101 Reasons why I trust the God of the Bible

19th January 2022, hej

This Article: (10 Pages)

1) The evidence for trusting the Bible

For those who may doubt, I share why I don't doubt. More than not doubting, I share why I have trust and confidence. Believe now means "accept that (something) is true, especially without proof." This is not the Belief required by the God of the Bible, no, that Belief required is a deep conviction based on irrefutable objective evidence: testable truth.

We use the same standards as used to convict a criminal, or establish beyond doubt a historical fact.

Firstly I would like to introduce the God of the Bible,

Let him that glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:24)

This great Power of the universe that loves justice, also loves giving us evidence, and he gave us a mind to think,

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.(Hebrews 11:1)

O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! (Deut 32:29)

That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the LORD hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it. Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come. (Isaiah 41:20-22)

Let us also destroy a myth: it is not modern or progressive to doubt the existence of God or be an athiest - no, circa 1000BC (the latest compilaton 300BC , Gordon edu) it was written,

A Psalm of David. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that does good. (Psalm 53:1)

1. Israel in the news

The most powerful evidence for the God of the Bible's existence, is Israel in the news. In the last 200 years, thousands of years of historical evidence for the Bible being a truthful record of history has been emerging from the sands, but no evidence tops the amount of newspaper print devoted to Israel and their dramatic emergence as a world leader in everything from agriculture to hi-tech in a formerly desolate land. (Ok prove me wrong on this one, give Israel as much newspaper media print as Estonia, Iceland, Denmark, Lebanon or Jordan!)

Can the statement that Israel dominates the news be objectively verified? Yes, in numbers!

Staffing is the best measure of the importance of a story to a particular news organization. When I was a correspondent at the AP (ed. from 2006-11), the agency had more than 40 staffers covering Israel and the Palestinian territories. That was significantly more news staff than the AP had in China, Russia, or India, or in all of the 50 countries of sub-Saharan Africa combined. It was higher than the total number of news-gathering employees in all the countries where the uprisings of the 'Arab Spring' eventually erupted... Before the outbreak of the civil war in Syria, the permanent AP presence in that country consisted of a single regime-approved stringer. The AP?s editors believed, that is, that Syria?s importance was less than one-40th that of Israel... The volume of press coverage that results, even when little is going on, gives this conflict a prominence compared to which its actual human toll is absurdly small. In all of 2013, for example, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict claimed 42 lives?that is, roughly the monthly homicide rate in the city of Chicago. Jerusalem, internationally renowned as a city of conflict, had slightly fewer violent deaths per capita last year than Portland, Ore., one of America?s safer cities. tabletmag

AP maps show the large dots in Israel (AP.org).

Numbers are an objective measure. The Foreign Press Association in Israel 2017 represents "480 journalists who are employed by international news organizations and report from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip."FPA Israel

Compare this to 60 in Denmark, most of who live there (FPdk), and to 440 in all of Germany (VAP) and to the largest and first FPA based in London with about 1,700 per year.(FPAlondon) On this objective measure the importance of Isarel to international media is 28% of Britain.

What makes News Organisations think Israel is "the most important story on earth, or very close"? It's not chance. Reporters are 'witnesses' reporting what they see.

Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled: who among them can declare this, and shew us former things? let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified: or let them hear, and say, It is truth. Ye (Israel see verse 1) are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour. (Isaiah 43:9-11)

The Big Picture: 7 points of Life & 8 great things

2. Breathe - now explain that!

Breathe in and out. This is the most mysterious phenomena on earth. Why does breathing stop and death occur? The Bible gets it right. Loss of blood, or the means of moving blood, which carries oxygen, causes death, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Lev 17:11). What is the energy that sustains that complex process? The Bible has an answer for a question there is no answer for. The God of the Bible each day, hour to hour, minute to minute sustains all life by his spirit-energy-power.

“Thou hide thy face, they are troubled: thou take away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.” (Psalm 104:29-30) also,

For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. (Acts 17:28)

3. Consciousness and Memory

The inexplicable location of consiousness and its interplay with memory: why humans are uniquely good at recognising themselves in a mirror and capable of complex abstract thought and sense the passing of time. Yet so fragile that damage of any sort can lead to strange behaviours.

Israel Rosenfield has observed a connection between consciousness and memory: "People came to presume that when they talked of their ?memories,? they meant experiences and learning that were carefully stored away in their brains and could be brought into consciousness, or made conscious. But this was to ignore the possibility that memories were in fact part of the very structure of consciousness: not only can there be no such thing as a memory without there being consciousness, but consciousness and memory are in a certain sense inseparable, and understanding one requires understanding the other.. Human memory may be unlike anything we have thus far imagined or successfully built a model for. And consciousness may be the reason why." and "consciousness has a temporal flow, a continuity over time, that cannot be accounted for by the neuroscientists? claim that specific parts of the brain are responding to the presence of particular stimuli at a given moment. Our perceptions are part of a ?stream of consciousness,? (1992 The Strange Familiar and Forgotten An Anatomy of Consciousness).

Consciousness cannot yet be explained, "THERE are a lot of hard problems in the world (ed. of science), but only one of them gets to call itself "the hard problem". And that is the problem of consciousness ? how a kilogram or so of nerve cells conjures up the seamless kaleidoscope of sensations, thoughts, memories and emotions that occupy every waking moment." and "Brain ?observatories? may solve the puzzle of how material brains create an intangible world of love, colour, taste and fantasy, says Christof Koch" newscientist

in 2017 Bernardo Kastrup was writing "Consciousness may never arise?be it in babies, toddlers, children or adults?because it may always be there to begin with. For all we know, what arises is merely a metacognitive configuration of preexisting consciousness. If so, consciousness may be fundamental in nature ? an inherent aspect of every mental process.." scientificamerican

The fundamental problem all theories of consciouness face is that the intangible can't come from the material. One of the best theories is 'integrated information' theory livescience. I will return to the idea of 'information below.

God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Genesis 1:26-27)

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: (Proverbs 23:7)

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. (Philipians 4:8)

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Romans 12:2)

4. Law of Biogenesis

It is a scientific Law of Nature the 'law of biogenesis', attributed to Louis Pasteur, that life must only come from life. Carbon, complex carbons, water and whatever substance remains simply just that life-less substance. This is observation, this is fact.

Louis Pasteur in 1864 told those hearing him at the Sobonne Univerity, Paris that the theory of spontanous generation of living cells would never recover due to his experiments. To this day all observation has confirmed the Law, and Pasteur has not been challenged.

So much is it fact that it is seriously suggested that life came to earth from space, in the Theory of Panspermia, held by Francis Crick co-discoverer of DNA, Fred Hoyle & Chandra Wickremesinghe Dr.V.J.M.de Silva.

No matter where the teeming varieties of life of earth came from, there had to be a form of life to give them life.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that has life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moves, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:20-21)

5. Species and DNA

It is observation that there are species, which, despite significant evolving variation still remain unpassable from one to the next. The more that is found, especially regarding DNA the more it is known how impassible the species barrier is.

There is a significant amount of variation in dogs and wolves, as there is in humans, some are tall some are short, some thin, some with a lot of hair others curly haired, some light some dark, some with blue eyes and most with types of brown. But nowhere does a dog- wolf have a chance to become a horse. Horses also come in great variety, but they cannot have become a giraffe, as the DNA 'programs' won't allow it. No form of ape can have ever have become a human, due to the differences.

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind (species) , and cattle after their kind (species), and every thing that creeps upon the earth after his kind (species): and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:25)

6. Mutation of the species

Objective science has found some mutations are useful, many are not. Most variation in species arises with lossof information. There is much evidence of adaption of species to their environment, with evidence of human lifestyle affecting their DNA, but it has never, even in rapidily, reproducing insects resulted in a new species. The more that is understood about DNA the more that it establishes that everything was created 'good' but there have been mutations, damage and copy errors. Whereas it was once genetically acceptable for cousins to marry now it is not wise due to the faults, mutation and copy errors. In the same way 'pure-breed' (in-bred) dogs have more genetic faults that lead to serious health problems than mongrels.

History not Empirical Science

The problem with theories about origins now being science is the fact that any possible evidence for it happened in the past - any theory about orgins should be in the history department, as it can't be tested now empirically or objectively.

Honest Evolutionists agreed with this as early as 1967 when it was admitted, "Our theory of Evolution has become as Popper described, one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations.. It is thus 'outside of empirical science'" (L.C. Birch, P R Ehrlich, Nature, 214, 1967 pp349-52).

I have completed a Masters thesis where I tested a hypothesis by asking a question which I then answered, in all using the empirical scientific method. I used modelling tools, I used loggers to measure things. I collected data. I made tentative conclusions based on the models (which didn't match the measured data), the measured data and the collected data. Now when it comes to origins, as it is so far back in history it relies on assumptions made about what is dug up. Nothing dug up comes with dates, unless humans wrote something that can be dated, and even that has to be fitted into a theories of how all human history fits together.

The only test of the hypothesis of the possibly of species changing within the scientific method is to observe and test very short lived things. Some studies of the DNA of short lived things have ocurred, where the short lived things remained genetically the same short lived things, or very, very short lived things dying before their expected life span, the empirical study of evolving species has found as yet only strong evidence for degeneration from either bacteria or fruit flies.

Michigan State University evolutionary biologists Richard Lenski and his colleagues searched for signs of evolution in bacteria for 20 years, tracking 40,000 generations. In the end, the species that they started with was hobbled by accumulated mutations, and the only changes that had occurred were degenerative.

Molly Burke led research into the genetic changes that occurred over the course of 600 fruit fly generations. The UCI lab had been breeding fruit flies since 1991, separating fast growers with short life spans from slow growers with longer life spans. The UCI scientists compared the DNA sequences affecting fruit fly growth and longevity between the two groups. After the equivalent of 12,000 years of human evolution, the fruit flies showed surprisingly few differences. icr.org

These findings can be tested, independently, again and again. They found they could not, by selection and direct intervention, make a change. This is science. This is truth. The finding of degeneration is a point I will return to.

7. Codes require a Sender and receiver

Humans use code to great effect. The letters making words I use here are a 'code', as they come from patterns stored in my mind and may be comprehended by any other mind that has learned the pattern of the 'agreed code' of the Englsh I use. Information Science as a field of academic study has opened up a whole new frontier of understanding that shows that the real world cannot be understood without a Creator.

Werner Gitt, after a liftime of working with Information Science and Control Engineering wrote, 'In the beginning was information' in which he argued that information is as fundmental as matter and energy. "Because information is required for all life processes, it can be stated that information is an essential characteristic of all life" (Preface English translation from German, Edition 2001 p9).

Gitt gives examples: the design and structure of the spider's web where information is required from the manufacture of the silk to the optimised design of the web itself, the design of the Morpho rhetenor butterfly wing structure made up of ridges that cancel out certain wavelengths of light and enhance others, so that the brilliant 'colour' of the wing is not intrinsic but from reflection, the human embryo that follows a precise and complex plan that by the 3rd week already has a tiny heart that is pumping blood, which gives the developing brain blood and in that blood oxygen, and lastly the organ playing robot that can 'sight read' music which requires a computer program without which nothing would happen. None can operate if the stored information is in any way 'deleted'.

It was proposed by a professor at Dortmund "Anyone who can identify the source of information, has the key for understanding the world" or "He who can give an account of the origin of infomation holds in his hands the key to interpret the world", to which Gitt observes that you have to go further as it is not enough to understand the source of information you have to see it though the lens of the source of information "one would not really be able to understand the world without acknowleding the Spirit of God. If the Bible really is the Book of Truth, as stated many times (eg thy word is truth John 17:17), then it is the key to understanding the world.

Gitt proposes, based on Norbert Weiner (1894-1964), that information is non-material and requires a sender who has a will. Gitt's Theorom 3. proposes that "Information comprises the non material foundation for all technological systems and for all works of art". He proposes also that it holds also for all biological systems. Theorem 28 is that "there is no known sequence of events which can cause information to orginate by itself in matter." Professor Gitt has proposed his information and engineering based theory in many forums in unversities, including a conference on information 1996 and as yet none has found an answer.

Gitt's calculations regarding DNA with 4 chemical 'letters' (A,T,C,G) in triplets show, 'the coding systems used for livng beings is optimal from an engineering standpoint.

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.(Psalm 33:6)

He maketh peace in thy borders, and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat. He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth: his word runneth very swiftly. He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. (Psa 147:14-16)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God (Joh 1:1)

8. Codes in Trees and Flowers

Some trees that shed leaves all year but some shed leaves seasonally, and right on time each year shoot forth having seemed dead. How do they know?

The flower's function

BBC "The flower is so hard to define that even scientists are still discussing it."

"To be successful, a flower needs to produce pollen, as well as a reward such as nectar, and it must be attractive to the right animals. The diversity of size, shape, colour and smell across flowering plants reflects the many ways to attract an animal pollinator." "An entire flower can be produced from just three genes. "A" proteins alone produce a sepal cell, while A and "B" together make petal cells. "C" proteins control the carpels and the stamen: C alone produces carpel cells, while C and B together form stamen cells.

There is one flower that does not follow the classic ABC layout. It bewildered botanists for decades, but it turns out to be the exception that proves the rule... "

It has a Genetic mutation.. There are over 350,000 known species of flowering plant! All different, but (nearly) all formed by 3 genes! So who coded the flowers- and the variety of animals that are required to pollinate them, which if they aren't pollinated mean that other animals / birds don't live... and mean in many cases the plant itself is not reproduced.

The flower's beauty

lovely flowers he gives us- more than just for function! - for glorious beauty- because Yahweh Elohim the God of Israel loves beautiful smells and the glory of colour.

9. Sucess of objective observation in Science

There has been huge success of objective observation, or truth seeking, in science. More than that from truth seeking comes our motivation to search things out and ponder it. We are uniquly made having been made with consciousness of the world about us, so from a child we have questions about our world.

He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. (Ecc 3:11)

The Laws of Nature when understood by observation, and applied in design, have made technological development possible, beacause how a chemical will react, or how a bridge or aircraft may perform is understood by those Laws.

Much of the Bible is about objective truth

Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God: Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever: (Psalm 146:5-6)