You Can Know You Have Eternal Life
#3 Mommy, Where did I come from?
by Jim Mettenbrink
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At sometime in the first four or five years
of life, everyone of us asked, Mommy, where did I come from?
Even at that young age, we become aware that we are not self existent
but have an origin and the desire to know from where we came. All
religions seek to answer this question, two of which we will consider in
this article Atheism and Christianity. All other religions
accept one of the teachings of one of them or aspects of both. Since
no teaching of origins is provable by the scientific method (repeatedly
reproducible), the rational person must determine which is reasonable from
the available evidence.
Atheisms doctrine of origin is Organic
Evolution, asserting that the entire universe self-developed through billions
of years, culminating in its most developed creature the human
being. At the other end of the spectrum of origins, Theism asserts
that mankind came from a supreme, intelligent and spiritual being not of
this material realm.
The most radical origin, in comparison to
atheism, is the Biblical teaching that the universe was created in six literal
24 hour days by the all powerful eternal God of heaven. The Bible
states He spoke the entire universe into existence, complete, with all life
and intelligence forms and able to sustain life (Genesis ch. 1).
Atheism asserts that this material universe
is self-originating, beginning with a big explosion of self existent gases,
occurring by pure happenstance and resulting in our ever expanding universe
and evolving into all life and intelligence forms. The expanding universe
does not prove that its origin was a Big Bang. Nor is there any fossil
evidence showing evolutionary transition from one animal kind to another.
However, regardless of all the arguments, whether organic evolution
is reasonable can be determined by answering a few simple questions: (1)
How did nothing become something other than nothingness, by itself? (2)
How did non-life become life by itself? Common evolutionary thought
has been that life started spontaneously in water and the simple one celled
water life forms, such as an amoeba, evolved into animals and ultimately
into the intelligent, reasoning human being. (3) How does intelligence
come from non- intelligence by itself? How does life and intelligence
come from water? Ultimately the question is how does reasoning intelligence
come from water or from the explosion of gases by itself?
The very first verse of the Bible asserts
that the self existent, all powerful, intelligent God of heaven created
everything (Genesis 1:1). DNA, the ecosystem, the human body...literally
everything in the universe points to an intelligent maker giving deliberate
function and purpose for everything that exists. Intelligent design
demands an intelligent maker. What or who is the Creator?
Since neither organic evolution nor creation
can be reproduced in a laboratory, which origin is more reasonable? Something
from nothing by itself? Or, everything from an all powerful, intelligent
creator? Mommy where did I come from?...
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