Dear Allan part 2

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"In the beginning was matter, which begat the ameba, which begat the worm, which
begat the fish, which begat the amphibian, which begat the reptile, which begat the
lower mammals, which begat the lemur, which begat the monkey, which begat man,
who imagined God. This is the genealogy of man."

17 When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.
Matthew 28:17 (NKJV)

1 Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James,To those who are
called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ: 
2 Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.    
3 Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common
salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for
the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.
Jude 1-3 (NKJV)

20 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain
babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called
1 Timothy 6:20 (KJV)

"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key
to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We
take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in
spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in
spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories,
because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
Lewontin, Richard C. [Professor of Zoology and Biology, Harvard University], "Billions
and Billions of Demons", Review of "The Demon-Haunted World: emphasis in the
original).

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a
material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are
forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of
investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter
how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that
materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
Lewontin, Richard C. [Professor of Zoology and Biology, Harvard University], "Billions
and Billions of Demons", Review of "The Demon-Haunted World: emphasis in the
original).

Modern fiction is realistic.  It contains details and dialogue and reads like an
eyewitness account.  This genre of fiction, however, only developed within the last
three hundred years.  In ancient times, romances, epics, or legends were high and
remote—details were spare and only included if they promoted character
development or drove the plot.  That is why if you are reading Beowulf or The Illiad
you don’t see characters noticing the rain or falling asleep with a sigh.  In modern
novels, details are added to create the aura of realism, but that was never the case in
ancient fiction.”
Timothy Keller: The Reason for God:Dutton:  New York 2008 page 106.

38 But He was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to
Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?”
Mark 4:38 (NKJV)

8But the other disciples came in the little boat (for they were not far from land, but
about two hundred cubits), dragging the net with fish.
John 21:8 (NKJV)

11Simon Peter went up and dragged the net to land, full of large fish, one hundred
and fifty-three; and although there were so many, the net was not broken.
John 21:11 (NKJV)

6 This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse
Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though
He did not hear.
8 And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.
John 8:6,8 (NKJV)

"...An intelligible communication via radio signal from some distant galaxy would
be widely hailed as evidence of an intelligent source. Why then doesn't the message
sequence on the DNA molecule also constitute prima facie evidence for an intelligent
source? After all, DNA information is not just analogous to a message sequence such
as Morse code, it is such a message sequence."
(Charles B Thaxton, Walter L Bradley and Robert L Olsen
The Mystery of Life’s Origin, pp 211-221

"This is an easy exercise in combinatorials. Suppose the chain is about two hundred
amino acids long; this is, if anything rather less than the average length of proteins
of all types. Since we have just twenty possibilities at each place, the number of
possibilities is twenty multiplied by itself some two hundred times. This is
conveniently written 20200 and is approximately equal to 1 to the 260th power, that
is, a one followed by 260 zeros…An honest man, armed with all the knowledge
available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at
the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have
had to have been satisfied to get it going."
Crick, Francis, Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature (New York: Simon & Schuster, 192
pp.

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because
what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so
that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not
glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and
their foolish hearts were darkened.
Romans 1:18-21 (NKJV)

“I know of no finding in archaeology that is properly confirmed which is in
opposition to the Scriptures. The Bible is the most accurate history textbook the
world has ever seen.”
Dr Clifford Wilson, formerly director of the Australian Institute of Archaeology,
radio transcript No. 0279 1004)

“Some books were no more than assumptions piled on assumptions….Conclusions
were reached on the basis of little or no data at all….The whole case for the
nondivine Jesus who stumbled into Jerusalem and somehow got crucified….that
whole picture which had floated around the liberal circles I frequented as an atheist
for almost 30 years—that case was not made.  Not only was it not made, I discovered
in this field some of the worst and most biased scholarship I had ever read.”
Anne Rice The Reason for God Timothy Keller:  Dutton, 2007 Page 99)

I fully agree with your comments on the lack of evolutionary transitions in my book. 
If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them.  I will lay it
on the line – there is not one such fossil.”
(Dr. Colin Paterson, Senior Paleontologist, British Museum of Natural History in
correspondence to Luther Sunderland quoted in Darwin’s Enigma p. 89).

“It is now recognized widely that the australopithecines are not structurally closely
similar to humans, that they must have been living at least in part in arboreal [tree]
environments, and that many of the later specimens were contemporaneous [living
at the same time] or almost so with the earlier members of the genus Homo.” 
CE Oxnard, USC-- Oxnard, an evolutionist, is one of several experts who do not
believe that any of the australopithecines were on the human line.”
C.E. Oxnard, The Order of Man (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).

'Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at
any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11
intended to convey to their readers the ideas that: (a) creation took place in a series
of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience  (b) the
figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a
chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story 
(c) Noah's flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and
animal life except for those in the ark.
Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the “days” of
creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the
flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such
professors, as far as I know.'
Letter from Professor James Barr to David C.C. Watson of the UK, dated April 23, 1984.
Copy held by the author. Note that Prof.
Barr does not claim to believe that Genesis is historically true; he is just telling us what
the language was meant to convey.

"If there were a basic principle of matter which somehow drove organic systems
toward life, its existence should easily be demonstrable in the laboratory. One could,
for instance, take a swimming bath to represent the primordial soup. Fill it with any
chemicals of a non-biological nature you please. Pump any gases over it, or through
it, you please, and shine any kind of radiation on it that takes your fancy. Let the
experiment proceed for a year and see how many of those 2,000 enzymes [proteins
produced by living cells] have appeared in the bath.
I will give the answer, and so save the time and trouble and expense of actually
doing the experiment. You would find nothing at all, except possibly for a tarry
sludge composed of amino acids and other simple organic chemicals. How can I be
so confident of this statement? Well, if it were otherwise, the experiment would long
since have been done and would be well-known and famous throughout the world.
The cost of it would be trivial compared to the cost of landing a man on the Moon."
Hoyle, Sir Fred, The Intelligent Universe (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston,  256 pp.

1 You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult
times. 2 For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful
and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will
consider nothing sacred. 3 They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander
others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. 4 They
will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure
rather than God. 5 They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could
make them godly...
2 Timothy 3:1-5 a (NKJV)

 

 

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