Mid-March AzOSA Spring + Answer to Question

March 2012: First of Spring – Blossom with AzOSA

New growths of insight.  Flowering of knowledge.  Fruits of knowledge and fatih.  Let the AzOSA Spring program infuse your heart and mind with fresh energy!

Maricopa County Events

► March 19 – 7:00 PM – Phoenix: Science & the Bible. Fundamental facts never go out of style. The Bible says the Earth and all life were created in days, but the Darwinists use the fossil record to claim life evolved over millions of years. Who is right? Sal Giardina, veteran author and speaker, delivers the scientific evidence showing: (1) the fossil record actually undermines the evolutionist view; (2) common methods of radioisotopic dating are flawed and unreliable; (3) the information content within DNA contradicts the idea of life starting from non life; and much more. Anyone can master — and every Christian should know — these essential-Darwin demolishing points. Bring your church’s young pastor and youth leaders to this one, too! Click here for details.

► March 20 – 7:00 PM – Phoenix: Science & the Bible.  ** SAME EXCELLENT CONTENT AS ABOVE **  Click here for details. 

► March 28 – 6:30 PM – Cave Creek: Why the Earth Is Young! So much controversy about “six day creation” and that one word: “day.” Christians really need to have a strong handle on the basic science and reasoning that underlie our faith. Dr. Kezele presents the Scriptural information about: (1) the meaning of the word “day” in Genesis Chapter 1; (2) what Scripture itself says about the historicity of Genesis Chapter 1; (3) why the global Genesis Flood looms large in any analysis of the Earth’s age; and (4) the serious consequences of compromising Scripture in order to accommodate the “old Earth” viewpoint. Additional facts about Carbon-14 being found in coal and diamonds, the decay of Earth’s magnetic field, and the decay of the human genome, all confirm the recent creation of life on a young Earth.

Click here for all details on the Maricopa County Events Page. 

Pima County Events

► March 22 – 7:00 PM – Tucson: Science & the Bible. Fundamental facts never go out of style. The Bible says the Earth and all life were created in days, but the Darwinists use the fossil record to claim life evolved over millions of years. Who is right? Sal Giardina, veteran author and speaker, delivers the scientific evidence showing: (1) the fossil record actually undermines the evolutionist view; (2) common methods of radioisotopic dating are flawed and unreliable; (3) the information content within DNA contradicts the idea of life starting from non-life; and much more. Anyone can master — and every Christian should know — these essential-Darwin demolishing points. Bring your church’s young pastor and youth leaders to this one, too! Click for more details at the Pima County Events Page.

Answer to Reader’s Question

Following  your humble newsletter editor’s article, an AzOSA supporter emailed to ask: what methods we used to help some Arizona college students in  science/technology majors who, although raised in a great church, are rethinking the big question: “How do we know there is a God?” 

I started the discussion by explaining quite briefly my former atheist-agnostic status, my basis for science knowledge, and how I came to reject the naturalist-materialist explanation for origins. I framed the issue for discussion as:  “Is there a Creator, an intelligent designer of the Universe or of life on Earth?”  Because, if there is a Creator, then the idea of the Judeo-Christian “God” is fully plausible. I then started by interacting with the students on the question: “How do we detect evidence of design on Earth?” Under that category, we examined: (1) What kinds of evidence do we credit? (2) What standard of proof is enough (i.e., mathematical certainty, beyond a reasonable doubt, more likely than not)? We looked at examples, such as the appearance of neatly stacked rocks on South Mountain hiking trails, and asked: what makes us conclude that these rock stacks were the result of intelligent action? I used a Socratic method with these science-math oriented students, asking them what thinking processes they used to assume that the rock stacks and other things resulted from intelligent design. Interestingly over the course of the discussion, they volunteered these criteria: (1) the event was not required to have occurred by natural forces; (2) the event was highly improbable by undirected natural forces; and (3) the event gave the recognizable appearance of having resulted from intelligent action, i.e., humans have experience seeing similar things that come only from intelligent action. 

The give-and-take discussion was moving well as methods for detecting evidence of an intelligent designer became clarified and agreed upon.  The discussion shifted then to biological life, which shows much more evidence of intelligent design than does a neat stack of rocks on a hiking trail. Predictably, one of the students then said: “Well, I can’t go that far.”  (Why not?) “Because evolution explains life on Earth.”  When asked what was the strongest reason to accept evolution as the explanation, and to reject an intelligently designed / Creator explanation, the student said: “Thunder and lighting used to be attributed to God. Science found natural causes for them, so God was not the cause. As science has progressed, fewer and fewer things need to be explained as being God’s work. With time, God will be needed as an explanation less and less, until practically not at all.”  The “God of the gaps,” he said would be eliminated as science progresses. 

We were able to show that science actually had opened many more fundamental questions than it had answered, and that science’s reliance upon undirected natural causes cannot explain biological information. The student ended up also admitting that he had unproven “faith” in science’s ability to answer all questions in the future.  We concluded the wide ranging discussion after about two hours, all of us having enjoyed the exchange.  Several of the students were totally unfamiliar with intelligent design and creation science arguments, so this exchange gave them a new respect for our Biblical worldview. 

Information, such as delivered by AzOSA speakers and in AzOSA-offered materials, makes these kinds of discussions possible and fruitful.  Attending an AzOSA presentation at least monthly helps keep us on our toes for opportunities to answer the questions our young people pose. 

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