Did God Create the Universe? 10 Reasons to Say “Yes” Dr. Brent Strawsburg

1. Did God Create the Universe? 10 Reasons to Say “Yes” Dr. Brent Strawsburg Equipping & Outreach Consultant CB of Southern California

2. How Did We Get to This Point? Removed the Need for God Theologically Immanual Kant 1724-1804

3. How Did We Get to This Point? No universals exist. Science has been given philosophical prestige whereas ethics & religion are left with being “up to us.” God does not seem needed for morals. Immanual Kant 1724-1804

4. How Did We Get to This Point? Removed the Need for God Scientifically Charles Darwin 1809-1882

5. How Did We Get to This Point? Evolution removed the need for creation. The origin of humanity can be explained without need for God. Charles Darwin

6. Fact/Opinion Divide Facts Naturalistic Science Opinions Ethics, Morality & Religion There is only “one” thing that gives us “facts”. Everything else is an opinion or preference!

7. Why Do We Believe in Creation? The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Psalm 19:1 NIV

8. Reason #1 The Universe Had a Beginning • For the longest time, scientists also just asserted that the universe had always existed. • Aristotle believed in an eternal universe. • The great scientist Isaac Newtown believed in the uniform distribution of matter throughout. • The brilliant Einstein believed in an eternal universe until he admitted that he made the biggest mistake of his remarkable career.

9. On April 24, 1992, newspapers around the world heralded a breakthrough by an American research team. It made the front-page headlines of the London Times for five consecutive days. Ted Koppel on ABC’s “Nightline” began his interview of an astronomer and a physicist by quoting the first two verses of Genesis.... What was the news?

10. A team of astrophysicists had reported the latest findings from the COBE satellite (otherwise known as the Cosmic Background Explorer). This team had indisputable proof that the universe came into existence from a distinct point in time. The universe literally sprang into existence as a result of an incredibly hot explosion. This was stunning confirmation of the big bang creation event

11. “The community of scientists were prepared to consider the idea that God created the universe “a more respectable hypothesis today than at any time in the last hundred years.” Science historian Frederic Burnham “unbelievably important...they have found the Holy Grail of the cosmos” Michael Turner, astrophysicist with the University of Chicago “What we have found is evidence for the birth of the universe...It’s like looking at God” George Smoot, University of California at Berkeley astronomer and project leader for the COBE satellite,

12. “There is no doubt that a parallel exists between the big bang as an event and the Christian notion of creation from nothing. George Smoot “Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.” Robert Jastrow, God & the Astronomers

13. One of the most prominent atheistic philosophers, Kai Nielsen, once described the issue this way, “Suppose you suddenly hear a loud bang...and you ask me, ‘What made that bang?’ and I reply, ‘Nothing, it just happened.’ You would not accept that.” In other words...Big Bangs have bangers!

14. Reason #2 The Universe Is Expanding Edwin Hubble (1929) With the design of the Hubble Telescope discovered that distant galaxies are moving away from us! This expansion is now decelerating from a powerful, initial urge. The consensus is not simply that the universe is expanding—it is exploding!

15. A Balloon An Oven If you drew a number of dots on a balloon with a marker and then blew up the balloon, from the viewpoint of each dot, all the other dots would retreat from it. The galaxies are expanding away from us. The universe’s beginning and development resembles a hot kitchen oven. When you open the door—all the heat/energy that had been confined to the oven is now dissipated throughout the kitchen. The beginning of the universe through an incredible explosion—spread its heat throughout the universe. Temperatures throughout are consistent with this explosion.

16. Reason #3 The Universe Has a Design Earthrise…Apollo 8, 1968

17. An Image of Earth Taken by Voyager 1 (1990) from 4 Billion Miles Away!

18. “Because of the reflection of sunlight…Earth seems to be sitting in a beam of light, as if there were some special significance to this small world. But it’s just an accident of geometry and optics….Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.” Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

19. “There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all....It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe....The impression of design is overwhelming” Paul Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint “One would have to conclude either that the features of the universe are only coincidences or that the universe was indeed tailor-made for life. I will leave it to the theologians to ascertain the identity of the tailor” Cosmologist Bernard Carr, Journal Nature

20. The Chances of a Planet Like Earth Existing is Extremely Rare! People just seem to assume that if you just looked hard enough you would find hundreds of similar places like earth. They assume that we are just one of many…nothing unique, nothing special…no unique conditions that allowed the possibility of human life! Astronomers now identify 40 different characteristics that must be fine tuned for life to exist. The chances of all of these different values occurring are 1 x10-42

21. Reason #4 Luminosity of the Sun Luminosity of the sun measures the brightness & amount of energy that a sun produces. • If the sun were larger: • It has a shorter lifetime and brightens more rapidly. • It would give off more deadly ultraviolet light. • If the sun were smaller: • It radiates less energy and the planet must orbit closer to keep liquid water on its surface. More turbulent surface, convection causing x-ray bursts.

22. Reason #5 A “Just Right” Sized Earth Mass and density determine strength of surface gravity • If stronger: • The atmosphere would retain light gases like methane & ammonia. • If weaker: • Water, oxygen and nitrogen would not be retained. You would have Mars!

23. Reason #6 Our Distance From the Sun • A nearly circular orbit is required for temperature stability…the Habitable Zone! • If closer: the temperatures would be so high that the oceans would have boiled away entirely. • If further: the oceans would have frozen over with a mean temperature of less than -50 degrees. • Life is impossible without water!

24. Reason #7 Rotation Rate of the Earth • If faster: wind velocities would be too great…the trade winds…constant hurricanes! • If slower: too much day / night temperature variation. The rotisserie effect!

25. Reason #8 The Right Size of the Moon • If less: Earth’s orbit and tilt would be less stable. The stabilizer bar for the tightrope walker • If greater: Tides too large, earth rotation slowed. Astronomers theorize that the moon formed when a just-right-sized object hit Earth at just the right angle, blasting off a just-right hunk that ended up in orbit as our moon—a one-in-a million freak accident.

26. Reason #9 Need Protection by Large Outer Planets (Jupiter) • Must have at least one giant outer planet to deflect or absorb incoming space debris. Asteroids & comets have a hard time avoiding larger planets because of its strong gravity fields. Description of Revelation…quite accurately portrayed in this…scientists tell us that it is a reasonable description of what would happen!

27. “Craters” from Shoemaker-Levy Impact

28. Reason #10 Must be Part of the Right-kind of Galaxy Only 5% of the galaxies are spiral • Of all the galaxies only 5% are spiral like our Milky Way • Elliptical galaxies don’t produce enough heavy elements to allow a planet like earth to form.

29. For this is what the Lord says—he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited— Isaiah 45:18 NIV Astronomy shows us that the universe has a lot of waste places but not this planet!

30. Doesn’t it look strange that we are here? Can you demonstrate any other place where this happens? Can you see all the different factors that had to be precisely accurate for our life to be possible. The odds that a place could be found in the entire universe If you won the lottery you can say what? You’re “lucky”--the odds were in ever in your favor! (Thank you Hunger Games). However, if you won the lottery 2 times in a row! Or 3 times in a row! If you won the lottery 7 times in a row…what would the response be? Something had to be rigged because the odds for this to happen would be simply far too much.

31. Makes a calm and boring solar system like ours very telling…nothing quite like it! • Could there be billions and billions of civilizations? The Universe is Big, but NOT infinite. • 100 billion (1 E11) galaxies, each with 1 E11 stars (I million stars) • 1 x 1022 (1 E 22) possible solar system. • But . . . how many stars really have planets? • Of these, how many are in a safe, sparse region? • Of these, how many have one in the habitable- zone? • Of these, how many are the right size, spin, tilt, core, moon? • Hugh Ross: 40-odd parameters, odds get down to: 1 x10-42

32. “On Earth, a long sequence of improbable events transpired in just the right way to bring forth our existence, as if we had won a million-dollar lottery a million times in a row. Contrary to the prevailing belief, maybe we are special…it seems prudent to conclude that we are alone in a vast cosmic ocean.” • Robert Naeye, Astronomy, July 1996 • or • “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.” • Fred Hoyle