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Introduction

Introduction. To me Clarity Honesty You are allowed to disagree!!. Three sections. Philosophical fundamentals Why I believe science points towards God Reconciling God’s Word and God’s World. Philosophical Fundamentals. Not so simple…. Science vs Religion. Creation vs Evolution.

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Introduction

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Presentation Transcript

  1. Introduction • To me • Clarity • Honesty • You are allowed to disagree!!

  2. Three sections • Philosophical fundamentals • Why I believe science points towards God • Reconciling God’s Word and God’s World

  3. Philosophical Fundamentals

  4. Not so simple… Science vs Religion Creation vs Evolution Faith vs Reason • Most Christians will believe in evolution to some degree or other. • Religion and science both require reason and faith. • Theists and atheists in the field of science. • What separates is their a priori position

  5. World view Summed up by two a priori positions: i) Matter and energy is all there is. Process is unplanned and unguided ii) There is a creative power that transcends just the physical. Process is designed and upheld

  6. The computer Formed by an unplanned unguided process. Formed by a creative intelligent being Which would you trust?

  7. Faith • ‘Belief in some thing for which there is no evidence’ • Fidês • Blind faith • Evidence based faith

  8. Evidence based faith • Heb 11v 1 - Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen (KJV) • John 21 v 24 – This is the disciple who testifies these things and who wrote them down. We know his testimony is true. • Romans 1 v 20 – 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 men are without excuse.

  9. Evolution • Evolution is a philosophical necessity for naturalism. Indeed it can be deduced from it without the need for evidence. Lucretius and Epecurus • Becomes an a priori position – opposing evidence ignored, conflicting view ridiculed • “any person who claims not to believe in evolution is ignorant, stupid or insane” Richard Dawkins • Evolution has become a substitute for God

  10. Evolution • ‘ evolution is accepted by zoologists not because it is observed to occur or …can be proved by logical coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative ‘special creation’ is clearly ‘incredible’ The sole ground for belief is not empirical but metaphysical’ Professor D M S Watson • Chinese Palaeontologist

  11. Statements: “I don’t believe anything unless it is provable by science.” “Only science can lead us to the truth”

  12. Limitations of science A kettle is boiling water • Mechanisms Electricity Conduction Convection Change of state • Who put the kettle on? • Why did they put it on? All are valid reasons for what is seen but science in limited to explaining only one of them

  13. Limitations of science • Mechanism -  • Who did it? (agent) – X • Is it any good? - X Art

  14. Limitations of science • Mechanism of action  • Agent – x • When and why – x • Is it any good - x

  15. Limitations of science • Mechanism of action  • Morals of use X

  16. Limitations of science • Mechanism -  • Agent? - X • When? - X • Why? - X

  17. Limitations of science • Mechanism  • Agent X • Both valid explanations

  18. Large Hadron Collider • Looking for sub-atomic particles • Higgs Boson • Identifying mechanisms not agents!

  19. A Grand Design • Stephen Hawking’s deduction – that because of M-theory, God does not exist! • Captain Non-sequitur

  20. …and evolution?? • Evolution by natural selection is a mechanism not an agent. God is an agent. Existence of a mechanism is not in itself an argument for the non-existence of an agent who designed it. • What ever the answer to evolution you can’t produce atheism from it!! • Captain Non-sequitur

  21. Candle • Mechanism  • Rate of burn  But… • When was it lit? • How long has it been burning?

  22. Age of the Earth • Age of rocks - Uranium  lead (4.5 billion years) - Helium in atmosphere (10,000 – 2 million years) • Salt in the sea (42 million years) • Magnetic strength of poles (10,000 – 10 million years) • Diameter of the sun (1 million years to hot for life, 200 million years touching the earth) • Cosmic dust (between thousands and billions of years)

  23. World view – How did we get here? • Multiverse – many (infinite number of parallel universes) • Chance • Created

  24. Multiverse “Let us recognise these speculations for what they are. They are not physics. There is no purely scientific reason to believe in an ensemble of universes. By construction these other worlds are unknowable by us” John Polkinghorne (eminent quantum theorist) Blind Faith!!

  25. Multiverse “To postulate a trillion-trillion other universes rather than one God in order to explain the orderliness of our universe seams the height of irrationality” Richard Swinburne (philosopher) “Parallel universes don’t disprove a creator” Christian de Duve

  26. Why I believe science points towards God

  27. Chance… …or Fine Tuning!!

  28. Probability of rolling a six with 1 die Outcomes : 1 2 3 4 5 6 Probability 1 in 6

  29. Probability of rolling 2 sixes with 2 dice 1-1 1-2 1-3 1-4 1-5 1-6 2-1 2-2 2-3 2-4 2-5 2-6 3-1 3-2 3-3 3-4 3-5 3-6 4-1 4-2 4-3 4-4 4-5 4-6 5-1 5-2 5-3 5-4 5-5 5-6 6-1 6-2 6-3 6-4 6-5 6-6 Probability 1 in 36

  30. Fine tuning - Chance • 15 scientific constants have to be exactly as they are or universe would not exist! • Nuclear ground state resonance • Force of gravity • Ratio of nuclear strong force to electromagnetic force • Ratio of electromagnetic force constant to gravitational force constant

  31. Fine tuning - Chance • Golf ball • Coin • Statistically impossible • “The odds of the universe existing from the Big Bang are so astronomical it has serious religious implications” Steven Hawking • “A good case can be made for a deistic cause for the universe” Richard Dawkins

  32. What do you think when you see a beautiful garden?

  33. Precise fine tuning - Design • “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it?” Douglas Adams (author) • How about a… Gardener!!

  34. Scientific Laws “the only incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible” Einstein • China – technology • West – scientific discoveries • Newton, Galileo etc had a belief in a law giving God • Not a ‘God of the Gaps’ but a God of the whole show • Mathematics

  35. Scientific Laws Laws of thermodynamics define fundamental physical characteristics of the universe • First law of thermodynamics – mass/energy can be converted from one form into another but it cannot be created or destroyed. • Second law of thermodynamics – ‘entropy’, heat/work process from order to disorder. • Implications for ‘Big Bang Model’

  36. Fossils • Sudden appearance – ‘Cambrian explosion’ • Demonstrate evolution: • Of a horse to… ...another horse

  37. Fossils “the most obvious and gravest objections which can be urged against my theory” Charles Darwin “I will lay it on the line; there is not one transitional fossil” Colin Patterson (Natural History Museum) curator of Archaeopteryx

  38. Limit of Natural Selection • “Neo Darwinism is dead” Lynn Margulis (Prof at Harvard and Oxford, holder of the presidential medal for biology) • “Natural selection does nothing” Will Provine (Evolutionary Biologist) • Genetic Homeostasis • Experiments – Fruit fly and E. Choli

  39. The Origin of Life? • Biogenesis – life doesn’t occur from non-life! • “The origin of life seems almost to be a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have to been satisfied to get it going” Sir France Crick • Louis Pasteur

  40. The Origin of Life? “The simplest bacterium is a veritable microminiaturised factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up of 100,million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely unparalleled in the non living world.” Michael Denton (geneticist)

  41. The Origin of Life? • Odds of producing all proteins for life by chance 1 in 1040000 calculated to be similar probability for a tornado to pass through a scrap yard and create a 747. • Producing a small chain of amino acids by chance • Proteins aren’t produced by chance; they require DNA

  42. The Origin of Life? • “The existing translational machinery is so complex, so universal and so essential it is hard to see how it could have come into existence or how life could have existed without it” John Maynard Smith Evolutionary Biologist • Which leads us to the question…

  43. Which came first? DNA or Protein

  44. DNA “the code for life” DNA is information - like a book • - Watson and Crick • publish a • double-helix structure • for DNA

  45. DNAis like a double spiral staircase • Each step represents a base • Each step has an opposite step on the other staircase • A simple bacterium would need 5 million steps • A human - 3 billion steps… • 450 million miles high • 100,000 years to climb

  46. DNA is… • A double helix • Four different bases: A = Adenine T = Thymine G = Guanine C = Cytosine • Complementary pairing A + TG + C • A specific sequence

  47. DNA ‘rungs’ Number of combinations = 1087 Seconds in 4.5 billion years = 1025

  48. Sequence strand 5' 3' A G C C T G A T A C A G C C T G A T A C T C G G A C T A T G T C G G A C T A T G 3' 5' Complementary strand A code within a code

  49. Sequence strand 5' 3' A G C C T G A T A C A G C C T G A T A C A code within a code Ser Leu Ile Glu Pro Asp

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