 

Cain did not want something or someone to pay for his sin. He was a good person and his willingness to give God a present that had cost him dearly should have been enough. His pride stood in the way of reconciling with God. In Genesis 4:6 we see God's response to Cain's anger.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?  If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it. ”

<sup>God was willing to overlook his disobedience and his pride and offered again to accept him upon acceptable obedience. He got another chance. This was a good deal. Cain should have taken it. 

Once again, admitting he was originally wrong went too much against his pride and he refused. The result was as God said. Sin was at his door and it took him prisoner. So he went from being a sinner, alienated from God to being a prison of Satan and God's enemy. This has serious consequences.</sup>

 While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. 

The enmity between Cain and a righteous God turned into enmity between Cain and righteous Abel. He was jealous of Abel's favour and blessing. When God asked Cain, "Where is Abel?", he lied.

 

“I don’t know, ” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” 

Cain had gone from disobedience and pride to jealousy to murder to lying. You see sin is all connected. It is all unrighteous. God punished Cain. He exiled him from Eden and he went to the land of Nod and built a city that he named after his son. God marked him so that nobody would take vengeance on him.

When Jesus came to Earth He was met by John the Baptist declaring, "Repent for the Kingdom of God is near." He was a type of Abel. Jesus was baptized to fulfill righteousness in obedience to God. Others too heard and obeyed.

But there were also those priests, scribes and elders who challenged Jesus's authority. They refused to believe he had the authority to forgive sins despite his miracles. They became angry when he raised Lazarus from the dead. They turned against Him. They plotted against him and then they murdered him. Then, when he rose from the dead, they claimed the Roman soldiers guarding the tomb had fallen asleep, while the disciples stole the body. They lied. Forty years later the Romans came, captured the rebellious Jews and sold them as slaves around the world - exile.

Does this sound familiar? They showed disobedience and pride in refusing to accept God's requirements. Hatred and envy then led them to murder their brother. To cover the murder they lied and eventually were sent into exile. Yet, anybody who harmed the Jews was cursed, e.g. Germany. It is the story of Cain and Abel all over again! 

Let us remember above all that the same thing can happen to us if we are not obedient to God's requirements.

HONOURING BISHOP KIVENGERE

I bet most of you never heard of Bishop Kivengere. Neither had I before he came to speak at our meeting. The Bishop came from Uganda. He came to Canada after he had escaped Idi Amin, who had terrorized the land and purged it of opposition. Then egged on by radical Muslims he began persecuting Christians. Massacres followed. Then the Anglican archbishop was dragged from his home in the middle of the night by army troops and accused of disloyalty. The troops then shot him in front of his family.

It was soon discovered that the army was also looking for Bishop Kivengere. Christians smuggled him from house to house until he reached the border with Tanzania. He fled across the border in the jungle in the middle of the night. He came to Canada to raise money to help the many refugees from Idi Amin.

That night at St. Paul's in Toronto, he spoke on the woman with the issue of blood. This woman had spent her entire savings trying to find help for her condition. She had come to the end without effective remedy. Then God spoke to her heart and told her that if she could touch the hem of Jesus garment she would be made whole. This alone was a promise hard to believe after years of fruitless effort. But desperation breeds faith.

This was not the only bridge for her to overcome. As some of you know, those women who were menstruating carried the remains of a once potential life. For Jews to touch a dead body meant contamination with death. This meant that one could not enter the temple until they had been cleansed of this. Furthermore, any person touching somebody who had touched a dead body was also unclean. When the woman with the issue of blood went to touch the hem of the garment of Jesus she was carrying the fear that he would become angry with her for making Him unclean.

Despite this the woman pushed through the crowd, probably crawling on all fours and letting people step over her. When Jesus came close enough she lunged forward and caught the hem of his his garment. She felt the power of God flow through her body and her body restored to health. What a relief that must have been to her.

But then, Jesus stopped and asked, "Who touched me?" Asking this in a crowd of followers sounded crazy even to His disciples. Everybody is touching you! But Jesus had felt the power of God go out to heal somebody. Imagine her feelings of fear that it would be discovered that she was the guilty one, who had presumed to touch this holy prophet without first cleansing herself. It would matter not that this was impossible; that she had been unclean for years. But Jesus persisted. At last she confessed that it was her and hung her head.

Jesus made an example of her. He declared that her faith had made her well. Instead of anger Jesus expressed commendation. She did not understand that Jesus was God and God could not be contaminated. Not only that but God was expecting her to exercise her faith. By identifying her He was able to tell her that the healing belonged to her.It was not an accident. It was not a theft. It was not an indignity. It was a gift from her loving God. What a blessing! How could she have gone through the rest of her life not knowing and understanding that? She could not and she did not because of Jesus's love for her.

Bishop Kivengere was able to make this story come alive. The people he spoke about were not theological but real. They had real fears and real emotions. Kivengere was a humble Christian and had no pretensions of importance. He did not act like an important person but just a person. Then he said something I will never forget. I need to remind you that this was the 70's. Society was reforming in the wake of  the race riots of the 60's. The black nations of Africa had just emerged from western imperialism. They ejected whites from their countries on mass and spent much rhetoric lambasting the West for their horrendous crimes. (In return for Soviet aid) In the midst of this era Bishop Kivengere stood up and thanked us, the white countries, for sending our missionaries to bring the gospel to his country.  He said this with such sincerity that it stunned me. At that time I could not remember any black who had a kind word for whites in those days - not one. It was that extraordinary. I will never forget how he blessed us that day.

THE BIG BANG NEVER HAPPENED

"One cannot solve a problem with the same thinking that created it." So stated Albert Einstein. Cosmologists today are a good example. The theory they have created has become a monster that has consumed their energies while giving them nothing but headaches. For those scientists who still believe in experimental results it is time to throw in the towel. Eric Lerner, a prize-winning science writer and author of the Big Bang Never Happened is one of these [1]. He thinks the Big Bang is a total disaster and I agree.

The Big Bang is not an explosion. It is an extravagant expansion of space-time. When space-time expands galaxies grow farther apart as though all the galaxies were travelling away from us simultaneously. It is assumed that the universe is homogeneous so that everything looks the same from any point in space and gravitational forces are similar.

By 1986 we knew this was not so. Groups of galaxies were grouped into clusters which were found to form a long snake-like string of clusters across the sky. Apart from this there were vast unoccupied regions of the universe. Under the available expansion rates and forces these complexes required 100 billion years to form. Ooops!

Gravitational forces are supposedly responsible for the formation of both galaxies and solar systems. Yet the planets in solar systems have velocities that decrease with their distance from the Sun. On the other hand galaxies have stars that have much the same velocity whatever their distance from the centre. Big Bang cosmologists find this anomaly hard to explain. 

Galaxy with stars with same velocity

Planets with varying velocity

 In addition, despite what you learned in school, big balls of hydrogen gas do not condense into solar systems. In order to form stars one requires a boost from an outside source, like a shock wave from an exploding star. Even this scenario has serious angular momentum problems. One has to wonder though how the first star formed. Oops!

The COBE satellite measured the Cosmic background Radiation from deep space. This is supposedly the light echo  of the early Big Bang. According to theory this energy radiation would not be perfectly smooth but small variations would exist in the energy from which the seeds of galaxies would eventually come. The COBE satellite data was disappointing to the theorists as it was 100 times smaller than expected. This created another problem for those trying to find the source of galaxies, galactic clusters and even larger structures.

Supernovas recently provided more data that required major adjustments to theory. Data indicated that expansion rates were higher than previously thought and Big Bang theories realized quickly that more energy was needed to provide the acceleration. This meant that star masses in the universe were grossly inadequate for the job. Even so-called "dark matter" which is invisible and radiates no energy, was inadequate. Thus "dark energy" was created to fill the hole. This "dark energy" composes 70% of the universes supply while "dark matter" supplies about 27% and real visible matter provides only 3% of the universe's actual energy. So what exactly is "dark mass" or "dark energy" made of? We don't know. And what does all this newly added energy and acceleration do to the age of the universe? Well, new acceleration rates mean we arrive at the here and now sooner. About 6 Billion years sooner. Oops!

Why do so many scientists agree on a theory that appears to predict almost nothing and keeps them constantly making major renovations with every new discovery. S.P. Langley once likened scientists to a pack of hounds that followed their leaders "nearly as often in the wrong path as the right one." [2] Portraying a highly educated group of scientists as a pack of "hounds" is hardly complementary in 1889 but it seems little has changed. Eric Lerner has proposed that the forces of electromagnetism played a significant role in the formation of the universe. This idea was proposed by Dr Alfven, a plasma physicist, in the last century. The advantage of plasmas is that they enjoy two forces electric and magnetic from which many more motions and formations can come. Its disadvantage is that its forces are smaller and therefore short-ranged. Laboratory plasmas exhibit some phenomenon that are seen in space.

Finally, the new expansion rate of the universe requires the reintroduction of the cosmological constant. (There is another story but not now.) The laboratory measurement of this constant differs from the actual by a factor of 10 to the power 120,000 [3]! Another disaster! Still Cosmologists cling to a theory that has never predicted anything right. Why? The best explanation I can give is that they are trying desperately to explain the universe without God.

In the beginning God created the universe out of nothing. No need for universal "big bangs" that happen just so to be fantastically creative or "big crunches" in defiance of the laws of entropy. No need for just so stories about just so constants, just so orbital radius, just so atmosphere and just so DNA that provide just what we need to thrive on this planet. Our life, our planet and our universe is the supernatural in origin. The more educated one becomes the more obvious is this conclusion. The only way to avoid this conclusion is to demand a different answer from the start - disbelief.

CAN'T YOU DO BETTER THAN THAT? 2.0 - Fossils

Human footprints at Laetoli

Is evolution supported by all the scientific evidence and creationism supported by none? The photo to the right shows human footprints at a place in Africa called Laetoli. It is famous among paleontologists and anthropologists because it is a short distance from the Olduvai Gorge where the Leakeys excavated for fossil ape-man. These footprints are fossilized human footprints.

Now before anyone accuses me of repeating opinions that are only held by naive uninformed creationists let me quote Tim White, an evolutionist, who wrote, "They are like human footprints. If one were left on a California beach today,and a four-year-old were asked what it was, he would instantly say that somebody had walked there. [D, Johanson and M. Edey, Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind, Simon & Shuster, New York, 1981]"  .

The fossil footprints were discovered by Mary Leakey, also a legendary figure in the hunt for fossil ape-man, and dated to 3.7 million years. Dr Louise Robbins, an expert on fossil footprints, was asked by Mary Leakey to examine the Laetoli footprints. She described the trail's  footprints as that of a completely modern human.

Now this discovery puts the evolutionists in a logical bind. Either
(1) their opinion concerning the date of ape to human evolution is totally untenable or
(2) the dating of the strata where the footprints were found is totally wrong or
(3) the current theory of evolution is falsified.
This is a bad hair day for the evolutionists because none of these options is palatable.

If the date of the transition from ape to human is totally misconstrued then all the alleged fossil ancestors of humans (Australopithecus et al, including Lucy) discovered over the last 150 years must be discarded as not relevant to evolutionary theory.  Ouch!

Or, if the date of the stratum with the fossil footprints really belongs to the date of modern humans then it is only 100,000 years ago and not 3.7 million years old.  This would push back ape to human evolution to strata earlier than Australopithecus, where there are few ape fossils. Also, this embarrasses geologists as their dates for this stratum have been stretched 37 fold. And what about the agreement of radioactive isotope dating that is now only 3% accurate? Ouch!

Or, if the theory of evolution has been falsified they will have to join the creationists. Now which of these logical consequences do you think the evolutionists chose? None of the above! However did you guess? The position arrived at by the evolutionary community is that the footprints are not human because evolutionary theory does not allow it.

Well, then, what are they? They are footprints of Australopithecus Afarensis aka Lucy an upright-walking ape. How do they know Lucy walked upright? When Lucy was found the knee bone was so crushed and fragmented it was impossible to reconstruct. Fortunately, another knee-bone was found 2.5 kilometers away and 70 meters deeper in the stratum. It was decidedly human so its owner walked upright. Johanson decided it could only belong to Lucy. But wait, why would the knee bone not belong to the humans who made the Laetoli footprints? Evolutionary theory does not allow it.

So the evolutionists can now claim that, although the footprints look just like human ones and the knee looks just like a human one,  there is no evidence of humans living 3.7 million years ago. They further claim that this is pure objective science arrived at by impartially examination of the evidence. Creationism is just a belief system - nothing more and so Creationists have no scientific basis for claiming that man existed at that time. But this is true only when when evolutionary theory is used to forbid the possibility that man co-existed with Lucy!

Logically, the evidence can be explained two ways: Theory A, which says that the footprints belong to an ape or Theory B, which says that the footprints belong to a human. Real science looks at the consequences of the theories to understand what might differentiate the two. We might find a foot of Australopithecus that fits in the Laetoli footprints. Then Theory A is likely. No fossil foot of Australopithecus has ever fit into the tracks. Or you might look for human skeletal remains. If they exist then Theory B is likely. But when the evidence supporting Theory B was found, the evolutionists did not conclude that it was more likely. Instead they concluded that Theory A was true and consequently no evidence supported Theory B.

This is irrational. Many times in science two or more theories have reasonable explanations for the evidence. Evidence is evidence. No theorist can claim ownership of the evidence for his theory like some lotto prize and deny the legitimate use of it to other theories. It is illogical to argue that once a theory explains the evidence no other theory can provide a different explanation. When the interpretation of one theory forbids alternate theories it is not science.

Now you see why the claims that evolution is science and creation is religion are non-sense. It is a game played with loaded dice. No alternative theories are allowed. In religion we call this doctrine. Evolutionists have become priests and their theories have become doctrine.  They have formed a religion called Darwinism, that explains everything without God. The italicized statements above are  illustrations of this. Darwinism is a belief system opposed to creationism by its nature.  So who decided evolutionary theory owned all the scientific evidence leaving none for Creationists?

GRACE IN THE FACE OF TRIBULATION

Public discussion of end times is increasing. Over 12% of Canadians now believe they will see the end of the age in their life time. The final 7 years of this age are often referred to as the “great tribulation” [Rev 7:14]. This is a time of persecution by the anti-Christ and the one world government. According to Daniel 7:25 the Anti-Christ, “will speak against the Most High and oppress his holy people and try to change the set times and the laws. The holy people will be delivered into his hands for a time, times and half a time.” This is a three and one half year period during which Christians will be the target of political and religious pogroms.

It will also be a time of signs and wonders. “Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ [Matt 24:28:30]. There will be earthquakes, wars, famines, floods and signs in the heavens. Some have treated these prophecies as occurring during the conflict with Rome, when the Romans burned the Temple in Jerusalem. They see these prophecies as fulfilled. But most regard these events as occurring in the end times preceding the return of Christ and the establishment of the Millennium, during which Christ together with His saints must rule the Earth with an iron rod for one thousand years.

Now some say that God loves his people so much the church will not go through these terrible times and before or during tribulation the church will be taken away (raptured). This group is divided between those that think they will be removed 7 years before the end while others believe it will be only 3 and one half years. Then there is the traditional view of the church fathers that the end, the rapture of the saints, the beginning of the Millennium and the wedding feast of the Lamb are all connected and contemporaneous. It would take too much space to go into this in detail.

I believe the church is going through the tribulation, all the way. Who would proclaim the gospel  if we did not? God's people have always gone through tribulation. Consider Job. Though Job was righteous, God allowed Satan to torment him for no reason other than to test him.  Job passed the test.

Let us see what Daniel’s companions went through and how they responded. When Nebuchadnezzar discovered that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to bow to his golden image, he called Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to account. They replied, “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up. [Daniel 3:16-18]” They suffered nothing from the flames of the furnace but lost only their bonds. They passed the test.

Jesus trained twelve disciples to turn the world upside down and they all died martyrs except John. The enemy tried to boil him in oil but he suffered no ill effects. Failing to execute him, they sent him to the mines on the island of Patmos, where he wrote the book of Revelation. He passed the test.

Has our generation no calling to enter into the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings like Job, Daniel and the Apostles? Can the church of the first century go through the persecution under the Roman emperors and pass the test but not our generation? I think we will be tested too. I think we are going through to the end of the tribulation. We will pass the test because the grace of Jesus is enough to bring us through. All will be to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ as he puts all His enemies under His feet and we will be his sandals.

DOES GOD LISTEN TO SINNERS

One day Jesus encountered a man blind from birth. He was begging at the side of the road. Jesus took some mud and spat into it and put it over the man's eyes. The man went to the pool of Siloam and washed his eyes and saw. When he testified that it was Jesus who had given him his sight it caused a controversy. Not much later the Pharisees, the resolvers of great controversies came and questioned him. They told the man that Jesus was not from God. He does not keep the Sabbath [John 9:16]. Some doubted that this was the man born blind but others asked if a sinner could do such miracles. To settle the matter the parents were summoned. They testified that this was their son and he was born blind. When asked who had healed their son, they were intimidated and said their son could answer for himself.

The blind man was called upon again to explain his healing. The man born blind knew what they did not want to hear. He mocked them by suggesting they wanted to become Jesus disciples. But the Pharisees replied that they were disciples of Moses who came from God. We know not where this man comes from. The blind man replied that we know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. This reasoning is common in religious circles. To gain access to God you must have good faith and good deeds.

We must be careful when biblical characters make statements like this. We need to keep them in context and not turn them into spiritual laws that keep God in our box. Now God actually exists outside our little boxes. They do not stop Him from doing miracles. What it does do is it keeps us from seeing what God is doing, when He operates outside our box. It is the Pharisees who could not see the great miracle of God because the power to do this miracle had not been given to somebody they knew and respected. Without knowing if Jesus had sinned they called him a sinner - incapable of doing anything worthy of attention. They missed the God that got out of their box.

Let's fast forward to modern times. A Christian prophet named Graham walks into the neighbourhood delicatessen. He picks out a pound of cheese for his dinner guests. He starts to pay for his cheese when God reveals something personal about the store owner, a middle-aged lady with lines and sorrow on her face. God has a message for you he says to her. Her jaw drops open. He says you have been an atheist all your life but last night you prayed to Him for the first time. God wants you to know that he has heard your prayer. Her silence is deafening. He says he knows where your 19-year-old daughter is, who ran away 3 years ago.  She is alright. If you believe and sit at your telephone at 2 p.m.on Thursday, she will call you. The woman could hardly believe her ears. It had been less than 24 hours since she prayed and this was more than she ever expected. Was it too good to be true?

What would you do? Well, if you really love your daughter and are desperate to hear from her it is a small risk to take. She sat there at 2 p.m. Thursday, hopefully anxious. Meanwhile, at 1:55 p.m., not having thought of her poor old mom all day, all week or even all month, her daughter was shopping when she had a sudden desperate need to call home. After several minutes she found a public pay telephone.  She rummaged through her purse for some change. Then she could not remember the number. Urgently, she flipped through the telephone book until at last she found the number and dialed it. At exactly, 2 p.m. the shop owners' telephone rang. The two were reunited. Their story soon began to circulate among her friends and neighbours. They both have become Christians and testify to God's goodness. So now what is your answer to the question: does God listen to sinners?

CAN'T YOU DO BETTER THAN THAT 1.0 - Atheism

Once a young man, we will call him Ryan, attended a meeting where scientific evidence and arguments for creation were presented. Ryan was of atheist persuasion and took the opportunity to ask challenging questions. His challenges were more than met. Then the presenter asked him a challenging question. Could he imagine earth's history as presented in Genesis to be true? At first, he looked as though he might but then said, "I see where you are going with this. If Genesis is really true then I must put aside my own way of life and dedicate my life to God. I cannot do this. It would be a waste of my life."

One should not be angry with Ryan. He is more honest than most. He is openly admitting that even if the scientific evidence supported creation, he could not believe in it because it would radically change the way he saw and lived life. It would be easy to propose some major moral problem in his life but that would not be fair. What is fair to say is that his criteria for choosing evolution science over creation science had nothing to do with scientific argument or evidence. He really was not concerned about the fossil record. Simply put; if evolution were proved false he has no intelligent sounding defense to avoid God.  His choice was made clearly on religious grounds not science.

Others less honest than Ryan would say that evolution is science and creation is religion and therefore evolution is true. God is unscientific! Hmm. Is it that easy to dismiss God? Don't they wish! Philosophy provides a number of powerful arguments that demonstrate the existence of God. Atheists are sure to disagree. However, the atheist philosopher Dr Flew recently converted to theism through the power of the design argument though he has not adopted any particular faith. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbyTwmaJArU . The argument from design was not just reasonable to him but compelling. Even one well-educated atheist admitting this to be true was more than some could bear.

In the last few years a number of atheist authors like Hitchens and Dawkins have started a counterattack. Dawkins wrote the God Delusion. He tried to counter the design argument by supposing that there are trillions upon trillions of universes with different physical traits and constants so that at least one might have the exact laws and constants necessary to support life. And why does he choose science fiction multiverses with trillions times trillions of possibilities? Well, to overcome the immense improbabilities involved if there is only one universe! [Dawkins, The God Delusion, p.144-147] This metaphysical conjuring is no refutation at all. In reality Dawkins, like our friend Ryan, rejects God's claim on his life and therefore he must believe in evolution.

Evolution is not science. It is an anti-God philosophy - Darwinism. Its purpose is to explain everything  without God. Under Darwinism "we are purposely created" becomes "we are mere accidents"; "we are divinely endowed with an eternal spirit" becomes "we are just chemistry"; "we are destined for paradise becomes "we are stardust" and "God loves you to the point of dying for you on the cross" becomes "who needs a saviour?" What we really need to ask the Ryans and Dawkins of this world is, "Can't you do better than that?"