My Internet DEBATE With Dan Adams

Mr. Lee writes;

"I will begin by agreeing with Mr. Adams and saying that a Christian can take some comfort in knowing that there is a God "

Well, I said believing actually. Big difference, but I'll let it go :)

He continues;

"For the Christian, the comfort and satisfaction come not only from "believing" that God exists but also from knowing Him and having a personal relationship with Him. "

I would draw parallels here to people who claim to have seen Elvis in a local drug store or claim to have been abducted by aliens. If you believe something strongly enough, you will have all the proof you need. Once you believe in something, it is impossible to be an impartial observer. If a person claims to hear voices in his head, he is branded as insane. If however, a person claims that he hears the voice of God in his head, the situation changes completely. The reason that we believe a person to be insane when he heras voices in his head is that we know that it is his brain itself which is generating those voices. It is of the worst double-standards that we do not consider that the same is true for those who claim to hear God.

"Also in his first rebuttal, Mr. Adams made mention of a very old creosote tree, a Bible which some, including he, would say has no value, and light reaching us from other galaxies. In chapter 6 and chapter 7 of a book which I wrote, entitled "Rediscovering The Truth About Creation," I report on my investigation into the Big Bang Theory. The light reaching earth from faraway galaxies and the apparent age of the universe are both byproducts of that theory. Even the belief that a particular tree outdates the Bible comes from a basic acceptance of the Theory of Evolution and/or the Big Bang Theory. "

Absolutely not. I am not saying that there is a species of tree which we know has existed for 12,000 years. I am saying that there is a single tree, a single specimen, a plant in the ground, which we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt is over 12,000 years old. I fail to see any connection whatsoever to the theory of evolution or Big Bang theory. It is basic, straightforward fact.

Basically, there are only two positions on Christianity;

(i) There are those who take every single word in the bible as being inerrant and infallible. They will tell you that everything in the bible is absolutely, and without exception, true. These Christians generally just end up looking silly because there is so much in the bible that is at odds with what we all know. If you accept everything in the bible, you must accept that there was a Worldwide flood which covered the tops of even the highest mountains. The simple fact is, there is insufficient water in the Worlds' seas, rivers, polar ice caps and lakes to do this. Even if every last drop of water on the planet were distributes evenly over the planet surface, it would fall far short of covering the planet.

(ii) Then there is the Type II Christian. They realize that some of the bible is completely ludicrous and say that parts of it were analogous only, and didn't really happen. Since they choose arbitrarily which bits to believe, I would be equally justified, to (equally arbitrarily) state that ALL of it was "analogous" and nothing in the bible ever actually happened.

It appears that Mr. Lee is of the former view. He continues...

"Yet, neither of these theories have been or can be proven, and the supporting evidence does not back them up, either. The Hubble Space Craft was launched in an effort to try to find enough evidence to "prove" that the Big Bang Theory is true, but so far it has not uncovered anything of lasting significance. "

Uhh...I'm sorry, Mr. Lee, but the Hubble telescope and others HAVE found evidence for the Big Bang. For those not familiar, I will give a brief synopsis, all of which can be verified by visiting the NASA website, or any reputable astronomical website. Basically.......

When a car goes past, the noise gets louder and higher-pitched slowly and then, as it goes past gets quieter and lower-pitched again. This same effect happens with light. By observing the light signal from other galaxies and examining them for evidence of this "Doppler effect" it can be proven that they are ALL moving away from us and from one another. This obviously points to a common source of origin, the Big Bang. (There's probably several of you sitting there thinking I've made a complete hash of that, but hey, I was trying to keep it brief and simple!)

Mr. Lee carries on...

" If one can so easily reject the Bible, as Mr. Adams has done, then a fair examination of all the evidence would also force us to throw out the belief that a tree might be 12,000 years old or that light from faraway galaxies really did start its path to earth millions of years ago."

We know how far galaxies are away from us. Since we also know the speed of light, it is a relatively simple matter to calculate how far their light must have taken to reach us. To use an analogy. I am 10metres away from you. I throw a ball to you which travels at 10 meters a second. How long does it take to reach you? Exactly, not tricky. But Mr. Lee appears to deny the fact that the light from other galaxies began its journey towards us millions of years ago. He must know something that thousands of scientists and astronomers don't. Either he knows that the speed of light is vastly different from what we believe it to be, or he knows that the distance to other galaxies is vastly different to what we believe it to be. Whichever it is, I am just dying to hear his new evidence. I'm sure that NASA would love to know too.

>Any evidence, to be relevant in a debate such as this, must be current. The 
>truth is that I was not at Creation and Mr. Adams was not around when the
>creosote tree began its life. Thus, the truth also is that neither of us can
>be absolutely certain that either of those events really did happen exactly
>as we have been led to believe.

Seemingly a good argument. - " You weren't there, so how do you know?" Well, for a start, every single bit of evidence points to the fact that the tree is 12,000 years old. Likewise, every single bit of evidence we have points to the fact that we are seeing light that was emitted from other stars millions of years ago. Why would we have all this evidence if it were not true. There are two alternatives.

(i) Either because it really is true, and the universe is billions of years old, not 6,000 years old as the bible claims.

(ii) God has created the Universe so that it appears as if it is billions of years old, even though it is not. Which begs the question "why?" There is no evidence t support it either. If you are to believe this, then why not also believe that God actually created the Universe just three seconds ago, making it appear that it was billions of years old. None of your memories are real, they are all just put there. Do you see where this ridiculousness leads?

"If you want to find the Lord, then you will have to look at those who have a genuine walk with Him."

In other words, "You must believe he exists before you see evidence he exists". What beautiful circular logic.

Mr. Lee has not provided any suitable explanation of his acceptance of the bible in the face of the major discrepancies that I have pointed out. I wait for him to do.

Yours,
Daniel Adams
dj_adams@earthlink.net
http://www.kerbcrawler.demon.co.uk