Acts 17:16-27

1. Acts 17:16-27 • 16While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

2. 19Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." 21(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

3. 22Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

4. 24"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

5. Living in The World, Part 2: Faith & the Complex Sciences Today Acts 17:16-28 20. November 2005

6. 1) The origin of the universe "Conflicts" between science and the Bible come mostly in three areas: 2) The origin of first life 3) The origin of the diversity of life (including humans)

7. 1) Eternal 19th Century & Earlier 20th Century & Today 1) Big Bang  Creation Event 2) Self-Sustaining 2) Dependent 3) Accidental 3) Fine-Tuned No Purpose Purpose Science & The Universe

8. 1) The origin of the universe "Conflicts" between science and the Bible come mostly in three areas: 2) The origin of first life 3) The origin of the diversity of life (including humans)

10. “The theory that the present diversity of life, including the emergence of first life and of new species, can be explained by descent with modification through the mechanisms of natural selection and random mutations.” “Neo-Darwinism” or “Macroevolution”

12. “I put the Darwin fish on my car for a number of reasons. Mainly I did it to annoy Christians. I also use it to display the symbol of my group, which believes natural processes explain the world around us.” • “I believe that the Darwin fish sums up my religious beliefs. I believe in a higher being, God, if you will, but I do not believe that excludes scientific evidence for evolution.”

14. “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” Richard DawkinsOxford University

15. 1) First life should emerge gradually over ~a billion years Evolution Predictions Science Today 2) First life should be very simple 3) Evidence for a “primordial soup” to form first Amino Acids 4) Amino Acids should spontaneously form into Proteins Origin of First Life

16. “One of the most arresting facts I've ever learned is that life goes back as far in earth history as we can possibly trace it.” Niles Eldridge

17. “No one has publicly disagreed with my interpretation of the Apex fossils, but privately some would prefer that I were mistaken since they, and I too, would prefer a simpler evolutionary story, one that told us these oldest fossil organisms were capable only of primitive ways of living and that advanced metabolic lifestyles evolved much later. But the evidence seems strong, and what one might prefer shouldn't matter.” Bill Schopf

18. “So far, no geochemical evidence for the existence of a prebiotic soup has been published.” Noam Lahavin Biogenesis: Theories of Life’s Origins

19. “The notion that not only proteins but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.....It is enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution.” Sir Fred Hoyle

20. “An honest man armed with all the information available to us now could only state that in some sense, the Origin of Life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.” Sir Francis Crick

21. 1) First life should emerge gradually over ~a billion years Evolution Predictions Science Today 1) First life appears suddenly, found in the oldest possible rocks 2) First life should be very simple 2) First life is strikingly complex 3) Evidence for a “primordial soup” to form first Amino Acids 3) No evidence for soup 4) Amino Acids should spontaneously form into Proteins 4) Amino Acids to Proteins requires DNA Origin of First Life

22. 1) Slow, steady change over billions of years Evolution Predictions Science Today 2) “Tree of Life”: single-celled simple life to complex and diverse over time 3) Transitional forms should abound Fossil Record

23. “It's as though they were just planted there without any evolutionary history.” Richard DawkinsOxford University

24. Fossil Record

25. “Although the Cambrian Explosion is of singular importance to our understanding of the history of life, it continues to defy explanation.” Kevin Peterson

26. “[those] who say there are no transitional fossils are hard to contradict....I will lay it on the line -- there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.” Dr. Colin PattersonSr. PaleontologistBritish Museum of Natural History

27. “No matter how far back we go in the fossil record….we find no trace of any animal forms which are intermediate between the various major groups or phyla. This can only mean one thing. If we are willing to accept the facts we must believe that there never were such intermediates, or in other words that these major groups have from the very first borne the same relation to each other that they bear today.” Dr. Austin H. ClarkSenior ZoologistSmithsonian Institution

28. “Neo-Darwinism is dead; the West just doesn’t know it yet.” Eric Davidson

29. 1) Slow, steady change over billions of years Evolution Predictions Science Today 1) Stasis (no change) and the Cambrian Explosion 2) “Tree of Life”: single-celled simple life to complex and diverse over time 2) “Lawn of Life”: instantaneously complex and diverse 3) Transitional forms should abound 3) Transitional forms utterly lacking Fossil Record

30. “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Charles Darwin

31. “If you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that).” Richard DawkinsOxford University

32. “The claim that all skeptics of Darwinism are Christian fundamentalists stands refuted by me. It’s obviously not true: I’m neither a Christian nor a fundamentalist. Lots and lots of people are skeptical in the scientific community.” Dr. David BerlinskiPrinceton University

34. “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.” 100+ Leading Scientists

35. “It is interesting.....In China, we can criticize Darwinian evolution, but not the government. In the West, you can criticize the government but not evolution.” Dr. Xian Wan Chin

37. “A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.” Charles DarwinThe Origin of Species

38. “Who else has held the oceans in his hand? Who has measured off the heavens with his fingers? Who else knows the weight of the earth or has weighed out the mountains and the hills?…….Have you never heard or understood? Are you deaf to the words of God—the words he gave before the world began? Are you so ignorant? It is God who sits above the circle of the earth….He is the one who spreads out the heavens like a curtain and makes his tent from them….. Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars?…. Have you never heard or understood?” Isaiah 40: 12-28

39. Living in The World, Part 2: Faith & the Complex Sciences Today Acts 17:16-28 20. November 2005