CHAPTER 1

A TIME TO CHOOSE

Two teen-age girls were driving home from work together on the “Golden State Freeway” one Friday evening in central California near the small town of Coalinga on March 11, 1995.  It had been pouring rain for almost a week but they were probably unconcerned as they were traveling on a modern, well-lit highway, not the old weathered county by-ways that netted the farming community around their homes.  Maybe they were discussing what time to leave Monday morning on their weekly commute back to Fresno where they attended college together.  Or maybe they were just listening to the radio.  As they came to a bridge over a dry wash they had crossed many times before, their car suddenly left the highway and sailed into empty space.  The overpass had been washed away minutes earlier by a flashflood.  No one will ever know their last thoughts because they plunged into a raging torrent of water and drowned.  Their bodies weren’t recovered until Sunday, by which time seven other people perished in the same way, quickly and without warning, four of them members of the same family.  

We can be sure of two things: One, it was not what any of them expected that night and two, regardless of our differences, we all share a common fate.  Sooner or later each of us will die, many without any warning whatsoever. 

Our life is like a short and fast burning fuse, lit at birth.  It is consumed in a heartbeat, blown out like a birthday candle.  If the age of the universe in which we live were condensed to one year, we would measure our lives in split-seconds.  The recorded history of mankind would barely fill the last hour. 

During that "hour" humanity has, for the most part, conducted itself as if life had meaning.  At least as far back in history as the ancient Egyptian dynasties, and certainly by the time of the Greek philosophers like Plato and ethicists like Confucius, men were seriously attempting to behave as if they were fulfilling a loftier purpose than mere survival, and hopefully they were right.  If not, devoting one’s life to serving others, or making the ultimate altruistic statement by dying so another human being might live, earns one the same eternal fate as a homicidal rapist who simply avoids being captured, a repugnant scenario, as most of us believe there is some sort of ultimate justice and a purpose for our existence that hinges on virtue.  If there is even the remotest possibility that such a concept has merit, we should bend over back-wards, not only to discover that purpose, but also to discover if there may be consequences for failing to fulfill it.  And we don't have forever to remain ignorant or apathetic about that possibility.  Yes - we do have the rest of our lives, but for all we know, like the two ill-fated friends from Coalinga, that could be no more than a day or two.  In any case, life is short, even in the best of circumstances, so time is of the essence. 

Some folks have the dubious luxury of obtaining knowledge of their appointed “time” in advance, like prisoners on death row.  But that awareness doesn't necessarily provide them with any special insight into the eternal. It can only instill an urgent need to discover if the phenomena of self-conscious existence continues in some unknown way after their execution.  Most condemned prisoners, if they ignored such things previously, develop a sudden interest in metaphysical truth and the cosmic significance of their behavior, particularly the behavior that earned them a death sentence from their peers. The uncertainty of life should prompt the same intensity within all of us.

An accidental brush with death also motivates men to that level of fervor - their experience seemingly providing them with the intuition that death is actually the first step in an infinitely long journey.  They re-evaluate their lives by making some hard decisions about what they believe and whether it provides a sufficient foundation for the bridge between here and eternity.  As for the rest of us, if we are not ready to cross that bridge today, we should immediately evaluate our beliefs and find out why.  The crossing may be just the type of thing that by its very nature, like a devastating earthquake or fire in the middle of the night, makes last minute preparations futile.

 Primarily because of their naturalist assumptions about reality, millions end up drawing the only logical conclusion their limited philosophy allows - that there is no link between eternity and present day moral responsibility - meaning however much time they have remaining on earth could be spent without any concern for the hereafter.  If those who claim the omniscience to endorse that idea are not spending their lives in gross self-indulgence, they are certainly wasting their time.  Their ability to respond in a self-sacrificing way to emotions like compassion, guilt and humility would be, if not an impediment to survival, at least an infringement upon their pursuit of happiness, which in the case of a pure naturalist can only be realized by surviving in comfort.  They would do well to effectively manipulate the inherent characteristics of their nature that society generally encourages them to suppress like lust, greed and savagery, because the ruthless employment of those attributes would provide far greater material and carnal indulgences.

        If plants and animals, the earth and its solar system, galaxies and the fundamental particles making up all the matter in the entire universe, living or dead, is really all there is and death is simply a return to dust and the end of consciousness forever, why practice virtue in any of its guises?  Why ask anyone else to?  A naturalist imposing any sort of moral imperative on himself or his fellow men is no less hypocritical than an adulterous minister preaching chastity.  Pure naturalists, if they are honest with themselves, should be deriding the pursuit of morality. Obeying the law of the land to avoid punishment is understandable but why feed a stranger anonymously or adopt an unwanted child?  Our answer is that we do these things because we intuitively suspect, or have been convinced by others, that our present life style affects our eternal future somehow, so to be on the safe side we cultivate virtues.  Hence when asked how we view our eternal fate, we confidently affirm our basic goodness, meaning we not only imagine a link between morality and eternity but we also conceive of a god, of one sort or another, to whom we are eternally accountable in some way.

      Throughout history human beings have primarily maintained theological ideas relative to their existence but beginning in the middle-ages with the enlightenment, although the naturalist view has been around since the beginning of recorded history, it began to gain momentum.  As we begin another millennium, naturalism is now staggeringly well represented, at least quantitatively.  Pure naturalists deny the idea of virtue categorically, saying, ‘eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die’. They believe the physical universe represents the sum total of reality. (Some naturalists believe conscious beings participate in some sort of universal life force or mind that is supposedly part of the natural order but pure naturalists do not believe in any sort of god, emergent or transcendent.)

     Atheists (pure naturalists) admit that nothing, from their perspective, can be labeled absolutely good or evil.  Human behavior, rather than having a moral value attached, would be viewed much in the same way a wolf pack views the behavior of one of its constituent members.  The terms good or bad would be mere words describing behavior deemed by the pack to be socially acceptable or unacceptable.  In other words, the "wolf pack" standard would prevail and the structure of ethics and law within the pack would be framed to promote the survival of the pack. Survival, and the success or failure of that pursuit by the pack, would be the only valid gauge of behavior, survival being good and the failure to survive being bad.  In a universe without a god, a scenario could easily be rationalized wherein the torture of children for information about the “pack’s” enemies would be considered good if the pack’s enemies were competing for the pack’s territory and food.  It would be good for the pack if it was losing a war of survival and the information helped turn the tide of battle.

But generally mankind senses, with that peculiar moral antennae known as a conscience, that torturing children is always wrong, even if it promotes our immediate survival.  And most professing atheists will agree, especially if their children are about to be tortured.  In fact, most professing atheists behave like the rest of mankind, seeking virtue and generally behaving as if they've been wronged when preyed upon, one indication of the inconsistency of their avowed belief system. The point is, men intuitively grasp the concept of intrinsic goodness and badness and evaluate their lives on those terms, even those who claim to be pure naturalists.

 On the other hand, those who believe in a god typically adopt a lifestyle designed to affirm their own personal goodness relative to the standard defined in their religion of choice. It may be important to know which perspective is correct.  In fact, it may be crucial and if it is, a personal journey of discovery, a quest for metaphysical truth is certainly in order.

At the outset of such a quest it is appropriate to ask oneself a fundamental question.  Has strict naturalism, which basically postulates that the universe and everything in it has a natural cause, or has the naturalist new age view that the universe and god are one in the same, been embraced simply because those views do not impede one’s life style?  After all, at the bottom of the ledger summing up any belief in the preeminence of the natural order lies the privilege of living within one’s own moral standard of choice.  In other words, being a naturalist allows one to make up his own rules. And that also applies to the “universe is god” belief system as there is certainly no difficulty in adhering to the standard of a god who can’t actually reveal itself in some way.

Would alternate presuppositions require a change?  If so, then one must be ready to change.  The baggage of self-serving assumptions cannot be carried into an honest search for truth.  On the other hand, certain assumptions are necessary.  For example, a desire to know the truth about one’s eternal fate assumes the existence of eternal life. But how can someone know if a presupposition is valid? 

In addition to being supported by evidence upon investigation, it must at least be reasonable and non-contradictory.  So if a presupposition conforms to the process of logic and reason and an alternate presupposition doesn’t, the reasonable one should prevail.

This means purely naturalist presuppositions must be viewed with skepticism.  Naturalists assume we are here strictly as the result of random natural forces, meaning the rational thought process elicited from brain cell networking is, through the deterministic process of cause and effect, a natural product of chaos and disorder, the initial condition of the planet.  Any conclusions drawn from a presupposition that attributes the origin of the very process of inference and deduction to its antithesis, the mindless chemical reactions of colliding matter, should be viewed with caution.

In his book, “Miracles”, C. S. Lewis offered an in-depth argument that exposed naturalist assumptions as suspect.  He showed that a pure naturalist must assume an unbroken chain of cause and effect to explain every event and points out that because any particular thought is an event, it must be strictly determined by prior thoughts. Naturalism, therefore, an epistemological state of mind regarding the truth of reality, is a thought or a thought process depending upon a prior chain of thoughts for its existence. But thoughts can be erroneous regarding truth, as witnessed by prejudicial thoughts, hallucinations and so forth. Truthful thoughts depend on the thinker having the mental latitude of employing the logical thought process of inference. He must be able to infer grounds for believing something to be true through an act of free will and a deterministic chain of sensory reactions to stimuli could never achieve a truthful belief except through accident or coincidence. Therefore the knowledge that strict determinism is correct is suspicious because it does not allow for the freedom of inferential thinking. So later in this book, as we entertain certain conclusions drawn from naturalist assumptions, we are doing so to give naturalists a fair shake of the dice, so to speak, because their basic premise seems to be contradictory. 

A prospector seeking nuggets of truth should not only be wary of suspect presuppositions but should also examine himself critically and purge any resistance to change that may exist in the form of apathy, pride or selfishness.  Those aspects of his nature will not fare well in confrontation with a body of truth that he can be sure is not determined by his personal preferences.  If what he discovers goes against his grain, he must accept it none-the-less.  He can’t legislate said discovery out of existence any more than he can ban the law of gravity because he would rather jump over the valley than walk through it.  He should be continuously antagonistic towards any state of mind resisting openness.  He must reckon with the possibility that he may discover a source of moral authority requiring accountability and if so, he must resolve not to shy away simply to avoid having his ego infringed upon.  Participating in a journey that concludes with the discovery of a purpose for existence may shake his comfort zone somewhat, especially if that purpose does not suit his immediate desires, but if he is ultimately confronted with unavoidable truth, there is a reward. It begins with freedom from ignorance.  To live in theological darkness wondering “why” and “what” is simply, in the parlance of a prisoner, “doing time”.  The means for a richer and more meaningful existence on earth will certainly follow if the truth about eternity can be discovered. 

Those of us who accept the challenge seek to break free from a prison of ignorance preventing any real confidence in the future.  We certainly do not want to become like convicts who serve long or numerous prison sentences and experience the tragic phenomenon of becoming “institutionalized”.  They spend so much time in an institution they become comfortable and secure behind bars, afraid of liberty, and if released on parole seek solace in being re-incarcerated.  Prison is where they left the “family” supporting their beliefs and attitudes and because freedom becomes an unwelcome challenge, they yearn for the status quo.  Many released convicts automatically return themselves to bondage, even at the risk of dying in jail.  We must avoid becoming institutionalized by a belief-system offering psychological comfort only. 

The most formidable barrier to achieving true mental liberation is, paradoxically, the one facet of our nature most demanding of it. It is the human ego, that part of our sub- consciousness dedicated to self.  The possession of an ego is one of our unique qualities as a species.  We have a self-image and our egos tend to serve and exalt that image.  Our egos reject the idea of submission.  If the truth seems in any way objectionable because it requires humility, then it has collided head-on with our ego.  In this book we will be asked, based upon the type of evidence accepted in a court of law, to honestly appraise our convictions and consider the possibility that we have been wrong.  Our egos will insist otherwise. 

This can be especially true for the cultural elite, those who appear to have all that life could possibly offer. They are understandably content with their status but the motivation is lacking to consider the notion that their conclusions about life's ultimate meaning may be wrong.  They may be convinced that their affluent earthly status represents an eternal stamp of approval on their metaphysical belief system. But that is not necessarily so and this fact remains. Death is not only unavoidable but is possibly the portal into another realm, so without being able to see through the opening, we can’t be sure that a secure and comfortable life here will extend beyond the threshold.

Apathy is another obstacle in a journey of exploration, usually one that prevents us from taking even the first step.  We procrastinate about discovering the truth because we are intellectually cozy where we are.  But failing to respond to the challenge that we may have been badly mistaken is a gamble.  We are wagering that our standard of behavior will correctly fulfill life’s real purpose and will be accepted as good on the scales of eternal justice.

As in any game of chance, there would seem to be varying levels of risk. The “eat, drink and be merry” crowd is apparently betting that an absolute moral standard of behavior is non-existent.  The real “high rollers” may vaguely accept the concept of right and wrong as truthful - in other words they nonchalantly recognize an absolute moral standard but think they can violate it indiscriminately and never suffer the consequences. At first glance it would seem that theists or deists, men who believe in a god, run the least of amount of risk if they make any effort at all to behave morally.

But gamblers rely on calculated guesses or instinct and neither is a perfectly reliable gauge of truth.  If they were, there would be no losers.  In the “games” of life, losers sometimes have a chance to recoup their losses but if philosophical gamblers trust their instincts or guesses about a code of behavior designed to secure a warm welcome in the hereafter and are wrong, there may not be another chance.

If our instincts are suspect, maybe we can trust the opinions of society. Not hardly! In fact the temptation to give up the search for truth rather than sort through the bewildering array of social-metaphysical systems is our next obstacle.  Society presents us with a myriad of views regarding what happens after death and why, or whether there is an after, and they are as divergent a bundle of “isms” as there are men to promote them.  We must simply grit our teeth and sort them out.

Our families have been molded into one of these “isms” out of cultural, economic or political expediency or necessity and we have probably become a product of the belief system to which we were primarily exposed.  A party line communist would no doubt deny the existence of a god just as those born in the middle east are probably Muslim and worship Allah.  Chances are a westerner was raised in a Christian, Jewish or agnostic home and will exhibit beliefs reflecting his roots. The poverty of third world nations nurtures a wide range of beliefs, or vice versa, ranging from Voodoo in Haiti to the Hindu cults of India.  Depending primarily on where one has been raised he may be Shintoist, Buddhist, Taoist and so on, ad infinitum.

Throughout history we have presented each other with a host of contradictory belief systems and then fought over who is right, more often than not to the death.  All of these systems can not be correct however. On a planet containing five billion plus people making up divergent societies containing a variety of contradictory beliefs about god, some of us have obviously been raised to believe a system that is false. 

          The basis of logic is the “law of non-contradiction”.  It says something can’t “be and not be” at the same time and in the same circumstances.  This means if someone emphatically says there is a boneless ham in the refrigerator and their spouse just as emphatically says otherwise, they have contradicted each other.  The law of non-contradiction says both of them can’t be correct at the same time.  Wisdom would dictate looking in the refrigerator, in other words seeking out which statement is true, before either relying on the ham for dinner or running to the market.

Does the particular social philosophy we embrace warranty that its answers on the subject of eternity are correct?  If so, who stands behind the guarantee?   If the coroner arrived today, would our belief, or that of the society we were raised in, secure us eternally?  It may be convenient to blindly trust in that notion but prudence would dictate looking in the refrigerator instead, after we confront one more obstacle - peer pressure.

Very few of us are willing to risk alienating friends and family in search of a truth which might disagree with what we were taught, especially when it was probably them who taught us. Doing so invites rejection and may place us in direct philosophical opposition to those we love or respect. It is common to be ostracized for voting for the wrong party, adopting a radically different life style or a host of other reasons.  Sometimes continual pressure is exerted to return to the old way of thinking and behaving.  But there is a good reason for being mentally prepared to go against the grain because what our family and friends taught us may have been grossly erroneous.  Death is the epitome of finality, at least here, but what happens after may be forever.  The fuse is burning and could be snuffed out in a moment.  That should be enough motivation to risk a few raised eyebrows.  To become victimized by peer pressure regarding one's eternal destiny is a little more serious than being talked into smoking pot or joining the family business.     

A good procedure for fulfilling the goal of discovering metaphysical truth is one we use frequently.  Everyone has participated in a search, whether it was for a missing piece of clothing, a lost child, a navigator lost at sea or just the right house.  The “process of elimination” is the common method utilized meaning until we find what we are looking for, we continue sorting through various possibilities.  When the object of our search is found, we stop because there is no reason to continue.  It is assumed that what we are looking for can be recognized when we stumble across it. It is no different in a search for truth.  Some false beliefs will be eliminated and the truth, if it can be found at all, should be recognizable upon discovery. 

Our search is motivated by the additional assumption that eternal truth is not just recognizable but can be known with full assurance. If that is not a fact, not one man in 6000 years of recorded history has ever known anything really meaningful and the planet has been populated from its inception with liars, fools and/or metaphysical ignoramuses, who all went to their graves in darkness.  That is a dismal prospect because we would have to be included, so for now we will consider it false.  

  We would rather assume someone has already found what we are looking for and has presented it for inspection, in the same way a specific home for sale is presented by a real estate broker.  Otherwise we are plunging into a jungle of “isms” as original explorers and, like gamblers, they have a marginal success rate.  We have lots of history behind us and, presumably, at some point during that history the ultimate revelation was made.  That revelation will stand apart and should pass any logical truth test we can devise.

   Caution should be exercised in selecting a guide, however, as the experience of being misled by a would-be “do-gooder” can be agonizing.  'It's just down the road - anyone can find it...',  is usually advice received just prior to becoming more lost than before. 

Sometimes men lead others astray unintentionally, but far worse are those who dupe others purposely in the pursuit of profit, power or some other selfish goal. But the correct path should be well lit with verifiable evidence and sound logic and the further we travel down that path the easier it will become to follow, a valid message being continually highlighted by one confirmation after another. 

For example, mankind has been led down numerous trails of scientific discovery in the search for truth.  Scientists have proposed scores of theories regarding the heavens, healing the human body, the structure of matter, and so on.  In Galileo's day it was said the sun revolved around the earth.  Prior generations believed the draining of contaminated blood promoted physical healing. Until recently the electron was thought to be a particle, the smallest in the universe. 

As the search for truth continued, more evidence surfaced highlighting legitimate avenues of scientific pursuit.  Trails that became dead ends because of erroneous theories were abandoned and backtracked if necessary.  Scientists discover truth by allowing the ever-increasing light of scientific investigation and evidence to guide them and the same results should be expected in our quest. 

 So here we are.  We know death is inevitable and admit that there may be something after.  It is possible the conduct of our lives may affect what happens after we step through the opening into eternity.  We have an undetermined but possibly short amount of time to find out.  It is probable that whatever is true regarding the unknown is discernible by a thorough and open-minded search.  The earthly reward for discovering the truth will be freedom from ignorance but we have many obstacles in our path.  We have confidence the correct path will become easier to follow as we continue.  The wrong way can only end in ignorance and we die with no assurance of our fate.  We must avoid being misled.  At the conclusion of our trek lies the truth about eternal life.

CHAPTER 2

THE FIRST STEP-PHILOSOPHY

Someone said the most difficult step in an arduous journey is the first one.  We have taken it but the second step places us in the thick of a philosophical jungle, blinded and lost.  As we brandish our machetes, hacking through the undergrowth, we catch glimpses of clearings and plunge ahead.  Each one offers an opportunity to rest our souls and nourish our spirits but we persevere, checking the map to be sure we are on the right path because we only have a limited supply of water (our life).  We can't set up a permanent camp (the status quo), as the water in these apparent resting places has been poisoned (false belief systems).  Someone hung a sign in one of the clearings.  It reads:

You are entering the oasis of – Reason & Logic

 Population- millions upon millions

 Stop here, your eternal needs will be met.

Hopefully our quest for truth will not end like the often told story of the youth who braved stormy seas, choking desert heat, raging rivers and ice covered mountains to reach the snowy peak in Tibet where the wise old sage resided.  He was reputed to be the ultimate source of truth.  After many months of wearying travel the young man finally sat before the ancient philosopher.  With beating heart he asked the question he had held locked in his mind for as far back as he could remember:  "What is the meaning of life?" 

The old man looked up slowly and gazed deeply into the eyes of his youthful inquisitor.  He raised his hand and gently scratched the back of his head and answered the admirer who sat before him in breathless anticipation.  "Your guess is as good as mine", he said.       

The road leading to truth is dotted with one philosophic billboard after another. How can we know which one advertises reality?  After a while we can begin to empathize with the old man on the mountain.

We must first understand that philosophy is simply an academic endeavor and that it interprets evidence and then postulates truth using various tools, such as logical inference. It is primarily concerned with discovering and analyzing the fundamental assumptions that govern our ways of understanding and acting in the world.  It may fail or succeed in its interpretation or perception, depending upon how well the philosopher works. Philosophy is an enterprise, like science, for discovering the truth.  Scientists put forth theories and laws describing what is considered to be true in the material realm but philosophers embrace the entire panorama of human thinking, giving us schools of thought on nature and other less objective spheres of influence such as metaphysics, ethics, economics and sociology.     

From the perspective of eternity, some philosophies are purely academic and neutral as far as having any profound effect on our lives, even though they may represent truth.  In the grand scheme of things, it will not matter much whether the Japanese corporate production philosophy was superior to the American version. We are not concerned with those, but instead with false belief systems, the acceptance of which may place us in eternal peril.

Let's say a young man traveling in Asia, but raised in Texas as a strict materialist, was persuaded by an Englishman in Bangkok to accept an ancient form of Greek hedonist philosophy practiced by the Cyreniacs, who believed that the “pleasure of the moment” is the only human good.  He then proceeds to live his life according to his newly adopted philosophy. During his travels he befriends a young girl in Nepal and seduces her. 

“Love em and leave em”, he says to himself the next morning as he extends his thumb in hopes of hitching a ride to another village.  The approaching vehicle stops and he is pleased.  Later that day, to no avail, he pleads for mercy as the girl’s father and her uncles drag the young man from the truck he thought was his temporary salvation and savagely beat him to death. Their philosophy of ethics considered the dishonoring of a maiden an offense of horrific proportions, punishable by death. 

The young Texan’s “mode of thinking” cost him his life. If we live according to a distinct philosophy of life, we had better be certain it meets our specific need. To illustrate this further, we can use an example from today’s world.

Consider socialism or capitalism.  They are both economic philosophies with doctrines and conclusions about how, and upon what basis, material wealth should be distributed.  Each system fulfills certain needs for certain individuals.  A poor man incapable of working because of a physical impairment would probably have his needs better met through socialism and an entrepreneur would fare more profitably in a capitalist society. Both men may have their financial needs met by one of these economic philosophies but it is certain neither man will have his eternal needs met. The usefulness of economic philosophy ends at the morgue.

In our search for truth it is the philosophies dealing with eternity we are concerned with but the dangers are the same. We do not want to choose a belief system that fails to meet our needs. And of course a false one would not only fail us eternally but may even imperil us.

Numerous philosophers have postulated the existence of a god and whether or not that god's existence should concern us. But even those who have been inducted into the philosophical “hall of fame” sometimes leave us with a big question mark in our minds.

Descartes is considered by many to be the father of modern philosophy.  He said,  "I think, therefore I exist."   That is certainly philosophical but so what?  Who needs Descartes to confirm their existence?  (In fairness to Descartes, he was considering the mind-body problem, an age-old philosophical debate about whether the mind is strictly deterministic or transcendent.)  We would be better off knowing why we exist and what is required during that existence.  Even more important, upon what evidence are the postulates founded if someone chooses to explain the why and the what?

Descartes also said, "The idea of a perfect being could not originate in the mind of an imperfect being, therefore God exists."  Now he seems to be getting somewhere but he may be insinuating that we are perfect and if so, he is obviously interpreting the evidence of human behavior incorrectly. Or he may be saying that the idea of a perfect being was placed in our minds by a perfect Creator. That makes more sense. Philosophy is making sense of the evidence. Because there is overwhelming evidence that we are not perfect, he must have meant the latter.

Bertrand Russell, another renowned philosopher said,  "After reflecting on a lifetime's pursuit of understanding life's enigmas, philosophy proved a washout to me." So sad! He either could not make sense of the evidence or he refused to accept what the evidence revealed. Descartes' conclusion that God exists was no less a washout if that was the extent of his discovery.  Knowing God exists but not knowing how to communicate with him is no better than not knowing if he exists. If a child drinks some bleach from under the sink, it will not help to simply know the Poison Control Center exists.  We must be able to communicate with it about how to save the child.  

   The Greek philosophers, considered by some to be the greatest mortal minds ever, also formulated postulates about God. Socrates said, "There can be no happiness in life greater than communion with God, the Creator of the universe.  Call Him truth, beauty or goodness, no one can explain Him, but man through reason can approach Him."  Plato said,  "The visible is only a shadow of the invisible, and communion with God is the highest state of the human soul." 

To them God was not personal and they talked about communing with God the same way some people today speak of communing with nature, which is just as realistic as 'speaking to a wall', and just as fruitless.  It is impossible to commune with something that can’t communicate in return. Commune carries with it the context of shared consciousness. Attempting to share consciousness with something impersonal will only stimulate the imagination. Those who claim to do so stretch the realm of semantics.

If Socrates and Plato thought they were communing with the unknowable god to whom they paid lip service, their philosophy is futile. Both of them said truth (God) can be approached through dialogue, argument and reasoning, which may be true, but to approach something is one thing - to embrace and communicate with it is another.  Without a response from the god they were attempting to understand, they could not be certain of anything.  Any conclusions drawn during their approach were pure speculation.

   Aristotle said,  "The beauty, order and harmony of the universe is an expression of the will of God.  The structure of the universe is the work of a great Intelligence.  Law reigns everywhere."   His statement regarding the “will of God” might lead us to suspect that he considered God personal in some way - but he didn’t.  To Aristotle, God was aloof.  His statement that law reigns everywhere, however, is absolutely true.  The universe is obviously governed by law, seemingly moral as well as natural, but Aristotle's statement is useless unless he further discloses how that law is administered, especially the moral variety.  We know there are laws in Singapore but if we travel there, we want to know specifically what constitutes a violation of that law, for our own protection.  The American teen-ager who spent 6 months in a Singapore prison and who received two bloody welts during a public flogging for spray painting graffiti on cars will never forget the importance of not only being aware of the existence of law, but of also knowing the consequences of violating that law.

It is this apparent existence of a universal moral code or law within the consciousness of man that has prompted many philosophers since the ancient Greeks to postulate the existence of a personal/transcendent God who will hold us responsible for adhering to that code. It is called theism. Other philosophers have postulated that God does not exist, atheism, and that our moral consciousness is the result of an evolved survival instinct. Another sub-set of metaphysical thinkers labeling themselves as new age philosophers, but who actually espouse an ancient belief system called pantheism, say the universe, and all that it contains, is divine by nature.  And then there are deists, who say God is transcendent but impersonal.  Last there is paganism, a primitive metaphysical philosophy deifying everything from the moon to trees and which still influences a vast portion of the global population.  These, then, are the types of philosophies that concern us. They are the ones whose premises claim to determine our eternal fate. Unfortunately, we can’t just relax and believe whatever “ism” is popular, because they contradict each other, which means they can’t all be true. So if theists say God is personal, deists say God is aloof, atheists say there is no god and pantheists say that everything is god, including us, when we reach the end of the road, some "_____ists" are in for a surprise, possibly unpleasant. 

So let's analyze some thinking propounded by these philosophies. To begin, consider this simple proverb.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is an ethical statement and originated from someone's philosophy of morals. This statement is normally understood to mean that if one's motives for "doing unto others" are unselfish, that the doing is good. By definition, all ethical statements make judgments about the goodness or badness of specific human behavior. If the ethic assumes that some actions are good, it further implies that some actions are bad.  Doing unto others to eliminate competition or to get something in return, in some ethical philosophies, would be considered bad. But good and bad, as intrinsic ethical universal values, would not even exist in a godless or atheistic universe, according to theistic philosophers. Here is one way they see it.

They start by observing mankind and note that universally he seems to have a "moral sense", that is a conscience. They also note that the universe generally seems to reflect harmony rather than chaos. They point to natural forces like gravity and electromagnetism, which seem to work perfectly together, counteracting and supporting each other in a way that allows atoms to unite into molecules, and so on. They examine the environment and note that all species of life function together in an ecosystem. They observe that individual life forms have the sensory awareness to locate and fulfill their needs and that the environment provides those needs. Our senses do not lie. They tell us when we are hungry and they aptly assist us in locating food - which is there. There are no life forms analogous to men with 20/20 vision groping in a world of dark caverns. In other words, if we can see, it is because we need to see and there is something to see. That is harmony. So theists say if mankind universally perceives good and evil, then good and evil must exist.

Further, mankind would not ultimately perceive behavior promoting its own survival as heinous, such as government regulated genocide as a means of population control, if it were not actually so. In a godless universe, one in which behavior would be judged solely by the criteria of survival, a species would never reach a point where it viewed conduct supporting its own continued existence to be ethically corrupt.  Even though the history of man has been riddled with civilizations that, under differing circumstances and geography, developed what we now consider to be degenerate customs, such as the mass ritual sacrifices practiced by the Aztecs, the ultimate verdict is always condemnation.  If the earth, and its only moral inhabitants, were not created and influenced by a moral god whose standard condemned such practices, history would not witness their universal censure. The fact that humanity, as a whole, now considers as evil certain practices and behavior patterns that would actually promote its very existence, means that there is a moral code whose standard transcends mere survival.  We sense down deep that it would be unthinkable for the United Nations to promote genocide, the World Health Organization to encourage isolating the sick and letting them die or the world religious leaders to encourage the daily sacrifice of infants.  But in a godless universe, one in which survival is all- important - why not?  If the universe reflects harmony but is godless, why would it manifest, through one of its member life forms, the anomaly of a universal code whose creed is rooted in the sanctity of life? The fact that such a code apparently exists harmonizes far better with a god-regulated universe.  The existence of a god makes more sense then, because the universe seems to be harmonious from whatever perspective it is observed.

That is an example of how philosophers work. The evidence presented is a universe “in sync” and the universal nature of man's moral sense, his conscience, and how it seems to be grounded in a respect for life that surpasses mere survival. It is one of many arguments for theism. In order to counter this particular argument, atheists would need to show that man does not have a universal conscience and/or that the universe does not reflect harmony. Their position is difficult because we all recognize the sweeping nature of man's deep rooted moral sensitivity and scientists will tell us the universe is very predictable and use terms like “finely tuned” to describe it.

Philosophers not only argue in favor of certain viewpoints but also attempt to discredit opposing viewpoints. Consider the following analysis and critique of what many theists consider to be flawed thinking within certain new age philosophical camps.

Pantheism, now cloaked as new age philosophy, is a more subtle approach than atheism to the idea that men are not accountable to a personal/moral God. New Age philosophy is a trend we have seen emerge in a major way in the western hemisphere since the so-called enlightenment of the sixties.  Adherents to this view render God as being superfluous by deifying man.  They believe that man has the potential to reach a “pinnacle of understanding”, that it is simply a matter of tapping a reservoir of inner goodness contained within.  This idea was borrowed from ancient religions of the Orient, primarily Hinduism.  The belief is that each person's inner goodness is part and parcel of a universal force.  The force supposedly exists in everything, including inorganic matter.  We are all capable of becoming as God, it is said, and through karma will achieve a divine state.  Through karma, evil is rooted out and punished over many lifetimes and this is eventually supposed to have a total cleansing effect on the immortal soul.  This philosophy admits to a transcendent moral standard but assumes its enforcement will occur through karma.

   Theists point out that to presume numerous lifetimes are available to “get it right” may be eternally risky.  The possibility of an immutable death sentence contained within the moral law to which an individual spiritually assents is being ignored.  

Suppose someone commits a murder and refuses to accept his guilty status, but insists on maintaining his innocence, believing justice will ultimately be served through karma in another life. He risks suffering the penalty of eternal execution at the end of this lifetime.  In fact, for all he knows, because he has no way of effectively communicating with the impersonal life force he calls god, eternal execution may be the penalty for failing to give pocket change to a beggar.  Furthermore, turning one self in to the authorities and expressing sorrow for a murder may not furnish any more karmic absolution than keeping the entire unsavory incident a secret to avoid condemnation by one’s peers.  How is one to know?

Humanism is a counterpart modern thought system that says truth is relative.  It says goodness can be achieved through our ability to reason and this capability enables us to determine right from wrong.  The correct determination is always based upon current circumstances.  Relativists do not accept an absolute moral standard.  The common denominator between the two new-age viewpoints is the rejection of a discernible, unwavering standard of morality. In other words, under both systems the individual is the ultimate source of the moral standard under which he chooses to live.   

New age pantheists accomplish this by adopting a system necessarily built upon by the opinions of ordinary men and postponing the moral accountability an absolute standard may demand at the end of this lifetime.  Relativists avoid moral liability by saying circumstances determine the moral code, effectively negating any accountability on the relativists part as they have assumed the role of judge.  The placement of human beings on the good side of the line dividing good and evil, at least potentially, is also intrinsic to relativist thought, making that notion common to both belief systems.  Any philosophic foundation built upon that crumbling stone is in jeopardy, however.  We will see why shortly.

   Relativists who consider individuals to be the ultimate arbiters between good and evil are trapped in a dilemma of their own creation.  They begin by saying there is no absolute moral standard.  In so doing they state absolutely that absolutes do not exist.  If they admit to one absolute moral law as a way out, they must then decide where it originated.  If they say it originated with man, they are admitting that any individual has the capacity to make an absolute moral determination.  They must be willing to accept five billion absolute versions of the truth, which is absolute nonsense.  It is a frustrating philosophy.

To concede the existence of one moral absolute is to concede that it was not established by a mere man. Then who or what could have established it? That question leaves relativists a little nervous and if it doesn’t, it should.

  When pressed, in order to avoid admitting to a moral absolute, relativists will insist that nothing is absolutely and universally wrong.  But what do they teach their children regarding genocide or incest?  What do they tell the remaining children when the baby of the family has been kidnapped and tortured for fun?

             When confronted with this, a relativist will say that society establishes what is considered right, for the “greater good”, thinking that delegating the determination of moral authority to society gets him off the hook.  But societies are governed by power, which is typically attained through toughness, wealth or shrewdness.  Those attributes do not give individual societies any greater inherent capacity than individuals to establish moral truth and a relativist will agree quickly when the greater good philosophy labels him and his family a candidate for ethnic cleansing, maybe because he’s a Jew, a Kurd or a Negro.

            If we live in a society where truth is considered relative, then every individual member of society and every individual society has the same potential capacity to determine if something is right.  All opinions not only count but are inherently valid, including Hitler’s and the Nazi society.  That means his and their experiment quite possibly was in the best interest of society, as it served the greater good. After all, Jews controlled the economy and were not interested in full employment for the German people, but rather their own interests, and the gas chambers certainly aided in the effort towards zero population growth.  That statement, abhorrent though it may be, is one example of the obvious evil that can result from any relative truth scenario allowed to run its course.

Regarding the new age belief that God is an impersonal force, that force is described as a “universal consciousness” of which we can avail ourselves through spiritual awareness techniques and symbols of one sort or another like meditation, channeling, pyramids, crystals and yoga. But again, what about Hitler and the Nazis?  Maybe the universal consciousness they tapped into in order to derive their standard of values for humanity was valid?  Who is divine enough to say otherwise?  We are in the same boat we were in with relativists.

Basic inner goodness is a concept both new-age thinkers and relativists readily embrace, the prior believing that goodness is inherent and we need to simply discover it, and the latter believing its existence can be tapped through our ability to reason.  But an honest self-appraisal will reveal that we are filled with lust, hostility, greed and jealousy.  We fall well short of possessing a basically good nature.  In fact, the idea that we are good, as a species, is ludicrous.  We are not even morally neutral.  If we were, the laws of probability demand that somewhere in history a civilization would have arisen not displaying evil in any form.  It has never happened.

The American Indians and the Pacific Islanders, for example, were people living in a natural paradise until they were colonized, but they practiced ritual cannibalism, male chauvinism and territorial aggression long before they suffered any influence from the outside.  They had laws punishing murder, theft and adultery, meaning those moral transgressions took place often enough to be legislated against.  Those kinds of laws are common to primitive tribes all over the world.

We need an absolute moral standard to keep us in line. We seduce our friends, kill each other and lie about taxes, portions of which must be set aside to build more prisons, equip armies with weapons of destruction and provide care for abused children.

And we must ask the most important questions of all.  Who is the authority regarding the truth of what these philosophies profess and what credentials are being offered granting that authority?  What evidence have those in authority exhibited supporting their contentions?

One form of theism, which we will examine later, claims to have such credentials and evidence. But prior to that we need to probe science as another means of revealing truth. As we do so we will see more and more logical arguments pointing to theism as a sound eternal philosophy.  But a sound philosophy is only like a good compass.  It can point in the right direction but it can’t carry us to our destination. G. B. Hardy, in his book Countdown, summed up the overall value of presenting a philosophy without supporting evidence. 

"The philosophers have been noble and artful in logic, ethics and aesthetics, but as they reach into the metaphysical to establish eternal values they become like us, with all the confidence and security of one who cannot meet his mortgage payment.  They become mere doodlers with words." 

Let's see if scientists can effectively take the baton from philosophers.

WHAT ABOUT SCIENCE?

CHAPTER 3

On the streets of a working class Los Angeles suburb one winter morning in the first year of the 21st century stood a dirty man in baggy, tattered clothes, leaning on a shopping cart.  He was very still and bent at the waist, head tilted forward, possibly dosing.  In the cart were bottles, bags, cups, chunks of metal and other things that fill the dumps of the world. It was cold and raining and he was soaked.  Maybe he wasn’t slumbering, as he appeared to be, but was staring at his possessions in despair, beyond caring, even about survival. Maybe he was sick or under the influence of alcohol or drugs.  He was obviously penniless and without a place to call home, like thousands of others who live on the streets and under bridges all over America, the very nation recognized around the world as a bright and shining light in the ongoing scientific edification and development of mankind. 

One might ask if America or science had failed this man.  Possibly a case could be made that America had, because it has a minimum responsibility to its citizens, but the question regarding science is valid only if science is expected to be his savior. In other words, the question is proper only if science is held responsible for the condition of mankind.  And, of course, it can’t be.  It’s just a method used to discover how the world works.  The responsibility for utilizing scientific discoveries, or any other body of knowledge, in a beneficial or detrimental way lies with men in general, whether they are scientists or accountants. If some architects found that cutting and overlapping shingles in a new geometric pattern did a better job of keeping out rain, their ingenuity would not make them responsible for people who became sick because their technologically antiquated roofs leaked.  But strangely, the query as to whether science has culpability for the social ills of our society seems appropriate. Why is that? It is because the scientific industry has set itself up as the arbiter of truth for planet earth. With placid acquiescence from those of us with other interests, scientists readily accepted the role of metaphysical spokesmen. We reverently accept and embrace our scientist’s description of reality, ironically, when its deep enigmas and mysteries are more evident than ever before. Scientists have been elevated to the level of secular priests, a position they seem to relish, and we trust them explicitly to expose and explain the secrets of our universe. But do they really deserve such status?

At first glance - sure - why not?  We must admit that science has taken us on a journey of discovery that is remarkable, indeed, and the amount of knowledge we have about the laws governing nature is astonishing. Scientific inquiry has exposed many basic natural facts and that information has been ingeniously utilized to make life easier and safer, at least for some. So because of its exalted status, and on the basis of some very good work in the past, maybe we should expect science to be suggesting fixes for the troublesome social issues which persistently plague us, like homelessness.

Scientists, however, simply because they are men, are every bit as fallible as mankind in general.  They suffer from professional pride and jealousy.  They react to peer pressure and have been known to sacrifice principles and integrity for fame or money. And they make mistakes. Therefore, as a simple matter of fact, scientists do not possess the innate privilege or the unblemished expertise to hold their brotherhood aloft as the supreme fountain of truth - but they do - and we have allowed it.  Unfortunately, they now use their position of epistemological preeminence to insist upon a metaphysical commitment to pure naturalism as the only proper paradigm for discovering facts and applying them. Simply put, they say everything must have a natural cause and any other proposition, intelligent design as a factor in the origin of life, for example, is beyond the realm of science and therefore ineligible as a truthful description of reality. 

It’s as if the nation’s forensic community, as it practiced its occupation by evaluating evidence regarding various causes of death, insisted that investigations into all human death be conducted with the underlying assumption that fatalities only occur because of accident, old age or sickness.  To postulate suicide or murder, that is, “death by design”, would be to invoke an unacceptable premise. Similarly, although the last decade has finally seen a growing voice of dissension within scientific ranks, as a matter of course, scientists ridicule the point of view that many of the complex structures found within the universe reflect intelligent design, like carbon based life forms, for instance. They do not even allow for such a notion within their investigative parameters. That type of close-mindedness is an abuse of the position of distinction and eminence society has naively conveyed upon scientists.  It has also allowed some slanted and limited interpretations of natural phenomena to become embedded in our culture, as we will see.

Scientists holding positions of widespread cultural influence, from Darwin to Sagan, have been reluctant to admit that their profession has restricted itself in its ability to compile knowledge by adopting a limited philosophical view. We would be better served if “science” stepped down a rung or two and allowed for some open minded thinking while disengaging itself from the abstract and speculative interpretations of data employed by some of its prominent members. We can’t blame scientists for the plight of street people but we should be able to rely on them for an honest pursuit of truth.  If scientists mandate that certain candidates for truth are unacceptable just because their personal naturalist presuppositions exclude them, we’re depending on the wrong people.

They must be willing to at least investigate an alternate premise if the evidence justifies it. The design inference is presently overwhelming in the fields of cosmology and biology but the scientific establishment refuses to consider it publicly. As a general scientific rule of thumb, naturalist hypotheses should always be considered first, but if evidence contradicting those ideas later becomes available, the ideas must be challenged. Regarding the origin of life, however, a case in point, the scientific establishment has resolutely rejected any suggestions that intelligent design be considered as an explanatory factor.  Scientists categorically refuse to even consider any such challenge to their naturalist commitment.  Not only for those of us who wait in toe-tapping anticipation for new scientific truth but for society at large, that is very bad.  It is bad because generally society and the institutions comprising it, like universities, governments and judicial systems, historically hold tenuously to archaic assumptions, scientifically motivated or otherwise, long after they have been repudiated because of new and updated data. The edifices of human society are cumbersome and transformation resistant by nature and by the time new information forces a reevaluation of old theories, a generation’s ideas have already been erroneously forged and tempered.  An example of this can be seen today in the field of genetics.

Within the last decade scientists have uncovered evidence rendering the guidelines societies have typically used to distinguish human races as archaic and inaccurate.  Here is an excerpt taken from a scientific article appearing in the Los Angeles times in April of 1995, reporting on current gene research.

"For centuries people have sorted each other by skin color. Now many scientists say that on a genetic level, race is meaningless.  Researchers acknowledge important hereditary differences between people but say race does not explain them.  Instead, human genetic variation is a measure of distance - how far people have migrated from their original African homeland, adapting to new conditions along the way."

The same article explained that genetic mapping shows the migratory process as having begun from a common human ancestor about 120,000 years ago.  Here is another description of similar research, also concluded recently, as reported in “Physical Anthropology, 6th edition”, a trade publication.

“…we reported on new comparative studies of the human, chimpanzee, gorilla, and orangutan Y chromosome. The reconstructed mutation rates suggested that all modern humans had a common male ancestor around 270,000 years ago. Two new studies propose new dates for a common male relative for all modern humans.

The first study estimates that a common ancestral human Y chromosome existed at around 188,000 years ago.1 This date is consistent with estimates for "Mitochondrial Eve." The second study places the data of a common ancestral human Y chromosome at a much more recent date of 49,000 to 37,000 years old.2 Although the dates given by these two studies for a common ancestor to all modern humans differ, the authors of both of the new "molecular Adam" studies and those of the “Mitochondrial Eve" studies see their work as evidence for the replacement model of the origins of anatomically modern Homo sapiens.”

The “replacement” model referred to in the above quote opposes the traditional model, which postulates that humans evolved separately from different locations beginning millions of years in the past. The traditional model fits more easily into standard naturalist dogma, which is why it was adopted, but the studies referred to above provide new information and overturn that model.  In a nutshell, social attitudes about race, as expressed through such widely divergent human institutions as governmental agencies and private clubs, have been shaped by conclusions that are now being proved erroneous. Those conclusions, of course, were drawn from strict naturalist assumptions regarding human origins and the origin of life itself.  This is what occurred. 

For the last 130 years the scientific establishment has forbade the consideration of any but a natural origin for modern man, a view implying that man’s appearance must have taken a very long time.  It must have taken a long time because man is so vastly superior (language ability, tool making ability and subjective reasoning ability) to his closest relative in the animal kingdom, apes and chimpanzees.   We know such abilities do not appear overnight from breeding cows, dogs, cats, corn and all other species of life.  It takes many, many generations to achieve a significant morphological change in any living thing.  Therefore, because all primates supposedly evolved from a common ancestor, millions of years of divergent evolution must have been necessary to explain the drastic differences we see in modern apes and modern men. 

A search for the various links between this common ancestor and modern man was begun.  Many hominid fossils from around the world were discovered.  Using scientific techniques, they were dated to be anywhere from 7 million years old to 100,000 years old and each new fossil was hailed as a link to our evolutionary past.  At first it appeared that the series of hominids represented by fossil finds supported the original assumption of a long, gradual evolutionary path from some ancient species of primate to modern man. It was a short leap to the conclusion that the fairly significant differences in appearance between various groups of modern humans resulted from diverging lines of human evolution beginning millions of years in the past when various hominid populations became geographically isolated. This assumption also made it easier to classify, as ancestral to modern man, the hominids of differing ages and types being found on different continents. Because naturalism was the only lens through which the appearance of modern man was allowed to be viewed, any idea other than the one described above was rejected.  (And especially the millenniums old theistic creed that all modern men are descendents of a single family whose arrival was influenced purposely.)

But scientists found themselves painted into a politically incorrect corner because the logical conclusion from their hierarchy of assumptions is that levels of evolutionary development will vary significantly within any species subjected to millions of years of mutation and adaptation in isolated groups.  Of course, because men are nothing more than primates to begin with, they are included.  The next obvious syllogistic step in this perilous chain of thought is that certain races, that is, groups of people distinctly different in physical appearance, are not as far along on the evolutionary scale as other races.  Because that is really the unavoidable conclusion of any series of premises allowing divergent and isolated evolution for mankind beginning millions of years ago, scientists avoid the topic of race like the plague, at least lately.  In the past they have been at the forefront in assuming humans can be sorted as to their level of development by physical appearance. The history of science is laden with studies on the relative intelligence of races and their proneness to specific behavioral patterns and those studies would not have been made if it were not assumed that profound differences would be discovered.

This left the door wide open for the suggestion that technological adaptation conveys greater value on a particular ethnic group than environmental adaptation because technological adaptation is somehow further along on the evolutionary scale. In other words, people who have produced steam engines, looms and great ships are more evolved than people who live in thatched huts.  People like Adolph Hitler stepped very boldly through this door and took the next obvious step. Hitler’s kind claim that some races deserve greater survival status than others and that inferior races should be eliminated or separated, for the betterment of the species. Now we see that the ghastly but inevitable conclusion drawn by racial supremacists was based upon a series of faulty assumptions.  All races have a recent and mutual gene pool. No human being is further along than any other, just differently adapted to contrasting environmental settings and we are all part of a family having a common ancestor.  Geneticists now believe, based upon many studies like the ones described above, that our common human ancestor lived between 50,000 to 250,000 years ago, not nearly enough time for any type of consequential differences between various groups of homo-sapiens to have emerged, according to the standard evolutionary way of thinking.

Of course scientists are not about to question their naturalist paradigm because of these studies.  They simply find a new naturalist explanation for the latest evidence.  It doesn’t matter that a new model becomes increasingly less credible when forced into the overall naturalist evolutionary scenario.  The important thing is that naturalism be sustained.

The replacement model for human evolution is an example of this type of thinking. Now it is postulated that an isolated tribal population of modern men suddenly expanded and migrated around the entire globe sometime less than 250,000 years ago and replaced all existing species of hominids inhabiting the planet at that time.  The field of anthropology is basically in a shambles as it attempts to find a credible, direct, gradual path of hominid fossils leading back to an ancient ape, and there is a general lack of agreement regarding which major model is correct, the replacement or multi-regional version. There is also major disagreement regarding the where and when of our ancestors origin. The following quotes taken from within scientific ranks represent the status of paleontology today.

"... if man evolved from an apelike creature he did so without leaving a trace of that evolution in the fossil record."

Lord Solly Zuckerman, MA, MD, DSc (Anatomy)

Prof. of anatomy

University of Birmingham,Chief scientific advisor

United Kingdom, Beyond the Ivory Tower

 Taplinger Publishing Company, 1970, p 64

"The entire hominid (a so-called 'ape-man' fossil) collection know today would barely cover a billiard table... Ever since Darwin... preconceptions have led evidence by the nose in the study of fossil man."

    John Reader

    Whatever Happened to Zinjanthropus?

   New Scientist, March 26, 1981, pp. 802-805

"The fossils that decorate our family tree are so scarce that there are still more scientists than specimens. The remarkable fact is that all the physical evidence we have for human evolution can still be placed, with room to spare, inside a single coffin."

"Modern apes, for instance, seem to have sprung out of nowhere. They have no yesterday, no fossil record. And the true origin of modern humans -- of upright, naked, tool-making, big-brained beings -- is, to be honest with ourselves, an equally mysterious matter."

    Dr.  Lyall Watson

    "The Water People"

    Science Digest, May 1982, p 44.

"The fossil record pertaining to man is still so sparsely known that those who insist on positive declarations can do nothing more than jump from one hazardous surmise to another and hope that the next dramatic discovery does not make them utter fools... As we have seen, there are numerous scientists and popularizers today who have the temerity to tell us that there is 'no doubt' how man originated. If only they had the evidence..."

    William R. Fix

    The Bone Peddlers (Macmillan, 1984), pp. 150

"A five million year old piece of bone that was thought to be a collarbone of a humanlike creature is actually part of a dolphin rib... The problem with a lot of anthropologists is that they want so much to find a hominid that any scrap of bone becomes a hominid bone."

    Dr. Tim White

    Evolutionary anthropologist

    University of California at Berkeley

    New Scientist, April 28, 1983, p. 199

"Echoing the criticism made of his father's Homo habilis skulls, he (Richard Leakey) added that Lucy's skull was so incomplete that most of it was 'imagination, made of plaster of paris,' thus making it impossible to draw any firm conclusion about what species she belonged to."

    Richard Leakey  (Son of Louis Leakey)

    Director of National Museums of Kenya, Africa

    The Weekend Australian, May 7-8, 1983, p. 3

        It is frightening to think that an academic discipline marred by overwhelming disagreement within its ranks has been instrumental in shaping our present and past attitudes on race.  We should be concerned.

The philosophy of racial inferiority or superiority received its spark from information provided by a scientific community whose commitment to naturalism was absolute. It was that original unwavering paradigm that led Darwinists to state with utter conviction that modern races appear as they do because they evolved along different branches of the same tree beginning eons ago. But the conclusions Darwin and his disciples arrived at were faulty. That mistake will continue to cause distress for millions before many segments of society reverse their thinking, if ever.  And if a false and dreadful mode of thinking affecting inter-human relationships on a global scale can develop from scientifically dogmatic and biased data evaluation, we can be sure the same thing can happen regarding how the world thinks about eternal life or God. 

For instance, how accurate have scientists been in assessing and explaining the origin of life itself, an area directly linked to our concept of a Creator?  As we evaluate that question, we will see that we had better be wary of the presuppositions scientists apply to their work, especially in the area of origins. 

Two broad-based scientific/philosophic camps now exist that cross all ethnic, economic, religious and political boundaries.  These camps have as the basis for their world-view totally opposite conclusions about life’s origin.  The naturalist camp has projected a theory on the progress and growth of species, neo-Darwinian evolution, back in time beyond the initial formation of life. Naturalists say that the origin of life on earth can be explained entirely by natural law and chance.  Supposedly, random forces operating on the basic constituents of the universe over billions of years ultimately produced relatively simple carbon based molecules. Those molecules then supposedly became more complex through a combination of mutation, natural selection and an elusive and mysterious self-organizing process. (It is elusive and mysterious because it presently exists only in the minds of its proponents.) From there they supposedly evolved into one-celled organisms.  According to Darwinism, all species of plant and animal life then descended from these primitive micro-organisms.  A vast amount of time is the ideal backdrop for these processes as naturalists attempt to explain how the earth and it's solar system became structured as a life support system, to begin with, and then later spawned and nurtured the development of multiple species.  There is disagreement within Darwinist circles regarding the rate at which certain specie groups developed and whether it proceeded at a steady rate or was punctuated with periodic intervals in which evolution was rapidly accelerated.  The common denominator for all naturalist theory is natural law operating randomly over long periods of time.  The social impact of this idea is the explosive growth and acceptance of a world-view rooted in rationalism and the not so subtle edification of man and the scientific enterprise as the only source of truth. 

   Sponsors of the alternate view say the universe and life are the result of a plan.  They say the origin of the universe was intentional and that extensive intelligence must have been necessary to bring it about because the design is so complex and intricate. The universe and our solar system supposedly were prepared to support life.  Life was designed and began with simple life forms that, over numerous eons, progressed through more complex varieties.  The design of life culminated with man.  Classes of organisms show similarities in their genetic code and building material through origination by a common designer but change from one class of organism to another, reptiles to birds for example, does not occur.*

*(With the specialization of biology engendered by the revolution in molecular biology, the classification of organisms has become highly specific.  The number of species identified is now in the multi-millions so naturalists find it easy to record the emergence of one species from another.  It sounds impressive but when we realize they are talking about the appearance of a new species of fruit fly, for example, from one of a great variety of other fruit-fly species, it fades the luster of the claim.)

The idea of a designer is the foundation for theism and deism, major world-views expressing belief in a supreme being who has dominion over us, and to whom we must account. Variations within these views primarily concern the level of accountability due the designer and whether or not he is still active in his creation. 

Attempts have been made to link the competing world-views of naturalism and super-naturalism with theistic evolution as the most popular and well known of these philosophic pairings. Interestingly though, some “believers” think of themselves as theistic evolutionists but they are probably deists. Both agree with Darwin that all species descended from an original simple life form and that humans descended from primitive apes, but they attribute the process to God. Theists believe it was necessary for God to intervene during the billions of years involved, possibly quite extensively and continuously, whereas deists think God gave the wheel a big spin and then stepped aside. Artificial life researchers have been able to provide a little insight into the difference by using computer models of “cellular automata”, that is, computer simulated artificial life forms, programmed to evolve. 

Environmental software programs designed to facilitate the evolution of various simple artificial life forms, cellular automata, into complex cellular automata are extremely more information rich than are the environmental software programs that simply support various complex artificial life forms designed from scratch. In other words, the level of intelligence necessary to achieve a complex life form, the “goal”, by fine-tuning the initial conditions of the environment and establishing the “natural laws” so as to avoid “tinkering” during the evolutionary process, is very high.  It is loaded with far more information than an environmental design simply capable of supporting complex organisms as they are introduced.  A true naturalist, therefore, will certainly not be appeased by a deist touting evolution and will reject any such ideas as readily as he rejects any other form of god inspired evolution.  A naturalist assumes that everything appeared naturally, the material necessary for an environment, the organization of the material into an actual environment, the material necessary for life, the first life forms, and so on.  He isn’t interested in whether or not one type of intelligent design hypothesis requires greater initial influence than another because he rejects intelligent causation as an explanation for our origin altogether. In any case, despite the hodgepodge of evolutionary philosophies on the menu, the question still before us is whether life appeared on its own, or was it planned and initiated supernaturally.  Simply put, does God really exist?

We will examine the concepts of naturalism and intelligent design, striving to eliminate that which is inconsistent in order to concentrate on what remains, and shed some light on mankind's genesis.  Our search is primarily motivated by the desire to know our destiny, but to know how the journey began certainly reinforces our ability to know how it ends. 

When communicated accurately, the theory of evolution deals specifically with the development of species after biogenesis.  But those who support the theory have promoted it as an all-inclusive scientific and philosophical paradigm by extrapolating it retroactively to include the development of the universe and the origin of life as well as the development of species, without any scientific justification for doing so. There is simply no way scientists can credibly apply the principals of natural selection to atoms and molecules that do not reproduce, but they do. They have gone far beyond harmlessly and innocently allowing their presumptions to influence their conclusions.  They have willfully excluded any but a natural explanation for the origin of life and knowingly force all data obtained from scientific observation or experimentation into the naturalist paradigm.  That is not how the scientific method is supposed to work.

In its simplest form the scientific method begins with observations. Experiments are then performed to confirm the observations. A theory is formulated which explains and conforms with data compiled from the observations and experiments.  There is much more to the method, such as “experimental consistency” parameters, “falsification and testability” criteria, and the “predictive ability” of a scientific theory but the first step described above is basic to all science.  The origin of life can never be observed, however, so some assumptions are necessary regarding how it could have happened.  Experiments can then be performed to confirm the assumptions, that is, to test their credibility.  In the process of testing, the experiment may falsify the assumption, all of which is a valid brand of scientific enquiry.  Regarding biogenesis, scientists assumed that inert matter will organize itself into complex biological molecules worthy of being considered alive, which is a working hypothesis, but then it needs to be tested. That is exactly what took place beginning in the 1950’s.

Some very interesting experiments designed to simulate a “pre-biotic soup” and an electrically-charged primitive atmosphere were conducted and some amino acids and other organic “building blocks’ were produced.  But at that point evolutionary scientists went seriously astray.

There was never any possibility that the scientists performing those experiments would deny the hypothesis of a natural origin of life and it was a foregone conclusion that the data produced would be interpreted to support said hypothesis. The original assumption was the conclusion all along and the experiments were a sideshow. The results have been pawned off on a gullible public for 40 years as proof of the evolutionary paradigm.  Today our children read in their textbooks that the origin of life by natural means has been confirmed by experiments when, in fact, the history of origin of life experiments is a record of dismal failure.  Nothing remotely close to a living organism has been created from experiments designed to simulate natural conditions on a pre-biotic earth.  The conclusion drawn from those experiments, that life originated on its own, is based upon nothing more than a desire by naturalists that naturalism be true, not the scientific method.  Here is a quote from “The Mystery of Life’s Origins”, a ground breaking book by Thaxton, Bradley and Olsen, Ph.D.’s in chemistry, material science and geochemistry respectively, that destroys the myth of bio-functional molecules appearing naturally in a “pre-biotic soup”.

“There is an impressive contrast between the considerable success in synthesizing amino acids and the consistent failure to synthesize protein and DNA. We believe the reason is the large difference in the magnitude of the configurational entropy work required. Amino acids are quite simple compared to protein, and one might reasonably expect to get some yield of amino acids, even where the chemical reactions that occur do so in a rather random fashion. The same approach will obviously be far less successful in reproducing complex protein and DNA molecules where the configurational entropy work term is a nontrivial portion of the whole. Coupling the energy flow through the system to do the chemical and thermal entropy work is much easier than doing the configurational entropy work. The uniform failure in literally thousands of experimental attempts to synthesize protein or DNA under even questionable pre-biotic conditions is a monument to the difficulty in achieving a high degree of information content, or specified complexity from the undirected flow of energy through a system.”

It all began when Darwin postulated that because certain species were similar in appearance, they had a common ancestor.  This was somewhat plausible, considering the level of scientific knowledge in the mid 1800’s, but since then that presumption has become a world-view out of control. We must now challenge, as grossly suspect, assumptions conceived by the philosophy of Darwinism regarding the origin of life. In doing so we will see that the theory is presently on shaky ground even explaining what it is intended to explain, the development of species from a common ancestor.

 We will look at scientific evidence regarding life's origin and development as well as the origin of the universe.  We will also draw conclusions, but we don't want presuppositions to muddy up our thinking.  So before we begin an examination of what scientists have so conveniently uncovered, we must admit that, at this moment, we believe something.

   As previously noted, what we believe has probably been influenced by our family or society.  What we now believe about eternity, therefore, is probably the direct result of a supposition about our origins that was implanted at home or in school.   Adherents to the philosophy of naturalism believe our arrival as self-conscious, reasoning, creative, intelligent moral beings is the result of inorganic matter spontaneously turning into living matter, and we are shrugged off as being the result of a chemical reaction.  If society in general accepts that idea, it will reflect compatible institutional strategies.  Because our world-views are somewhat shaped by those strategies, in one way or another, we don't want our submission to the principals behind them, even sub-consciously, to affect our interpretation of scientific evidence.

Let’s again use socialism and capitalism to illustrate a point.  Both economic strategies, in their purest form, depend upon naturalism to support their agenda, and they still hold sway over a vast portion of the earth's population. The eastern European nations, the former USSR and Asia have become more capitalistic and the western world and Europe have moved closer to socialism but both systems, and the principals underlying them, are alive and well. Consequently, we were probably raised to believe the basic doctrines of one or the other as foundationally true.

 Socialism promotes the state as the mediator of moral issues and the welfare of the populace takes precedent over the rights of the citizen.  This idea is a natural consequence of the belief in Darwinism, as human society is considered to be a higher state of evolutionary existence than an individual, family or clan.  On the other hand, capitalists adopted the tenet of Darwinism known as survival of the fittest.  So if we wholeheartedly concur with the dogmas of capitalism or socialism, we are flirting with Darwinism and risk being influenced in our overall thinking by the philosophy of gross naturalism and its slanted assumptions regarding the origin of life. Partly because the social sciences have been permeated by the doctrines of evolution, society at large has been subtly persuaded that naturalism, the backbone of evolution, is the only valid expression of truth.

In the 1800’s Charles Darwin’s revolutionary treatise described the progression of life, not its origin, although the naturalist philosophy resulting from that treatise now encompasses the origin of life as well. That philosophy has shaped society beyond measure by being presented as fact and is incorporated into the very fabric of our economic, educational and other social institutions.  “Secular Humanism” has become the state religion and we have witnessed the mindless acceptance of ungrounded naturalist presuppositions regarding life’s advent by millions of our kin who were baptized into this modern religion by an educational system bowing to the scientific community as priests. Following is a definition of humanism taken from “The American Humanist Association” web page.

“Humanism is a way of living, thinking, and acting that allows every individual to actualize his or her highest aspirations and successfully achieve a happy and fulfilling life. Humanists take responsibility for their own morals and their own lives, and for the lives of their communities and the world in which we live. Humanists emphasize reason and scientific inquiry, individual freedom and responsibility, human values and compassion, and the need for tolerance and cooperation. Humanists reject supernatural, authoritarian, and anti-democratic beliefs and doctrines.

Humanism is a rational philosophy informed by science, inspired by art, and motivated by compassion. Affirming the dignity of each human being, it supports the maximization of individual liberty and opportunity consonant with social and planetary responsibility. It advocates the extension of participatory democracy and the expansion of the open society, standing for human rights and social justice. Free of supernaturalism, it recognizes human beings as a part of nature and holds that values -- be they religious, ethical, social, or political -- have their source in human experience and culture. Humanism thus derives the goals of life from human need and interest rather than from theological or ideological abstractions, and asserts that humanity must take responsibility for its own destiny. • The American Humanist Association

Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethics based on human and other natural values in a spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. It is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality. • The International Humanist and Ethical Union

Humanism is a philosophy, world view, or life stance based on naturalism -- the conviction that the universe or nature is all that exists or is real. Humanism serves, for many humanists, some of the psychological and social functions of a religion, but without belief in deities, transcendental entities, miracles, life after death, and the supernatural. Humanists seek to understand the universe by using science and its methods of critical inquiry -- logical reasoning, empirical evidence, and skeptical evaluation of conjectures and conclusions -- to obtain reliable knowledge. Humanists affirm that humans have the freedom to give meaning, value, and purpose to their lives by their own independent thought, free inquiry, and responsible, creative activity. Humanists stand for the building of a more humane, just, compassionate, and democratic society using a pragmatic ethics based on human reason, experience, and reliable knowledge -- an ethics that judges the consequences of human actions by the well-being of all life on Earth.” • The Virtual Community of Humanists

With some classical music and a reading by Charlton Heston, we might have to swallow a lump in our throat. It seems to be a noble series of statements dramatizing altruistic goals and aims and these goals seem similar to those espoused by the great ethical religions of the world. If we weren’t exposed to them at church or at home, John Dewey, a philosopher and one of the staunchest humanists of our time, saw to it that we were exposed at school, because his humanist views had the greatest impact on our educational system of anyone in history.  We have been saturated with humanist jargon throughout our entire lives. Terms like “actualize his or her highest aspirations”, “individual freedom and responsibility”, “human rights and social justice”, “humane, just, compassionate, and democratic society”, are terms familiar to us all, especially at election time. But there is some very disturbing language in the humanist manifesto as well.  It is permeated with words rejecting even the possibility that a supernatural being may exist. Scientists, in particular, champion the humanist creed and apply severe peer pressure on anyone who would investigate the universe with an inquisitiveness open to the possibility of a designer. Any investigator presenting evidence that the “chance occurrence” was actually intentional will suffer ridicule and rejection. Many of us will never be told there is a healthy dissenting opinion from within scientific ranks.  Such is the stranglehold humanism holds on schools and the public media.

The dynamics of how loyalty to a social philosophy like humanism developed, and to a lesser degree economic philosophies like capitalism and socialism, because of support for Darwinism may be interesting and worthy of study, but that isn’t our purpose. We are attempting to discover metaphysical truth, so in order to expedite our search we will not waste time analyzing how we came to believe what we believe.  We will simply survey the evidence and see if the belief is justified, warily, knowing that scientists are not infallible, including Darwin and his modern day supporters. 

Scientists work at the occupation of science by trial and error, some capably, some in-capably.  As empirical data accumulates, existing theories are sometimes exposed as flawed. Since the theory of evolution was introduced, the accumulation of knowledge in all scientific arenas has accelerated on a logarithmic scale.  The quantity of information amassed by humanity since Darwin has increased by a factor of approximately ten thousand.  This includes the fields of geology, molecular biology, botany, genetics, paleontology, physics, cosmology and astronomy, all being disciplines that provide information casting light on what the theory purports as fact.  

But prior to examining some gems from this wealth of information, we should stop and look at ourselves, without “professional” help, to decide if the image harmonizes with the theory of evolution. We can see ourselves with an analytical subjectivity peculiar to our species.  It is a trait, a “sense” of some sort that causes us to occasionally seek things with names like “purpose”.  We seek more than just a place to lie down out of the cold, a meal or a mate. It is a sense with the capacity to detect things beyond the objective limits of a biology lab.  It enables us to find “goodness”, for example, something indefinable by the scientific method.  So what do we see at this stage of man’s history?

 We see ourselves described by scientists as little more than large mammals with gregarious behavioral patterns.  But we are far from satisfied at the over-simplified generalizations offered as explanations for the sudden appearance, according to current anthropological revelation, of qualities that truly define the human species.  These include the capacity to communicate through language, the propensity to acknowledge divinity through worship and the inclination to make moral judgments. We do not see Darwinists offering a detailed, comprehensive analysis of the genetic pathway taken as the transition was made from something resembling the chimp we see in a zoo to the professor we see in a lab.

We know prior to examining any scientific data that, according to the evolutionist, man's oldest ancestor was pond scum and that much later on the first man is purported to have appeared after some mutations altered his simian brain cell network sufficiently to formulate and understand complex language syntax. We are forced to accept the notion that he coincidentally acquired the vocal cords required for speech just in time to take advantage of his new intellectual abilities. 

We are not told that only very minor adaptations to the environment can be witnessed within species but that major improvements in the design of an organ, or coincidental improvements in the design of several interrelated organs or components of a biological system, have never been seen in nature or experimentally produced. 

We are asked to believe that life originated through random chemical reactions and that intelligent beings are the ultimate by-product of these chemical incidents. If that is so, then wherever and whenever this by-product appeared, it must have decided to worship a Creator and invent moral responsibility to that Creator because, although it was intelligent, it was too stupid to recognize itself for what it really was, a chemical by-product.  Does this mean that the reasoning process it uses today to conclude that it is too complex to have arisen by accident is actually faulty?  If so, then what we define as intelligence, the ability to make inferences rationally and draw upon them to reach conclusions, fails miserably, as most of us are seriously deluded regarding our origin.

The vast majority of human beings now living attribute their existence to a creator because they consider themselves to complex to have arrived other than as designed beings and history records that we have always believed we are here as the result of divine action. We think this way because, as fairly good designers ourselves, we intuitively know we can’t design something even remotely similar to ourselves, or even a single living cell for that matter.  So if we are really just chemical by-products, most of us are living in a delusional world and to describe us as simply confused would be flattery because the living out of a fantasy is more aptly labeled as psychotic. It would be more appropriate to say we are manifesting social insanity rather than simple confusion.

As individuals we have a choice, however. We can openly admit that intelligence and witlessness converge in us and that, as a species, we only have one oar in the water, shrugging our shoulders at the contradictory beliefs, behavior patterns and morals of our kind and agreeing with scientists, or we can trust our instincts and allow for the possibility that we are designed.  Either way, as further substantiation of our mass mental disintegration, consider this. 

We would almost certainly think of ourselves as god-like if we could create life in a laboratory, that is, if we could, through intelligence and ingenuity, stimulate a chemical reaction that would produce a living organism. (After all, through new age philosophy, many of our species already think of themselves as gods and we are not even close to producing life.)  How, then, can we ridicule as unenlightened the belief that a god is the initial creator of life without exposing ourselves as living out a double standard? Would we ridicule a life form we created because it worshipped us as its creator?  If it decided to investigate its origin, would we encourage it to presume that intelligence had no role?

 Consider a university doctor’s thesis on any complex subject within the realm of science. Naturalists believe the recipe for the creative intelligence behind such a project is to combine carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, phosphorous and sulfur and then throw in a few ice ages. It all supposedly started when primitive organisms popped out of a bog somewhere during an electrical storm.  The problem is, chemical reactions fizzle out.  They do not intrinsically seek and incorporate more ingredients to further the reaction and make not only the reaction but any resulting by-product more complex in a never ending cycle. To form just a primitive functional biological molecule takes an estimated 500 consecutive complicated chemical steps without a miss.

Throw 10 decks of cards in the air a billion times and not once will they land in 10 perfect hexagons, all face up and in numerical order.  If they do, try for two in a row.  That pattern and sequence is absurdly simple compared to the structure of a simple living cell.  Biology students are shown that a living cell is as complex as the City of Los Angeles, which it is. Could Los Angeles have appeared without intelligent design?  Well… Paris then.

How can we say that lightning, the sun’s radiation, geo-thermal vents, or any other natural source, provided the energy to spontaneously ignite a living cell via a chemical reaction?  We can't make it happen now.  All we can do is come up with some amino acids out of which some extremely sophisticated and intelligent entity might be able to create a life form. We unquestionably are not that entity and are very far removed from such a feat. How could a “chemical marsh incident” stimulate the massive amount of genetic information necessary to enable a cell to metabolize, reproduce and mature?  How could a genetic code so information rich a volume of encyclopedias could not contain it and scientists still have not completely deciphered it, appear by accident?  How could asexual cells spontaneously produce two genders at the same time with genetic reproductive compatibility?  The origin of sex is still a complete mystery to naturalists.

We mix food, waste and all sorts of organic matter in dumps and expose it to sunlight, rain and lightning.  Living cells are never produced from this stuff.  It keeps turning into dirt and has been for as long as we have been feeding ourselves.  We mix organic material in all sorts of exotic combinations millions of times a day in the packaged food industry.  Why do we never open a can of vegetable soup and find a new one-celled species spontaneously formed?  Dogs never give birth to foxes and humming birds never give birth to sparrows.  Why do we pretend that mice gave birth to bats, or vice versa?

Because of our existing beliefs, we have admitted the necessity of exercising diligence in order to remain objective.  But in light of our spontaneous, cursory and somewhat subjective examination of ourselves, and the world around us, it will be difficult.  The conclusions resulting from evolutionary theory do not make any sense. In fact, we must stifle a raucous guffaw.  Upon looking at ourselves without a scientist's help, we wonder if they are playing under a different set of rules - or with a full deck.

Murphy’s Law, with tongue in cheek, states that if something can go wrong, it will.  The naturalist seems to be saying that life originated because of some corollary to this law but the problem is, they are serious.  Naturalists want us to believe that inorganic matter will eventually organize itself into the complex machine-like structure known as a biological cell if we just wait around for a while. It doesn't take a scientist to understand that things don't become more efficient and organized when abandoned to the forces of nature. For proof of this, leave an aquarium or garden unattended for a year or so.

   Any of the observations made in the previous pages can be made by a layman who occasionally reads a newspaper or watches a documentary. But we certainly will not rely on just that. The verdict we reach will be based upon recent publications made by scientists, in which they soberly question the naturalist paradigm that has become so firmly embedded in our culture. We would not want to be accused of employing nothing more than common sense and every day information in trying to understand ourselves.

   Our frame of reference is the planet Earth - today.  We can only focus on our world as it presently exists.  We can’t go back in time and see how life was formed, so we must scrutinize our current environment.  Consider the following analogy.  Let's say we arrive on the scene of an automobile crash just after it occurred. There are two individuals present and they each give us their version, or theory, of what happened.  One says two cars collided head on while traveling through an intersection. (scenario #1)  The other disagrees, insisting one vehicle was parked and was rear-ended by the moving vehicle. (scenario #2)  We must decide which witness presented the more credible explanation, based upon our inspection of the scene.

Because both vehicles are clearly in the middle of the intersection, and neither has damage to the rear end, we conclude the present scene more closely reflects what we would expect had scenario #1 been correct. And more importantly, as we work towards our conclusion, we must avoid, at all costs, the philosophical presumption that all such impacts are accidental. Some may have been caused on purpose, perhaps for insurance fraud. They may have been caused by a designing mind.  We could never hope to know this unless an investigative paradigm including intentional collisions was allowed.

Although this is a gross oversimplification, our method will be the same.  Alternate models for man's origin will be presented and based upon what we see right now, conclusions will be drawn as to which model represents the more likely scenario.   

We looked briefly at how major world-views can be nurtured by philosophies regarding man's origin and how the naturalist world-view has become pervasive in our culture.  We expressed concern that scientists may have abused, unwittingly or otherwise, the powerful position of authority they have in our culture.  We looked at ourselves and wonder how anything so awesome and complex as human life could occur by accident?  We postulated a couple of models for man's beginning and now we will examine some evidence provided by the world of science and see which model that evidence supports.

Footnote on the incongruity of racial assumptions:

Scientists and scholars have for years doubted the claims of black African tribesmen who say they are Jewish.  In fact the tribesman were scoffed at.  But DNA evidence seems to corroborate what the Lemba tribe has claimed all along, that they are descended directly from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Recently, Kohen Madol Haplotype testing has been performed among the Lemba; these tests have proven the Lemba to have the highest concentration of the gene marker than any known halakhic Jewish group. This is reported in an article titled "Decoding the Priesthood" by Peter Hirshberg and Jane Logan, in Jerusalem Report (May 10, 1999 issue). According to this article, the Lemba have the same proportion of the gene as "Western" Jews and a remarkably high frequency among their Buba clan, a senior clan parallel to our Cohens.

CHAPTER 4

THE FOSSIL RECORD

   There are three general categories of data worthy of more than just a cursory analysis. They are:

1.  The fossil record.

2.  Design parameters for the universe and the solar system.

3.  Information theory as it relates to living matter.

    We will look at the fossil record first. Miners, builders and representatives from varying industries and scientific disciplines have been systematically excavating the earth's crust since the beginning of recorded history. Lots of old bones have been discovered.  Regardless of the initial reason for digging, whether for the construction of a bridge or a purposeful search for fossil remains, literally millions upon millions of carbon-based relics have been recovered and preserved, representing millions of species.

At the time Darwin proposed his theory, it was anticipated that remains of ancient life uncovered by future generations would validate his views.  As predicted, he was a fossil himself before a truly significant and representative sampling had been unearthed and examined but the ultimate vindication he and his followers had expected through future fossil discoveries never materialized.  Many scientists from the 1800's and the early 20th century suspected this would become the case but belief in Darwinian evolution became securely established within modern society anyway. An unsupported postulate that has never been corroborated by new finds is taught as gospel in schools around the world.

What exactly is that postulate?  As we have seen, evolution is a word that is subject to misuse. But, obviously, life evolves.  Babies evolve into mature adults.  Bacteria evolves, developing a greater ability to fight the attacks of antibiotics and certain species of moths change color as necessary, supposedly to avoid detection by birds, through a process of what might be called evolution.

Consider a Chihuahua and a St. Bernard.  If they existed in the wild, we would have to classify them as different species, according to the criteria that a species must at least consist of an interbreeding population.  We would then say they evolved from a common canine ancestor and we would be right.  It is not the term evolution we are questioning, as that is a valid expression and can be accurately used to describe certain phenomena within the biological realm. What we question is a theory that erroneously attempts to explain the origin and distribution of species by asserting that all species have a common ancestor. This would mean that some ancient “chordate”, for example, through a process of evolution, genetically fathered the various “Classes” of animals present today such as reptiles, mammals, fish and insects. (All life forms have been classified into a nested hierarchy of distinctive groups beginning with a Kingdom, such as the animal Kingdom, and then further classified into more specialized groups. We, for instance, are of the animal Kingdom, the chordate Phylum, the mammal Class, the primate Order, the hominid Family, the homo Genus and the sapiens Species.)

We are questioning the extrapolation of micro-evolution, a valid phenomena witnessed in the selective breeding of vegetables and dogs, for example, into the realm of macro-evolution, the notion that a mammal and a bird evolved from a reptile. That type of evolution has never been demonstrated.  In fact, selective breeding has shown us that species have limits of adaptability that can never be exceeded, no matter how many generations are subjected to artificial selection. We can breed very large dogs, like Great Danes, but we can’t continue ad-infinitum until we have a canine the size and shape of a horse with corresponding equine rather than canine characteristics.  According to Darwinism such a limit of adaptability, experimentally demonstrated by selective breeding, would not exist. The evolutionist Dr. Steven M. Stanley put it bluntly:

"The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition - "(Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, 1979, p.39).

Neo-Darwinists assume that phosphorous, sulfur, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen atoms combined through natural chemical processes to form replicating molecules. These molecules, in order to preserve and render more efficient their own existence, mutated into single-celled life forms.  Further mutation into increasingly complex biological structures ultimately gave rise to the tremendous variety of life we see today through the process of mutation and natural selection.

It is further assumed by neo-Darwinians that all plants, fungi, algae, fish, shellfish, insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals can trace their existence back to these replicating molecules.  But there are simply too many gaps and inconsistencies in a now complete fossil record to support that idea.  The gap between non-living matter and a living organism is virtually an impassable chasm, but we will explore the supposition of a natural origin for life in a later chapter. Here we will only consider inconsistencies and gaps in a record that has been suspiciously used to support the proposal that new and distinct sub-divisions of animals emerged from a common ancestor.

Although the macro-theory is now under intense scrutiny and is being attacked on a regular basis in books by scholars from everywhere within the scientific community, it prevailed relatively unchallenged, at least effectively, for over a century and a half. This atmosphere of unanimous acceptance, when viewed historically, seems to have been more of a social phenomena coinciding with a growing faith in human progress economically and technologically, rather than a scientific phenomena.  Hindsight, however, reveals that a highly unscientific practice prevailed as the theory was becoming entrenched. During that period glaring inconsistencies, like the complete absence of fossils representing a path of transition from a common ancestor to two or more distinct classes of organism, were simply overlooked.  The typological nature of existing biological classification systems was simply ignored in spite of the overwhelming empirical evidence for the validity of that type of classification.

Typological organization refers to the method biologists use to group life forms in their attempt to establish common frames of reference for communication and study purposes.  As high-lighted above with reference to ourselves, sub-groups are placed within larger groups and so on. Mammals, for example, are a sub-group within the larger sub-group of Chordates which are within an even larger group, Animals.  Each sub-group has unique distinguishing traits that are not shared by any other sub-group and are the basis upon which members of the group are placed into a particular classification. But evolutionists, without any real empirical evidence for doing so and primarily because they had already made up their minds that common descent was a fact, artificially categorized all biological groups as descendent from groups known to have existed earlier.  The way they presented this artificial reconstruction of biological ancestry made it seem plausible to the layman. 

Renderings were produced and are displayed in textbooks to this day, unchanged from the time they were produced in the 1800’s.  We have all seen them.  In one version are layers of the earth's crust with fossils of amoebae and other one-celled animals at the bottom.  Moving progressively upward, we encounter fish and shellfish, then amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, mammals, and in the top layer of strata are the remains of man.  Version #2 will show these same amoebae floating just under the surface of a pond with fish and other sea life, some of which are making their way out of the pond as their fins are gradually replaced with feet.  This scene progresses to hairy, stooped ape-men and culminates with modern man.

These detailed and colorful representations are intended to demonstrate that the progression of life resembles a tree. Evolutionists say the first living organism is represented by the base and as we move up the trunk through millions of years towards ever increasing complexity, we diverge onto more and more branches until we arrive at the end of many little branches, which represent millions of species. But the fossil record does not show that species can be traced gradually back down the branches to thousands of forks where an archetype of two or more groups, or a link between two groups, supposedly resides. The branches and the forks only represent hypothetical paths of descent.  They are hypothetical because what we actually see in the record are life forms appearing fully developed, clearly definable within one sub-group, and continuing in the record for their entire stay on earth, say 10 million years, and then going extinct without any notable change in morphology (physical characteristics). There is no apparent link between various groups and other groups preceding them in time; there is no link between those same groups and other groups appearing at the same time, or later, and there is no major change within the group itself over any extended period of time. 

This is not what we would expect if we were traveling along branches toward the trunk of an evolutionary tree.  From the buds representing various species at the tips of the tree branches, all the way down the converging branches, and especially at the forks, we would expect to find additional buds representing transitional life forms as higher forms descended from lower forms.  But even evolutionists display the branches as bare.  When their trees are drawn properly, they show the tips of branches as representative of the various species and the branches themselves as dotted lines because no extant life forms, or life forms represented by fossils, can be appropriately placed anywhere along the branch. The dotted lines, and the forks connecting them, only represent the path evolutionists assume various sub-groups took as they descended from a hypothetical archetype. Actually the fossil record displays, if organized properly, groups of animals and plants that stand alone because of their uniqueness, and if trees are going to be the symbol chosen for the purpose of displaying biological arrangement schemes diagrammatically, life would be better represented by a multi-variety orchard rather than a single tree.  Each tree in the orchard would represent a group of animals completely distinct from its neighbor and all of its branches (sub-groups) would be equally similar to other branches on its own tree but equally different from branches on other trees.

For example, all the members of the mammal group have unique features that are not found in any other group of organism. They include hair, mammary glands, sweat glands, a four-chambered heart, a large cerebral cortex with distinctive six layers of cells, a diaphragm and three highly specialized ear ossicles.  All mammals have these features, from the lowly shrew to humans.  But there is nothing in the fossil record which links mammals, via some species displaying a transitory version of some of these features, or even one of them, to any other group of vertebrate/chordate.  This raises a question for evolutionists. How did specific morphological characteristics develop gradually - characteristics describing and therefore allowing us to classify certain animals in distinct groups such as mammals - if there is no evidence in the fossil record of an animal from a different sub-group possessing similar morphological characteristics from which these features could have evolved?  More simply, why can we effectively and accurately group life forms utilizing principals of discontinuity if the progression of life has been continuous? 

The discontinuous nature of biological classification systems, since Aristotle prepared the first one 2500 years ago, is a pretty good indication that the empirical data utilized in the synthesis of these “taxonomy tables”, as they are called, reflects discontinuity.  This means there is ample justification for the arrangement of plants and animals in groupings that are clear and defined with no blurring between groups. In other words, groups of living things are arranged in orderly, hierarchical patterns because it is possible to do so. The fact that it is possible to do so does not harmonize at all with Darwinist theory, but instead creates problems.

Michael Denton, a micro-biologist, in his book “Evolution, a Theory in Crisis”, dealt comprehensively with the subject of typological classification systems and the myriad of inherent difficulties they create for Darwinism.  Here is a quote from that book.

“…one condition that must be met (if an orderly classification system based upon clearly defined groups is possible, and the previous chapter in Denton’s book clearly demonstrated that it is) is that the character traits once acquired during the course of evolution can never subsequently be lost or transformed in any radical sense and that the acquisition of new character traits must leave, therefore, previously acquired character traits essentially unchanged -  to presume, in other words, that evolution is a conservative process such that each phylogenetic lineage gains a succession of what are essentially immutable character traits.  Only if diagnostic character traits remain essentially immutable in all the members of the group they define is it possible to conceive of a hierarchic pattern emerging as the result of an evolutionary process...

…It is surely a matter of debate as to what extent the existence of invariant character traits is really compatible with the notion of evolution as a random radical process of change. (author’s emphasis) For if it is true, as the Darwinian model of evolution implies, that all the character traits of living things were gained in the first place as a result of a gradual random evolutionary process, then why should they have remained subsequently so fundamentally immune to that same process of change, especially considering that many diagnostic character traits are only of dubious adaptive significance?… 

…There is another stringent condition which must be satisfied if a hierarchic pattern is to result as the end product of an evolutionary process: no ancestral or transitional forms can be permitted to survive…. If transitional connecting species stationed on the main branches of the tree had survived and had therefore to be included in the classification scheme, the distinctness of the divisions would be blurred by intermediate or partially inclusive classes and what remained of the hierarchic pattern would be highly disordered.  But surely no purely random process of extinction would have eliminated so effectively all ancestral and transitional forms, all evidence of the trunk and branches of the supposed tree, and left all remaining groups: mammals, cats, flowering plants, birds, tortoises, vertebrates, molluscs, hymenoptera, fleas and so on, so isolated and related only in a strictly sisterly sense.  In the final analysis the hierarchic pattern is nothing like the straightforward witness for organic evolution that is commonly assumed.  There are facets of the hierarchy which do not flow naturally from any sort of random undirected evolutionary process.” (author’s emphasis)

The fossil record, rather than displaying gradual descent from a common ancestor, displays what is known as “stasis”. This means that various species appear suddenly in the fossil record, are easily classified into an already existing group, and change very little for their entire stay – whether that stay results in extinction or continues to the present time. We never find the fossil of a species seemingly in limbo between trees in the orchard.

And every fossil ever recovered or every member of any species currently alive represents, or is, a fully developed animal able to relate to its environment successfully with a fully integrated system of organs.  We do not find species with less than a fully optimal system of inter-related parts or a species struggling to cope with its environment like a “fish out of water”. The phenomena of stasis not only creates problems for, but indeed, contradicts evolutionary theory in its pure gradualist form. Here is a quote from the premier evolutionist of our time.

"The history of most fossil species includes two features inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear ... 2. Sudden Appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed'."

    Stephen Jay Gould, Prof of Geology and

    Paleontology, Harvard University

    Natural History, 86(5):13, 1977  

Primitive organisms highlight this contradiction as many are still with us today. Amoebae for example, physically primitive organisms, are contemporaries with man, meaning they haven’t changed in millions of years.  Darwinism postulates genetic mutation as the mechanism by which various specie designs are offered to the balance of the species for selection and ultimate survival.  Mutation being random, species with the greatest number of members should experience, as a whole, the greatest number of mutations.  Roaches, for example, because of their vast populace, should be offering up for “peer review” a greater number of “candidates” for winners in the game of survival than zebras, for example.  Hence we should see roaches evolving very quickly but in fact they have changed very little. They are a supreme example of stasis.

This generation grew up with evolutionary textbook renderings drawn with the assumption that life progressed gradually and continuously.  It was believed that Darwin’s theory of gradual descent would eventually be supported by evidence but instead, as the longed for fossil evidence remained hidden, hypothetical classification systems, that is evolutionary trees, were presented de facto, a circular form of thinking that is logically incompetent. The effect was to thwart any accurate reconstruction of the past by falsely preserving a classification system, the evolutionary tree, in conflict with the evidence.  Biological stasis, that is, the discontinuous nature of life in history, is more readily inferred by the body of fossil evidence and does not conflict with a design model for the development of species. But before we explore more, we should ask if considering stasis as evidence for possible design is going too far.  After all, not conflicting with an idea and evidence for that idea are two different things.  

As noted previously, discoveries are usually made through a process of elimination and we haven’t many models to sift through - in fact there are only two.  Naturalists propose that life originated and developed without a plan and that the complex of sophisticated living designs with which we share the earth are the result of molecular chemistry and random mutation.  Simply put, they say we can explain the awesome efficiency of a cheetah, human computational skills, consciousness, language and the employment of logic in the same way we explain the appearance of a snow drift,  salt deposits or a sand dune.  Theists, on the other hand, say life had to be the result of intelligent design.  Those are the two options and if a model supporting one is flawed dramatically and is inconsistent with the evidence, then the other must be considered.  That is why we can say incongruities in the fossil record heaping incredulity on Darwinism lend credence to a theory of intelligent design. 

And there are more incongruities.  For example, Darwinists have proposed that vestigial organs like tonsils are evidence for evolution. They say these organs, which they assume have no further use, are gradually being eliminated by natural selection. If this were true, we would also expect to see the opposite phenomena in the fossil record. We would expect to see evidence that the natural selection process had brought certain highly complex organs through intermediate stages wherein they were barely functional, or even non-functional.  We would expect to see mutation “designing” new useful organs as mutation “weeded out” old useless organs.  In other words, we should be finding a lot of organs that seem to be incompletely designed, but we don’t.

 A fully developed organ like the "melon" on a dolphin, for example, a highly complex organ using sound waves as a means of detecting prey, could not appear in one giant mutational step. The dolphin is able to generate sound in the form of clicks within its nasal sacs, which are situated behind the melon. The frequency of this click is higher than that of the sounds used for communication. The melon acts as a lens, which focuses the sound into a narrow beam that is projected in front of the animal. When the sound strikes an object, some of the energy of the sound-wave is reflected back towards the dolphin. It would appear that the panbone in the dolphin's lower jaw receives the echo and the fatty tissue behind it transmits the sound to the middle ear and thence to the brain. It has recently been suggested that the teeth of the dolphin and the mandibular nerve that runs through the jawbone may transmit additional information to the dolphin's brain. As soon as an echo is received, the dolphin generates another click. The time lapse between click and echo enables the dolphin to evaluate the distance between it and the object; the varying strength of the signal as it is received on the two sides of the dolphin's head enable it to evaluate direction. By continuously emitting clicks and receiving echoes in this way, the dolphin can track objects and home in on them.

The echolocation system of the dolphin is extremely sensitive and complex. Using only its acoustic senses, a bottlenose dolphin can discriminate between practically identical objects that differ by only ten per cent or less in volume or surface area. It can do this in a noisy environment, can whistle and echolocate at the same time and can echolocate on near and distant targets simultaneously - feats that leave human sonar experts gasping. 

We would expect to see evidence of organs at such a high level of sophistication gradually developing if Darwinism were true. The fossil record displays no such developing organs in the “design” phase.  And meanwhile scientists are discovering that many organs  that used to be considered vestigial are actually important to the function of the organism. So rather than providing evidence for evolution, these organs more probably highlight our limited understanding of the complexities of life.  And complex organs like the melon raise other questions. How could such an organ make it through what would have to be, because of its sophistication, a huge number of intermediate stages without jeopardizing the ability of the dolphin to hunt?

The impossibility of such an organ evolving gradually can be illustrated through the principal of irreducible complexity. This principal has been thoroughly explored in the “The Black Box”, a book by microbiologist Michael Behe.  It was written for the purpose of demonstrating the failure of Darwinism.  Behe investigates the miniscule world of living cells and cites numerous examples of cell functions that could not exist without any one of numerous interrelated parts.  These parts would all have had to suddenly appear at the same time in the same place and begin working harmoniously for the new cell to even begin functioning. The same principle applies to highly complex multi-functional organs and biological systems.

We can use a room in a building as an analogy.  A room in a building is like a cell in that it provides a place where production occurs.  In the case of a cell, enzymes are produced.  In a room, radios may be assembled. The cell needs a membrane to house and protect its biological infrastructure before it can function efficiently as a place where production occurs.  A room also needs an exterior protective membrane - walls, a floor and ceiling - and at least the minimum infrastructure of a lighting system, before it can also function efficiently as a place where production occurs. But the lighting system won’t work unless the switch on the wall is turned on and the bulb is screwed into the socket.  The socket can’t function unless it’s properly connected to the power source, protected from rain, and so forth. In order to work as a proper production room, or cell, the walls, ceiling, bulb, socket, wires and power source all had to appear at the same time and in the same place by sheer luck. To believe they did so coincidentally stretches one’s limits of faith. But to further believe that after the various materials for the room were gathered together, some strange principal of random self-assembly then came into play and produced a structurally robust framework and integrated within this framework a completely functional lighting system, would be delusion in the extreme.  If any one of the basic “building blocks” of a simple production room appeared out of place or incorrectly attached, the room would never take on “life”, that is, it would never emerge as a place where production could occur.  It would simply be a “dead” formation, like a pile of sand, brick and copper wire on a construction site.

The principal of irreducible complexity defines the minimum number of interrelated parts any system must have in order to function.  In the case of a lighting system, a necessary composite for a functioning production room, the minimum of a bulb, circuitry and power source are required and if any one of the parts is missing, the entire system is useless or dead.  The “evolving” room would never be used, that is, it would never “live”, because the power source would have run out of fuel or the insulation on the wires would have dried up and cracked while waiting on the bulb and its socket.  The wiring would have been discarded on the evolutionary trash-pile as unfit because, by itself, it was.   

The melon on a dolphin is another such organ or system.  In order for it to have evolved, several “somethings” must have undergone massive simultaneous mutations and appeared all at once working in conjunction as sending unit, receiving unit and imagery system, in other words functioning as an integrated whole in an organism ready and waiting for it.  But Darwinism predicts gradual changes over long periods of time.  How could a complicated apparatus such as this develop a little bit at a time unless it knew exactly where it was going?  Using our analogy, how would the power source know to connect to the electrical wires and not the telephone cable?  How would the wires know to connect the light fixture and switch rather than the screws holding the light fixture in place and the door-knob? And yet, because the family of living things exhibits thousands upon thousands of examples of highly complex integrated systems which would be useless without each one of a number of otherwise unrelated parts, from digestive, circulatory, respiratory, ambulatory and immune systems, to the tiniest enzyme producing cell, Darwinists propose that these systems appeared on a regular basis through mindless, undirected, gradual, random mutations which somehow conferred on their recipients a greater ability to reproduce.  These isolated, therefore useless, mutations supposedly became part of the genetic anatomy of the species and supposedly waited patiently for hundreds of generations in various members of the species. Then one day, by some extreme coincidence, all of the useless appendages of the entire genealogy of the species, miscellaneous bits of tissue, vessels, nerve endings, air sacs and cartilage, rather than disappearing through decay, cancer, impotency of the individual or just plain lack of use, finally, at long last, appeared in one individual and suddenly began operation as a brand new system - like a dolphin’s melon.

Just one instance of a complex organ, cell or system developing along the lines of such a scenario would be a miracle but Darwinists propose that such a scenario is the “nature of nature”.  If that is so, why do we never dissect an organism, or perform an autopsy, and discover what curiously seems to be the dormant part of some system or organ that just hasn’t quite had the finishing touches conferred upon it?  It is either that or these things appeared suddenly, and we know that doesn’t occur, at least naturally.

In spite of the intrinsic improbability of a series of component parts appearing through mutation coincidentally at the right time and place to begin working as a new complex organ, Darwinists present such a model as feasible.  They do so in vague terms, however, and evolutionary literature is lacking cohesive, qualitative and specific, detailed descriptions of the presumed evolutionary pathways from an organism without such an organ or system to the appearance of said organ or system in a future life-form.  This is the case with all of the truly complex systems that biologists typically marvel at such as the melon, the eye, the feathered wing and thousands of others. 

If evolutionists were writing about an outboard motor as a complex organ in a non-biological world of motor powered, water-borne transportation vehicles, we would read numerous articles legitimizing vague, hypothetical pathways, over millions of years, whereby primitive steam engines driving slow, cumbersome barges gradually mutated little by little into gasoline driven internal combustion engines and eventually into powerful outboard motors driving sleek, lightweight fiberglass hydro-planes.  It would be proposed that the intermediate stages of the “organism” would include a succession of sea-going vessels gradually increasing in speed and efficiency from barges to ocean liners, war-time vessels such as destroyers, cruisers and battleships, then coast guard cutters, P-T boats and tuna boats, then recreational yachts and finally the ultra-fast and maneuverable boats dotting the world’s waterways today powered by the concurrently evolving “organ” under discussion, the 125 horse power outboard motor.

The last in the proposed “evolutionary” series of “organisms” would have been “selected” over time because of its increased ability transport people through a variety of maritime environments ranging from back-water bayous, rivers and lakes to seas and oceans.  It would have survived because of its fitness as its rudimentary ancestor, the steamboat, slowly disappeared. The outboard motor, like the melon and the feathered wing, would simply have been one of the organs whose evolutionary development helped confer greater survival ability upon the organism.

The problem with these hypothetical re-constructions is that they are not specific.  And the reason is simple.  If Darwinists were required to support their suppositions with detailed and specific re-constructions of the step by step process that took place in the transition from a lizard with scales to a bird with feathers, for example, describing exactly how scaled feet evolved into feathered wings at the same time the reptilian respiratory system changed into the unique “avian” lung and the reptilian skeletal system became the hollow, lightweight, framework needed by birds, they would give up before they began. They would give up for the same reason a boat designer would roll his eyes in mirth if he were asked to take a wood-hulled, V-8 engine powered cabin cruiser and show how, in small, almost undetectable increments, the boat could be transformed into a fiberglass, outboard driven speed-boat.  If he were offered a million dollars for a credible evolutionary pathway, he would have to decline, excuse himself, and re-enter the world of reality.  The task is not possible. Although we can plausibly discuss the transition, conceptually, of boat designs over a period of time, and observe that they have become more complex and efficient, we can not construct a plausible path whereby the one became the other through miniscule steps, with each step an improvement in the overall design.  That is because it could not and did not happen that way.  Because of the differing components and the complexity difference of each design, each craft had to be individually designed and constructed.  A wooden hull, for example, can’t be a precursor to a fiberglass hull, because its molecular structure can’t be changed incrementally from wood to fiberglass. In the case of the design of living organisms and cells, the futility of constructing such gradual evolutionary pathways, in a specific and comprehensive fashion, is just as profound.  Michael Behe had this to say about the failure of evolutionists to document their claims.

“Molecular evolution is not based on scientific authority.  There is no publication in the scientific literature – in prestigious journals, specialty journals, or books – that describe how molecular evolution of any real, complex, biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred.” 

He went on to document research proving his claim that nothing has ever been written describing the molecular evolution of complex systems and that no experiments have been performed verifying the molecular evolution of complex systems.  He issued a challenge to the scientific community, of which he is a part, to explain why.  Michael Denton has issued the same sort of challenge to evolutionists regarding complex biological macro-systems, and specifically asked to see a plausible, incremental, step-by-step pathway reconstructed whereby a reptilian foot could turn into a feathered wing.

These challenges remain unanswered and the Darwinist of today simply claims that we do not have the deep understanding of geological time necessary to comprehend gradualism.  For a century the standard argument against those who inferred intelligent design from the evidence of biology was that the massive schisms between classes of organisms were bridged by time.

That refuge has also been blown away by what is now referred to as the biological big bang.  About 530 million years ago there was a huge increase in the number of different kinds of life forms. Nearly every major animal group that is alive today, and many that became extinct, appeared in what scientists call the “Cambrian Explosion." In the deepest strata layer containing fossils, the Cambrian layer, there is a mixture of life forms ranging from simple one-celled organisms to complex hard-shelled invertebrates.  In layers deeper than Cambrian only worm like burrows and fossils of very primitive organisms, like algae, are found.   This indicates that a tremendous variety of simple and complex life appeared suddenly and concurrently.

It was believed that the Cambrian explosion occurred over a period of about 25 million years, in traditional evolutionary terms, the blink of an eye. But evolution should take considerably longer than that to develop the great variety of new species exposed in the Cambrian layer. And recent new evidence makes the Darwinian time refuge even flimsier. American and Russian scientists have published a joint article in the journal, Science, that claims the Cambrian explosion took not 25 million years, but somewhere between 1 and 5 million years. These findings are one of the most startling biological discoveries of modern times and they absolutely destroy the concept of gradualism over time, a basic tenet of Darwinism.

If our planet's shell was layered gradually over time and life supposedly developed in the same way, gradually over time, how could an ensemble of complex life forms appear suddenly? What is interesting is that varying degrees of complexity are found in other layers of strata in many parts of the world.  If we look in specific locations, almost any combination of fossils, complex or simple, in any combination of strata, young or old, can be found. It is explained by “gradualists” that these anomalies were caused by major cataclysmic events that disturbed the earth’s geologic structure.  That is probably so but those events present a problem for the Darwinist.  Any major natural catastrophe, such as flooding that covered the states of Washington and Montana eons ago when ice dams apparently ruptured, spells trouble for the evolutionist. The event will wipe out any species geographically limited to the area where the incident occurs. The process of random genetic mutation needs far more time to develop new species than what the fossil record says passed before new species emerged after those catastrophes.

Scientists now believe a meteor hitting the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico wiped out dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The fossil record clearly indicates numerous mass extinctions of many species, most notable being the dinosaurs, and though it reveals that many new species arrived shortly thereafter, the mechanisms of evolution, random mutation and natural selection, do not explain how.  But Darwinists rely less upon the mechanism and more upon the “fact” of evolution and simply point to the hypothetical pathways on their trees, paths between extinct species and those appearing later, as “proof” of their case.  

However, in spite of their insistence that transitional species between distinct classification groups, like “classes”, must have existed, transitional fossil remains have never been found. We have no connecting links between marine vertebrates and reptiles, none connecting reptiles with birds and none linking reptiles and mammals.  We have millions of fossils, so it's reasonable to expect the routine discovery of transitional creatures if the theory were remotely correct.  In fact, if Darwin was right, the historical search for fossils would have uncovered vast quantities of transitional creatures.  The number of transitional creatures that have been proposed by evolutionists can literally be counted on one's fingers, meaning there is not a shred of evidence that a class of organism, like reptiles, ever mutated into another class of organism, like birds.

One of the fossils evolutionists display as transitional is the Archaeopteryx, a supposed link between reptiles and birds.  It has teeth and claws like a reptile and feathers and wings like a bird.  But there is a problem.  It's a fully developed animal with fully developed appendages, not vestiges of appendages or developing appendages.  A transitional creature would be the mutated form of an existing species.  They would both be found in the same layer of strata.  As one gave birth through mutation to the other, they would closely resemble each other. The Archaeopteryx is just an extinct species of bird with fully developed avian (bird) wings.  Here are a few quotes made by various scientists regarding gaps in the history of life.  The last one is telling.

"Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of 'seeing' evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists, the most notorious of which is the presence of 'gaps' in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them ..."

    David B.  Kitts, PhD (Zoology)

    Head Curator, Dept of Geology, Stoval Museum

    Evolution, vol. 28, Sep 1974, p 467

"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution."  

    Stephen Jay Gould,  Prof of Geology and

    Paleontology, Harvard University

    "Is a new general theory of evolution emerging?"

    Paleobiology, vol. 6, January 1980, p. 127

"We do not have any available fossil group which can categorically be claimed to be the ancestor of any other group. We do not have in the fossil record any specific point of divergence of one life form for another, and generally each of the major life groups has retained its fundamental structural and physiological characteristics throughout its life history and has been conservative in habitat."

    G. S. Carter, Professor & author

    Fellow of Corpus Christi College

    Cambridge, England

    Structure and Habit in Vertebrate Evolution

    University of Washington Press, 1967

"But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?" (p.206)

"Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory (of evolution)." (p. 292)

    Charles Robert Darwin

    The Origin of Species, 1st edition reprint

    Avenel Books, 1979

The most famous search for a missing link, the one we are most familiar with, involves the on-going pursuit of a link between man and the apes.  It has been proposed that one of the links is an extinct species of primate named Australopithecus that roamed Africa from 3.5 to 2 million years ago.  Most of us know this species by the name "Lucy".  This species had the brain capacity of a modern ape or chimp.  It had long ape-like arms and heavily muscled shoulders like an ape.  It did not use tools. Based upon the configuration of a knee-joint and some footprints made by this species in wet volcanic mud, the following far-reaching evolutionary deductions were made.  It walked upright, therefore it's arms were freed to begin fashioning hunting tools.  This spurred the development of its reasoning powers, thus building it's cranial capacity and ability to think and communicate. All this from being able to walk upright!  It is supposedly the ancestor of Homo-erectus, a now-extinct species of hominid which walked erect and made flint tools and lived prior to Homo-sapiens.  

Here is one problem among many.  In Scientific American, October, 1994, appears an article summarizing the findings of a Dutch anatomist, Fred Spoor, who developed a sophisticated technique enabling him to x-ray the inner ear of Homo-Australopithecus through the heavily boned protective area of the skull.  His results, published in the prestigious British science magazine "Nature", indicate that Lucy could not have been bi-pedal (upright walking).  Because the assumption of her bi-pedal locomotive technique gave rise to all the other speculation about her evolution into a tool-making, reasoning hominid, these ideas must be trashed.  She is nothing more than an extinct species of primate and paleo-anthropologists are back to square one. There is a tremendous gap in the fossil record between primates and their mammalian cousins, upright walking hominids with the ability to make and use tools.  The fact that this type of research by Spoor and others is never mentioned in popular layman-targeted mediums like National Geographic Magazine and  documentary orientated TV programming such as NOVA, for example, is a reflection of the apathy and resistance to any challenge to macro-evolution within our society.

     Another major problem for Darwinists in their attempt to link ancient hominid fossils and modern man is referred to as “Haldane’s dilemma”. Forty years ago the evolutionary geneticist J.B.S. Haldane discovered this problem that now bears his name. It has not been solved satisfactorily and evolutionists typically obscure it. The problem, and its so-called solutions, are almost always absent from books on evolution, even evolutionary genetics textbooks, and few advanced biology students are aware of the seriousness of the problem. Haldane discovered that higher vertebrates such as mammals (organisms with low reproduction) could not have plausibly evolved within the available time. In particular, he discovered that a rapid turnover (or substitution) of mutations into a population incurs a “cost” in time that must be paid as the species reproduces. Species with low reproduction rates, like primates for example, can not plausibly pay this cost fast enough to drive evolution at the high rates claimed by evolutionists, especially punctuated equilibrium evolutionists.

     In his recent book refuting many aspects of Darwinism, The Biotic Message, Walter Remine, a geneticist and researcher, has two chapters and an appendix detailing Haldane's Dilemma and rebuffing the many attempts to solve it. He has reopened a can of worms evolutionists would like to keep closed.  Here is a brief description of the problem by Remine.

“Imagine ten million years ago -- (that is two to three times the age of the alleged chimp-human split) -- that's enough time for 500,000 generations of our presumed ancestors. Imagine a population of 100,000 of those organisms quietly evolving their way to humanity. For easy visualization, I'll have you imagine a scenario that favors rapid evolution.  Imagine evolution happens like this.  Every generation, one male and one female receive a beneficial mutation so advantageous that the 999,998 others die off immediately, and the population is then replenished in one generation by the surviving couple. Imagine evolution happens like this, generation after generation, for ten million years.  How many beneficial mutations could be substituted at this crashing pace?  One per generation -- or 500,000 nucleotides.  That's 0.014 percent of the genome. (That is a minuscule fraction of the 2 to 3 percent that separates us from chimpanzees). That's not a difficult calculation, yet it immediately reveals a problem. Is 500,000 beneficial nucleotides enough to explain the origin of humanity from some chimp-like ancestor? The problem gets worse.  The scenario favored evolution in wildly unrealistic ways.  I could name several, but one is simple:  There is no possible way for a female primate to produce 100,000 offspring each generation!!! 

Here's the lesson: Evolution requires the substitution of old prevalent traits with new rare traits.  But the substitution rate is limited by the species' reproductive capacity.  If an evolutionary scenario requires an implausibly high level of reproductive capacity, then the scenario is not plausible.  Haldane saw this problem and posed it within the framework of mathematical population genetics...  …He calculated that the higher vertebrates (such as mammals) have only enough reproductive capacity to sustain an average rate of 300 generations per substitution.  The literature seldom states the figure, but when it does, that is the only one offered. Haldane's Dilemma is glaringly plain.  Take the population we discussed above.  In ten million years, it could substitute 1,667 beneficial nucleotides.  That is less than 50 millionths of one percent of the genome. (And that is before we make deductions.  For example, Gould (Jay Gould, the Harvard evolutionist)  says species typically spend at least 90% of their time in stasis, where little or no evolution occurs.  There are other deductions we'll discuss later, but together they reduce the figure far below 1,667.)  Is that enough to explain the origin of upright posture, speech, language, and appreciation of music, to name just a few of our uniquely human capacities?  Is 1,667 beneficial nucleotides enough to make a sapien out of a simian?  Haldane's Dilemma is fundamentally simple.  Anyone can understand it. Anyone with a pencil can calculate it and see.  Computer simulations clearly demonstrate the problem.  So evolutionists cannot claim they were unaware. Nonetheless they were cryptic, effectively concealing the problem for nearly forty years.  Few people have heard of it, and evolutionary geneticists offer no unified coherent solution.  Haldane's Dilemma is a major scandal. What Haldane is saying, in effect, is that starting from any ape-like or “proto human” creature ten million years ago and using assumptions which favor evolutionary change in the direction of modern man in more ways than the evolutionists' fairy godmother could imagine, by 1995 you'd be lucky to get to an ape with a slightly shorter tail. The fact that anybody could try to claim, as they apparently do, that Haldane's assumptions do not favor evolution enough, is an indication of the extent to which these people (evolutionists) have succeeded in brainwashing themselves. Evolutionists continue to ignore the problem.”

Rest assured that a recent study summarized by the magazine, Science, page 268, 1995 will also be quietly ignored by evolutionists in their communication with the lay press. It was mentioned in Chapter 3 in a different context. The study was done by evolutionary biologists Robert Dorit, Hiroshi Akashi and Walter Gilbert of Yale, the University of Chicago and Harvard, respectively. They studied the genetic differences of the Y chromosome in 38 men from different ethnic backgrounds around the world and reached a surprising conclusion - for them.  There were no nucleotide differences at all in the recombinant part of the Y chromosome of all 38.  Because of this, their conclusion was that all male humans presently living can be traced back to a single individual living no more than 270,000 years ago. (A single ancestor for women was concluded from a similar study on genetic variation done several years ago.)  The implications of these studies are obvious. Our genomes have changed hardly at all over a fairly long period of time and certainly not fast enough to explain the vast differences between us and the primitive hominids from which we supposedly evolved in just a few million years. 

Further evidence suggesting that there is no link between men and primates comes from the study of language in apes and humans. Although apes and chimps have been taught simple sign language, the conveyance of complex subjective imagery and concepts made possible by all human language is forever removed from acquisition by primates. Noam Chomsky, considered to be the world's premier linguist, has virtually proven that human beings must be "pre-wired" genetically in order to handle the subjective reasoning demands placed upon them by human languages. It is inconceivable that a mutation or a series of mutations could accomplish this as the requisite vocal cords and the ability to compute appeared simultaneously, as a coincidence.  Archaeology and anthropology indicate that the appearance of human language was sudden, so a confluence of such major mutations would have had to be the case.  But even Darwinists admit this type of mutation does not occur.  Dr. David Pilbeam, an anthropologist at Harvard, said this about the current state of affairs regarding views on human evolution in reference to Richard Leakey's book ORIGINS in American Scientist (66:379 May June 1978)

"My reservations concern not so much this book but the whole subject and methodology of paleo-anthropology. But introductory books - or book reviews - are hardly the place to argue that perhaps generations of students of human evolution, including myself, have been flailing about in the dark: that our data base is too sparse, too slippery, for it to be able to mold our theories. Rather the theories are more statements about us and ideology than about the past. Paleo-anthropology reveals more about how humans view themselves than it does about how humans came about. But that is heresy."

We have a fossil record providing evidence that the history of life reflects stasis.  We also have hundreds of thousands of species of living plants and animals we can observe, under laboratory or natural conditions, utilizing twentieth century technology.  Modern experimental techniques attest that not one basic tenet of macro-evolution can be demonstrated.  We see minor mutations occurring within species but genetic barriers between broader classifications of life such as classes, orders and families appear to be unbridgeable, even over long periods of time, as evidenced by Haldane’s dilemma.

If pressed, an evolutionist will cite research supporting the idea that “speciation”, the appearance of new species through Darwinian evolution, is occurring before our eyes.  They cite an example like the evolution of maize from Teosinite, a form of wild grass. But the temptation is to say - so what!  If the genetic diversity within species can produce a Pekinese and a pit-bull or a tiger and an alley-cat from the same ancestor, corn from grain-like grass is certainly not spectacular and is nothing more than genetic diversity, micro-evolution.  It seems evolutionists simply expand the definition of species with greater specialization and then claim that genetic diversity is evidence for macro-evolution.  But they still fail to offer any kind of evidence that lizards can become finches. Finches can adapt and become different “species” of finches with different beaks and coloring, as Darwin demonstrated, but frogs can't become finches and flying foxes can't become ducks, or vice-versa.  The following quote sums it up.

"The salient fact is this: if by evolution we mean macroevolution (as we henceforth shall), then it can be said with the utmost rigor that the doctrine is totally bereft of scientific sanction. Now, to be sure, given the multitude of extravagant claims about evolution promulgated by evolutionists with an air of scientific infallibility, this may indeed sound strange. And yet the fact remains that there exists to this day not a shred of bona fide scientific evidence in support of the thesis that macro-evolutionary transformations have ever occurred."

    Wolfgang Smith, Ph.D Mathematics , MS Physics

    Teilardism and the New Religion

    Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1988, p. 5

Relics of ancient life do testify that life on earth generally began with simpler forms and with the passage of time more complex species appeared. (The Cambrian explosion signaled the appearance of all the major design prototypes, however).  But there are too many inconsistencies in the pattern to use it as evidence for Darwinism.  As it was initially being discovered and catalogued, the fossil record was held aloft in triumph as such evidence. Today it is not only a source of consternation for those attempting to use it as a defense of the theory, increasing knowledge of the complexity of biological systems, down to the cell level, is making the fossil record irrelevant. Then why are we clinging to such a theory?

   Probably because it has become, as suggested by Dr. Pilbeam, a philosophy of life – a picture of how we view ourselves.  Could it be that belief in evolution nullifies the obligation to consider our responsibilities further?  After witnessing the lemming like intellectual suicide being committed by Darwinists, such a deeper motive becomes suspect.  But to eliminate any doubt about the terminal status of Darwinism, the myth needs a bit more examination, and its coffin, ready and waiting, is still missing some nails.  Here are two quotes from scientists who agree.

"The twentieth century would be incomprehensible without the Darwinian revolution. The social and political currents which have swept the world in the past eighty years would have been impossible without its intellectual sanction. ... The influence of the evolutionary theory on fields far removed from biology is one of the most spectacular examples in history of how a highly speculative idea for which there is no really hard scientific evidence can come to fashion the thinking of a whole society and dominate the outlook of an age. Considering its historic significance and the social and moral transformation it caused in western thought, one might have hoped that Darwinian theory ... a theory of such cardinal importance, a theory that literally changed the world, would have been something more than metaphysics, something more than a myth."

    Michael Denton, Molecular Biologist

    Evolution: A Theory in Crisis

    Adler and Adler, 1985, p. 358

"Evolutionism is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless."

    Prof. Louis Bounoure, Former:

    President Biological Society of Strassbourg,

    Director of the Strassbourg Zoological Museum,

    Director of Research at the

    French National Centre of Scientific Research

    The Advocate, March 8, 1984, p. 17

We will review some thinking put forth by certain theists who have followed Darwin's example and submitted a premise.  It will fit with what can be inferred from the fossil record and micro-biology, not what future discoveries are expected to uncover.  The premise is being put forth at a time when there is far greater empirical data available than in Darwin’s time. Because of advanced technology, we have a greater ability to comprehensively investigate various propositions than did Darwin and his peers.

   The proposition is that life was introduced to this planet through intelligent design.  It is the only alternative to evolution ever offered and the list of scientists who support that alternative is significant.  As an idea, therefore, it is profoundly credible, regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with the various opinions that exist concerning the nature of the designer.

   But we should be careful that adherents to the theory of evolution who are refusing to recognize the growing evidence against their position are not the ones defining the design model.  They are biased and can’t be trusted to describe a model directly contradicting what they profess.  As proof of this, they have made futile attempts to modify their own model and force it to agree with the evidence.

    After seeing the rapid expansion of data repudiating the original theory, Niles Eldridge and Jay Gould proposed a modified version of natural evolution called punctuated equilibrium.   This is a patch job considered necessary in the light of emerging evidence for the eradication of large numbers of species followed by the swift emergence of new ones.  It says the development of species was comprised of relatively static periods “punctuated” with intervals of rapid mutation and advancement.  They cite phenomena like "selection pressure" and "environmental niches", insinuating that geographic isolation coupled with a change in environment will stimulate a rapid mutation cycle beginning with one class of organism and ending with another. If that is the case, we are currently falsifying the theory unwittingly because mankind is placing tremendous pressure on all species to adapt or go extinct. We do not see any move in the direction of rapid mutation but rather witness an alarming tendency towards extinction by any species having his environment tampered with. Punctuated equilibrium exemplifies the level of intellectual flailing taking place in an attempt to salvage Darwinism.  With this demonstration of scientific incredibility as a role model, we would expect evolutionists to misrepresent the design model and then dismiss it as naive.  They followed suit. Their definition of a design model can be summarized as it appears in Webster's New World Encyclopedia, 1992 edition.

  "Creationism:  A theory concerned with the origins of matter and life, claiming, as does the Bible in Genesis, that the world and humanity were created by a supernatural Creator, not more than 6,000 years ago.   It was developed in response to Darwin's theory of evolution; it is not recognized by most scientists as having a factual basis.  After a trial in 1981-82 a U.S. judge ruled unconstitutional an attempt in Arkansas schools to enforce equal treatment to creationism and evolutionary theory."

   They picked a design model they can easily refute scientifically. They have survived on the basis of unsubstantiated assumption for so long they used the same tactic in dealing with theism.  They assume theists believe what they would like them to. 

  The Bible, in Genesis or any other book in the Bible, does not say the world was created about 6000 years ago.  The description in Webster's is a not so subtle application of the "straw man" ruse, wherein a non-existent, easily refuted, claim is attributed to an adversary and it’s subsequent refutation is hailed as a victory in a mythological intellectual dispute.  A 6000 year old Earth is not an accurate picture of the theist view overall, but rather, of certain mono-theistic fundamentalists who actually contrive evidence as badly as Darwinists. So prior to examining the design premise, we must portray it correctly.

The universe consists of an expanding space/time fabric occupied throughout with matter, a function of energy, that came into being suddenly and spontaneously through the work of an intelligent designer. The universe reflects a grand design in which the forces regulating it work in harmony and make the planet earth uniquely compatible with life.  The universe is approximately 16 billion years old, the solar system roughly 5 billion years old, and life appeared on earth during the appropriate time period when that life could be sustained.  Various designs were introduced in stages.  It began with simple life forms and progressed from plant life and sea life to life to reptiles, birds and smaller complex land animals, then mammals and finally man, who represents the purpose behind the entire effort.  Life was designed with biological groups being unique but all life uses the same language, the DNA code, to specify its structure because all life has a common designer. Lines of demarcation between distinct groups like classes and families are fixed genetically and can not be crossed.  It is noteworthy that the fossil record is exactly what we would expect if the above model were true.

As mentioned, some theists believe the description in Webster's to be accurate.  The volume of evidence gathered by scientists indicating the universe to be very old causes many scientific-minded people to scoff at the idea of a creator as presented by these fundamentalists, however.  But theirs is a theological position and not a scientific one. They insist the universe is only 6000 years old prior to exploring all the evidence, making the same mistake as evolutionists.  They assume what they believe to be true and ignore evidence that casts a pall on their claim. Scientific evidence interpreted properly will reveal truth.  This fundamental principle provides the starting point for the premise of design. 

When the subject of design is broached the evolutionist screams foul, we have uttered the unmentionable in the world of science, the supernatural or the miraculous, synonymous terms from the perspective of a naturalist. But to unequivocally exclude either is bias on the part of the scientist.  Nothing can be declared off-limits in a search for truth, especially if science is the vehicle used in that search.  The truth is what it is in spite of any philosophical prejudice that may or may not exist. 

We will examine a model explaining the origin of man and will proceed to see if that model accepts the prevailing data in a logical way.  If it does, we have encountered a valid theory even though the model incorporates within its framework a designer whose identity and methods remain a mystery.  But naturalists scream foul because they consider any such notion a surrender to theism and detrimental to furthering the scientific pursuit of knowledge. They say theists would thwart science by filling the mysterious gaps in mankind’s knowledge with miracles and that theists would leave it at that, not searching further for a natural explanation.

But the domain of science is restricted to either explaining an occurrence, like the appearance of life on the planet Earth, within the limits of its knowledge or merely observing and recording that occurrence. Science can never deny the methodology of an occurrence simply because the methodology remains elusive or beyond the limits of knowledge possessed by scientists.  It can review the evidence to determine if there are sufficient grounds to conclude the event occurred naturally but to deny the event occurred supernaturally because it can’t be explained through the limited knowledge of natural law is not “scientific”, or even professional. Intrinsic within the proposed design model for the origin of man, therefore, is the idea that the origin of life is a miracle because it can’t be explained and based upon what we do know, it may never be.  In other words certain limits of knowledge may have been reached and what lies beyond is unattainable.  For example, we can never look past the beginning of the universe but that doesn’t mean we should give up trying to fully understand the mechanisms regulating the universe from its inception.

Let’s look at the definition of a miracle and see if the fear mouthed by naturalists is genuine or is simply another straw man gambit intended to promote the true agenda of naturalists, that of removing any resistance to the philosophy of naturalism. This is the definition found in Webster’s New World Encyclopedia.

Miracle: "An event that cannot be explained by the known laws of nature and is therefore attributed to divine intervention."

It is worth noting that the only portion of the above definition apparently repulsive to naturalists is the conclusion,  “therefore attributed to divine intervention”, because they have no qualms regarding the official scientific declaration that an unsolvable mystery exists.  In other words, they will admit there are events that cannot be explained by the known laws of nature, but because the term miracle is repugnant to them, they label the event with a more scientific sounding term.  They call it a singularity and say the event has a horizon beyond which no man can ever hope to see. It is playing with words.

The definition of miracle is simply used as another straw man because “divine intervention” can be scoffed at as somehow superstitious and backwards whereas “event horizon” is scientific. In any case it is hard to fathom how labeling an occurrence a singularity will somehow remove a barrier to scientific inquiry whose placement was caused by labeling that same occurrence as a miracle. 

In any case, the concern expressed by scientists regarding the invocation of the supernatural as an explanation for the unknown and the possibility that scientific progress would somehow be stifled as a result, is completely without justification.  This is evidenced by the wide recognition among scientists themselves that the scientific enlightenment in the western world during the middle ages was, in fact, stimulated by the theistic belief that the universe was orderly and could be understood.

The foundations for the bias against the belief that a miracle can occur are crumbling, however, and this is increasingly more apparent with the discoveries of quantum physics and confirmations of the Big Bang theory.  For according to modern physics, extraordinary events such as miracles can’t be ruled out.  Scientists like Robert Jastrow who wrote, "A Scientist Caught Between Two Faiths", speak of super-natural forces at work in the creation of the universe.  They speak this way because they are smart enough to recognize an event forever beyond their understanding when they see one.  Let's take a look at one of these miracles – or singularities - whatever. 

                        CHAPTER 5

THE BIG BANG and LIFE SUPPORT

Scraps of evidence are to a mystery what pieces of a puzzle are to the image they form.  As they begin fitting together both the mystery and the image are clarified and in the case of the origins mystery, the evidence from various scientific disciplines illuminates a universe that apparently resulted from intelligent design rather than from natural causes.

This is what William A. Dembski had to say about “intelligent design” as a viable idea within the scientific community.  The quote is taken from a book of which he is the editor, “Mere Creation”.  He has a PHD in mathematics from the University of Chicago and a PHD in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“Intelligent design is at once more modest and more powerful than natural theology.  From observable features of the natural world, intelligent design infers to an intelligence responsible for those features.  The world contains events, objects and structures that exhaust the explanatory resources of undirected natural causes and that can be adequately explained only by recourse to intelligent causes.  This is not an argument from ignorance.  Precisely because of what we know about undirected natural causes and their limitations, science is now in a position to demonstrate design rigorously. Thus what has been a long-standing but fuzzy philosophical intuition can now be cashed out as a robust program of scientific research.” 

He is not alone in his thinking as more and more scientists have recently been exposing the intellectual inconsistency of naturalism, an ideological commitment and scientific paradigm whose explanatory value regarding origins has proven to be woefully inadequate. So as we explore various fragments of evidence and attempt to understand how things like the universe and living cells got their start, we can be sure we are not engaged in metaphysics, as naturalists imply.

A large portion of the origins picture was brought into focus when cosmologists confirmed the occurrence of a singularity that was first postulated in the early part of the 20th century.  We know it as the Big Bang, although “bang” is an inappropriate choice of words as it conjures up the image of a chaotic and random explosion.  The precise expansion of the universe from an infinitely dense micro-dot of raw energy was anything but chaotic. Consider what Roger Penrose, an Oxford physicist and mathematician, had to say in his book, The Emperors New Mind”, regarding the choreographed unfolding of the universe as it relates to what he calls the “original phase-space volume”.

“(the) Creators aim must have been (precise) to an accuracy of one part in 10~123…one could not possibly write the number down in full (since) it would be a (1 ) followed by 10~123 successive zeros - more zeros than there are elemental particles in the universe…such is the precision needed to set the universe on its course.”

Other forces resulting from that precise expansion such as gravity, the electromagnetic/weak force and the strong nuclear force also had to be within exceptionally limited tolerances for life to have been possible anywhere in the universe. 

The Big Bang theory originated because of conclusions drawn from Einstein’s equations on relativity and from observations that galaxies were expanding away from each other.  Since the theory was presented scientists have been predicting that if their observations were correct, we would eventually observe and measure tiny temperature fluctuations in radiation left over from the initial creation moment.  That is exactly what finally happened and is the motivation for a quote picked from many similar ones made by various scientists at the time this discovery was made public on April 24, 1992.  Science historian Frederic B. Burnham said this in a Los Angeles Times article reporting on the breakthrough.

"The findings now available make the idea that God created the universe a more respectable hypothesis." 

His understatement would have ruffled some naturalist feathers if he'd released the equally valid corollary by saying...'the findings make the idea that the universe popped into existence from nothing a theory not particularly worthy of respect.’ 

Other proofs for the big bang have emerged as well.  For example, the Hopkins ultraviolet telescope riding on the Astro 2 Observatory in June, 1995, sent back to earth a view of very distant, consequently very ancient, intergalactic clouds.  The composition of the clouds conformed exactly to the percentage of helium scientists predicted would be present from hydrogen fusion if the big bang model were correct.  Hugh Ross, a theist with a Ph.D. in astronomy, said this about the big bang.

“Expansion, coupled with deceleration, indicates a universe that is exploding outward from a point. In fact, through the equations of general relativity, we can trace that explosion backward to its origin, an instant when the entire physical universe burst forth from a single point of infinite density. That instant when the universe originated from a point of no size at all is called the singularity.  No scientific model, no application of the laws of physics, can describe what happens before it. Somehow, from beyond itself, the universe came to be. It began. It began a limited time ago. It is finite, not infinite.  The implications only can be described as monumental. Atheism, Darwinism, and virtually all the isms emanating from eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth-century philosophies were built upon the incorrect assumption that the universe is infinite. The singularity has brought us face to face with the cause - or causer - beyond/behind/before the universe and all that it contains, including life itself.” 

A starting point for something implies a cause for its beginning but when speaking about the universe itself, naturalists deny this in order to avoid the logical inference that the cause was supernatural. They say there cannot be a first cause for the universe because of the law of cause and effect.  They ask what caused the first cause, knowing all along that the law of cause and effect mandates that every cause is an effect from a previous cause and that the cycle would regress infinitely into the past, preventing us from ever finding the first cause. It is the old question heard on college campuses - who created God?  But the question only poses a pseudo dilemma.  It is true that the law of cause and effect is a sound natural law but it is constrained by, and can only operate within, the dimension of time. So it only makes sense to say there could never have been a first cause if, and only if, time stretched infinitely into the past.  But Mr. Burnham’s quote in 1992 was made with the understanding that if the universe began in the way the big bang theory predicts, it was not just matter and space that had a beginning, but time as well.  According to a theory receiving confirmation at every turn, time does not stretch infinitely into the past. It had a beginning. 

So the law of cause and effect is not a good argument against a first cause because the law only operates “during” time.  And even without scientific confirmation, philosophers have been demonstrating for centuries that if time receded infinitely into the past, we would never have arrived at the present event - reading this book, for example, because every event would necessarily be preceded by another event and if we began a journey backwards on an infinite time-line, we could never arrive at the event which preceded the event which preceded reading this book – and so on. But we are reading this book, meaning causes can’t recede infinitely into the past.  If they do not recede infinitely into the past, there must have been a first cause.  Philosophers and scientists find themselves agreeing, much to the chagrin of those scientists who happen to be naturalists, because the implications are unsettling.  If time had a beginning, the natural law of cause and effect must be discarded as an argument against a first cause. But because any beginning needs a cause, and because science and philosophers both agree there was a beginning for time as well as the universe, the cause could only have been super-natural - that is transcendent to and outside the “natural” dimension of time.  Here is what William Lane Craig, a theist with a Ph.D. in philosophy had to say about the matter in one of his many articles appearing on the internet.

“But why posit a first cause? Very simply, the causal inference is based in the metaphysical intuition that something cannot come out of absolutely nothing. A pure potentiality cannot actualize itself. In the case of the universe there was not anything physically prior to the initial singularity.  The potentiality for the existence of the universe could not therefore have lain in itself, since it did not exist prior to the singularity. On the theistic hypothesis, the potentiality of the universe's existence lay in the power of God to create it. On the naturalist hypothesis, there did not even exist the potentiality for the existence of the universe. But then it seems inconceivable that the universe should become actual if there did not exist any potentiality for its existence. It seems that a little common sense leads to the conclusion that the origin of the universe had a cause.”

  His conclusion is another of the logical inferences theists use to demonstrate a God “outside” the universe but diehard naturalists will grasp any straw in an attempt to avoid a first cause.  “Quantum tunneling” is the term physicists use to describe a process by which quantum mechanical particles, that is, electrons, protons, neutrons and other sub-atomic particles, penetrate barriers that would be insurmountable to classical objects.  It appears that virtual particles can pop into existence from nothing through this process.  It has been proposed by naturalists that the universe popped into existence in the same way, that is, without a cause. Here is what Heinz Pagels, an American theoretician had to say about that idea in “Perfect Symmetry: The Search for the Beginning of Time”.

"This unthinkable void converts itself into the plenum of existence...where are the laws written into that void?  What 'tells' the void it is pregnant with a possible universe?  It would seem that even the void is subject to law, a logic that exists prior to space and time". 

His point is that “prior” to time there existed a potential cause for the universe with the ability to actualize or “will” the effect.  The big bang was a stunning effect indeed and it must have been caused by an intellect with wisdom and power forever beyond the limits of our comprehension.  Following that singularity the universe has manifested an increasing move towards structured complexity and especially here on earth in the form of living things.  Naturalists suggest chance as the causal agent for these highly organized structures however we will see data providing evidence of design instead.  This is what British astrophysicist, Paul Davies, said on the subject in, “The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature's Creative Ability to Order the Universe”.

"If new organizational levels just pop into existence for no reason, why do we see such an orderly progression in the universe from featureless origin to rich diversity?"

 He concludes by saying we have…"powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all."

That something apparently had life on planet Earth as a goal. We can say that with a straight face because of what has become known as the “anthropic principle”, a relatively modern concept conceived through vastly increased knowledge about a universe conspicuously finely tuned for the support of life.  It has become apparent that the constants of physics and the laws governing the universe must stay within extreme limits of deviation in order for human beings to be ultimately possible on earth.  In fact, if any of these constants were to deviate ever so slightly from their existing numerical values, life would not be possible. Furthermore, their values are independent of one another.  The possibility that the values of these constants and laws would be precisely what is necessary for life to exist through chance coincidence is virtually impossible. We are referring to quantitative measurements of physical constants like the velocity of light, the range of electromagnetic wavelengths, the weight and mass of all known elements, the force of gravity, the atomic nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, the gravitational coupling constant, the physical properties of specific elements such as hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and many more.  This evidence has driven many physicists and cosmologists to reinvest their thinking in the ancient teleological principal advocated by Aristotle, that the universe was created with life as its purpose.  The microbiologist, Michael Denton, in his latest book, “Natures Destiny”, has gone one step further and shown that without the remarkably precise absorption, thermal and bonding properties of certain gases and organic minerals, large, air breathing mammals such as ourselves would not be possible. In making his case that the universe was designed with us in mind, he discusses many elements in the periodic table and says this about one of them:

“The properties of the carbon atom are uniquely fit to form the complex molecules required for life.  Silicon, which is carbon’s sister atom in the periodic table, falls far short of carbon in the diversity and complexity of its compounds.  The fitness of carbon compounds for life is maximal in the same temperature range that water is a fluid.  Both the strong covalent and the weak bonds are of maximal utility in this same temperature range.  Such coincidences are precisely what one might expect to see in a cosmos specially adapted for carbon-based life.

I believe the evidence strongly suggests that the cosmos is uniquely fit for only one type of biology--that which exists on earth--and that the phenomenon of life cannot be instantiated in any other exotic chemistry or class of material forms.  Even more radically, I believe that there is a considerable amount of evidence for believing that the cosmos is uniquely fit for only one type of advanced intelligent life--beings of design and biology very similar to our own species, Homo sapiens.

To defend the postulate that the cosmos is specifically fit for biological life as it exists on earth necessarily involves consideration of a vast number of natural laws, phenomena, and processes which are quite outside of the areas of physics and cosmology and pertain uniquely to the biological realm, phenomena such as the thermal properties of water, the characteristics of the carbon atom, the solubility of carbon dioxide, the self-assembling properties of proteins, the nature of the cell, and so forth.  Although from the evidence of physics we may be able to infer that the cosmos is uniquely fit for chemistry, stars and planets, or even intelligent beings, we cannot infer that it is specifically fit for large, air-breathing terrestrial mammals.  Only through biology can our unique type of carbon-based life and especially advanced forms like ourselves lay claim to a central place in the cosmic scheme.”

The design parameters for our solar system are also intriguing. It is an extremely well designed “life support system” whose organizational structure exhibits numerous exact tolerances and thus allows life to exist on one of its planets. 

Most of us have had some experience in life support, even if not at the planetary level of sophistication.  Either we cared for children or some other species totally dependent upon us for life, maybe in a garden, a kennel or an aquarium.  In any case, if we reflect on the level of care and planning that was necessary for our inferior charges to continue surviving, we can more easily grasp the teleologic-anthropic principle emerging within the scientific community regarding not only our universe but our solar system as well. So let’s consider an aquarium, a basic and simple life support system.

For an aquarium to be capable of sustaining life there are some fundamental requirements.  As the variety of life within the aquarium is expanded, the parameters for its design have to be more rigidly controlled.  With expansion the parameters become not only more complex but have less allowable tolerance.  The aquarium initially consists of a glass bowl filled with water and a guppy.

 Two parameters that must work in harmony in order for the guppy to exist are the content and temperature of the atmosphere.  It must be water, not methane, ammonia or oxygen and it can't be anywhere near boiling or freezing.  In fact its temperature and molecular structure can deviate very little without jeopardizing the life of the guppy.  If we add 30 more species of fish, some aquatic plant life, a few turtles and an eel, we must install a circulation pump and an electric heater in order to keep the temperature and oxygen content “just right”. The design parameters for the aquarium have become more critical.

  Although it may have a slight effect on the water temperature, the circulation pump is not what causes the water to remain at a specific temperature.  Although it also may have a small effect on the oxygen content, the heater does not cause the water to consist of the proper oxygen content. The effect of the pump, circulating water replenished with oxygen, does not cause the water to be heated nor does the heated water cause it to circulate.  In other words the two parameters did not cause, nor were they dependent upon, the other parameter.  Therefore the odds of any two parameters occurring and working in harmony has to be far greater than the odds of a single parameter simply occurring - and so on as more parameters are added. 

They must work in harmony, however, because if either negates the effect of the other or fails, the guppy and his friends die. We are due for a brain scan if we propose that a water heater and a circulation pump became integrated with a glass bowl filled with water by chance, but let’s assume they did.  What if we then assert that the rate of circulation and temperature both remained constant within a very narrow range and it was also accidentally coincidental? We’d have a lot in common with naturalists.

One of the most complex life support systems ever devised is the space-shuttle, one of which was represented by the ill-fated Challenger spacecraft in 1986.  Even those of us with limited knowledge of the complexities of putting men in space understand the awesome convergence of intelligence and expertise making such a project possible.  Firing a projectile into orbit is one thing but putting people in the nose of that projectile and keeping them alive at a velocity of 17,000 miles per hour while they're escaping earth’s gravity is another thing, and the return trip is just as life threatening. There is no margin for error as the tragedy of the Challenger's lift-off demonstrated.  A relatively inexpensive O-ring seal on a multi-million dollar life support package caused the death of seven crew members.  The tragedy was broadcast all over the world and although it wasn't publicized, NASA estimates that after the explosion the crew may have had as much as three minutes to dwell on their fate before they were killed by tumbling into the Atlantic ocean.  (If they didn't believe their existence was purposeful prior to that moment, we can safely assume they used at least a few seconds of that time considering the possibility.)

Now compare the aquarium to the Challenger space-craft.  The principals regarding the independence of the vital components of the two support systems are the same.  In other words, the successful performance of the O-ring on the challenger didn't depend on relay switches opening fuel valves, for example, or vice versa.  But they both had to be working properly in order for the living beings on board the life support craft to continue living.  And of course the O-ring and fuel valves, or any other vital components making up the system, did not spontaneously begin working together as a functioning spacecraft even if all the components did coincidentally arrive at the same place on the same day.  

   Our spacecraft is a tightly knit volatile mixture of elements 7900 miles in diameter and 25,000 miles in circumference.  Rotating like a gyroscope, it hurtles through space in a vast circular route around an immense nuclear inferno 93 million miles distant. It is orbited at a distance of 230,000 miles by a virtual mini-planet and subjected to every type of radiation imaginable.  If the earth were shrunk to the size of a rubber ball eight feet in diameter, it's outer shell, the crust, would be as thin as a sheet of vinyl flooring and Mt. Everest would be the size of a grain of sand.  This crust literally floats in pieces like a big puzzle on a semi-molten layer of the mantle, which in turn houses a core whose center is solid but whose outer part is extremely hot and volatile.  Seventy-five per-cent of the crust is under water and the entire sphere is blanketed by a layer of gas also the relative thickness of a sheet of vinyl.  

If we tampered with this planetary environment and barely altered certain variables such as orbital velocity, speed of rotation, angle of axial tilt, distance from the sun, distance from the moon, size of the moon, the atmospheric content, the land/water ratio, thickness of the crust or density and temperature of the core, and more, we would immediately wipe ourselves out.  Yet in a very thin layer of gas and fluid on the surface of this ingeniously restrained time bomb live millions of species of fish, birds, animals, plants - and us. 

Mere subsistence it's not.  Throughout the ages thinking men have assumed we are the intended inhabitants of this sophisticated life support system, in part, because we are obviously the epitome of a grand and complex self-perpetuating assembly of living things. As such we enjoy a variety of seasons, fascinating landscapes and heavenly spectacles and our ecosystem furnishes an extensive, colorful and exotic medley of energy sources, that is food, as well as boundless resources of material for clothing, shelter and technology. We would expect none of this from an environment accidentally formed and simply necessary as a survival kit.  

It is made possible by the type of delicately balanced parameters mentioned above. They must exist concurrently and harmonize.  They can no more be attributed to random chance than the existence of the Challenger spacecraft or the aquarium in Mr. Darwin's parlor.

Listed below are over 20 parameters for our solar system having a direct bearing on the existence of life.  They were taken from Hugh Ross’s book, The Creator and the Cosmos. He says:

“Each design parameter vastly reduces the possible number of planetary systems capable of supporting life out of the total number available.  Although there are a dozen more being currently researched for their sensitivity in the support of life, the following 20 can lead safely to the conclusion that fewer than a trillionth of a trillionth of one percent of all stars will have a planet capable of sustaining advanced life.  Considering the universe contains about a trillion galaxies, each averaging a hundred billion stars, we see that not even one planet would be expected to contain life by natural processes alone.  It is clear the earth has experienced design.”

We might add that nothing is designed without a purpose.

  Each of these parameters can not exceed certain tolerances without disturbing the planet's capacity to support life. Some are more narrowly confining than others but all are within very narrow limits of fluctuation if life on earth is to continue.

1.            Number of stars in the planetary system

                        if more than one; tidal interactions would disrupt planetary

                        orbits.

2.            Parent star birth date

                        if more recent; star would not yet have reached stable burning phase.

if less recent; stellar system would not yet contain enough heavy elements

3.            Parent star age

                        if older; luminosity of star would change too quickly.

                        if younger; luminosity of star would change too quickly.

4.            Parent star distance form center of galaxy

if farther; quantity of heavy elements would be insufficient to make rocky planets.

                        if closer; stellar density and radiation would be too great.

5.            Parent  star mass

if greater:  luminosity of star would change too quickly; star would burn too rapidly.           

if less; range of distances appropriate for life would be too narrow; tidal forces would disrupt the rotational period for a planet of the right distance; UV radiation would be inadequate for plants to make sugars and oxygen.

6.            Parent star color

                        if redder: photosynthetic response would be insufficient.

                        if bluer: photosynthetic response would be insufficient.

7.            Surface gravity

                        if stronger: atmosphere would retain too much ammonia

                        and methane.

                        if weaker:  planet's atmosphere would lose too much water.

8.            Distance from parent star

                        if farther: planet would be too cool for a stable water cycle.

                        if closer: planet would be too warm for a stable water

                         cycle.

9.            Axial tilt

                        if greater: surface temperature differences would be too

                         great.

                        if less: surface temperature differences would be too great.

10.            Rotation period

                        if longer: diurnal temperature differences would be too great.

                        if shorter: atmosphere wind velocities would be too great.

11.            Gravitational interaction with a moon

                        if greater: tidal effects on the oceans, atmosphere, and

                        rotational period would be too severe.

                        if less:  orbital obliquity changes would cause climatic instabilities.

12.            Magnetic field

                        if stronger:  electromagnetic storms would be too severe.

                        if weaker:  inadequate protection from hard stellar radiation.

13.            Thickness of crust

                        if thicker:  too much oxygen would be transferred from the

                        atmosphere to the crust.

                        if thinner:  volcanic and tectonic activity would be too great.

14.            Albedo (ratio of reflected light to total falling on surface)

                        if greater: runaway ice age would develop.

                        if less: runaway greenhouse effect would develop.

15.            Oxygen to nitrogen ratio in atmosphere

                        if larger: advanced life functions would proceed too

                         quickly.

                        if smaller:  advanced life functions would proceed too slowly.

16.            Carbon dioxide and water vapor levels in atmosphere

                        if greater: runaway greenhouse effect would develop.

                        if less: greenhouse effect would be insufficient.

17.            Ozone level in atmosphere

if greater: surface temperatures would be too high; there would be too much UV radiation at the surface.

18.            Atmospheric electric discharge rate

                        if greater:  too much fire destruction would occur.

                        if less:  too little nitrogen would be fixed in the atmosphere.

19.            Oxygen quantity in atmosphere

                        if greater: plants and hydrocarbons would burn up too easily.

                        if less: advanced animals would have too little to breathe.

20.            Seismic activity

                        if greater: too many life-forms would be destroyed.

                        if less: nutrients on ocean floors (from river runoff) would

                        not be recycled to the continents through tectonic uplift.

The parameters listed above are for the planet Earth and our solar system. The universe is regulated by natural laws and the constants of physics that must also be within extremely precise limits if the universe is to be capable of bringing forth and sustaining a solar system like the one specified above.  Obviously it is capable and when the solar system became fit, life made an appearance shortly thereafter, that appearance being the grand apex of improbable events, considering the synchronal improbability of the necessary initial conditions.  Darwinists tend to gloss over this event because a reasonable naturalist theory demonstrating how it could have occurred is non-existent.  Evidence displaying that life could not have originated naturally abounds, however.

Even so, Darwinists promote the natural origin of life by including that event in an overall naturalist philosophy supported primarily by some rather fanciful assumptions regarding the fossil record.  Their successful promotion has resulted in the naturalist paradigm behind their ideas becoming the primary concept triggered by the word evolution, however, rather than a biological theory on the relationship of species. But if life could never have originated naturally to begin with, the naturalist edifice supposedly supported by evolution and the fossil record has had its deeper, underlying foundation, the origin of life, cut from under it. This is especially true when bearing in mind that an environment even capable of supporting the first living cell was, in itself, highly improbable.  A demonstration that biogenesis could not occur through random chemical reactions, as naturalists believe, would render as insipid and irrelevant the metaphysical pomposity saturating the discussions of evolution by Darwinists.  So let’s consider the improbability of life emerging naturally in a life support system ideal for said life simply because the system happens to be ready and waiting.