A Thought Experiment on Descent, Design, and Creation

Suppose that scientists have managed to create life in a laboratory from non-living chemicals. This is not as far-fetched as many people today may believe in light of scientist Craig Venter's construction of a synthetic bacterium using a genome contained in a computer program. Now suppose further that this life thrives and establishes itself as a new species, Species X. Now suppose all records of this scientific creation are lost, and in the far distant future, scientists discover this Species X. If neo-Darwinism is still the reigning paradigm, as it is today, these scientists will inevitably argue that Species X is related to all other life by an uninterrupted naturalistic evolutionary process. They would be wrong though would they not? The relationship of Species X to other species involves a special and discrete input of information by intelligence. What is even more, is that this intervention of human intelligence is, by definition, invisible to neo-Darwinism - just as invisible as is the special creation of humans by God to neo-Darwinism today (if in deed God did create man in his own image as Genesis would have one believe).

I hope you found this short illustration interesting. Though the wording is slightly different, the thought experiment comes from the mind of John Lennox, author of God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? and Seven Days That Divide the World.

For an interesting discussion on the possible interpretations of the Genesis creation account I would highly recommend Seven Days That Divide the World.

N.T. Wright on the Resurrection

I am currently reading a book entitled The Resurrection of the Son of God which is a 740 page book written by prominent Biblical scholar N.T. Wright. I must say he is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors and I still have the majority of the book left to read. I have said this before and I will reiterate it here when I say that in my opinion the historicity of the resurrection of Christ is the most important issue anyone can research with regards to the theism vs. atheism debates that are so popular now-a-days. While I still have a lot more of Wright's book to read so far I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in studying the resurrection. Here is a short video of N.T. Wright talking about it:

Obviously this is just a really short introductory video but like I said I think this is such an important topic. I should add that so far N.T. Wright's book is a little more advanced and in-depth compared to other books I have read on Christ and the resurrection. While I definitely recommend reading this one I would suggest reading The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Mike Licona and Gary Habermas first. It presents a more introductory case but is still fairly convincing.