Science is defined as “the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.” Science is a method that mankind can use to gain a greater understanding of the natural universe. It is a search for knowledge through observation. Advances in science demonstrate the reach of human logic and imagination. However, a Christian’s belief in science should never be like our belief in God. A Christian can have faith in God and respect for science, as long as we remember which is perfect and which is not.

Our belief in God is a belief of faith. We have faith in His Son for salvation, faith in His Word for instruction, and faith in His Holy Spirit for guidance. Our faith in God should be absolute, since when we put our faith in God, we depend on a perfect, omnipotent, omniscient Creator. Our belief in science should be intellectual and nothing more. We can count on science to do many great things, but we can also count on science to make mistakes. If we put faith in science, we depend on imperfect, sinful, limited, mortal men. Science throughout history has been wrong about many things, such as the shape of the earth, powered flight, vaccines, blood transfusions, and even reproduction. God is never wrong.

Truth is nothing to fear, so there is no reason for a Christian to fear good science. Learning more about the way God constructed our universe helps all of mankind appreciate the wonder of creation. Expanding our knowledge helps us to combat disease, ignorance, and misunderstanding. However, there is danger when scientists hold their faith in human logic above faith in our Creator. These persons are no different from anyone devoted to a religion; they have chosen faith in man and will find facts to defend that faith.

Still, the most rational scientists, even those who refuse to believe in God, admit to a lack of completeness in our understanding of the universe. They will admit that neither God nor the Bible can be proved or disproved by science, just as many of their favorite theories ultimately cannot be proved or disproved. Science is meant to be a truly neutral discipline, seeking only the truth, not furtherance of an agenda.

Much of science supports the existence and work of God. Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.” As modern science discovers more about the universe, we find more evidence of creation. The amazing complexity and replication of DNA, the intricate and interlocking laws of physics, and the absolute harmony of conditions and chemistry here on earth all serve to support the message of the Bible. A Christian should embrace science that seeks the truth, but reject the “priests of science” who put human knowledge above God.

An employee who sued a NASA laboratory in California last summer over religious discrimination was fired Monday.

The Discovery Institute, an intelligent design think tank following the case, said the firing of David Coppedge only adds fuel to his lawsuit against Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Coppedge, who had been with the company for more than a decade, was reportedly fired as a result of downsizing. But the Discovery Institute suspects budget issues wasn’t the main reason for letting him go.

“Coppedge doesn’t seem at all like the first person who would normally be forced to leave in such a situation. Obviously, JPL has other considerations,” Casey Luskin, an attorney with the think tank, stated.

Before being let go, Coppedge was demoted in 2009 after he was accused of “pushing religion” on his co-workers. The longtime employee had begun engaging colleagues in conversations about intelligent design – a theory that life and the existence of the universe derive not from undirected material processes but from an intelligent cause – and offering DVDs on the subject when the co-worker expressed interest.

Though Coppedge, an information technology specialist, has maintained that intelligent design is a scientific theory, his employers reportedly have deemed it religion.

He received a written warning that described his actions as harassing in nature and a disruption in the workplace. Thereafter, he was removed from the “team lead” position on JPL’s Cassini mission to Saturn.

Coppedge filed a complaint last year, alleging that he has been “stigmatized in such a way that career advancement opportunities have been foreclosed to him.” The complaint contends that Coppedge was deprived of his constitutional right to freely speak.

It also accuses his employers of creating, tolerating and condoning a work environment that is pervasively hostile to Coppedge on account of viewpoints he holds regarding intelligent design.

Last January, Scientific American declared 2009 as “the year of Darwin” in celebration of the 200^th anniversary of the birth of the revolutionary evolutionist who turned man into a monkey.

The celebration is understandable.

No thinker has accomplished more to create a cleft between science and religion.

No writer has done more to undermine the claim of scripture that man was made in the image and likeness of God.

No scholar has forged greater support for moral relativity and modern materialism.

His theories are treated as laws; his notions as knowledge; his speculation as science.

But a recent finding in Kenya has sent evolutionists into a tail-spin.

And freshly unearthed discoveries of Darwin’s life have caused the academic community to reconsider his greatness and his contribution to advancement of modern science.

The first debunking of Darwin came with the discovery this year of a 1.5 million-year-old footprint in northern Kenya – – the oldest relic of primitive man since Mary Leaky discovered 3.75 million-year-old tracks in the volcanic ash of northern Tanzania.

Darwinist scientists who discovered the footprint in Kenya reluctantly came to the conclusion that it was made by Homo Erectus who had no business appearing in the lower Paleolithic period of world history.

By scanning the footprints with lasers and measuring sediment compression, the scientists determined that the individual who left this print had a modern foot and stride: a mid-foot arch, straight big toe and heel-to-toe weight transfer. 

David Braun, a professor at the South Africa Cape Town University and one of the scientists who came upon the fossil, states the following in Science magazine:

“It was kind of creepy excavating these things to see all of a sudden something that looks so dramatically like something that you yourself could have made 20 minutes earlier in some kind of wet sediment just next to the site. These could quite easily have been made on the beach today.”

“The prints match a men’s shoe size of about 9, which gives you a height of about 5 feet 9 inches,” says Brian Richmond of George Washington University, who was part of the excavation team. “Here, we have really compelling evidence that they were walking with a long stride, they had an arch in the foot the way we have, and the arch puts a spring in our step, which makes walking more efficient,” he says.

Compounding the problem was the discovery in the same area of a second set of human footprints that had been left about 1,000 years after the first set.

“It’s incredible. I’ve never excavated anything like this before,” says team director John Harris of Rutgers University.

The discoveries are not only incredible but devastating for Darwinists who have held that Homo Erectus did not appear on the scene until 200,000 years ago. This assumption is contained in almost every world history and social studies text in the United States.

Since Christians are compelled by the U.S. Department of Education to present Creationism as a fanciful theory, the same ruling should now be applied to the questionable theories of Darwin and his contemporaries.

To be sure, previous problems with the theory of evolution have been found. To support natural selection, Darwin argued that giraffes gradually grew long necks in order to reach into high trees for the leaves, which the Great Scientist believed, were their sole source of sustenance. He remained blissfully unaware that giraffes eat grass and bushes, and he failed to account for the fact that female giraffes are two or three feet shorter than the males.

In their efforts to materialize empirical proof for evolution, Darwin’s followers turned to scientific hoaxes, such as “Nebraska Man” — an anthropoid ape ancestor to man, whose tooth turned out to belong to a wild pig, and Piltdown Man, who was reported to represent the missing link between monkey and man.

Discovered in England in 1912, Piltdown Man created a sensation until the artifact was exposed in the 1950s as the skull of a Medieval Englishman which had been attached by jaded scientists to the jaw of an Asian ape, whose teeth had been filed down to look human and whose bones had been stained by shellac to look old.

Yet three English scientists were knighted for Piltdown Man.

Other Darwinian claims have been uncovered as asinine assertions. Bird feathers, for example, do not come from the scales of reptiles, human embryos contain no gills.

Thus far, not one fossil has been found to validate Darwin.

“The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontologists,” admitted Stephen J. Gould in 1977. But that fossil record now contains even more species that appear fully developed, with no traceable ancestors.

In addition to the discoveries in Kenya, newly uncovered data about Darwin the man present him as an opportunist and charlatan.

Darwin, noted scientist Eugene Winchy demonstrates in his book The End of Darwinism, stole his theory from Alfred Wallace, who had sent him a “completed formal paper on evolution by natural selection.”

“All my originality … will be smashed,” a distraught Darwin cried when he got Wallace’s manuscript.

Darwin also lied in “The Origin of Species” about believing in a Creator. By 1859, he was a confirmed agnostic and so admitted in his posthumous autobiography, which was censored by his family.

In his book, Windchy devotes a chapter to the Scopes trial which formed the basis for Inherit the Wind, a Bible-mocking movie with Spencer Tracy as Clarence Darrow and Frederick March as William Jennings Bryan.

The trial, as it turns out, was a carefully orchestrated scam to garner publicity for Dayton, Tennessee.

Scopes never taught evolution and never took the stand. His students were tutored to commit perjury.

And the devout Christian Bryan more than held his own against the atheist Darrow as evidenced by the actual transcript of the trial.

Many of you will be familiar with the organization Reasons to Believe, headed up by Dr. Hugh Ross. Hugh Ross is known in Christian circles for compromising secular ideas, such as the big bang, billions of years, etc., with the Bible and reinterpreting the clear language of Genesis. He is one of the leading compromisers in the church today—sadly popularizing beliefs that undermine the authority of Scripture.

In the past, the largest Christian television network in the world, TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network), has featured Dr. Ross giving several presentations. Later this month, TBN will air a docu-drama called Dual Revelation. Hugh Ross speaks of dual revelation meaning that one needs to take secular interpretations such as billions of years and the Big Bang and add them to the written revelation, Scripture.

From the trailer, this docu-drama seems to involve (at one stage) a child asking her father a question about dinosaurs. Knowing what Hugh Ross believes about dinosaurs (basically the same as what the secular world teaches, that they died out 65 million years ago and well before the first humans), it is distressing to see how a worldwide television network that purports to be Christian and Bible-upholding will be airing this documentary that appears to be telling people if they don’t tell their children to believe what secular scientists are teaching, the children will walk away from the Christian faith.

However, the opposite is true. Such compromise that comes from Hugh Ross and his organization is what leads young people to walk away from the church. Our research reported on in the book Already Gone makes this very clear indeed. . . . .

read the full article here.

THE MATHEMATICS OF THE MECHANICS

The president of Answers in Genesis says an alleged new “missing link” found by scientists is nothing more than an extinct primate. 

 On Tuesday, scientists in New York unveiled what they described as the missing link in human evolution, a fossilized skeleton reportedly 47 million years old. They said the creature — nicknamed “Ida” — had four legs and a long tail, was about the size of a small cat, and had human-like nails instead of claws, along with a bone in her foot that is similar to humans.
 
According to Associated Press, scientists said while the creature is not a direct ancestor of monkeys and humans, it provides a good indication of what that ancestor may have looked like.

Ken Ham, president of the apologetics ministry Answers in Genesis, finds it ironic that the same scientists, in a research paper detailing their findings, toned down their pronouncements after pressure from colleagues in the scientific community.
 
“One of those reviewers said that…whether nor not it’s going to be a transitional form, or missing link, is a judgment for the scientific community,” Ham states. “And he’s quoted as saying that [issue] will be sorted out, or at least debated extensively in the community for years, once the paper is published.”
 
Ham says the fossil is similar to a modern lemur, and in no way resembles a human skeleton. 
 
The ministry has stated: “Because the fossil is similar to a modern lemur (a small, tailed, tree-climbing primate), it’s unlikely that creationists need any interpretation of the ‘missing link’ other than that it was a small, tailed, probably tree-climbing, and now extinct primate — from a kind created on Day 6 of Creation Week.”

from Pravada:

Young people, and even adults, often wonder how all the varieties or “races” of people could come from the same original human ancestors. Well, in principle, that’s no different than asking how children with different color hair (i.e., blond, brunette, brown, red ) can come from the same parents who both have black hair.

Just as some individuals today carry genes to produce descendants with different color hair and eyes, humanity’s first parents, Adam and Eve, possessed genes to produce all the variety and races of men. You and I today may not carry the genes to produce every variety or race of humans, but humanity’s first parents did possess such genes.

All varieties of humans carry genes for the same basic traits, but not all humans carry every possible variation of those genes. For example, one person may be carrying several variations of the gene for eye color ( i.e., brown, green, blue ) , but someone else may be carrying only one variation of the gene for eye color ( i.e., brown ). Thus, both will have different abilities to affect the eye color of their offspring.

Some parents with black hair, for example, are capable of producing children with blond hair, but their blond children (because they inherit only recessive genes) will not have the ability to produce children with black hair unless they mate with someone else who has black hair. If the blond descendants only mate with other blondes then the entire line and population will only be blond even though the original ancestor was black-haired.

In reality there is only one race – the human race – within which exists myriad variations and permutations.

The evidence from science shows that only microevolution (variations within a biological “kind” such as the varieties of dogs, cats, horses, cows, etc.) is possible but not macroevolution (variations across biological “kinds”, especially from simpler kinds to more complex ones). The only evolution that occurs in Nature is microevolution (or horizontal evolution) but not macroevolution (vertical evolution).

The genetic ability for microevolution exists in Nature but not the genetic ability for macroevolution. The genes (chemical and genetic instructions or programs) for microevolution exist in every species but not the genes for macroevolution. Unless Nature has the intelligence and ability to perform genetic engineering (to construct entirely new genes and not just to produce variations and new combinations of already existing genes) then macroevolution will never be possible in Nature.

We have varieties of dogs today that we didn’t have a couple of hundred years ago. All of this is just another example of microevolution (horizontal evolution) in Nature. No matter how many varieties of dogs come into being they will always remain dogs and not change or evolve into some other kind of animal. Even the formation of an entirely new species of plant or animal from hybridization will not support Darwinian evolution since such hybridization does not involve any production of new genetic information but merely the recombination of already existing genes.

Modifications and new combinations of already existing genes for already existing traits have been shown to occur in nature but never the production of entirely new genes or new traits. This is true even with genetic mutations. For example, mutations in the genes for human hair may change the genes so that another type of human hair develops, but the mutations won’t change the genes for human hair so that feathers, wings, or entirely new traits develop. Mutations may even cause duplication of already existing traits (i.e. an extra finger, toe, etc. even in another part of the body!), but none of these things qualify as new traits.

Evolutionists believe that, if given enough time, random or chance mutations in the genetic code caused by random environmental forces such as radiation will produce entirely new genes for entirely new traits which natural selection can act upon or preserve.

However, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that random mutations have the ability to generate entirely new genes which would program for the development of entirely new traits in species. It would require genetic engineering to accomplish such a feat. Random genetic mutations caused by the environment will never qualify as genetic engineering!

Mutations are accidents in the sequential molecular structure of the genetic code and they are almost always harmful, as would be expected from accidents. Of course, just like some earthquakes that don’t do any damage to buildings, there are also mutations that don’t do any biological harm. But, even if a good mutation does occur for every good mutation there will be hundreds of harmful ones with the net result over time being disastrous for the species.

Furthermore, only those mutations produced in the genes of reproductive cells, such as sperm in the male and ovum (or egg cell) in the female, are passed on to offspring. Mutations and any changes produced in other body cells are not transmitted. For example, if a woman were to lose a finger it would not result in her baby being born with a missing finger. Similarly, even if an ape ever learned to walk upright, it could not pass this characteristic on to its descendants. Thus, modern biology has disproved the once-held theory that acquired characteristics from the environment can be transmitted into the genetic code of offspring.

Most biological variations within a biological kind (i.e. varieties of humans, dogs, cats, horses, mice, etc.) are the result of new combinations of already existing genes and not because of mutations.

For those who are not read-up on their biology, a little information on genes would be helpful here. What we call “genes” are actually segments of the DNA molecule. DNA, or the genetic code, is composed of a molecular string of various nucleic acids (chemical letters) which are arranged in a sequence just like the letters found in the words and sentences of a book. It is this sequence of nucleic acids in DNA that tells the cells of our body how to construct (or build) various proteins, tissues, and organs such as nose, eyes, brain, etc. If the nucleic acids in the genetic code are not in the correct sequence then malfunctioning, or even worse, harmful proteins may form causing serious health problems and even death.

There is no law in science that nucleic acids have to come together in a particular sequence. Any nucleic acid can just as easily bond with any other. The only reason for why nucleic acids are found in a particular sequence in the DNA of the cells of our bodies is because they are directed to do so by previously existing DNA. When new cells form in our bodies the DNA of the old cells direct the formation of the DNA in the new cells.

The common belief among evolutionists is that, if given millions of years, radiation and other environmental forces will cause enough random changes (mutations) to occur in the sequential structure of the genetic code of a species so that entirely new sequences for entirely new genes will develop which in turn will program for the formation of entirely new biological traits, organs, and structures that natural selection can then act upon.

Would it be rational to believe that by randomly changing the sequence of letters in a cookbook that you will eventually get a book on astronomy? Of course not! And if the book were a living being it would have died in the process of such random changes.

Such changes, as transforming one book into another or the DNA of one species into the DNA of another, especially one more complex, simply cannot occur by random or chance alterations. It would require intelligent planning and design to change one book into another or to change the DNA of a simpler species into the DNA of a more complex one.

Yes, it is true that the raw biological materials and chemicals to make entirely new genes exist in every species, but the problem is that the random forces of nature (i.e. radiation, etc.) simply have no ability to rearrange those chemicals and biological materials into entirely new genes programming for entirely new traits. Again, mutations only have the ability to produce variations of already existing traits. It would require intelligent manipulation of genetic material (genetic engineering) to turn a fish into a human being. The random forces of the environment cannot perform such genetic engineering!

If the environment doesn’t possess the ability to perform genetic engineering and if macro-evolution really did not occur then how else can one explain the genetic and biological similarities which exist between various species and, indeed, all of life. Although it cannot be scientifically proven, creationists believe that the only rational explanation for the genetic and biological similarities between all forms of life is due to a common Designer who designed and created similar functions for similar purposes and different functions for different purposes in all of the various forms of life from the simplest to the most complex. Even humans employ this principle of common design in planning the varied architecture of buildings!

If humans must use intelligence to perform genetic engineering, to meaningfully manipulate the genetic code, then what does that say about the origin of the genetic code itself!

Many have confused natural selection with evolution itself. Yes, Charles Darwin did show that natural selection occurs in nature, but what many don’t understand is that natural selection itself does not produce biological traits or variations.

Natural selection can only “select” from biological variations that are produced and which have survival value. The real issue is what biological variations can be naturally produced. What biological variations are naturally possible? When a biological change or variation occurs within a species and this new variation (such as a change in skin color, etc.) helps that species to survive in its environment then that variation will be preserved (“selected”) and be passed on to offspring. That is called “natural selection” or “survival of the fittest”. But, neither “natural selection” nor “survival of the fittest” has anything to do with producing biological traits and variations.

The term “natural selection” is simply a figure of speech. Nature, of course, does not do any active or conscious selecting. It is an entirely passive process. Darwin did not realize what produced biological variations. Darwin simply assumed that any kind of biological change or variation was possible in life. However, we now know that biological traits and variations are determined by the genetic code.

Natural selection works with evolution but it is not evolution itself. Again, since natural selection can only “select” from biological variations that are possible, the real question to be asking is what kind of biological variations are naturally possible. How much biological variation (or how much evolution) is naturally possible in Nature? As we have seen all biological variation or evolution is limited to within plant and animal kinds.

Another reason for why macroevolution is not possible in Nature is because a half-evolved and useless organ waiting millions of years to be completed by random mutations would be a liability and hindrance to a species – not exactly a prime candidate for natural selection. In fact, how could species have survived over, supposedly, millions of years while their vital (or necessary) organs were still in the process of evolving!

How, for example, were animals breathing, eating, and reproducing if their respiratory, digestive, and reproductive organs were still incomplete and evolving? How were species fighting off possibly life-threatening germs if their immune system hadn’t fully evolved yet?

Scientist and creationist Dr. Walt Brown, in his fantastic book “In The Beginning”, makes this point by saying, “All species appear fully developed, not partially developed. They show design. There are no examples of half-developed feathers, eyes, skin, tubes (arteries, veins, intestines, etc.), or any of thousands of other vital organs. Tubes that are not 100% complete are a liability; so are partially developed organs and some body parts. For example, if a leg of a reptile were to evolve into a wing of a bird, it would become a bad leg long before it became a good wing.”

Usually what is meant by the term “biological kind” is a natural species but this may not always be the case. The key to keep in mind here is that in order for evolution in nature to occur from one biological “kind” to another biological “kind” entirely new genes would have to be generated and not just merely modifications and/or recombination of already existing genes. If, for example, offspring are produced which cannot be crossed back with the original stock then there is, indeed, a new species but if no new genes or traits developed then there is no macro-evolution (variation across biological kinds) and the two distinct species would continue to belong to the same “kind”.

Science cannot prove we’re here by creation, but neither can science prove we’re here by chance or macro-evolution. No one has observed either. They are both accepted on faith. The issue is which faith, Darwinian macro-evolutionary theory or creation, has better scientific support.

If some astronauts from Earth discovered figures of persons similar to Mt. Rushmore on an uninhabited planet there would be no way to scientifically prove the carved figures originated by design or by chance processes of erosion. Neither position is science, but scientific arguments may be made to support one or the other.

What we believe about life’s origins does influence our philosophy and value of life as well as our view of ourselves and others. This is no small issue!

Just because the laws of science can explain how life and the universe operate and work doesn’t mean there is no Maker. Would it be rational to believe that there’s no designer behind airplanes because the laws of science can explain how airplanes operate and work?

Natural laws are adequate to explain how the order in life, the universe, and even a microwave oven operates, but mere undirected natural laws can never fully explain the origin of such order.

Of course, once there is a complete and living cell then the genetic program and biological mechanisms exist to direct and organize molecules to form into more cells. The question is how did life come into being when there was no directing mechanism in Nature. An excellent article to read by scientist and biochemist Dr. Duane T. Gish is “A Few Reasons An Evolutionary Origin of Life Is Impossible” .

There is, of course, much more to be said on this subject. Scientist, creationist, debater, writer, and lecturer, Dr. Walt Brown covers various scientific issues ( i.e. fossils, so-called transitional links, biological variation and diversity, the origin of life, comparative anatomy and embryology, the issue of vestigial organs, the age of the Earth, etc. ) at greater depth on his website at http://www.creationscience.com .

On his website, Dr. Brown even discusses the possibility of any remains of life on Mars as having originated from the Earth due to great geological disturbances in the Earth’s past which easily could have spewed thousands of tons of rock and dirt containing microbes into space. In fact, A Newsweek article of September 21, 1998, p.12 mentions exactly this possibility.

An excellent source of information from highly qualified scientists who are creationists is the Institute for Creation Research (http://www.icr.org) in San Diego, California. Also, the reader may find answers to many difficult questions concerning the Bible (including questions on creation and evolution, Noah’s Ark, how dinosaurs fit into the Bible, etc.)at http://www.ChristianAnswers.net.

It is only fair that evidence supporting intelligent design or creation be presented to students alongside of evolutionary theory, especially in public schools which receive funding from taxpayers who are on both sides of the issue. Also, no one is being forced to believe in God or adopt a particular religion so there is no true violation of separation of church and state. As a religion and science writer, I encourage all to read my Internet article “The Natural Limits of Evolution” at my website http://www.religionscience.com for more in-depth study of the issue.

An unusual large galaxy with a shape bordering between spiral and elliptical has been spotted by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

NGC 7049 sits in the southern constellation Indus, and is the brightest of a cluster of galaxies, a so-called Brightest Cluster Galaxy (BCG). Typical BCGs are some of the oldest and most massive galaxies, which provide excellent opportunities for astronomers to study the elusive globular clusters lurking within.

The halo, a ghostly region of diffuse light surrounding the galaxy, is composed of myriads of individual stars and provides a luminous background to the swirling ring of dust lanes surrounding NGC 7049′s core.

Small faint points of light sprinkled throughout the galaxy represent globular clusters, which are gravitational groupings of several hundreds of thousands of stars. They contain some of the first stars to be produced in a galaxy.

NGC 7049 has far fewer such clusters than other similar giant galaxies in very big, rich groups. This indicates to astronomers how the surrounding environment influenced the formation of galaxy halos in the early universe.

Hubble captured this image using its Advanced Camera for Surveys, which is primed to hunt galaxies and galaxy clusters in the remote and ancient universe. The space telescope recently imaged a group of colliding galaxies chosen in an online voting contest.

Now does anyone need ANY further proof that Roman Catholicism is a false belief system? For a so called “christian church” not to believe that God is responsible for the complexities of life is just ludicrous!

If a belief system does not hold that the God of the Bible is the ultimate creator and origin of ALL creation then it cannot claim to be a Biblical belief system!

Genesis 1:1:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

John 1:1-3:

“In the beginning was the Word, [logos] and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; [i.e., before creation] all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”

Colossians 1:15-17

[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the first-born [prototokos] of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

One of the key words in the Colossians passage above (“…and in Christ all things hold together”) is the Greek word sunistemi which means “to stand-together,” “to be compacted together,” “to cohere,” “to be constituted with.”

This passage can be applied to the structure of the atom, for example. The nucleus of every atom is held together by what physicists call “weak” and “strong” forces.

Among secular scientists today there are many who acknowledge that God exists. But He is usually considered as only a First Cause-the One who brought the universe into existence and set it into motion. But most of these same scientists assume God was not involved after the initial act of creation.

This is contrary to clear statements in the Bible that God is very much involved in every event that takes place in the ongoing history of the entire universe. Causality links everything together, because God “works (Gr: energizes) all things according to the counsel of His will.” (Ephesians 1:11.)

from The Daily Telegraph:

Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said while the Church had been hostile to Darwin’s theory in the past, the idea of evolution could be traced to St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas.

Father Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, Professor of Theology at the Pontifical Santa Croce University in Rome, added that 4th century theologian St Augustine had “never heard the term evolution, but knew that big fish eat smaller fish” and forms of life had been transformed “slowly over time”. Aquinas made similar observations in the Middle Ages.

Ahead of a papal-backed conference next month marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, the Vatican is also set to play down the idea of Intelligent Design, which argues a “higher power” must be responsible for the complexities of life.

The conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University will discuss Intelligent Design to an extent, but only as a “cultural phenomenon” rather than a scientific or theological issue.

Monsignor Ravasi said Darwin’s theories had never been formally condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, pointing to comments more than 50 years ago, when Pope Pius XII described evolution as a valid scientific approach to the development of humans.

Marc Leclerc, who teaches natural philosophy at the Gregorian University, said the “time has come for a rigorous and objective valuation” of Darwin by the Church as the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth approaches.

Professor Leclerc argues that too many of Darwin’s opponents, primarily Creationists, mistakenly claim his theories are “totally incompatible with a religious vision of reality”.

Earlier this week, prominent scientists and leading religious figures wrote to The Daily Telegraph to call for an end to the fighting over Darwin’s legacy.

They argued that militant atheists are turning people away from evolution by using it to attack religion while they also urge believers in creationism to acknowledge the overwhelming body of evidence that now exists to support Darwin’s theory.

The Church of England is seeking to bring Darwin back into the fold with a page on its website paying tribute to his “forgotten” work in his local parish, showing science and religion need not be at odds.

do a Google on  ”Laminin”

Colossians 1:17:

“He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together”