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CrossRoads Community Church
BRINGING CHRIST'S COMPASSION TO PEOPLE AT THE CROSSROADS OF LIFE! |
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Answers in Genesis: Answers Academy
Introduction The Bible tells us about the origins of life – how everything in the world got started. We can read in Genesis about how God created the universe, the earth, creatures, and humans, all in six days. We go on to read about Noah’s flood, and the tower of Babel where God created different languages. Science tells us about how life began as well. One idea is that there was a big “bang,” and then stuff appears and exploded out to make the universe. But it was all just “matter,” non-living stuff, until the first life form developed from molecules crashing together in just the right way. So you start with a tiny life, maybe an amoeba, and over millions of years little changes take place, so that eventually you’ve got sea creatures, then land animals, then humans. This process is commonly called evolution. Wait a minute! Which history is true? Should we just believe the Bible, “because it says so?” It is, after all, the Word of God. But what about science? If something has been scientifically proven - well you can’t argue with science, can you? So what do we do? Sometimes we’re faced with tough questions, or even doubts about what we believe. That’s okay. God wants us to tell him when we have questions or doubts, and ask for his help to figure things out. In this lesson series, we will be investigating these questions about the beginning of life. We’ll be looking at science, and how it relates to the Bible. Does it agree or disagree with the Bible? Do you know what the Bible says in Genesis about the start of life, and human history? Even if you know all the stories, now would be a good time to check it out! Read Genesis 1-11 to have it fresh in your mind. Too much to read all at once? Try splitting it up, and reading one chapter a day until you finish! (back to top)
Lesson 1 – Defending the Faith (part 1) Giving a Reasoned and Logical Defense of Christianity February 1, 2009 Battleground People have different ideas about how life began. Creation scientists (also known as creationists) believe that God created the universe, earth, creatures, and humans. Evolutionists believe that a tiny living creature randomly formed, and over millions of years the tiny creatures became fish, then land animals, then humans. Both use science to back up their beliefs. Some people think this is a battle between facts. "If I just have enough facts on my side," they think, "I can prove that I'm right." But both creation scientists and evolutionists have the same facts. They have the same fossils, rocks and animals to study. The disagreement all comes down to point of view. Different Glasses Look around the room. Now suppose you put on sunglasses. What happens? Everything gets darker, right? Or if you put on some orange-tinted glasses, then everything looks orange. The things you see are still the same, but they look different to you because of the glasses you are wearing. In the same way, a creationist and an evolutionist have the same facts in front of them. But the two of them see things differently, because they are wearing different color "glasses", or worldviews. A worldview is the way that a person views the world. It is made of things they know to be true, before they even look at the world, and so it effects everything they see. Creationists start with the idea that God exists, and he has told us about himself in the Bible. They believe that God is the one who decides what is true, and that the Bible is true. These are the assumptions that a creationist makes when interpreting facts. This is the pair of "glasses" that a creationist wears - called a Biblical Worldview. Evolutionists start with the idea that everything happens "naturally". They believe that everything can be explained by laws of nature. There are no miracles and there is no God. They think that man is the one who decides what is true. These are the assumptions that an evolutionist makes when interpreting facts. This is the pair of "glasses" that an evolutionist wears - called Naturalism or a Naturalistic Worldview. So the disagreement between creationists and evolutionists is not a battle of facts. It's a battle between two different worldviews. We're seeing things through different glasses! Two Types of Science Let's talk about science for a bit. There are actually two types that can get mixed up together. Observational science is based on what we can observe with our five senses. If we do an experiment, we expect to get the same result every time we do that exact same experiment. This helps us figure out how things work, and makes it possible to develop great technology like airplanes and ipods. Historical science (also known as origins science) has to do with figuring out what happened in the past. With this type of science, we can come up with a theory about what happened in the past and see if clues in the present back up our theory. But you can't scientifically prove, with an experiment, that something had happened in the past. Observational science has to do with facts, and historical science has to do with interpretation of facts and beliefs about the past. Digging Deeper Want to learn more? Check out these links! (back to top)
Lesson 2 - Defending the Faith (part 2) Giving a Reasoned and Logical Defense of Christianity February 8, 2009 Remember the glasses from last week? We learned that everyone approaches life with a set of beliefs that effects how they interpret the world around them. Someone with a Biblical worldview assumes that God exists and the Bible is true, and they use these rules to interpret facts. Someone with a naturalistic worldview assumes that there is no God, and everything can be explained by rules of nature. Just the Facts, Please When you watch the news on TV, you aren't just getting the facts about something, but an interpretation of the facts. Let's say, for example, that a new dinosaur skeleton is discovered and said to be 70 millions years old. The fact here is that bones were discovered. But the age of the bones is an interpretation, because we cannot prove with observable science that the dinosaur lived 70 million years ago. The age of the dinosaur bones is a conclusion made from looking at the facts and applying certain assumptions (like the assumptions that radio-active dating methods are accurate to millions of years ago, and that we need lots of years between dinosaurs and the present to account for evolution). It's important to be able to tell the difference between a fact and an interpretation of a fact. When you watch the news or learn something from a teacher, ask yourself, where is this person coming from? What is their worldview? What assumptions do they make when they interpret the facts? Science and the Bible Remember our two types of science? Observational science uses our five senses to learn about the world and understand the principles at work. Historical or origins science involves trying to figure out what happened in the past. When we have a theory about what happened in the past, like how life began or how the grand canyon was formed, we cannot scientifically prove that the theory is correct. But if it is correct, the things that we can prove in observable science should support the theory. For example, the Bible says that God created Adam and Eve, and that people descended from them. Observational science, by studying human DNA, has determined that all people around today descended from one man and one woman. This does not prove that what the Bible says about creation is true, but it is evidence that supports the Bible and doesn't contradict it. In this series we will look at a lot of different pieces of observational science, like biology, geology and astronomy. In each case we will look at what observational science tells us, and see which beliefs about the past (those based on the Bible or those based on naturalism) make sense of the evidence. Ultimately, we cannot prove scientifically that the Bible is true. But observational science can confirm and support what the Bible says about the past. Digging Deeper
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Lesson 3 - Where Did God Come From? The All-Important Question February 15, 2009 In the Beginning... At the beginning of time, at the beginning of everything, what was there? What existed? Some people think "the cosmos" existed at the beginning. That all of the matter that makes up the universe existed at the beginning, but looked different than it does today. Or some people think there was nothing at all in the beginning, and then the cosmos came from nothing. The Bible tells us that God existed in the beginning, before anything else. But then we might wonder, where did God come from? He created everything, but who made God? If he was created, He would have had to have been made by an even bigger, more powerful and more knowledgeable god. But then where did that god come from? He would have had to have been made by an even bigger god. And then you'd need an even bigger god to make that one. And we could go on forever and still not have an answer to where God came from! You'd always need a bigger god. But the Bible tells us that God himself is infinite, as big and powerful as anyone can be, and beyond. So there can be no greater god. The Bible also says that God has always existed. He has no beginning or end. Design People who believe in creation often say "design implies a designer." They say that when you look at biology and the natural world around us, you see that everything has design. Things are too perfectly arranged to have come about by chance, so there must have been someone who designed / created everything. The Bible itself says that God is revealed through his creation and men are without excuse when they choose not to believe what is before their eyes. Evolution scientists do not deny that nature looks designed. When you study anything in detail, like the intricate workings of a bumblebee or a microscopic cell, you learn more and more about how incredible and complex it is! But evolutionists say that everything appears to be designed, because the process of evolution is the designer, not God. Because the animals with features that are not suited to survival die off, and the best ones live on and reproduce, the end result is the best of the best animals that are well adapted to their environment. Information in DNA But there's something else in biology that points to a Designer. The question we face is not just "where did life come from," but also "where did the information system of the genome come from? You've probably heard of DNA. It's often called the "building block of life" in biology. It contains all the information about a living organism that helps it develop and maintain itself. This information is passed on the organism's offspring and is what guides what the offspring is. Genome is the term used to talk about the total genetic information for an organism, which is stored in DNA. There are other parts of the cell that "read" the DNA and carry out the instructions. Without these parts to read and interpret the information stored in DNA, the DNA would be useless. Where information is present, there is always an intelligence behind it. That is, everywhere we observe information, someone has created it. We have not observed any case where information arises from matter. So it follows that the information system of genetics must have an intelligence that created it. This fits with the God of the Bible, who is described as being infinitely intelligent. Digging Deeper
Lesson 4 - After Its Kind (part 1) The Truth About Natural Selection February 22, 2009 Confusion Natural selection and molecules-to-man evolution are two different concepts in biology that tend to get mixed up. They both get sort of lumped together under the label "evolution," but they are really quite different. Natural selection is a process in biology that can be observed today. It is the process through which a population of a certain kind of animal becomes more diverse. If you start with a population of dogs, for example, some will have short hair and some will have long hair. Dogs that live in the arctic will survive better with long hair. As the dogs reproduce, the short-haired dogs will die off because they can't keep warm enough, and you will have more and more long-haired dogs. In hot climates, the short-haired dogs might survive the best and the long-haired dogs die off. All of the genetic information that controls long and short hair characteristics of the dogs exist in the population at the beginning. Diversity and the formation of new species come about by a loss of genetic information. Natural selection is compatible with the Bible, which describes animals reproducing after their own kind. Molecules-to-man evolution is the theory that humans came into being through a process that took millions of years. It started with some molecules / chemicals and that eventually turned into a microscopic creature. After millions of years of reproducing, the offspring became more and more complex until eventually we ended up with humans. This theory contradicts what the Bible says about how humans came into being, as well as contradicts observational science - the process of natural selection. Molecules-to-man evolution would require a gain in genetic information over time, but we have not observed any examples of genetic information increasing - only decreasing. The Bible says that God creating living creatures to reproduce "after their own kind." Scientists have developed a classification system for living creatures that starts Kingdom as the broadest category and funnels down to Genus and Species. This helps us describe how animals and similar and different from each other. An animal's "own kind" is similar to the idea of a species, but it's important to remember that the animal kinds that God created are not necessarily the same as the classification system we have developed. Several species might all come from the same animal "kind." Digging Deeper
Lesson 5 - After Its Kind (part 2) The Truth About Natural Selection March 8, 2009 Digging Deeper This week we continue our topic of biology. We talk about how animals could have spread out on the earth after the flood, and the diversity of life that resulted after generations of reproduction. We looked especially at the example of the dog kind. We also talked about mutations and whether they are evidence for or against molecules-to-man evolution. Check out these links to learn more!
Lesson 6 - The Rocks Cry Out (part 1) The Earth is Young! March 22, 2009 Digging Deeper
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Lesson 7 - The Rocks Cry Out (part 2) The Earth is Young! March 29, 2009 Digging Deeper It's time for some hands-on exploration. Your mission, should you choose to accept it:
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Lesson 8 - Big Problems with the Big Bang April 5, 2009 Biblical and Scientific Problems The "big bang" is a theory about how the universe came into being and was formed. According to this theory, everything in the universe came from a tiny point that rapidly expanded. The light elements of hydrogen and helium were formed first. These formed stars, and these stars created heavier elements. Planets are then formed out of the dust made up of these heavier elements. According to the big bang theory, this process took millions of years. This theory contradicts what the Bible says about how the universe and earth were formed. This theory and the Bible disagree on the age of the earth, the order of creation, what the earth was first like, the uniqueness of life on earth, and the method of earth's future destruction. For example, the big bang theory teaches that stars were formed before the earth, but the Bible teaches the opposite. The big bang theory actually has scientific problems with it as well. Good scientific models are relatively simple and make specific, accurate predictions, but the big bang theory does neither. It also has problems explaining flatness, horizon, singularity, baryon number, distant mature galaxies, and population III stars. Digging Deeper
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Lesson 9 - Astronomy What Do We Really Know? April 19, 2009 Mistakes Stars, galaxies, black holes, dark matter, planets... what do we know about them? Do we know the temperature of stars, and how they were formed? When we learn about astronomy, how can we know what is really true, and what is speculation? There are two big mistakes we can make. The first is believing something that isn't true. This can happen when we hear of a new scientific discovery and take it as fact without examining the details. Even if we do look into the issue, we just might not understand everything and end up believing something that is false. The second mistake we can make is to reject the truth. We might hear of something in science and wrongly think that can't be true. For example, some Christians say they don't believe that natural selection is true because it goes against the Bible. But natural selection is observable, repeatable science. It is in agreement with the Bible and actually contradicts molecules-to-man evolution. Astronomy is especially sticky field of science. If you open an astronomy book, you'll find a big jumble of facts and guesses about the universe. They aren't clearly separated, and are hard to tell apart. How to Know What We Know So how can we figure out what is actually true about astronomy (or an scientific field) and what is just speculation or downright false?
Digging Deeper
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Lesson 10 - A New Reformation (part 1) Changing Lives. Rocking the Culture April 26, 2009 It's important to decide whether or not we believe what the Bible says in Genesis chapters 1-11. Why? Because it influences whether or not we trust the rest of God's Word. If we reinterpret the beginning and change the meaning to fit in with what we think science is telling us, what is to stop us from reinterpreting the rest of scripture? This can lead us to challenge what God says about right and wrong. Afterall, if the creation details aren't quite right, then maybe God didn't really mean what he said when he commanded us not to steal. Belief in the history of the Bible and in what the Bible says about right and wrong go hand in hand. (back to top)
Lesson 11 - A New Reformation (part 2) Changing Lives. Rocking the Culture May 3, 2009 How can a loving God allow death and suffering? Genesis helps us make sense of this question- We see that death and suffering didn't enter the world until Adam and Eve sinned. Check out the Answers in Genesis articles on the topic. (back to top)
Lesson 12 - A New Reformation (part 3) Changing Lives. Rocking the Culture May 10, 2009 This week we explore more about the connection between morality (right and wrong) and the authority of the Bible. When our culture rejects the history of the Word of God, then they easily reject the commands about right and wrong. Articles on this topic can be found here. (back to top)
Lesson 13 - Questions and Answers A Review of Answers Academy May 17, 2009 This week we see some of the questions that the video-students asked the teachers at the end of all the other sessions, and how the teachers answered them. Do you have any questions of your own related to this series on creation, evolution and science? Let's talk about it on Sunday! You can also email us with questions at askclub58@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you! (back to top)
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