1. WHY SHOULD I BELIEVE IN GOD? By David A. Prentice, M.Ed., M.A.S.T.

2. BIBLE APOLOGETICS
“… be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear”
1 Peter 3:15

3. NEWS FLASHES: Earthquakes and tsunamis hit Indonesia (2004), Haiti (Jan. 2009), Chile (late Feb. 2010), Taiwan (3/3/2010). Hundreds of thousands killed suddenly.

4. IS GOD UNFAIR? Or, How can a good God allow death and suffering: Hurricanes, tsunamis, plagues, famines, wars, etc.?

5. The FACT of death does not change,
All the wars, famines, plagues, pestilences, etc. throughout human history have not changed the death rate one bit.
The death rate is 100%.
The FACT of death does not change,
only the TIMING.

6. Death is the fairest thing there is.
It happens to rich, poor, black, white,
American, Asian -- EVERYBODY.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO GET READY FOR IT?

7. The Inescapable Fact of Human Existence:
I, __________________ AM GOING TO DIE.
ME PERSONALLY,
NOT JUST EVERYBODY ELSE –
I AM GOING TO DIE.
(fill in your name here)

8. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? TEST THEM!!!
1. Is there a God? No
Yes
Impossible to know anything with 100% certainty
2. Could He communicate clearly if He wanted to? No
Impossible to know anything with 100% certainty
Yes
3. Are there any books that claim to be a revelation from Him? No
Yes
Impossible to know anything with 100% certainty
4. Is there a way to test any such books to see if they are beyond human capabilities? No
Yes
Impossible to know anything with 100% certainty
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? TEST THEM!!!

9. HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW? Or at least what you think you know?

10. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO “KNOW” SOMETHING?
1. Personal Experience
through the five senses.
I know a bee sting hurts;
I know how to ride a bike.
2. Reliance on Authority.
I know the sun is 93
million miles away;
Jesus loves me, this I know,
for the Bible tells me so.
3. Logic.
I know 2 million + 2 million =
4 million, even though I’ve
never counted that high.
I know I have a brain, even
though I’ve never seen it.
4. Feeling or Intuition.
I know she’s the one for
me; I know God has
called me to the ministry.
6. Bluffing (lying) - you try to persuade
others for an ulterior motive.
You should buy these tickets from me
because I know this team is going
to the Super Bowl this year;
I know this car will give you years
of faithful service!
5. Wishful Thinking (you
really want it to be true)
I just know I’m going to
win the lottery!

11. HOW DO WE KNOW THERE REALLY IS A GOD?
1. Very few people can claim to have actually experienced God through their five senses.
2. The Bible, our authority, tells us about Him. But what if someone doesn’t believe the Bible?
3. Skeptics who reject the Bible may still respond to LOGIC. Let’s look at a logical argument for the existence of God.
4. Many people base their eternal destiny on their “gut feelings” (intuition). But how do you know your intuition is right?

12. THE BASIS OF BIBLICAL LOGIC It is obvious from nature that there
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed [it] unto them.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead… Romans 1:18-23
It is obvious from nature that there
must be some sort of God.

13. NECESSARY CHARACTERISTICS
GOD
1. Only seen by what He does -
INVISIBLE.
2. Established natural laws, so
is not subject to those laws -
SUPERNATURAL.
3. Preceded the universe -
ETERNAL.
4. Influence extends throughout
the universe - OMNIPRESENT.
5. Directly or indirectly responsi-
ble for everything that has ever
happened - OMNIPOTENT.
6. Nobody made Him - SELF-
EXISTENT.

14. IF THERE IS NO GOD, THEN WHAT?
What if there is no God? Then the universe would have to be the result of a series of forces, processes, and events operating with no particular purpose for billions of years.
We could call the whole series “evolution,” “quantum fluctuation,” or “accident.” Let’s use the term “Random Chance,” with the under-standing that it represents the whole multibillion year series of forces, processes, and events.
What characteristics would
Random Chance have to have?

15. NECESSARY CHARACTERISTICS
GOD
1. Only seen by what He does -
INVISIBLE.
RANDOM CHANCE
1. Only seen by what it does -
INVISIBLE.
2. Established natural laws, so
is not subject to those laws -
SUPERNATURAL.
2. Established natural laws, so
is not subject to those laws -
SUPERNATURAL.
3. Preceded the universe -
ETERNAL.
3. Preceded the universe -
ETERNAL.
4. Influence extends throughout the universe - OMNIPRESENT.
4. Influence extends throughout the universe - OMNIPRESENT.
5. Directly or indirectly responsi-
ble for everything that has ever
happened - OMNIPOTENT.
5. Directly or indirectly responsi-
ble for everything that has ever
happened - OMNIPOTENT.
6. Nobody made Him - SELF-
EXISTENT.
6. Nobody made it - SELF-
EXISTENT.
THERE IS NO POSSIBILITY THAT GOD DOES NOT EXIST!

16. WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO STILL REJECT GOD?
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed [it] unto them.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified [him] not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools...
Romans 1:18-23

17. Which step of faith makes more sense?
GOD OR RANDOM CHANCE?
The Bible says that God loves you so much that He gave His only Son to die for your sins.
3. If you believe in Random
Chance and you are
right, nothing matters
anyway.
If you believe in the God of the Bible and you are right, you at least have the po-tential to spend eternity
in heaven with Him.
4. If you believe in
Random Chance and
you are wrong,
you are headed
for an eternal
hell.
2. If you believe in
the God of the Bible
and you are wrong,
you’ll never know
-- so it doesn’t
matter.
Which step of faith makes more sense?

18. 2. Could He communicate clearly if He wanted to?
1. Is there a God? No
Yes
Impossible to know anything with 100% certainty
2. Could He communicate clearly if He wanted to? No
Impossible to know anything with 100% certainty
Yes

19. INTELLIGENT DESIGN
Skeptics ridicule Christians because we believe in an “invisible man in the sky” that made the universe. Silly, right?
Before Jesus took the form of a man, he existed as a spirit with infinite intelligence. Therefore it would be more correct to say that that we believe in an “invisible intelligence” that made the universe.
What is the atheists’ alternative?
They believe in an “invisible non-intelligence”
that made the universe.
In what way is it any more scientific to believe in non-intelligence than intelligence?
Either way, it’s a step of faith.

20. WHAT IF THERE IS EVEN ONE THING IN NATURE THAT REQUIRES GOD?
“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely
break down.”
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

21. MATERIALISM: NO GOD ALLOWED!
"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
“It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”
Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997

22. EVOLUTION: Natural Processes Only!
"Even if all the data point to an intelligent
designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic."
Immunologist Scott C. Todd in a letter to Nature
magazine, Sept. 1999
“... the theory of evolution itself [is] a theory universally accepted not because it can be
proved by logically coherent evidence to
be true but because the only alternative,
special creation, is clearly incredible.”
D.M.S. Watson, “Adaptation,” Nature, Vol. 123 (1929), p.233

23. IS INTELLIGENT DESIGN UNSCIENTIFIC?
Intelligent Design (I.D.) is a broad concept that allows for the possibility of either direct creation or theistic evolution. Courts nationwide have bought into the atheistic claim that since the presence of a designer cannot be tested, therefore I.D. is unscientific.
True, we cannot scientifically prove the EXISTENCE of a designer. But the judges have overlooked an ob-vious question: what sort of scientific test could you perform to prove the NON-EXISTENCE of a designer?
In what way is teaching the IMPOSSIBILITY of intel-ligent design any more scientific than teaching the POSSIBILITY of intelligent design?

24. THE SEARCH FOR DESIGN: A Normal Part of Science!
NASA Space Flights / SETI
Airplane Crash Investigation
Arson Investigation
Investigation of Suspicious Deaths
Archaeology

25. THE FOUNDATION OF EVOLUTIONARY LOGIC:
Methodological Naturalism, or
Everything must be explainable by purely natural processes.
But if even one physical phenomenon has a
supernatural cause, then all of evolutionary logic is unreliable.
It only takes one non-
barking dog to show
that “All dogs bark” is false.

26. THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
Biochemist Michael Behe,
a theistic evolutionist, likens much of mod-
ern biological re-
search to a group
of detectives inves-
tigating a flattened
body. As they
search for clues
to the cause
of death they
have to keep
stepping
around
the ele-
phant in
the room.
However,
because they have agreed in
advance that there is no such
thing as an elephant,
none of them is will-
ing to say, “Maybe
the elephant did
it.” Rather than
go against the
majority view
and be labeled
incompetent
or supersti-
tious,
they
keep
searching
for other
explanations.
BEHE’S POINT:
LET’S QUIT OVERLOOKING THE POSSIBILITY OF DESIGN!

27. WHO NEEDS FACTS WHEN YOU CAN MAKE UP STORIES?
Darwin said, “To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances
for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting
different amounts of light, and for the correction of
Spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been
formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the
highest degree...”
So did he give up? NO! He made up a story!
“Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imper-fect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certain the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not be considered as subversive of the theory.”
SINCE WE CAN MAKE UP A STORY, THEREFORE
OUR STORY MUST BE TRUE!

28. SOME OF THE MADE-UP STORIES OF EVOLUTION:
Origin of matter and energy
How a Big Bang could have worked
Origin of the chemical elements
Development of an orderly universe from a disorderly explosion
Origin of stars
Origin of the solar system
Origin of life
Origin of RNA/DNA/genetic code
Origin of homochirality
“Pathways” to the development of various genes and structures
Origin of error-correcting mech-anism in cells
Development of increased gen-etic information by copying mistakes
Development of irreducibly complex structures & systems throughout nature
Origin of every major type of living thing
Origin of sex
Origin of humans
Origin of consciousness, morality, religion, humor
etc., etc., etc.
And since evolutionists make up good stories, we are supposed to shut up and believe the stories are true!

29. WHAT IF THERE IS EVEN ONE THING IN NATURE THAT REQUIRES GOD?
“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely
break down.”
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
Biblical creationists are working from a position of strength, not weakness!
If ANY ONE of the thousands of
evolutionary stories is wrong, then
all of evolution is unreliable.

30. 2. Could He communicate clearly if He wanted to?
1. Is there a God? No
Yes
Impossible to know anything with 100% certainty
2. Could He communicate clearly if He wanted to? No
Impossible to know anything with 100% certainty
Yes
3. Are there any books that claim to be a revelation from Him? No
Yes
Impossible to know anything with 100% certainty

31. “HOLY BOOKS” The Bible The Qu’ran (Koran) The Book of Mormon
Only three of the
world’s “Holy Books” specifically
claim to be divinely inspired:
The Bible
The Qu’ran (Koran)
The Book of Mormon
Every other religion is based only on
the wisdom of the “Ascended
Masters” with NO CLAIM of
divine revelation.

32. Contradictions All the “Holy Books” contradict each other.
If any one of
them is right,
all the others
have to be
wrong.

33. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? TEST THEM!!!
1. Is there a God? No
Yes
Impossible to know anything with 100% certainty
2. Could He communicate clearly if He wanted to? No
Impossible to know anything with 100% certainty
Yes
3. Are there any books that claim to be a revelation from Him? No
Yes
Impossible to know anything with 100% certainty
4. Is there a way to test any such books to see if they are beyond human capabilities? No
Yes
Impossible to know anything with 100% certainty
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? TEST THEM!!!

34. FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.originsresource.orgor