Evidence for God to Answer Challenges Archives - Page 3 of 31

June 11, 2024June 10, 2024

Does God Answer Prayers?

If you have not read yesterday’s post, please do so. Atheist challenges to prayer are very vocal and common. Madalyn Murray O’Hair stated the atheist position well: “No God ever gave any man anything, nor ever answered any prayer at any time – nor ever will.” God’s response to this statement is well stated in James 4:1 -3, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” Does God answer prayers?

Both atheists and believers have many misunderstandings about prayer:
#1) God cannot eliminate our purpose for existing by answering a prayer that takes away the human ability to choose between good and evil.

#2) Galatians 6:7 tells us, “A man reaps what he sows.” There will be consequences when we do what God has told us not to do. If you jump off a cliff, you can’t expect God to prevent you from hitting the bottom.

#3) As humans, we don’t always know what to ask for, and we don’t know the collateral damage of things we ask for. Garth Brooks has a wonderful song titled “Unanswered Prayer.” Listen to the words and be aware of their message.

#4) We tend to experience an answer to prayer by assuming the answer was a product of chance or human wisdom. Does a medical cure for something mean that God had no role in the healing? Most doctors will tell you that they don’t cure diseases. They help the body fight off the cause.

#5) God doesn’t do for us what we can do for ourselves.

What would be the result if God answered every human whim and desire? I was in a church service where a farmer prayed for rain. Later, another member prayed it wouldn’t rain on his daughter’s wedding. During the Civil War, people on both sides prayed for victory for their side.

Does God answer prayers? Most 12-step participants, most of us who have sought a purpose for existing, most of us who have prayed for personal peace and comfort, and most of us who have struggled with our approaching death can tell you that prayer helps in obvious ways. Our misunderstanding of why God wants us to pray prevents us from comprehending the value of prayer.

June 10, 2024June 9, 2024

Why Didn’t God Answer My Prayer?

It is interesting that the more vocal atheists of our day spend a lot of time talking about prayer. Many of them became atheists because when they were younger, God didn’t answer a prayer as they thought He should. The death of a family member, especially a mother or father, is the most common story we have heard as a reason for not believing in God. The common phrase is, “Why didn’t God answer my prayer? If He really exists, why did He let my child (or mother, father, spouse) die?’

The songbook we use at our worship time contains 45 songs about prayer. Eleven of them promise that God will take care of you and not deny anything you ask. Skeptics have said the song “God Will Take Care of You” by Civilla and Walter Martin “is an outright lie.” Atheists often quote the line, “Nothing you ask will be denied.”

The other side of this issue is what we should legitimately pray for. My wife recently lost a hearing aid. She prayed for several days about the loss, and just when she had given up, the hearing aid appeared on the seat of our car. Does God micromanage our lives to help us find lost objects?

For any Bible promise, we must ask what was said, who said it, why, and how the people hearing it would have understood it. In passages like Matthew 7:7-11, Jesus says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you shall find; knock and the door will be opened to you …” He goes on to say, “Your Father in heaven will give good gifts to those who ask for them.” These passages and many others tell Christians that God will answer prayers. The reality is that physical answers do not always come to us, at least not as we expect.

When my son was born, we had great joy, but we soon realized that he had some medical problems. We prayed for his vision problems, and the doctors told us that he would be able to see well enough to function – but he became blind. We prayed that he would have the intelligence to overcome blindness, but it turned out he was mentally challenged. We prayed his body would be strong, but we learned he had cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, and was schizophrenic. I went through a “why me” stage and a period of anger at God for allowing my son to have all these problems. I asked, “Why didn’t God answer my prayers?” My atheist parents attempted to get the state to remove the child from our home. That alienated me from them for many years.

One aspect of prayer that many never understand is that God knows the future. He answers prayers in ways that have eternal implications that allow us to have an unintended purpose in life. My experience opened doors that I didn’t even know existed. My son’s problems have molded and shaped me into a radically different person. I have a mission and a purpose in life that I would never have had without the way my prayers were answered. Perhaps the question should be, “Why didn’t God answer my prayer in the way I expected? We will continue with more thoughts on prayer tomorrow.

Note: The story of my son is available in a book titled “Timothy, My Son and My Teacher,” available directly from our ministry or powervine.store.

May 31, 2024May 30, 2024

You Just have to Believe

Some preachers and church leaders try to tell you, “Don’t question your faith. You just have to believe.” We never find that kind of attitude in the teaching of Jesus or any of the apostles. It is easy to assume that the people we are talking to believe in God, that the Bible is the true Word of God, and that Jesus is a real person who lived, died, and rose from the dead.

It’s a common misconception that everyone in the church has unwavering faith. In reality, a significant portion of people, including those sitting in church pews, have their own doubts and questions. Over the past decade, our ministry has seen a surge in responses, particularly from teenagers and young adults who are grappling with their faith.

Jesus had to deal with the doubts of people who rejected what He said. The Bible describes multiple cases in which people showed Jesus a lack of faith. In Mark 9:17-27, we read of a father with a son who had an epileptic-like issue. Jesus told the distraught father, “All things are possible for one who has faith.” The father cried out with tears, “Lord, I have faith, help me where faith runs short.” Have you ever had a struggle in which you want to believe but are paralyzed by doubt?

How did Jesus handle people’s doubts? The answer is “evidence.” When Thomas doubted that Jesus had risen from the dead, Jesus did not condemn or even chastise him but gave him evidence ( John 20:24-29). Verses 30 and 31 tell us that Jesus did many other things which gave his disciples evidence, “These things are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that believing you might have life through His name.”

The purpose of miracles was not to attract a crowd, raise money, or campaign for some particular office. In Matthew 8:24 -27, we see Jesus controlling wind and waves, and His followers’ response was, “What kind of a man is this that even the winds and the sea obey Him.” Miracles served a purpose, and when men tried to duplicate the things Jesus did, the results were catastrophic. (See Acts 19:13-16.)

In our day, evidence is still a key to faith. The creation speaks of God’s existence, and archaeological evidence for the validity of the Bible is strong. All around us, we can see the catastrophe when people reject the teachings of Christ and devise their own plan for living. We present evidence in the courses we offer, our printed publications, and our websites. We have far more reason to believe than did people in biblical times when mass media was unavailable and scientific knowledge was minimal. Romans 1:19-20 says it well, and verses 28-32 tell us the consequences of rejecting the evidence.”

May 30, 2024May 29, 2024

What Created the Universe from Nothing?

At the beginning of the 20th century, many scientists, including astronomers and physicists, believed that the universe was eternal. Since it had no beginning, there was no need to explain what created the universe. In other words, there was no need for God.

That began to change in 1905 with Albert Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity. His calculations indicated that the universe was either expanding or contracting, but he could not accept that. He invented a “cosmological constant” to balance the effect of gravity. Other scientists recognized his error, which he later admitted was the greatest blunder of his life. Then Georges Lemaître theorized, and Edwin Hubble confirmed that the universe was expanding. Since it is expanding, going back in time to the distant past, the universe would become progressively smaller until it began as an infinitely small and dense “singularity.” That was the beginning of time, space, matter, and energy.

The concept of a beginning posed a significant challenge for many scientists due to its religious implications. Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century, science continued to confirm that the universe had a beginning. Robert Jastrow, a prominent American physicist and director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was one such scientist. Despite describing himself as an “agnostic, and not a believer,” He found the idea of a beginning unsettling as it implied a Creator. In his 1978 book God and the Astronomers, he expressed his discomfort in these words:

“This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible: In the beginning God created heaven and earth… The development is unexpected because science has had such extraordinary success in tracing the chain of cause and effect backward in time. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

Even though scientists have scaled that mountain and made great progress in determining when the universe was created, they still cannot explain what created it from nothing. If there was nothing, how can there be a “what” to do the creating? Many scientists are believers in God, but others need to turn to the Bible to find the eternal Creator, the uncaused cause, the One Who created the universe and us for a purpose.

May 6, 2024May 6, 2024

Is Consciousness an Illusion?

Is consciousness an illusion, or is it real? Philosopher Rene Descartes insisted that consciousness was the only undeniable fact of our existence. He is known for the phrase, “I think, therefore, I am” (cogito, ergo sum). Daniel Dennett was an analytic philosopher who, until his death on April 19, 2024, spent his career suggesting that consciousness is an illusion. He also insisted that God is an illusion, and, in agreement with Richard Dawkins, design in nature is an illusion.

Daniel Dennett was also closely associated with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens as the “Four Horsemen of the New Atheism.” They all wrote best-selling books challenging the existence of God. Dennett was a vocal atheist, a Committee for Skeptical Inquiry member, and served on the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America. He was also awarded the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s board of distinguished achievers.

Dennett believed that evolution by natural selection and adaptation accounts for every aspect of life, including morality. In his book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, he attempted to give a naturalistic explanation for religious belief. Is consciousness an illusion? According to Dennett, the answer is “yes.” If you have trouble accepting that concept, Dennett’s 1991 book Consciousness Explained attempted to explain it. His 2017 book From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds expands on Dennett’s concept of “competence without comprehension.”

According to Dennett, the Darwinian theory accounts for all aspects of our existence. No intelligent designer is needed because evolution explains everything. The “Four Horsemen of the New Atheism” alludes to the four horsemen of the apocalypse described in Revelation chapter 6. Those horsemen represent conquest, warfare, famine, and death, bringing judgment on the people of Earth. The four horsemen of atheism are now down to two since the death of Hitchens and now Dennett, but I am sure others will take their place.

What we need today are champions for God who will take the message of God’s love and redemption and peace and hope in Jesus Christ. If consciousness is an illusion, everything is meaningless, but if consciousness is reality, everything changes. Our lives have meaning, purpose, and value because God created and loves us.

May 3, 2024May 2, 2024

Characterizing God as a Vindictive Tyrant

Characterizing God as a vindictive tyrant who wants to send everyone to hell is the exact opposite of what the Bible teaches. God wants everyone to be saved. It would be helpful if writers who condemn Christianity would read and understand the New Testament rather than taking Old Testament passages out of context.

In Matthew 18:12-14, Jesus tells the parable of a shepherd with 100 sheep and one wanders off. The shepherd leaves the 99 and goes after the one that is lost. Christ ends that story by saying, “In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these should be lost.”

In 2 Peter 3:9, Peter writes, “The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to a change of mind (repentance).”

Many have read John 3:16 without reading verse 17: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world.”

Skeptics and some religionists who ask why God doesn’t just save everyone automatically are misunderstanding the purpose of our existence. God created us for a reason, and He gave us a purpose. There is a war going on between good and evil. Despite atheist attempts to deny that evil exists, their claim rings hollow with those who live in the real world.

The impact of evil is clear, and Job 1 & 2, Ephesians 6:12 and 3:10 make the purpose of our existence clear. Only sentient beings can make spiritual choices and be part of the struggle between good and evil. God is not a destroyer, a tyrant, or a bully. Forcing people to embrace His will would only indicate His power. The Bible says, “God is love,” and for that reason, He is allowing time to pass before the creation is dissolved. God wants everyone to be saved and to live in a spiritual existence beyond the grave, but He will not force us to accept His will.

Please reject those who are characterizing God as a vindictive tyrant who takes delight in torturing innocent beings. First Corinthians 1:18 says, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those of us who are being saved, it is the power of God.” In 2 Corinthians 4:4, Paul tells us that “the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers,” so the “light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” cannot shine on them. That explains why they are characterizing God as a vindictive tyrant. Don’t be blinded by the vindictive writing of atheists and skeptics who are agents of destruction of us individually and the United States as a nation.

April 22, 2024April 21, 2024

Total Solar Eclipse and the Matthew 27 Account

We received comments from two men who related the recent total solar eclipse and the Matthew 27 account of darkness coming over the land when Jesus was crucified. One of the enquirers was a Christian who wondered about it, and the other was from an atheist who tried to use it in his attack on the Bible. Here is what we read in Matthew 27:45: “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.”

This is an age-old skeptic attack, suggesting that later Christian writers manipulated the account to transform a natural phenomenon into a religious miracle. These critics also argue that the miracles of Jesus, as described in the Bible, are not historical events but rather fictional tales concocted by later Christian writers.

The first point we need to make is that the duration of a total solar eclipse and the Matthew 27 account have no common ground. The sixth hour to the ninth hour would indicate about three hours. The most extended duration of a total solar eclipse is three to four MINUTES. History records an eclipse near the traditional time of Jesus’ crucifixion, but the scriptures do not give us the date of the crucifixion.

The second point we must make is that the miracles Jesus performed are not just fiction written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Many Christians and opponents of Christianity recognized that Jesus performed miracles. You can try to explain them scientifically, but they are beyond any scientific explanation. A total solar eclipse and the Matthew 27 account are not compatible.

In an era rife with fake news, skepticism, atheism, and secularism, the role of evidence in substantiating the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testaments becomes paramount. While we don’t claim to possess all the answers, evidence supporting the Bible’s accuracy and the historical facts of Jesus’ life is readily accessible to those who seek it. Our video series, “Beyond Reasonable Doubt,” meticulously examines the evidence for biblical accuracy. You can view it free of charge on doesgodexist.tv, or purchase it with a study guide from powervine.store. We also offer a free correspondence course of the same name upon request.

April 18, 2024April 15, 2024

The Nature of Time Is a Mystery

The nature of time is one of the great mysteries of life. Time is not three-dimensional; in other words, we can’t describe it as left-right, up-down, or back-front. Time is a created thing, and thanks to Einstein’s relativity theory, we know that it is not constant. At very high velocities, time changes.

In quantum mechanics, we discuss things that happened “before time began.” In Proverbs 8:22-23 Wisdom speaks about being with God before the world began, and 2 Peter 3:8 tells us that “with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” Acts 1:7 tells us, “It is not for you to know the times or the dates the Father has set by His own authority.”

Many questions arise because people fail to understand the relationship between time and God. The way God answers prayers is radically affected by time. Humans tend to want our requests instantly gratified, but God frequently acts in a different time frame than we desire. God also does not answer prayers or produce actions that would violate our freedom of choice. We can pray for someone to do a certain thing, and God may make it possible, but He will not violate a person’s ability to choose. We are here for a purpose in the war between good and evil, and we can choose what we will do. God makes it possible but does not force us to accept His will.

Those who try to predict the time of Christ’s second coming fail to understand that all things are embedded in God’s independence from time. The question of the Earth’s age is also rooted in a poor understanding of the nature of time. Changes in stars and galaxies take very long periods of time, including how long it takes for the light from distant stars to reach the Earth.

How long did it take to produce the land masses we live on, and by what method did God make them? Those who want instant gratification have God miraculously zapping the entire geologic column instantly. That is not what the evidence from geology tells us. The record in the rocks of our planet tells of God’s careful preparation of the natural resources He knew we would need. God could zap oil into existence in an underground storage formation, but the evidence is that He has taken a long time with many different agencies to produce the fossil fuels of coal, oil, and gas, as well as the minerals we depend on.

The nature of time is a mystery to us, and we create conflict when we force our concept of time on a God who created time and is not limited by it.

April 16, 2024April 15, 2024

Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena AARO Report

One of the most repeated false media reports is the claim that aliens in spacecraft regularly visit Earth and want to affect human history. In our day of conspiracy theories, there are stories that the United States government has been hiding alien contact. Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick was the director of the U.S. Department of Defense’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). Congress charged that agency in 2022 with bringing scientific evidence and clarity to the UFO and UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) mystery.

Dr. Kirkpatrick explained what the AARO found in the April 2024 issue of Scientific American. Here is a brief summary of his report:

#1) There is no record of any president, Department of Defense official, intelligence community leader, or congressional committee knowing about any such conspiracy.
#2) The claims started when “UFOlogist” Robert Bigelow, founder of Bigelow Aerospace, persuaded some senators to call on the Department of Homeland Security to set up an agency to investigate claims.
#3) The people advancing the idea of a government coverup conspiracy are part of a small group, and many of them worked for Bigelow Aerospace.
#4) Dr. Kirkpatrick said of the claims, “Some are misrepresentations; some derive from pure, unsupported beliefs. In many ways, the narrative is a textbook example of circular reporting…”

You can read the report released by Kirkpatrick’s group of qualified scientists, “Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP),” online HERE.

All attempts to tie alien claims to the Bible or alien explanations of history are not supported by evidence or real scientific investigation. We see claims that biblical figures, including Jesus, were aliens and that miracles described in the Bible were the actions of aliens. There is no evidence to support those claims.

The evidence is massive that Jesus lived as the Bible says and that His spiritual promises are real. Our salvation comes from the work of Jesus, and we must study and apply His teachings to our lives. You can see some of that evidence in our videos, including the Beyond Reasonable Doubt series and our correspondence course by the same name. Send us your name and address for the correspondence course, and we will mail you lesson #1 at no cost. You can watch the video series for free on our website, doesgodexist.tv.

Reference: “Observations from a Government UFO Hunter” in Scientific American magazine for April 2024 (pages 67-68)

April 10, 2024April 9, 2024

AI Can Be Used or Misused

Artificial Intelligence is the latest marvel of science flooding every part of human life – for good or evil. On November 39, 2022, a company known as OpenAI launched an artificial intelligence application, a chatbot called ChatGPT, making it available to anyone wanting to use it. Since ChatGPT can write papers, students started using it to meet course requirements. Religious groups have trained chatbots to use religious texts. More than 200,000 people worldwide have used QuranGPT. Other chatbots such as Bible.AI, Gita GPT, Buddhabot, and Apostle Paul AI have appeared. Chatbots have been trained to give answers, imitating Martin Luther, Confucius, and even the Delphic oracle. Like everything else, AI can be used or misused.

Alarmists have suggested hypothetical scenarios in which AI could take over the planet. The adage “garbage in leads to garbage out” applies to AI. However, innovators can do many very positive things with this new technology. One example is the ability to read ancient documents that have previously been unreadable.

Pyroclastic flows from Mount Vesuvius buried a library in the ancient Roman town of Herculaneum in AD 79. Those volcanic flows generated temperatures of 900 degrees and buried the scrolls under 60 feet of debris, baking them into charcoal. The process preserved the scrolls, but scholars could not unroll and read them because they would crumble. Using high-energy scans, scientists created a 3-D image of the scrolls and used AI to analyze the ink patterns and determine the words on the scrolls.

AI will allow scholars to study documents and other materials that were previously unreadable. This process can potentially be applied to biblical scrolls to verify the integrity of the Bible manuscripts. AI and its related tools like ChatGPT can expand our knowledge of the past and solve insoluble problems. AI offers medical advances at all levels to improve human life. Like everything else, AI can be used or misused, but the notion that it can take over all technology and eliminate the human race is science fiction and not something we should fear.

Reference: “What We’re Learning From AI” in Scientific American for April 2024