Polemics

Dr. Walter Bradley lectures on scientific evidence the creation and design of the universe

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This lecture is special to me, because I bought a VHS tape of it just after I started working full-time, and watched it a million times. A lot of people come to their convictions about God’s existence because of parents or church or intuitions, but for me it’s all about the scientific evidence. This lecture changed my life. I wish more people taught their children about this evidence! This lecture was delivered at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

About the speaker:

Dr. Bradley received his B.S. in Engineering Science and his Ph.D. in Materials Science from the University of Texas in Austin.

Dr. Bradley taught for eight years at the Colorado School of Mines before assuming a position as Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University (TAMU) in 1976.

During his 24 years at Texas A&M, Dr. Bradley served as Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University and as Director of the Polymer Technology Center, and received five College of Engineering Research Awards. He has received over $4,500,000 in research grants and has published over 140 technical articles and book chapters. He has also co-authored “The Mystery Of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories. He is a Fellow of the American Society for Materials and of the American Scientific Affiliation and serves as a consultant for many Fortune 500 companies.

He currently serves as Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Baylor University.

The lecture: (63 minutes lecture, 25 minutes audience Q&A)

Summary slide:

This slide summarizes the content of the lecture
This slide summarizes the content of the lecture

Introduction:

  • At the beginning of the 20th century, people believed that the progress of science was pointing away from an intelligent Creator and Designer, and towards naturalism
  • A stream of new discoveries has shifted the support of science towards theism, and away from naturalism
  • Richard Dawkins, an atheist, says that nature only has the appearance of design, but that if you look closer, naturalistic mechanisms can account for the appearance of design
  • When deciding between design and apparent design (“designoid”), it matters whether you think there is an intelligence there to do the designing

Evidence #1: The Big Bang:

  • an eternal “steady state” universe is more compatible with naturalism, but a created universe is more compatible with a Creator
  • In 1929, Hubble used telescopes to observe that the light from distant galaxies was redshifted. The further away galaxies were, the faster they were moving away. Therefore, space is expanding in all directions, suggesting an explosive origin of the universe
  • In 1965, the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation matched a prediction of the Big Bang cosmology, and of the creation event
  • In 1992, the COBE space telescope allowed us to test four specific predictions of the Big Bang model, especially the predictions for light element abundances (hydrogen and helium), which matched the predictions of the creation model

Evidence #2: Simple mathematical structure of the physical laws

  • the simple mathematical structure of natural laws allows us to understand these laws, make discoveries, and engineer solutions to problems
  • early scientists saw the mathematical structure of the universe to mean that nature was designed by an intelligent to be understood
  • the fundamental equations of the laws of the universe can be easily written on one side of one sheet of paper
  • Eugene Wigner’s famous paper, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Physical Sciences” makes the point that this simple structure is an unexpected gift that allows is to do science

Evidence #3: fine-tuning of the physical constants and quantities

  • in order for any kind of complex life to survive, we need stars that provide energy within specific ranges for long periods of time
  • in order for any kind of complex life to survive, we need planets with stable orbits that will not suffer from extreme temperature swings as it varies in distance from its star
  • in order for any kind of complex life to survive, we need stable atomic structure
  • in order for any kind of complex life to survive, we need to have chemical diversity and correct relative abundances of each element
  • organic life has minimum requirements: process energy, store information, replicate, and you can’t fulfill those functions if there is only one element, e.g. – hydrogen
  • the energy level from the photons from the sun have to match the energy levels of the different elements in order to drive the chemical bonding needed for life
  • These requirements for life of any imaginable type depend on the values of the constants and quantities. The constants and quantities cannot vary much from what they are, or the universe will lose the characteristics (above) that allow it to support complex life of any imaginable time
  • For example, ratio of strong force to electromagnetic force:
    – if 2% larger, then no stable hydrogen, no long-lived stars, no compounds containing hydrogen, e.g. – water
    – if 5% smaller, no stable stars, heavy hydrogen would be unstable, few elements other than hydrogen

Evidence #4: initial conditions for habitability

  • Universe: expansion rate of the universe must be fast enough to avoid a re-collapse, but slow enough to allow matter to clump together and form stars and planets for complex life to live on
  • Planet: right distance from the star to get the right climate
  • Planet: right mass to retain the right atmosphere

Evidence #5: origin of life and information theory

  • It’s possible to explain every process in an automobile engine using plain old naturalistic mechanisms – no supernatural explanation is necessary to understand the processes
  • But the existence of engine itself: engineering all the parts has to be explained by the work of an intelligence
  • Similarly, we can understand how living systems work, but the existence of the living systems requires an intelligence
  • Even the simplest living system has to perform minimal function: capture energy, store information and replicate
  • Living systems are composed of objects like proteins that are composed of sequences of components complex such that the order of the components gives the overall structure function
  • Developing the components for a simple living cell is very improbable – even given the large number of galaxies, stars and planets in the universe, it is unlikely that complex, embodied life would exist anywhere in the universe

Evidence #6: more initial conditions for habitability

  • Location within the galaxy: you need to be away from the center of the galaxy, because the explosions from dying stars, and excessive radiation will kill life
  • Location within the galaxy: you need to be close enough to the center in order catch the heavy elements you need for life from the explosions of other stars
  • Location within the galaxy: the best location is between two arms of  a spiral galaxy, where you can get the heavy elements you need from dying stars, but without being hit with explosions and harmful radiation
  • Star mass: determines rate at which the sun burns, determines the energy level of photons that are used to drive chemical bonding reactions, determines the length of time the star will be stable
  • Star mass: star mass must be the correct value in order to allow liquid water on the planet’s surface, while still preserving stable orbit

I wish there was more curiosity about science in churches, and young Christians understood how critical science is for grounding the rationality of the Christian worldview. We need to be training up more scientists who think about the big questions, like Dr. Walter Bradley.

News

Southern Baptist Convention suffers largest decline in church membership

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Protestant denominations are suffering declines in membership. Challenges like secularism, feminism and socialism are causing people to leave the church. And the response so far seems to be one of two things. From the conservatives, we hear that pastors need to teach the Bible more clearly. And from the progressives, we hear that churches need to adopt the political causes of non-Christians.

Here’s an article about the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, reported in Daily Wire. This is written by Ben Zeisloft.

He writes:

Membership in the Southern Baptist Convention witnessed the largest single-year decline in at least a century as the nation reels from the aftermath of lockdown mandates and pastors become concerned about the denomination’s theologically liberal drift.

The nation’s largest Protestant denomination saw a decline from 13.7 million members in 2021 to 13.2 million members in 2022, a decrease of more than 3% which continues the trajectory seen over the last three years, according to data released by Lifeway Research, a provider of church business services for the Southern Baptist Convention.

I’m what you would call a conservative, Bible-believing Christian. I don’t come out of a background of crazy sin and rebellion. But I did grow up in a non-Christian home, and my influences at that time were my two selfish parents, television, foolish students with no life experience, and public school teachers. So, I considered myself just as lost as any sinner. My brother actually continued down the path laid out by these influences, and our lives now are like night and day. My view of Christianity is that you put away your own selfish desires, and take up new Christian priorities. You stop worrying about what happened to you. You start looking for things you can do to build the relationship with the Boss.

My development as a Christian involved learning how to defend Christian truth claims and moral values to non-Christians, with reasons and evidence. But the perspective of people who grew up in the church is really different from mine. I tell them that church attendance is declining, because people have intellectual questions, and they have no reasons to think that our moral teachings are better. The church leaders disagree. They say that we just need to be nicer, and judge less, and have more fun activities to draw people in.

My friends who support the SBC know more about Disney and Star Wars than they do about how to defend basic Christian truth claims. They don’t want to learn how to make a case for God’s existence, Jesus’ resurrection, natural marriage or right to life. So, Christian churches just continue down the path of decline. The leaders think that Beth Moore is a better champion of Christianity than William Lane Craig. They promote Beth Moore, not William Lane Craig.

More:

Those who continued to profess Christianity became increasingly theologically liberal in their beliefs: a survey from Ligonier Ministries found that the share of self-identified evangelicals who believe “gender identity is a matter of choice” rose from 22% to 37% between 2020 and 2022, while the share who believe “the Bible’s condemnation of homosexual behavior doesn’t apply today” more than doubled from 11% to 28% over the same time horizon.

Record decline in Southern Baptist Convention membership occurs as hundreds of pastors throughout the country notice the liberal direction of the denomination. The trend is perhaps most palpable at the institutional level: Southern Baptist Convention President Bart Barber and other leaders have faced criticism for neglecting to rebuke the dozens of churches which have installed female pastors, a practice denounced in the Baptist Faith and Message.

Officials at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the denomination’s public policy arm, meanwhile endorsed a red flag law in Tennessee months after they opposed a bill in Louisiana that would have criminalized abortion for all parties involved, even though Southern Baptists passed a resolution affirming that “the murder of preborn children is a crime against humanity that must be punished equally under the law” the previous summer. Former Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission President Russell Moore said three years ago that ministers should persuade church members to accept vaccination and wear face masks.

Here’s what the churches that leave the SBC are saying:

“You can take our church off your mailing list,” one pastor replied. “We do not support the socialist movement that has infiltrated the convention and are no longer a member.”

“Our congregation is no longer in the SBC because of their liberal stances on this and their support in fighting an abolition bill in Louisiana,” another minister said. “I pray along with you that the SBC leadership would be convicted by your efforts and the many churches like us who are stepping away,” added a third pastor.

“We truly appreciate your efforts to uphold the Bible. I’m just letting you know that our church voted to leave the SBC this past summer,” commented a fourth. “We felt that this issue was just one that should have been addressed in 2022. There were other issues, so we chose to become non-denominational and break from the SBC.”

I attended an SBC church recently for about 7 months. The pastor told me how conservative he was. How much he loved to read systematic theology. Then three things happened. First, he blocked my efforts to start an apologetics small group. Second, he invited a member of the far-left ERLC to push for open borders. Third, the pastor made the claim that “Jesus was a refugee” in a Bible study he was leading. There was no plan to counter secularism, feminism or socialism in this church. Instead, it was just the Democrat party line. I quit going, There just isn’t any interest in fighting any of the battles that are causing people to leave the church. The leaders are not excited to recommended Christianity to non-Christians as a set of correct answers to life’s biggest questions, along with meaningful work to do for the Boss. A new uniform every morning, no matter how badly you dirtied up the previous one the day before.

I think that’s a pretty good offer, and we should focus on making that offer to non-Christians, and learning how to answer their questions. Jesus didn’t try to entertain people into the Kingdom. He made claims, and authenticated those claims with evidence. I don’t know why Christian leaders think that their approach is better.

News

Leaked messages: leftists in government want parents who oppose their agenda to be fired

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Many leaders in the Christian church think that this whole “culture war” is just overblown. No one is out to get Christians, they say. Christianity isn’t under attack. We just need to win the secular left over by treating them nicely, and not believing “Republican party” ideas, like the Constitution, male-female marriage, secure borders, low taxes, and right to life. But what does the secular left think?

This article from ABC local news in Virginia (archived) is very interesting:

Some Loudoun County residents were threatened, and one even lost his job, after a social media group allegedly worked to dox them after the residents spoke out at school board meetings, according to documents a whistleblower sent 7News.

“I was taken back when I received a phone call from the sheriff’s department – a deputy – saying I was being threatened online,” Loudoun County resident Mark Winn told 7News.

The online threats happened in a Facebook group called the “Loudoun Love Warriors.”

The “Loudoun Love Warriors” group includes campaign volunteers, supporters, and staff for several Loudoun County elected officials, 7News learned after investigating the group members’ ties.

7News obtained hundreds of messages from a whistleblower in the group who thought the conversations were going too far.

Look how many people in the group are in government, law enforcement and school boards:

The “Loudoun Love Warriors” group includes people who appear to be associated with Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney Buta Biberaj, County Supervisor Juli Briskman, School Board Chair Ian Serotkin, school board member Brenda Sheridan, school board member Atoosa Reaser, school board member Erika Ogedegbe, school board candidate Anne Donohue, sheriff candidate Craig Buckley, and Chair Phyllis Randall. None of these elected officials personally made any threats.

What’s interesting to me is how many WOMEN there are in the group. Here’s a New York Post article about “Buta Biberaj”.

It says:

A top Virginia prosecutor sought jail time for the dad who was arrested at a school board meeting while protesting his daughter’s rape — despite having run on a George Soros-funded campaign against mass incarcerations, according to reports.

Bronx-raised Loudoun County Commonwealth Attorney Buta Biberaj personally prosecuted dad Scott Smith, 48, after he was arrested at a raucous June 22 public meeting, Loudoun Now noted at the time.

The county’s top prosecutor pushed for jail time as well as a fine and anger management for Smith, even though he was only facing misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest — and his lawyer insisted he had been illegally detained, the court report said.

That’s what she did to a father whose daughter had been raped in a girl’s washroom by a student with male equipment. The father pays her salary with his taxes! But she didn’t feel any responsibility to treat him well.

Anyway, back to the original article. The threats made against the parents are very interesting. And keep in mind that the parents are paying the salaries of the government workers who are saying this:

  • “I’m gonna find his employer.”
  • “And holding that company accountable until he is fired.”
  • “Lets make him unemployable by love or by force.”
  • “I want to contact his employer to do just that. Ruin his livelihood.”
  • “Say goodbye to your job f***** [middle finger emoji].”
  • “I want every single person who clapped for that ousted en masse and their livelihoods ruined:).”

And these are even worse:

  • “Im telling you. SOMETHING has to happen to one of them.”
  • “Something public and permanent.”
  • “Lines drawn in the cement.”
  • “Lives needs to be ruined beyond repair.”
  • “Lets actually destroy them. Grind them.”
  • “If he had said that s*** about black kids or autistic kids I would shoot him.”
  • “We REALLY need to find this guy.”
  • “You guys need to stop protesting and start fighting back against these people Time to just do something different to shut them down.”
  • “F*** just getting him [fired].”
  • “Im soooo ready to show up with guns lol.”
  • “His life needs to be PERMANENTLY disassembled.”

And then they posted the addresses of the homes of the parents who they disagreed with. What bothered them the most was when one of the parents quoted verses from the Bible. That seems to be what really drove them crazy. But remember – the Biden administration said that it was concerned parents who were the real “domestic terrorists”.

I found another article about this story at Daily Wire, if you want to read more about the people involved.

And here is one of the women admitting that she e-mailed the employers of men who wanted to protect children from abuse and mutilation:

So, it’s very important for Christians and conservatives to understand where the secular leftists in government, law enforcement and the school boards stand. Christians think “oh, these are nice people, just like us”. But they’re not just like us. They’re just like Stalin, Mao, Hitler and the other socialist fascists who want to force their views on others. Parents who want their children to believe in God, morality, the Constitution, etc. are in their way. And they aren’t afraid to use threats, coercion, vandalism, and even violence in order to force parents to bow to them.