Rallying for Reason?

The efforts of the protestors played a part in helping the Creation Museum’s opening be more publicized than we expected. Of course, the protestors outside the museum gates wanted a different reaction. They “meant evil . . . but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive (Genesis 50:20).”

Expecting Persecution

If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. (John 15:18)

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

As Bible-believing Christians, we expect to be occasionally hated and attacked by various means. When the Creation Museum was set to open, we heard that one of the many attacks would be in the form of protestors outside the gate preaching the propaganda of anti-Bible, millions of years, and evolution.

The protestors, organized by a group known as Rally for Reason (RR), distributed a flyer designed by DefCon titled “The Top 10 reasons why the Universe, the Sun, the Earth, and Life are NOT 6,000 years old: A Primer.” Although the handout is impressive looking, what is really the substance of it? Each alleged piece of evidence for billions of years they present is interpreted from their naturalistic worldview with the assumption that the universe is billions of years old . . . that is circular reasoning.

Reason, Logic, and Truth?

But perhaps antithetical to this is the fact that the organization has the word reason in their title. Reason requires logic and truth to exist; we can’t simply go out and get a liter of logic or 2 tons of truth. Logic and truth are not material. Thus, they are not part of the material world. Why is this significant? Simply put, the group from RR has already taken the stance for a naturalistic view allowing for no immaterial realm. Otherwise, they would be open to immaterial realms such as the supernatural realm or spiritual realm (hence, the Bible can be true!). So really, they have a major flaw in their premise: they say there is no immaterial realm, but proceed to use the immaterial realm (logic and truth) to yield an immaterial, supposedly truthful conclusion!

Christians, however, are open to the immaterial realm and a supernatural Creator. Using God’s Word as the starting point, we have a basis to understand aspects of this immaterial realm, since we, hence our brains, are made in the image of a rational, logical, and truthful God. We also have a basis for why the non-Christian can use logic and seek the truth—they, too, are made in the image of God. But humans err in our use of logic. The Bible explains this as well with the Curse in Genesis 3. Because we live in a fallen world, things aren’t perfect anymore!

This means that people can use logic and try to find truth, but they don’t always arrive at it perfectly. Mankind needs help, which is where God’s Word comes in. Since human reasoning is imperfect, we need to lean on the Word of God, the source of all truth. So, really, RR is borrowing from the Bible to try to say the Bible is wrong!

We All Have the Same Facts, Same Science—It Is Not Religion vs. Science!

We all have the same facts. We live on the same earth, we look at the same rocks and fossils and so on. How we interpret those facts is directly influenced by our presuppositions. If we start out with a naturalistic presupposition, then we will interpret the facts devoid of God. If we start out with a biblical presupposition, we will see the facts as including the Creator’s work.

Since we were not there in the beginning, shouldn’t we rely on the eyewitness account of the One who was there instead of relying on the fallible reasoning of mankind who wasn’t there? We should rely on God’s accurate historical record found in the book of Genesis. From this starting point, we can properly interpret the evidence to explain how the universe was created.

In the PDF, a religious perspective is given, often called “science,” but is really humanism trying to disguise itself as science. The handout mistakenly equates origins (historical) science with operational (repeatable) science. For the most part, we openly agree on operational science, but origins science is where differences arise.  For more on this, please read the article “What Is Science?”

When religion was supposed to have been kicked out of the classroom, it really only removed Christianity and replaced it with another religion—humanism. One of the teachings of this religion is:

Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change. Humanists recognize nature as self-existing. We accept our life as all and enough, distinguishing things as they are from things as we might wish or imagine them to be.1

This religious document has original signatures of adherents such as Dr. Eugenie Scott, Dr. Richard Dawkins, and Ed Kagin, revealing their bias for the teaching of their religion of humanism in the classroom.2 RR also openly links to Dr. Scott’s organization,3 the National Center for Science Education, and has a letter by Mr. Kagin.4

As Christians, we have a basis for doing science, since God created laws of nature to work in uniform fashion. In fact, this is how science got started by Christians who understood this biblical view. In fact, most fields of science were developed by Bible-believing Christians. So, it is still fascinating that modern evolutionists today say Christians don’t believe gravity exists and so on—it was a creationist, Isaac Newton, who developed this field more than most! Even today, great work is still being done by Christians. For example, young-earth creationist, Dr. Raymond Damadian, invented the MRI.

From a naturalistic perspective where ideas are prone to change, why is it that they borrow the Christian view that laws of science don’t change? It seems hypocritical to borrow from the Bible, which they are arguing against! Now, let’s take a look at the claims of the handout.

The evidence of a recent creation is vast, and in order to correct those who would attack us, we accept the challenge, using the challenge-riposte method. We want the author and supporter of these attacks to realize we do this to help them and others realize the Bible is true and can be defended. The response is broken into several links below.

1. Get Answers: Young Age Evidence
2. Responding to Reason 10: The Big Bang
3. Responding to Reason 9: Stars and Galaxies
4. Responding to Reason 8: Radioactivity
5. Responding to Reason 7: Supernova 1987a
6. Responding to Reason 6: The sun shines
7. Responding to Reason 5: Continental drift
8. Responding to Reason 4: Rock strata, ice cores, and all that
9. Responding to Reason 3: Fossils
10. Responding to Reason 2: Evolution
11. Responding to Reason 1: The Documentary Record

Conclusion

Consider the quote by fellow evolutionist Lewontin:

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfil 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. 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 an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”5

You see, this is really an example of two worldviews at war.

Humanistic: Something popped into existence from nothing and exploded; Stars and planets then allegedly formed; from pond scum, life arose from non-life; this original life form evolved into more and more complex things by adding useful information into the genome for hair, eyes, lungs, etc. to, at least for now, arrive at man; and when you die, there is nothing and nothing mattered—even protesting! [Final authority: autonomous human’s ideas]

Christian: God created everything perfect, but man ruined it with sin (rejecting God’s authority), so death and suffering came into the world, and the Curse is now in effect; since death was the punishment for sin, a perfect sacrifice was needed, and Christ, who is God and loved us enough to give Himself, came down to die in our place to offer the gift of eternal life with a good God who loves us. He will create a new heaven and new earth, and the curse will be removed. [Final authority: God and His Word]

The two are not compatible. See “Evolution vs. Creation: The Order of Events Matters!” One is absolutely true and the other must be false. In humanism, absolute truth doesn’t really exist, so you are only left with one option. This is the good news that we want you to consider.