Here are four ideas that were put forward by theists in the past:

1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

2. God created man as a unique creature, different from all other forms
of life because he was made in God's image.

3. Man's evil brought about God's judgement in the form of a worldwide
flood that fully explains the existence of the geologic column.

4. The universe and the life within it were created less than 10,000
years ago.

Naturalism, which is defined as the doctrine that the world can be
understood in scientific terms without recourse to spiritual or
supernatural explanations, has since gone on to prove scientifically
that at least two of the above ideas are partially or completely wrong.
The fourth idea, that the universe and the life within it were created
less than ten thousand years ago, is completely wrong in light of the
evidence that the universe is at least 15-30 billion years old and that
life has been on this planet for millions of years. The third idea,
that God initiated a worldwide flood that was the cause of the geologic
column we see today, is at least partially wrong in light of the
evidence that sections of the geologic column predate any reasonable
time period in which such a flood might have occured. This doesn't rule
out a flood, but it does rule out that the flood created the entire
geologic column. But what of the other two ideas theists have long
endorsed?

The first idea, that God created the universe, was always rejected by
atheists who insisted that there was no deity and that the universe had
always been in existence without having a beginning nor an ending. That
the universe was eternal allowed for an infinite amount of time for
evolution to have occured through blind time and chance because if
you're dealing with something that is forever, then even the slightest
chance that an unlikely event might occur becomes a possiblity if it can
be demonstrated that such an event can happen through natural means.
The eternal state of the universe aided the atheist in his belief that
there was no deity because it ruled out the idea of a beginning of the
universe and the religious implications for such a beginning. But it
also presented the atheist with a dilemma that any person with a belief
in the existence of a deity could immediately see, the dilemma being how
the universe could exist without a cause when nothing within that
universe happens without a cause.

It is thus remarkable that when the evidence for the big bang began to
make itself known through scientific observation and experimentation,
the atheists began to panic as they watched the believers in a deity
start preparing plates of crow for them to eat. Despite their
insistence that their atheism was not a faith nor a belief, their
reaction to the religious implications of the big bang theory were
remarkably similar to that of the creationists when Charles Darwin wrote
'The Origin Of Species.' Just as the creationists went into denial and
then began to look for ludicrous ways that some of the evidence for
change could be dismissed, the atheists also went into denial over what
the big bang seemed to suggest and then began looking for equally
ludicrous ways to explain away the evidence so that it could be viewed
as something other than a justification for believing in a deity. No
less of a figure than Albert Einstein was so shocked by what his own
equations told him that he introduced a "fudge factor" to eliminate the
implications of his own evidence. Sir Fred Hoyle, who coined the term
"the Big Bang," also sought to avoid the implications of the evidence by
coming up with the steady state theory. And consider the harsh
criticism received by agnostic Robert Jastrow when he wrote the book
'God And The Astronomers' and explained that the evidence for the big
bang seemed to justify the theologians' belief in a deity. If atheism
is not a faith, then why the sudden rush to deny, explain away, and
attack?

It is a fact that the big bang model shows a beginning for this
universe, and before Plank Time physics is unable to peer back any
further to tell us what existed prior to 10 <-43> seconds. So what we
have here is a classic case of two ideas, more appropriately called
faiths, that are at war over what the evidence for the big bang tells
them. Atheists commonly insist that without facts nothing can be said
to be true, and yet with their own science telling them that they cannot
use naturalism beyond Plank time to explore anything, they nevertheless
stick to their faith that there is no deity, despite the evidence that
says the universe did indeed have a beginning. How was that beginning
possible? And whatever explanation an atheist might come up with to
show that a deity was not responsible for that beginning, how can he
ever prove it when science itself will not let him? Thus, the evidence
at least allows for theists to justify their belief that a deity created
the universe, for although that idea cannot be proved, it also cannot be
disproved either. And since every beginning must have a cause behind
it, the theists are on as stable ground as the atheists at this point
because the theists can point to a cause that makes as much sense as
anything the atheists can come up with. And neither side can prove the
other wrong.

The second idea, that God created man in his own image and thus as a
creature that is different from any other form of life, can also be
shown by the evidence. Here both the naturalists' interpretation of the
evidence of science as well as the theists' interpretation are on solid
ground. The naturalist can point to evolution, already in progress by
the time man came along, and say that it is because of natural selection
and advantageous mutations that man is superior to all other life forms
in that he has fantastic abilities that no other life form possesses.
Since no one will probably ever be able to prove that evolution could
not produce this outcome, the naturalist can smirk and assume his
atheism is correct. However, the theist would not be incorrect in
pointing out that the theory of evolution has not and may never be able
to explain the anomalies that science has turned up. One such anomaly
is the incredible explosion of life that can be seen in the Cambrian era
of the geologic column. Even the theory of punctuated equilibrium
cannot explain how more species than are alive today suddenly appear all
at once in the geologic record. How does evolution or even atheism
account for such a monumental "creation" of life? Can natural selection
and mutations act so quickly that they can produce so much in so little
time? And if so, then how? Naturalists have no explanation for this,
and it is quite probable that they will never be able to explain it.
Such a creation of life happened only once and has so far failed to be
repeated. So if such a creation remains as a one-time event, the
chances are good that it will remain a mystery for naturalistic science
forever. But the explosion of life in the cambrian era does fit in
nicely with the theists' view that a deity created life on earth. While
they cannot prove the existence of the deity, so far the evidence
supports their assumption that a creator exists moreso than it fits in
with the naturalists' assumption that evolution explains everything. So
at the very heart of the debate over atheism versus theism, the theists
can at least be given the benefit of the doubt since failure to do so
has no basis in evidence at this time. There can be no doubt that the
explosion of life in the cambrian era has provided them with
justification for their belief in a creator, and there is no evidence
the atheist can produce to disprove their assumption.

So what about man? That man is unique above all other forms of life was
obvious even to those primitives who wrote the Bible, in which it is
declared that man is unique. Though there are unique traits possessed
by different species that man does not himself possess, his own unique
traits overwhelm all other nonhuman traits combined. Mankind's ability
to even conceive of there being a god is itself unique because no other
species on earth seems to have that ability. All other species act out
on the same insticts without regard to right and wrong or whether they
are going to one day answer to a god for their actions. But men both
primitive and intelligent believe that there are right and wrong
actions, and they further believe that man will one day give an account
of himself to the deity that created him. Consider the killing of
animals by other animals in the pursuit of survival. No animal has ever
stopped to think that what it is about to do might be wrong. But when
men kill animals for food, there are among us other men who question
that action and judge it to be wrong. This makes man unique. How can
evolution account for this?

That man can change his environment to suit his whims and wants is also
unique. Every other species that has settled into a particular
environment builds the same "houses", does the same things, and speaks
the same way. This is true day after day and year after year, until
they die. But man can take solid rock and turn it into a home. He can
build homes from wood, steel, or even bedsheets. He can build mansions,
townhomes, apartments, and mobile homes. He can make his climate cooler
than what the natural climate is by the use of artificial means. By
those same means, he can make his climate warmer than the natural
climate. He can use his leisure time to fly planes, sail ships, drive
cars, send messages to alt.atheism, roll a joint and then smoke it,
drink a beer, or listen to music he created and then recorded. No other
species on earth can do these things. This indeed makes man unique
above all other life forms. Does this prove that a deity created man?
No. Does it mean that evolution is responsible for man being unique?
No. But it does lend more support to the theist's assertion that man is
unique because a deity made him that way. Being unique in one or two
ways would be no support at all, but the many ways man is unique is so
mindboggling that it inspires man to believe that what makes him so
unique is the deity which created him. Perhaps this is what motivated
the author of the Biblical book of Romans to assert that the attributes
of the deity can be seen in what has been created and that man is
without excuse. While it is one thing to dismiss the involvement of a
deity in what makes man so unique, it's quite another to come up with a
reasonable alternative. Evolution is certainly an alternative, but it
is reasonable? On top of every other wondrous thing that we see in the
natural world, such as the spider's instinctive ability to spin webs it
was never taught to create or the birds' instintive knowledge to fly
south for the winter, to ask that evolution through blind time and
chance also explain how it managed to create in man his attributes that
are so unique as to be almost godlike is asking alot from something that
so far has already produced inadequate answers to much lesser questions,
such as what accounts for the abundance of life that suddenly appears in
the cambrian era. Sit down one day and imagine doing something that has
never been done before. Then go do it. These are more than just unique
qualities for a particular species to possess. What accounts for man's
ability to imagine anything? And why is he and he alone able to do that
which he has imagined? In offering both blind time and chance as well
as the creative power of a deity as two alternatives, the deity
alternative makes more sense and has more weight of evidence in its
corner. The atheist can deny that man's unique abilities are evidence
for a deity, but denials are not evidence. Neither is the assertion
that if we just give naturalistic science enough time and tools it will
explain all phenomena to the exclusion of a deity. If science cannot
see before Plank time and cannot explain the cambrian anomaly, then why
should naturalism be trusted more than the theory of intelligent
design? In the end, it is not science we are being asked to trust,
since science has given the theist just as much reason to believe in his
god as it has given the atheist reason to believe there is no god. No,
what we are being asked to believe is atheism. Just ignore the evidence
that supports your assumptions and accept that the atheists are right,
even though they can no more prove their assumptions than the theists
can prove theirs.





--
Your beauty drains me, those tears cut me like a knife,
But please don't stop because of the pain I feel;
Everything about you would be ruined if you became my immortal wife,
No not you, but through you I may at last be able to heal.