Do We Really Have What They Wrote? New Testament Textual Variants

Recently, I was involved in a rather intense argument with multiple people, one person in particular was telling us all that there was nothing to indicate that the Bible was the Word of God, and that it

failed to stand up to scrutiny in matters of history and science.  In defense of his point, he quoted Bart Ehrman and said that there were so many variants in the New Testament manuscripts that we couldn't trust that we actually had what those authors wrote.

The question is, was Bart Ehrman right?  Do the 400,000 variants in the 5,500 plus manuscripts prevent us from trusting that we have what the New Testament authors actually wrote?

To answer that question, I decided to take a clip from my Documentary film God: A Matter of Science & History and post it as my first-ever video created specifically for this blog.  I hope that this video will show you the absurdity of Erhman's assertion, and allow you to trust what you read in the New Testament.

Correction of Old Beliefs, and what's coming next...

It's been a long time since I addressed a subject on this blog, and that is due to the fact that I've been working extensively on my book, which is called Another Inconvenient Truth: What Secular America Hates.  I am currently waiting for two to three more endorsements to come in before I publish the book as an Ebook and make it available on Amazon.  While I'm waiting, I'd like you all to know that I've recently had to change my mind on a couple of minor things.

In earlier posts, and in my documentary film God:  A Matter of Science & History, I used the radiation afterglow and the ripples within the afterglow as pieces of scientific evidence supporting the existence of God, and the reason that I did was because I thought that those two things supported the expanding universe, which is supported by scripture.  After studying scripture, reviewing old debates between Kent Hovind and old-earth, pro-evolution Christians, and thinking deeply about it, I have come to conclude that the radiation afterglow and the ripples within the afterglow support the Big Bang theory, which is really part of the Evolution religion.  

When I watch really smart Christians who've adopted old-earth, evolutionary ideas deny the authority of God's word, when I watch them say that death brought man into the world instead of man bringing death into the world like scripture says, and when I watch guys like Hugh Ross say in a televised debate that God couldn't make the distinction between the sun, moon, and the stars versus the light on the fourth day of creation (see 48:20-48:39 on the video), I realize that they have departed from the faith. It's no longer an issue of science; it is challenging the reliability of God's eyewitness account of how he created the Earth, saying that God didn't know what he was looking at even though God was the only one there.

Hugh Ross, and others like him, fail to do what Paul told Timothy to do regarding false science:

1 Timothy 6:20-21: "Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have departed from the faith.

 Grace be with you all."

Notice what the KJV says.

1 Timothy 6:20-21: "O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen."

In March, scientists found gravitational waves within a cloud of microwave radiation, which supposedly confirmed that there was a big bang.  I used that discovery in a blog post as a piece of scientific evidence showing that the entire universe came into existence out of nothing in an instant like the bible says.  However, in September, Time magazine's online website published an article titled "Big Bang 'Proof' Might Be Space Dust, Study Finds".  We read the following in that article:

"This past Spring, a research team called Bicep reported that by using a powerful telescope, the Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization 2 (BICEP2), they could observe ripples in the sky that they believed to be gravitational waves from the cosmic event that we have come to know as the Big Bang.

If true, the findings would be monumental, since it would be close to absolute evidence of the Big Bang and a theory called cosmic inflation, which suggests that the world underwent a rapid expansion, bursting into existence in less than a second.

But a new paper published Monday in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics suggests that there was probably a lot of space dust interference in the original findings, and it’s unlikely that the Bicep researchers had a clear enough picture to confirm they indeed saw waves from the origins of the universe."

Because of the fact that they support the secular theory of the Big Bang, they aren't supported by Scripture, and they don't appear to be true, I do not endorse radiation afterglow, ripples within the afterglow, or the recent "discovery" of gravitational waves as pieces of evidence for God's existence.

The End Is Coming

I woke up this morning, and found an article from the Fox News website titled "Israel's Shimon Peres proposes new peace initiative 'UN of Religions' to pope at Vatican visit" in my Facebook news feed.  In it, we read the following:


"Retired Israeli President Shimon Peres has proposed a new global peace initiative to Pope Francis: A 'United Nations of Religions,' given that most wars today have religious, not nationalistic, undercurrents.

The Vatican said Peres pitched the initiative during a 45-minute audience Thursday in the Apostolic Palace. The two men last met when Francis invited the then-Israeli president and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to pray for peace together in the Vatican gardens on June 8."

In the article "Peres proposes ‘UN for religions’ to pope at Vatican" by The Jerusalem Post, Peres said the following:

"In an interview with the Catholic Magazine Famiglia Cristiana, Peres called on Francis to leverage his respect to create an interfaith organization to curb religious violence.
 
'What we need is an organization of United Religions... as the best way to combat terrorists who kill in the name of faith,' Peres said. 'What we need is an unquestionable moral authority who says out loud, "No, God does not want this and does not allow it."' After meeting with Peres, Francis held a 30-minute closed door meeting with Jordanian Prince El-Hassan bin Talal, who sponsors the Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies to promote religious dialogue. Lombardi said that meeting dovetailed into the day’s topic of interfaith cooperation and peace."

Your eyes don't deceive you, people.  We are looking at the beginning of the One-World religion, and we are approaching a world where people like me will be considered societal outcasts.

While Pope Francis has spent a lot of his public time trying to build bridges between the different religions, there is one type of religious people he refuses to try and build bridges with:  Fundamentalists who think their religion is true.

In the article "Pope Condemns Religious Fundamentalism, Middle East Violence" by Israelnationalnews.com, Pope Francis said this:

"A fundamentalist group, even if it kills no one, even it strikes no one, is violent. The mental structure of fundamentalism is violence in the name of God."  

In other words, someone who trusts Jesus when he claimed to be the only way to heaven is considered to be violent even if the person has never hurt anyone.

In the article "Vatican Astronomer Calls Young Earth Creation Beliefs 'Almost Blasphemous'" on Christian News, we read the following:

Guy Consolmagno is Coordinator for Public Relations at the Vatican Observatory, which is an astronomical institute operated by the Roman Catholic Church. A popular speaker and author, Consolmagno often comments on matters pertaining to religion and science.
In an interview last week with Australia’s Fairfax Media, Consolmagno forcefully disparaged the young earth, literal interpretation of the biblical creation account, comparing it to blasphemy.
“It’s almost blasphemous theology,” Consolmagno alleged, according to the Brisbane Times. “It’s certainly not the tradition of Catholicism and never has been and it misunderstands what the Bible is and it misunderstands what science is.”

The papal astronomer said he rejects the literal interpretation of Genesis and instead finds truth through “science.”
“Science is a way of getting close to creation, to really getting intimate with creation, and it’s a way of getting intimate with the creator,” he claimed. “It’s an act of worship.”
In the interview, Consolmagno said the Bible is not supposed to be science book.
- See more at: http://christiannews.net/2014/10/20/catholic-astronomer-calls-young-earth-creation-beliefs-almost-blasphemous/#sthash.OCk1Vqok.dpuf

Guy Consolmagno is Coordinator for Public Relations at the Vatican Observatory - See more at: http://christiannews.net/2014/10/20/catholic-astronomer-calls-young-earth-creation-beliefs-almost-blasphemous/#sthash.OCk1Vqok.dpuf

Vatican Astronomer Calls Young Earth Creation Beliefs ‘Almost Blasphemous’ - See more at: http://christiannews.net/2014/10/20/catholic-astronomer-calls-young-earth-creation-beliefs-almost-blasphemous/#sthash.OCk1Vqok.dpuf

"Guy Consolmagno is Coordinator for Public Relations at the Vatican Observatory, which is an astronomical institute operated by the Roman Catholic Church. A popular speaker and author, Consolmagno often comments on matters pertaining to religion and science.

In an interview last week with Australia’s Fairfax Media, Consolmagno forcefully disparaged the young earth, literal interpretation of the biblical creation account, comparing it to blasphemy.

'It’s almost blasphemous theology,' Consolmagno alleged, according to the Brisbane Times. 'It’s certainly not the tradition of Catholicism and never has been and it misunderstands what the Bible is and it misunderstands what science is.'

The papal astronomer said he rejects the literal interpretation of Genesis and instead finds truth through 'science.'

'Science is a way of getting close to creation, to really getting intimate with creation, and it’s a way of getting intimate with the creator,' he claimed. 'It’s an act of worship.'

In the interview, Consolmagno said the Bible is not supposed to be science book.

'Science goes out of date—it’s supposed to,” he insisted. 'Now, if you’re turning the Bible into a science book, then you’re saying you should throw it out after three years. … The very concept of a science book didn’t exist when the Bible was written.'"

In other words, according to Consolmagno, followers of Jesus who trust scripture when it says that God created the universe and everything in it in six 24-hour days roughly 6,000 years ago are actually following blasphemous theology.  He's talking about me.

As I watch the world continue to develop and head in the direction that it's going in, I can see that there may come a day in my lifetime where I will be imprisoned for calling Jesus my Lord and Savior, and I may or may not live long enough to see the One-World government and religion come into being.  The only thing I know for sure is that these recent events are making me more vigilant than before, and it is my prayer that we'll all be more vigilant in looking out for the signs of Christ's coming to rapture us.

Guy Consolmagno is Coordinator for Public Relations at the Vatican Observatory - See more at: http://christiannews.net/2014/10/20/catholic-astronomer-calls-young-earth-creation-beliefs-almost-blasphemous/#sthash.OCk1Vqok.dpuf

Update 10/12/2014

Hello folks!  It's been a long time since I've posted anything on this blog, so I figured that you should all know what I've been up to the past several months.

In the summer and fall of 2012, I stumbled across a series of really good Batman fan films on YouTube.  Since I was still in a phase where I was captivated by the recently released Dark Knight Rises movie, I decided that I wanted to make a Batman fan film.  I made one in the fall of 2012, but it was so bad compared to what I originally wanted to do that I decided to reboot the project.  I spent the next couple years working in collaboration with another script writer working on a script for my new project:  Dark Knight: Freedom; if you want to know what the basic plot of the movie will be, click here.  A few scenes for the movie have been filmed already, the second promo trailer I made for it currently has 3,598 views, and I have a 58-second trailer running on the Rhema Word Television network through the end of October.  When the movie is finished, which will probably sometime early in 2015, I will share it on this blog.

Earlier this year, I decided to take a lot of the knowledge that I've been accumulating over the past several years and organize it into a book.  I realized that there are a lot of truths that are inconvenient to the societal paradigm of the current American culture, so I began writing an Ebook titled Another Inconvenient Truth:  What Secular America Hates.  Covering topics such as abortion, homosexuality, atheism, evolution, the Emergent Church movement in America, the historical Jesus, and the end times, this book serves as both an apologetics book, and a book that warns about the direction that American society is headed.  The first draft is complete, and my book is currently being looked at my my current pastor, Dan Campbell, and my former pastor Dr. Jim Jenkins, who has a book coming out in November and is starting up a ministry called The Jude 3 Evangelistic Association.  I am hoping that I can put the book out sometime between the end of October, and December.  I will make a post about it when the time comes.

Once these two major projects are done, I will get back to posting on this blog on a more regular basis like I used to do.  In the meantime, I ask that you pray for me, and pray that God will use these two projects of mine to reach whoever he wants them to reach, and that they will honor him. 

Rick Warren: His Humanist and New Ageism Roots

I know that there are a lot of Christians out in the world today who think that Rick Warren, the pastor at Saddleback Church, is a real man of God; every once in a while, I will see Christian friends of mine sharing a status from Rick Warren's Facebook page.  It is my hope that by the time you're done reading this post, you will want nothing to do with Rick Warren.  

Warren's Ties to Humanism:

At the Biannual Faith Angle Conference on Religion, Politics and Public Life in Key West, Florida in May of 2005, Rick Warren said the following:

"The most significant sociological phenomenon of the first half of the twentieth century was the rise of the corporation.  The most significant sociological phenomenon of the second half of the twentieth century has been the development of the large pastoral church--of the mega-church.  It is the only organization that is actually working in society.  

Now, Drucker has said that at least six times.  I happen to know because he's my mentor.  I've spent twenty years under his tutelage learning about leadership from him, and he's written it in two or three books, and he says he thinks it's the only thing that really works in society."

Who is this Drucker that Warren is referring to?  Paul Smith gives a pretty good summary of him on pages 13-14 of New Evangelicalism: The New World Order:

"In the American Secular World, Peter Drucker became a rising star as a notable management guru, achieving fame as a consultant to both General Motors and General Electric.  His goal was to achieve optimum community in America wherein an individual's needs are met from the cradle to the grave.  Along the way a person's worth is determined by a calculated system of accountability which assigns value that measures achievement...In Drucker's quest for optimum community, he discovered that the most effective agent of change in American life is the mega-church.  At that point, Drucker and Rick Warren, a graduate of Fuller Seminary, came together.  Warren has affectionately boasted that Drucker has been his mentor for over twenty years.  Warren has vigorously implemented Drucker's key ideas at the Saddleback Church where his Purpose Driven model has been pioneered with national and international attention." 

As we can see from above, Drucker's incredibly humanistic philosophy states that the value of a person is based on the economic contributions they make to society, not the fact that every human was created in the image of God and is therefore valuable.  That's not surprising though, because Drucker admitted the following in an interview:

"I am not a born again Christian.  I went to church and tithed.  But no, I am not a Christian.  I taught religion at Bennington College every other semester for five years; out of which the essay on Kierkegaard came after I stopped teaching there."

So, not only is Peter Drucker not a Christian, but the man has clearly shown that he used to be one of those humanist religion professors on college campuses, and that his humanism influenced his ethics.  Because of this, the following quote of Drucker's from The End of Economic Man: The Origins of Totalitarianism shouldn't be too surprising:

"In spite of his need and search, Christianity and the churches have been unable to provide a religious social solution.  All they can do today is give the individual religion.  They cannot give a new society and a new community.  Personal religious experience may be invaluable to the individual; it may restore his peace, may give him a personal God and rational understanding of his own function and nature.  But it cannot re-create society and cannot make social community life sensible."

Doesn't it bother anyone that Rick Warren loves telling people that this guy was his mentor for twenty years?

Warren's Ties to New Ageism:

In the book Why It Matters: Avoiding Shipwreck at Cape Disappointment, Dr. Jim Jenkins describes his personal encounter of a peace pole planting in Salmon Arm, British Columbia in 1990.  Jenkins records this on page 7:

"A large group of people were holding hands in a wide circle, swaying and chanting something.  I inched closer and heard,

'We'd rather be dancing than marching.  We'd rather hold hands than a gun.  We are the New Age begun and we're learning the dance one by one.'"

Jenkins shares the following on page 10:

"A teen aged girl got up and recited a manifesto of sorts.  I was stunned when she reached the point in her address where she, in a matter-of-fact fashion said,

'All religions that are not harmonious with the New Age must be eliminated...'"   

Jenkins included the following quote from an article titled "World Peace University in Salmon Arm" in Shuswap Sun, a local newspaper, that covered the events that Jenkins witnessed:  

"The goals of the World Peace University are to educate people who desire to create a world where peace is a way of life, where environmental balance exists, where there is food sufficiency, where social justice prevails and where an individual achieves the highest degree of self-realization within a community of co-operation."

What does the World Peace University have to do with Rick Warren?  Check out this YouTube video from April 10, 2009 of Rick Warren at the World Economic Forum.  

Here is what Rick Warren lists as the major problems on our planet:  diseases, poverty, illiteracy, corruption (lack of social justice), Global Warming (environment), and spiritual emptiness (lack of peace).  Later in the video, Rick Warren promotes unity among the world's religions by asking the following question:  

"You can't talk community development without talking about churches and mosques and temples and synagogues; You just can't talk about it because they are the community, so my challenge to you is:  Can we not all get along?"

Hopefully, you realize like I did that everything that Rick Warren just said lines up perfectly with the goals of World Peace University, an organization that is clearly powered by New Ageism.  Doesn't it bother anyone that Rick Warren, a supposed follower of Jesus, is promoting the very things that New Ageism promotes?

If that isn't enough to convince you of Rick Warren's New Ageism ties, then this should:  On October 6, 2011, in a blog post titled Rick Warren Recommends Pagan Mantra "Technique" For Christians, Amy Spreeman writes the following:

"Why am I showing what Buddhist meditation looks like? Well, as regular readers of this blog know, I came out of the New Age, and while in the New Age I practiced many different types of mystical meditation (Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, pagan, etc.). And because of this, I can therefore attest that what Rick Warren is promoting is exactly like what I practiced as a New Ager doing mystical meditation. The only thing that differs between so-called “Christian mysticism” and pagan mysticism is the “device” used for emptying the mind. And sadly, the big thing in churches now is to try to make this pagan practice “Christian” by adding Christian terminology. But the addition of Christian terminology does not somehow “sanctify” this practice and make it Christian. Any time a Christian hears the word “technique” they should run for the hills. We do not need a technique for approaching God!...

Yes, it is fine to go to a quiet place, calm the mind, maybe even take a few deep breaths. But focus on a word or phrase until one’s mind is emptied? No! Doing this technique puts a person into an altered state of consciousness, where the mind is not engaged. Once a person has used the technique to “park” the brain, he or she is still awake and somewhat aware but his or her God-given boundaries are down. So what happens to a person in this state? Mantra meditation is so very seductive because it generates a very powerful experience, an experience that is very real and feels very spiritual, and which deceives one into feeling as if they are actually encountering 'God.'" 

Conclusion:  

Let's be clear about one thing:  Rick Warren is a major player on the religion scene.  He has 1,744,498 followers on his Facebook page, and his Purpose Driven model and the PEACE plan racks in lots of money and has lots of influence in the world.

The real question is, how can Rick Warren possibly be a true follower of Jesus when his mentor was a humanist who only saw religion as a tool to motivate people to contribute more to a nation's economy, and he promotes the goals and practices of New Ageism?  The teachings of the Old and New Testament clearly condemn Rick Warren's close association with Humanism and New Ageism.

Who are the people we should be following?  The answer is that we shouldn't be following any human authority.  Sure, it's good to listen to what apologists like Frank Turek and Norm Geisler have to say because they can give us good evidence that shows that the Bible is true in matters of science, history, theology, and morality; It's also good to take a look at the teachings of any pastor that preaches only the bible in order to see if his perspective can show you something that you didn't see before, but ultimately the person we should follow is Jesus of Nazareth.  Study Jesus' life in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and you will find that he is more in touch with reality than anybody else who has ever lived.      

Science Has Confirmed Genesis 1

When it comes to explaining the origin of life and the universe itself, evolution is the theory that the atheists/humanists who have controlled the academic culture for the past 100-110 years have been brainwashing countless generations of young Americans into believing is true (to get an idea of how they do this, see my article "Atheism vs Jesus:  The Academic Battle For The Souls of Humanity").  They have indoctrinated so many generations of young people into blindly believing this theory that Harvard evolutionist Ernst Mayr said the following in an interview with Edge when he was asked whether evolution was a theory or fact:

"That's a very good question. Because of the historically entrenched resistance to the thought of evolution, documented by modern-day creationism, evolutionists have been forced into defending evolution and trying to prove that it is a fact and not a theory. Certainly the explanation of evolution and the search for its underlying ideas has been somewhat neglected, and my new book, the title of which is What Evolution Is, is precisely attempting to rectify that situation. It attempts to explain evolution. As I say in the first section of the book, I don't need to prove it again, evolution is so clearly a fact that you need to be committed to something like a belief in the supernatural if you are at all in disagreement with evolution. It is a fact and we don't need to prove it anymore. Nonetheless we must explain why it happened and how it happens."

According to Ernst, Evolution is a fact that no longer has to provide evidence for its truthfulness despite the fact that ALL scientific statements are open to reevaluation as new data is acquired, making it impossible for science to establish anything as "fact" or "true".  On page 14 of Religion and Science, which was written in 1997, Famous atheist Bertrand Russell said the following:

"A religous creed differs from a scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, whereas science is always tentative, expecting that modification in its present theories will sooner or later be found necessary, and aware that its method is one which is logically incapable of arriving at a complete and final demonstration."

On page 77 of The Character of Physical Law, physicist Richard Phillips Feynman says the following:

"If you thought that science was certain--well, that is just an error on your part."

Unfortunately, the atheists/humanists who control the academic culture in America have not limited the evolutionary theory to biological life; they have applied the theory to the entire physical universe, as was demonstrated at the beginning of May of this year when a virtual simulation of the evolution of the universe was released.  In the article "The Evolution of Everything in One Handy Simulation" found in Popular Mechanics, Shy Genel, a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and co-author on the study of the formation and content of the cosmos through use of this virtual simulation, said the following:

"Our computer program accounts for the laws of nature—gravity, the formation of supernovae, black holes—and then evolves the universe until the present."

However, within the press release by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, we read the following:

"The computer simulation began a mere 12 million years after the Big Bang."

That little sentence raises a HUGE red flag for me, and hopefully every thinking human being.  If in reality there is no God, and evolution is true, then the Big Bang should have been included in the simulation.  Instead, it was left out entirely.  Why is that?

As I explained to a friend of mine when I first heard about this simulation, the atheists/humanists who control the academic culture can't explain how the physical universe came into existence out of nothing in an instant; they can't explain how the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the expansion rate of the universe, the radiation afterglow of the Big Bang, the ripples within the afterglow discovered by the COBE satellite in 1989, Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, and the Anthropic Principle support the atheistic/evolutionary world view better than the theistic world view.  They have to leave out the Big Bang and all its supporting evidences in order to convince people that you don't need a god behind the creation of the universe.

Not only that, but as I explain in my apologetics film "God: A Matter of Science & History", the Second Law of Thermodynamics by itself disproves the entire theory of evolution.  How?  It's quite simple:  The way evolution is taught today is that the entire physical universe and everything in it, when left to itself over time, will become more complex and ordered; according to the second aspect of the Second Law of Thermodynamics (the law of entropy), the physical universe and everything in it, when left to itself over time, will wear down, break down, and fall into disorder.  Since the Second Law of Thermodynamics is the most established law in all of science (the need for food, water, and sleep are the effect of the Second Law of Thermodynamics on human beings), the theory of evolution simply cannot be true.        

What the Bible says about the origin of life and the universe:

Is what the Bible says about the origin of life and the universe backed up by science?  Let's take a look.

Genesis 1:24-25:  "And God said, 'Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.' And it was so.  God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good."

In this passage we see the phrase "And it was so", which appears six times in Genesis 1.  The way it is used in Genesis 1 implies crystal clearly that the words God said came into existence immediately; there was no delay or prolonged process of God's Word coming to pass.  With that in mind, this particular passage in Genesis is saying that all animal life came into existence all at once out of nothing in an instant.        

The fossil record shows us that during the period of time that Paleontologists call the Cambrian Explosion, all the major animal forms and groups appeared all at once out of nothing in an instant, without a single trace of less complex ancestors.  This led the world's most famous atheist and hater of Christianity, the evolutionist Richard Dawkins, to write the following on page 229 of his book The Blind Watchmaker, which was written in 1987: 

"And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear.  It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history.  Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists..."

Genesis 1:1-2:  "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."

As the above passage says, God is the one who created the universe and the earth at the beginning of time.  

As the expansion of the universe shows if we could watch it in reverse, the Big Bang states that the physical universe came into existence out of nothing.  In March of this year, scientists made a new discovery about the Big Bang in terms of how long the expansion from a point of singularity that appeared out of nothing to the entire physical universe coming into existence took.  CBS Space Consultant Bill Harwood said the following:

"And we’re talking about things that happened in the first trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second. I mean it’s mind boggling to think how close to the beginning scientists are now getting.” 

While both atheists and Christians alike agree that the universe exploded into existence out of nothing in an instant, the atheists/humanists who control the academic culture have no clue what caused the initial explosion.  As we can see in the following passage, the apostle Peter knew what caused the initial explosion:

2 Peter 3:3-7:  "Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.  They will say, 'Where is this "coming" he promised?  Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.'  But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water.  By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.  By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly."

As we can see from the Cambrian explosion, all the major animal groups appeared out of nothing all at once in an instant; according to Genesis 1:24-25, that happened because God spoke them into existence.  The new discovery about the Big Bang shows us that the universe itself came into existence out of nothing in an instant.  It logically follows that God spoke the universe into existence just like Peter says he did.      

Conclusion:

If the scientific evidence supporting the Big Bang Theory found over the past 100 years keeps getting more and more verified as time goes on, and all the evidence matches exactly what the Old and New Testaments say, then how come the atheists/humanists who control the academic culture refuse to believe it?  

In regards to the Cambrian Explosion, Richard Dawkins had this to say on page 230 of The Blind Watchmaker:

"Both schools of [evolutionary] thought agree that the only alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation, and both would reject this alternative."

Why would Dawkins and others like him deny the existence of God when the biblical account clearly accounts for the scientific evidence regarding the origin of life and the universe better than evolution can?  There is a very simple explanation.  In an article titled "Billions and Billions of Demons" on page 31 of The New York Review of Books from January 9, 1997, Darwinist Richard Lewontin admitted the following:

"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover that materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door."

As we can see from Lewotin's confession, the atheistic/humanistic/evolutionary explanations of the origin of life on earth and the universe itself actually goes against everything we observe in the universe; in fact, all the observational evidence we have through science at this point in human history has lead me to believe that Genesis 1 has been scientifically verified.  The real truth, as Lewotin admits, is that the atheists/humanists/evolutionists who control the academic world don't want there to be a God; if they were to acknowledge God's existence, then they would no longer be the dispensers of truth that they want to be.  In other words, Paul was right about them:

Romans 1:18-20:  "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.  For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."      

It has become painfully clear that without a proper understanding of the Bible, we have no chance of understanding the scientific data regarding the origin of life and the universe itself.  On page 72 of Proofs of God's Existence, which was written in 2007, Richard Wurmbrand puts it brilliantly:

"In antiquity and what is called the Dark Ages, men did not know what they know now about the cosmos.  They did not know the lock but they possessed the key, which is God.  Now many have excellent descriptions of the lock but they have lost the key.  The proper solution is union between religion and science.  We should be owners of the lock and key.  The fact is that as science advances, it discovers what was said thousands of years ago in the Bible."

Faith in Jesus: Blind or Evidence-based?

In this Postmodern culture we live in that is mostly controlled by the Humanists/Atheists that have power and influence in the academic world, the word "faith" has acquired negative connotations.  According to Richard Dawkins, faith, in the context of religion, is based on zero evidence.  In his video "Faith Can't Survive Unless It Glorifies Ignorance", Scott Horlbeck asserts that the bible tells us that you can't trust reason (of course he provides ZERO evidence for this).  

Anyone who seriously studies the bible knows that the Bible never defines faith as a blind, leap into the dark without any evidence supporting it; in fact, it's quite the opposite.           

Jesus never called people to blindly believe in him:

Atheists who assert that faith in Jesus requires blind gullibility that has no evidence backing it up clearly haven't read or studied the Gospels.  Let's look at a few passages to see what kind of faith Jesus is calling for:

John 10:22-39:  "Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade.  The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, 'How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.'  

Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.  My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.  I and the Father are one.'

Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, 'I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?'

'We are not stoning you for any good work,' they replied, 'but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.'

Jesus answered them, 'Is it not written in your Law, "I have said you are 'gods'" If he called them "gods," to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside—what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world?  Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, "I am God’s Son"?  Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father.  But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.'  Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp."

As we can see, Jesus never told people to blindly believe in him when he claimed to be God in human form; instead, he told them that they should believe in the evidence that pointed towards his claims being true, which was his hospitality and kindness towards others, the contents of his ethical teachings, and the miracles that he was performing.  In verses 37-38 of John 10, Jesus is clearly saying that if you don't accept his claims to be God in human form at face value, then you should believe his claims to be God in human form on the basis of his actions, his teachings, and the miracles he was performing.

The clearest example of Jesus giving evidence to support his claim to be God in human form can be found in the gospel of Mark:

Mark 2:1-12:  "A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home.  They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them.  Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them.  Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on.  When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, 'Son, your sins are forgiven.'

Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 'Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?'

Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, 'Why are you thinking these things?  Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, "Your sins are forgiven," or to say, "Get up, take your mat and walk"?  But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.' So he said to the man, 'I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.'  He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, 'We have never seen anything like this!'” 

Jesus expected everyone to believe the evidence that supported his claim to be God in human form, including his disciples:

John 14:1-14:  "'Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.  My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  You know the way to the place where I am going.'

Thomas said to him, 'Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?'

Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.'

Philip said, 'Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.'

Jesus answered: 'Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, "Show us the Father"?  Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.  Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.  Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.  And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.'"

In verses 9-11, Jesus is essentially saying this to Phillip:  "You've followed me around and lived with me closely for three years; you've heard all my teachings.  You've heard all my claims to be God, and you saw me perform miracles to back up my claims to be God.  I've given you all this evidence that I am God; how can you ask me to show you God?  Don't you believe me?"  

The Faith of the Apostles was based on evidence:

The Apostles didn't display blind, gullible faith when they started to preach to everyone about Jesus; they quite clearly claimed to be eyewitnesses who saw the evidence that backed up Jesus' claims to be God in human form: 

Acts 10:34-43:  "Then Peter began to speak: 'I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.  You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.  You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached—how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.

We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen.  He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.  He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead.  All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.'”

Peter made it crystal clear that he wasn't lying or making up things when he preached about Jesus: 

2 Peter 1:16-21:  "For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.  He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.'  We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain."

John, another one of Jesus' twelve disciples, also claimed to be an eyewitness of everything that Jesus said and did:

1 John 1:1-4:  "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.  The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.  We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.  We write this to make our joy complete."

As we can see, the Apostles faith in Jesus was not based on blind gullibility.  They walked closely with Jesus for three years:  They observed his hospitality and acts of kindness towards all people, they heard all of his teachings, and they observed him perform miracles to back up his claims to be God in human form.

The apostles had more than enough evidence to justify placing their faith in him.  

We don't need to be an eyewitness of Jesus to believe in him:

Now I can already hear what some people will say:  "That's nice, but what about all us people who live 2,000 years after Jesus was on the Earth?  How can we place our faith in someone that we've never seen?"

Thankfully, Jesus pointed out that you didn't have to observe his life with your own eyes in order to put your faith in him:

John 20:24-29:  "Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.  So the other disciples told him, 'We have seen the Lord!'

But he said to them, 'Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.'

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you!'  Then he said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.'

Thomas said to him, 'My Lord and my God!'

Then Jesus told him, 'Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.'"

Jesus is not only saying that you can believe in him without having observed his life with your own senses; Jesus asserts that those who believe in him despite having not observed his life with their own eyes are actually blessed.  Every follower of Jesus who came after Jesus ascended up to heaven would fall under this category.

All the New Testament Documents were written before 70 AD:  

Since none of us observed Jesus while he was walking around on Earth 2,000 years ago, we have to rely on the Gospels to give us the historical facts about Jesus.  I can already hear this question coming up:

"We know the Gospels were written in the historical narrative style, but how do we know that they're giving us accurate history?  Weren't they written long after Jesus was gone?"

The answer is no.  Not only were the Gospels written early, but I believe that all the letters of the New Testament cannon were written before the destruction of Jerusalem by the hands of the Romans in 70 AD.  Here is some evidence supporting that assertion:

The destruction of Jerusalem by the hands of the Romans in 70 AD is easily the most traumatic event in Jewish history, and yet there is no mention whatsoever of this tragedy in any of the New Testament documents.  

I find that amazing because Jesus predicts the Destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, and yet not a single one of the New Testament writers mentions that the prophecy was fulfilled.  If the New Testament documents were written after 70 AD like many assert, and I was writing one of those documents, I would have said "remember when Jesus predicted that the temple and Jerusalem would be destroyed within 40 years?  It came true!  Only God could make such an accurate prophecy!"

The only logical conclusion to why the fulfillment of that prophecy wasn't mentioned is because the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple hadn't occurred yet at the time of the writings.  Now before everyone accuses me of making an argument from silence, let's look at the book of Revelation.

Everyone agrees that Revelation was the last of the New Testament documents to be written, and most scholars assert that the book was written in 95 AD.  However, this website makes a solid argument that Revelation was written in 69 AD, just prior to the Destruction of Jerusalem.  While they make many points supporting that assertion, there is one point they make that definitely shows that Revelation was written before 70 AD.

In Revelation 1:4, John addresses the letter "to the seven churches in the province of Asia...", which is also called western Asia Minor.  As Revelation 2-3 reveals, the locations of those churches are in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.  There is only one time frame in history where these churches made up all the churches in western Asia Minor, and that was in the 60s AD, before the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.

If Revelation was written before 70 AD, that means that all of the New Testament documents, including the Gospels, were written before Revelation.

The Gospels were written within 30 years of the Life of Jesus:

The next question becomes, when exactly were the Gospels written?  

Virtually all scholars agree that 1 Corinthians, which was Paul's first letter, was written between 53-57 AD.  In this letter, Paul writes the following:  

1 Corinthians 11:23-26:  "For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.'  In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.'  For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes."

Paul appears to be quoting from Luke here:

Luke 22:19-23:  "And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.' 

In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.  But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table.  The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed. But woe to that man who betrays him!'  They began to question among themselves which of them it might be who would do this."

Since 1 Corinthians was written between 53-57 AD, that means that Luke was written before 1 Corinthians.  Since we know that Luke repeated and quoted passages from Mark and Matthew, both Mark and Matthew had to have been written before Luke.  In other words, Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written within roughly 20 years of Jesus' life.  

While John's gospel was written after Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we know that it wasn't written too much longer after.  How do we know this?  In 1 Timothy 6:13, Paul makes a reference to the conversation Jesus had with Pilate, which was recorded in the gospel of John.  Since 1 Timothy was written in 64 AD, John's gospel had to have been written before that.  In other words, the gospel of John was written within 30 years of Jesus' lifetime.

On page 245 of "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist", Geisler & Turek write: 

"If the New Testament was written within 60 years of the events it records, it is highly unlikely that those events could be legendary."  

As I have shown, not only were all the New Testament documents written within before 70 AD, but the four gospels were all written within 30 years of the life of Jesus, with Matthew, Mark, and Luke written within about 20 years of the life of Jesus.  That means that the majority of the eyewitnesses were still alive when the New Testament documents were being written down.  

Conclusion:

Since the Gospels were written within 30 years of the life of Jesus, which is during the age of the eyewitnesses, and the writings of Josephus, Celsus, Serapion, Pliny the Younger, Lucian, Seutonius, and Tacitus regarding Jesus and the early Christians are congruent with the New Testament (see my post titled "The Historicity of Jesus Christ, The Gospels, and The New Testament"), we can trust the gospels to give us accurate history about Jesus.  That means that we can see the evidence that Jesus provided to back up his claims to be God in human form even though he walked the earth 2,000 years ago.  

Since the Apostles' faith in Jesus was based on their observations of his actions, teachings and miracles, and since Jesus himself encouraged people to believe his claims by looking at the evidence he provided, it is as clear as day that the myth that Jesus and the Bible ask us to have a blind, gullible faith based on zero evidence is categorically false.   

The final question is, will you accept the historical evidence that Jesus provided supporting his claim to be God in human form?  Will you put your trust in Jesus and submit to him?  Whether or not you do it is up to you, but if you choose to ignore that historical evidence, then your rejection is based on volition rather than reason and truth.  God allows us to do that because he respects our free will.  Geisler & Turek explain it beautifully on page 31 of "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist":

"One beauty of God's creation is this: if you're not willing to accept Christianity, then you're free to reject it. This freedom to make choices--even the freedom to reject truth--is what makes us moral creatures and enables each of us to choose our ultimate destiny. This really hits at the heart of why we exist at all, and why God might not be as overt in revealing himself to us as some would like. For if the bible is true, then God has provided each of us with the opportunity to make an eternal choice to either accept him or reject him. And in order to ensure that our choice is truly free, he puts us in an environment that is filled with evidence of his existence, but without his direct presence--a presence so powerful that it could overwhelm our freedom and thus negate our ability to reject him. In other words, God has provided enough evidence in this life to convince anyone willing to believe, yet he has also left some ambiguity so as not to compel the unwilling. In this way, God gives us the opportunity either to love him or to reject him without violating our freedom. In fact, the purpose of this life is to make that choice freely and without coercion. For love, by definition, must be freely given. It cannot be coerced."