God & Science: Panel of Scientists visit Grace
May 5th, 2011 | By Ross Thomas | Category: College, Grace News
TASC Panel Answers Questions
Sunday Morning Service @ NCSU
This past Sunday, a panel of scientists from the Triangle Association for the Science of Creation (TASC) visited Grace. We connected with them through one of our ministry partners. I previously had the privilege of attending several of the monthly TASC meetings to hear presentations on topics ranging from quantum theory and multi-verses to the reliability of scripture. These guys know their stuff!
This Sunday was an awesome opportunity for our church members and their visitors (including many students from NC State University). The panel started with introductions and a 10 minute presentation on the relationship between God and science. For the following 50 minutes, we presented the panel with questions which had been emailed or text messaged to us during the preceding weeks. We also allowed new questions to be texted to us in real time. The questions came flooding in and the panel had great answers!
Grace Worship Band
Two of the panel members gave personal testimonies which were especially powerful. The closing speaker told students that his “indoctrination into evolutionary theory” began in the very room where we hold our church services at NC State. This indoctrination, as he called it, resulted in him spiraling toward atheism despite his early experiences with Christianity. Now, he has seen the evidence and weighed in on the side of our Creator. He was overjoyed to have the opportunity to share his story.
Several of the panelist commented that they wished they had the opportunity to participate in a ministry like Grace when they were in college. Many of the panelists were especially touched by the worship music during the service. (I must say, the band and our production crews did a spectacular job on this last big service of the semester.) Please pray that the influence of this Sunday and the TASC group will continue in the coming weeks.
Listen to the Panel Discussion Recording >>
Students Listen to TASC Panel
- The Bible never mentioned dinosaurs but we keep finding their bones. What happened to them?
- Why do we not find fossils of people from the flood?
- We argue about faith and science a lot, but why? Isn’t the main purpose of the Bible to talk about salvation through Jesus Christ?
- Why is it that archeologists find human skulls & skeletons that are so different from the skulls & skeletons of people today and pursue the idea of human evolution from homo erectus and neanderthals? Are they reconstructing the skull improperly or did the first humans (adam, eve, etc.) really look like that?
- What about Lucy & other hominids?
- How does earth’s terrain prove there was a flood (Noah’s flood)?
- What evidence is there for a worldwide flood?
- How did Noah fit all the animals on the ark and why were no dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals on there?
- How old is the universe? Why?
- Why is there the coherence among many different dating methods pointing to an old earth and life on earth for a long time (for example: radioactivity, tree rings, ice cores, corals, supernovas – from astronomy, biology, physics, geology, chemistry and archeology?) These methods are based on quite distinct fields of inquiry and are quite diverse, yet manage to arrive at quite similar dates.
- The idea that a star is a million light years away suggests that it has taken a million years for that light to reach the earth. How would you respond to that?
- Explain how/why live cells were found in a dino bone and what does this say about the age of the earth?
- Is the carbon dating system incorrect? how so? what does this say about the age of the earth?
- How do you explain the fossil record & that it’s 360 million + years old?
- Can someone who does not think that the Earth is 6 (10, 12 or “young”) thousand years old be saved? Some creationists have made comments that make me think they believe this.
Here are even more questions we didn’t have time to address . . .
TASC Panel at Grace
- Is the Big Bang theory considered fact among scientists? Why? What evidence?
- Can you explain little about DNA and how the information in it is significant?
- Can you explain the unused genes scientists discovered? Some say they came from aliens.
- Is it possible for evolution to occur in the context of the Bible? Make them work together?
- Is it possible that a day in the bible meant a period of years?
- What is the strongest proof for Christ? What area is the case for Christ weakest?
- What evidence is there supporting “the day the sun stood still” in the bible in Joshua 10?
- How does Mr. Middleton respond to Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins?
- Evolutionists often overlook some points of creationism because they do not have good answers for them. Are there any aspects of evolutionary theory that could be legitimate which creationists tend to dismiss? How should we handle these?
- Astronomers say the universe is expanding outward and that it proves the big bang theory. Are the astronomers correct in saying the universe is expanding? If so, how does this prove that God created the universe instead of the big bang?
- Is there a book explaining the results of the flood? Would this explain fish fossils in the desert.
- Is there a good book on finding & reconstructing fossils, skeletons, etc.
- Some civilizations trace their history back more than 6,000 years. How does this fit with a young earth?
- Researchers recently mapper Neanderthal DNA and it didn’t match human DNA. How does creation deal with pre-humans?
- What does the Bible say about Pangea? Where did all of the water come from in the global flood to cover the earth?
- God created us. Is it possible another entity created God?
- Are you disputing evolution in general or only evolutionary creation? For example, viruses obviously evolve different, more advanced strains.
- The flood occurred much earlier than Job so how did dinosaurs live to be witnessed by Job?
- What are the problems with macroevolution?
- Could God have used evolution to create some of the animal species? Of course humans would have to be different.
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