Faith needs an alternative

      When I was younger, I used to hold to the Apparent-Age-Theory that when God created the Universe it had a pre-designed-age built into it that would make it appear to be older than it is.   I don't hold to this idea anymore because I see it goes against God's nature to not lie or deceive.   The Apparent-Age-Theory says God created the universe to "look old" but that is like me taking a new piece of furniture, denting it, scratching it, putting on old varnish and selling it as being an "antique" when it really isn't at all.  It's forgery.  Same would be for the Apparent-Age-Theory only on a much grander scale.

      Could God create the universe in 6 days? Yes.   Absolutely!   But God, knowing we would later create telescopes to probe the depths of space, would know we would look out and see the farthest stars are only 10,000 light-years away!   He knew we would find ways to tell the age of rocks and see that they are only 10,000 years old or less.  He knew we would dig the earth in our efforts to find fossils of ancient creatures only to find nothing older than 10,000 years.  Everything would point to a very very young universe and that there would be no other answer to HOW we got here than for us to BELIEVE there is a God.    There would be no alternative for him ponder or choose.   We would HAVE to be believe.

     That, of course, would make our jobs as God's children/disciples a lot easier wouldn't it!  We would have science on our side.  We could just point to hundreds of articles showing how there is no other answer and that God is very real and the Bible is 100% correct.   Maybe that is what we want, but no matter how we look at it today we will always be at odds with the "alternative".

    Why would God do it this way?

     Because he wants us to seek him out in FAITH.... NOT FACTS!

     As Paul says, "The righteous shall live by FAITH!"

     Paul talks about how God in his wisdom has nullified the wisdom of the wise. He has essentially made it futile for them to know him through their own thinking.   Yet we keep trying to prove the scientists wrong even though God already has sent them away empty. 

     Going back to idea of if God had made the universe in 6 days, 10,000 years ago, we could then conclude that the wise and learned would actually have a leg-up on the rest of humanity in their search for God.  Their knowledge would make them more able to find God. The could proudly write long dissertations on how certain they are that God exists and how anyone who looks at the data could not think any other way.   But God doesn't want the proud.  He wants the meek.  He wants the simple and the needy.  Jesus says, "Unless you enter the Kingdom of God like that of a little child you shall never enter it!"

     In order to "nullify the wisdom of the wise", there has to be an alternative for them to believe in.  Of course no matter how well drawn up this "alternative" is,  it will always run into a wall with a sign that reads "Where did it all start?".   For example, the Big Bang was thought to be "the start", but then people asked "Where did the singularity come from?" and so they scientists have developed String-Theory to explain the singularity, but then the question becomes, "Where did the multi-dimensional strings come from?"  and so on....  Science cannot think itself to God and it cannot (if it's truly honest)  think itself away from God either.  In the end, it's never "I CAN'T BELIEVE!" , it's always "I WON'T BELIEVE!".   It always comes back to faith.

    As Christians, we often wish there wasn't an alternative. God calls us to trust him and know his love for us.  We want to be liked by the world and our faith always puts us at odds.  But that is how it has to be.   Jesus said that we cannot be friends with God and friends with the world.  If they called Jesus, "The Lord of the Flies" (Beelzebub) how much more will they call us. 

   We are called to be loving and faithful as Christ was towards us.    We cannot think our way to God and so we should not be scared of science or it's findings.  The "alternative" is a false path and has no hope in the end.   Jesus said, "When the Son of Man returns, will he find FAITH on the earth?"   The answer to that question seems to be baked into the question.  The answer is : NO.  All of these "findings" serve God's design to bring this about.   As we become more and more "intelligent" we will become less and less "faithful".   Man will become the "god of his own making", in essence his own ideal view of what he thinks God should be.

    This is not to say Christians should not be in the science fields or that we should ignore science.  We just need to stop looking for science to back up our faith or to be in place of our faith.  God doesn't need to be "proved" and neither do we need it either. 

The Scientific Model doesn't make MATHEMATICAL sense

    People often don't realize, but there is really only ONE mathematical function in the universe.   and that function is none other than ADDITION.    Addition is the source function (or building block function) for all other functions. 

    Subtraction?        Addition of negative numbers

                                 Example:   4 - 3  =  4 + (-3)  = 1

    Multiplication?   Iterative Addition. 

                                Example:  4x3 = 3 + 3 + 3 + 3   OR  4 + 4 + 4

    Division?           Iterative Addition of negative numbers. 

                                 Example: How many times can you -3 to 12 ?  Answer: 4

    and so forth...

    Everything essentially boils down to to this function.

    And yet, when scientists try to explain why the Universe exists they wants us to believe that

                                                              0 + 0 = 1.  

They implore us to accept that something comes out of nothing.   Of course you can point to a myriad of complex functions that explain HOW the universe works, but that in no way explains WHY it is here at all.

    Science actually follows an ancient faulty method of thinking that was found in Egyptian Mythology.  In the Egyptian story of creation, Ra , the Sun god,  comes out of the Nile because Ra says,  "I knew my own name!".   This is the same faulty view used by scientists today that believe the Universe pulls itself out of nothing because the equations tell it do so.  But like any person who looks at the story of Ra, one cannot call themselves forth unless they first exists to call themselves forth.  The same goes with the scientific view.  The equations that govern the universe (and "create" it), cannot exist if the universe that they govern, does not first exist.  It's much like having automobile traffic laws BEFORE there are automobiles. It is also important to understand that having equations that describe how a universe works does not answer the more pressing question of WHY it works this way.  This is the "slight of hand" that most physicists do when discussing the beginning of the universe.  They say they will can explain why we are here but in the end of their thesis they have only explained how the universe functions and how it may have reached its current state of existence

   Genesis actually makes more logical sense.  It says,

                                  God + 0 = Universe.

   Here the equation can actually be balanced and make some numerical sense (if numbers is your thing).   The laws are created to govern the universe at the same time as the universe is created. Of course many will then ask, "Where does GOD come from?" to which the Christian can only reply, "From Eternity".    This is where none of us humans can possibly understand at any level.   We cannot fathom a world without time.   Even in movies like "Interstellar" which tries to bend our understanding of time, we cannot grasp its powerful hold on our lives.   God is outside that realm and no set of events can hold him or contain him.