Because science has introduced the world to a great number of achievements in medicine, technology, and numerous other factors, people have grown to place a high value on the teachings of science. This is a good thing. No one can make a coherent argument against the value of the great number of lives that have been saved due to the scientific advances in medicine. The great problem arises, though, when science becomes not just one of the many ways that we acquire knowledge, but the only way; that if we cannot test something scientifically, it cannot be true. This is exactly the belief that sways people to abandon any information that leads to supernatural beliefs. I must point out here, though, that the core belief (that only things that can be tested and proven by scientific means) cannot itself be tested by science. Even though one might attempt to prove the statement philosophically, philosophy is outside of the realm of science so, by definition, the philosophical defense cannot be accepted.

But just because the belief cannot pass its own test does not mean that it will not be widely accepted. Science has become the only reliable source of information, but what happens when the findings of different scientists conflict with each other? When two different groups of scientists look at the same data and come up with different information, which conclusions are the correct ones? The answer depends on what is being tested. The intelligent design movement has proven to be a worthy adversary to the widely-accepted scientific theory of Darwinian evolution. Work by Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe, William Dembski and numerous others have offered a viable scientific alternative to the popular theory, but their work has been dismissed as “unscientific” not because it does not follow established scientific procedures or accurately report its findings, but because its findings are compatible with the creation account found in the Biblical book of Genesis.

Although intelligent design never claims that the Genesis account is true (aliens or even a machine created by aliens or a past generation of human beings more intelligent than us) could have created the universe, the elite scientists see that it also leaves room for the Judeo-Christian God as well. To risk stating the obvious, scientists are not stupid. They know that culture has defined them as holding the key to knowledge and do not want anyone else to get a copy. If religion is allowed to open the door, then they lose their power; knowledge can be found elsewhere, in the pages of the Bible for example.

In an earlier post, I displayed a video promo of the new Creation Museum. Casey, from Casey’s Critical Thinking, has a very good discussion going on over at his blog regarding this topic.

When God created us we were perfect. Then sin entered our lives through our own fault. This caused our nature and the nature of the world to become a perversion of the original perfection. What was once good was good no longer. Evil came to exist as good gone wrong; perfection twisted.

I can remember my pre-salvation days where I did a lot of things that I regret today. These were things that the culture said were okay. Nothing I did was either culturally or socially unacceptable. But they were all perversions of things God intended to be for good. I didn’t want God’s good, but my own. Most culturally-accepted perversions of God’s perfection are this way. Take sexual relations between a husband and wife as an example – one only need to turn on the television to see how culture has perverted this. Like premarital sex is a perversion of God’s intention, these stories from the ancient Near East are perversions of biblical history.

Many of the stories have surface similarities to the biblical accounts, but when examined further the major differences can be easily seen. In the stories there is not one God, but many Gods. Man did not rebel morally to cause a punishment flood, but made too much noise. The stories do not glorify God, but human kings. Some truth is there (superhuman creation of the world and humanity, a flood, etc.), but this truth has been twisted, much like culture has twisted so many other God-determined purposes, morals, or history.

When confronted by cultural differences with the biblical narratives or morals, the Christian can look back at these stories and know that their situation is not the first time in history when culture has twisted the words of God. This has been going on for a long time. Satan is the “god of this world” and this world creates culture. It should not be surprising, but assuring, that these documents exist which seem to so closely match, but really so much corrupt the truth of what really occurred. Through their differences with the Bible, they point out what is the most important in the Bible.

A museum devoted to scientifically proving the veracity of the Genesis creation account opened recently. This is a Current TV promo to the longer special.

This is an older video, but a great one. For those of you who do not know, Faith Under Fire, hosted by Lee Strobel, was a weekly religious-debate show that used to air on the PAX network. It has been off the air for years now, but the material has begun to come out as group studies (see the Amazon link to the right). Enjoy, but disregard the title that says it’s William Lane Craig. It’s really Greg Koukl!