Looking for (naturalistic) Answers

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Looking for (naturalistic) Answers by Geoff Chapman

November 28, 2014

After travelling through space for a decade, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission  has succeeded in landing the Philae probe on a comet. The landing was described as a "big step for human civilisation" by ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain. The scientists involved certainly deserve credit for the technology that made this possible

THE RELIGION OF NATURALISM

The scientists behind this mission believe that the probe may provide clues to the origin of our solar system, and possibly the origin of life on earth. BBC News (12th November 2014) reported: “Comets almost certainly hold vital clues about the original materials that went into building the Solar System more than 4.5 billion years ago. One theory holds that they may have been responsible for delivering water to the planets. Another idea is that they could even have ‘seeded’ the Earth with the chemistry needed to help kick-start biology.”

 Humans, being curious, have always wanted to explore, not just the earth, but the mysterious regions of outer space, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The Rosetta mission is a great achievement, maybe second only to the moon landings of the 1960s. However, the over-riding motive behind this mission is to advance the religion of naturalism — the belief that everything in the universe can be explained through natural processes.  During the days preceding the comet landing, scientists interviewed on TV news programmes described the theory that our solar system was formed 4.6 billion years ago from a swirling cloud of dust and gas — the so-called “solar nebula” — as though this had actually been observed. It’s easy to simulate this on a computer, but there are real problems with the theory, and not all scientists are so sure. Stephen Brush wrote: “Attempts to find a plausible naturalistic explanation of the origin of the solar system began about 350 years ago, but have not been quantitatively successful, making this one of the oldest unsolved problems in modern science.”1

 A VAST, UNBRIDGEABLE GULF

The origin of life itself continues to be a serious problem for the secularists. There are many theories, but none of them are plausible, and the gulf between non-life and even the “simplest” form of life remains vast and unbridgeable.  “Life from space” is just one attempt to solve the dilemma. When asked about the origin of life, Professor Richard Dawkins told Ben Stein, “Nobody knows how it got started. We know the kind of event it must have been. We know the sort of event that must have happened for the origin of life. It was the origin of the first self replicating molecule.” Ben  Stein asked: “Right, and how did that happen?” Professor Dawkins replied, “I’ve told you, we don’t know”. 2

THE ANSWER’S IN THERE!

One detail that was missing from most of the news reports was that the Philae probe contained a plaque which included Genesis chapters 1-3 micro-engraved in 1,000 languages. So, a probe which secular scientists hoped would explain how it all began actually contained the answers they seek! How ironic. Maybe “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” is too simple , and they prefer to seek an explanation which eliminates the need for a Creator.

1. A History of Modern Planetary Physics, Cambridge University Press, 1996. (Vol. 3) p. 91.
2. Expelled DVD, available from CRT