While I was in my teens, my mother allowed me to subscribe to the journal Scientific American. I loved Science and every month I would eagerly await its arrival and then pour over its content. However, the magazine uniformly condemns Creationism. The editor in 1999 characterized creationists as irrational, superstitious, benighted, ignorant, and obstructionist. He also likened us to ostriches with our heads in the sand fearing we might see something that conflicts with our faith or shatters our treasured beliefs. In 2002 he wrote an article in Scientific American describing 15 ways to expose “Creationist Nonsense.”

Is that how we come across? Do we stop thinking when we read our Bibles or enter the doors of the church? Are we afraid of the truth? Or do we have a reason (not mere conviction) for the hope within us (1 Peter 3:15)? In the next two days, I will share how I personally have dealt with this dilemma. When I first became a Christian, because of my love for Science, I spent considerable time and research in thoughtful reflection on the Creation versus Evolution debate. This was intensified by my acceptance of the fourth commandment as binding on my faith. This commandment talks of God being the creator, and how He created our world in 6 literal days.

I do not have Australian figures, so please excuse my American ones when I ask the question, just how many have fallen for this “irrational, superstitious, nonsense?” In a Gallup poll we discovere that the vast majority of Americans believe that God created the heavens and the earth. About 50% hold to a literal 7-day creation though this theory is excluded from the schools and ridiculed by the media and scientific community. Another 35% believe in God directed evolution. About 10% do not believe that God had a hand in it, and another small percentage did not know.
Among scientists, the percentage of believers is less, but even among them, 40 % believe in a God who answers prayer. Throughout history almost all humans have believed in a god, whether Babylonian mystics, Baal worshipers, Greek thinkers, human-sacrificing Mayans, or fundamentalist Christians. It is as if it were (to put in evolutionary terms) selectively bred into us. Atheism has held little attraction to the vast majority. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has put the desire for eternity within us.

But perhaps this huge multitude simply longs with all its heart to believe, and only “brave new world” atheists are the ones willing to face the cold hard facts of reality. Are the rest of us just attempting to amend the anxiety caused by the harsh meaninglessness of the universe? Or is there evidence for belief in a Creator? Despite what several prominent members of the scientific community say, there are logical reasons for believing that God created the heavens and the earth. The most amazing are the characteristics of our universe favouring human existence. We have discussed at length already the fine tuning of the Universe and I will not duplicate that again here.