Dr. Cornelius Van Til

“I propose to argue that unless God is back of everything you cannot find meaning in anything…” 1

“I hold that belief in God is not merely as reasonable as other belief; it is not a little more probable, or infinitely more probable, than unbelief. I hold rather that unless you believe in God you can logically believe in nothing else.” 2

The above quotations by the late reformed apologist Cornelius Van Til explain the need for God to be at the foundation of human thought. This includes logic.

1. 1. Van Til C (1976) Why I Believe in God, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, PA, 1
2. 2. Ibid., 16

A person tossing aside the Word of God to enter neutral ground finds himself on a slippery slide to the rejection of God

Stephen C. Meyer

Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design 1 by Stephen C. Meyer is the latest book from a major proponent for intelligent design (ID).2 Signature is Meyer’s magnum opus. Meyer is the director of the Discovery Institute’s (www.discovery.org) Center for Science and Culture, the flagship organization for the ID movement. He is a trained geologist and has a Ph.D. in the Philosophy of Science from Cambridge. 3 Signature is written at a level accessible to the layman but also informative to the specialist in biochemistry. The book is a history of Meyer’s interest and involvement with ID. The main focus of the book is the origin of the informational code in DNA, especially as it relates to the origin of life. The book discusses several topics including the history of the discovery of the structure of DNA, the cracking of the DNA code, the history and status of origin of life theories (especially the RNA world), basic information theory, various scientific methodologies and modes of thought and why ID is scientific, historical sciences, detecting design, why ID is the best explanation for the origin of the information in DNA, and responses to ID critics. This review will touch upon some of the book’s highlights.

1. 1. Meyer SC (2009) Signature in the Cell; DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, HarperCollins, New York, NY. The book’s website is www.signatureinthecell.com
2. 2. Reynolds D (2006) Intelligent Design. TASC Newsletter, May, 2006. See http://www.tasc-creationscience.org/ sites/default/files/newsletters/2006/may06.pdf
3. 3. Meyer’s dissertation was on the topic of origin of life biology.

Four giant stone hand axes were recovered from the dry basin of Lake Makgadikgadi in the Kalahari Desert. How big would a human have to be to use such a giant stone tool?

Most information in this article comes from Nature’s Destiny
by Dr. Michael Denton.1

Light

About 60% of the sun’s radiation is in the visible range, only about one trillionth of one trillionth of the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Amazingly, this same range is what the air, the atmosphere, is transparent to.

1. 1. Denton MJ (1998) Nature’s destiny : how the laws of biology reveal purpose in the universe, Free Press, New York, NY.

Jewish Wedding Ceremony

Scoffers have argued that Christians hold a set of scriptures (the Bible) that are just-so stories. God in the person of Jesus is the creator of heavens and Earth, but he also created marriage, the union of one man and one woman. This divinely invented institution in our day is under attack. The goal is to redefine marriage, especially by the homosexual movement, which finds the basis of their behavior in evolutionary philosophy. Because they have rejected the scriptures as factual with regards to history (creation), they have rejected the bible’s moral teachings as well (Romans 1).

It seems that more and more when talking with people about whom God is, and His characteristics, that their perception of God is more of their own making rather than what is revealed through the Scriptures. This invariably leads to a form of idolatry and total misunderstanding of who God is. The most common perversion of God’s character is to make “love” the only characteristic He has. This usually leads to these believing that God loves everybody so much He would not send anybody to hell. Just to let them see the illogical consequences of such theology an inquiry about Hitler is made. Somehow God cannot love Hitler enough, and he has to go to hell. The sad thing is few realize that what they are basically stating as their theology is that you only have to be better than Hitler to get to heaven.

As part of my December 2006 trip to Ecuador, I had the opportunity to visit the extraordinary Petrified Forest of Puyango hidden in a living tropical forest. The forest is located near the Peruvian border in the provinces of Loja and El Oro in Southern Ecuador (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Entrance to the Petrified Forest

The forest is at an altitude between 812 ft. to 2460 ft. above sea level and covers an area of about 6567 acres. I finally found the site after a five-hour trip from Guayaquil, the main port of the country. In addition to petrified wood, all sorts of fossilized creatures could be found, such as ammonites, sea turtles, sea shells, snails, and fish, just to name a few (Figures 3-5).

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones!