Evolution is the religion of death!

Simba: But dad, don’t we eat the antelope?

Mufasa: Yes, Simba, but let me explain.  When we die, our bodies become the grass and the antelope eat the grass.  And so we are all connected in the great circle of life.

There are a lot of things I don’t like about evolution: it is contrary to the plain reading of Scripture, it means God lied in His revelation of the creation, and it’s just bad science in general.  I’m especially frustrated when Christians claim to believe in evolution.  Why do people who claim to believe in God, jump through hermeneutical hoops to make the Scriptures compatible with a theory that is not only false, is not only irrelevant to any other area of science, but is also antithetical to the most fundamental tenets of Christianity?  It makes no sense.

Perhaps the most dangerous doctrine of evolution is that it gives the completely wrong understanding of death.  In the above conversation, taken from The Lion King, Mufasa talks about death as part of the “great circle of life.”  Worldly advice like this gives a mistaken impression of death, one completely opposite to the understanding of death taught by Scripture.

The Bible is very clear that death is the judgment for sin. There are several passages that illustrate this: For the wages of sin is death, Romans 6:23;   Therefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed onto all men, for all have sinned; et al.  Romans 5:12.  Are you picking up what I’m putting down?  There’s nothing good about death.  We die physically because we are descended from Adam (1 Corinthians 15:22) but, after we die, the lost will be judged for their own sins before the Great White Throne (Revelation 20:11-14). At that Judgment, everyone whose name is not written in the Book of Life, is cast into the Lake of Fire; this is called the second death (Revelation 20:14-15).

The gospel is the good news that we can have life in Christ. When we are born again, the Bible says we pass from death into life (John 5:24).  As Christians, our sins are forgiven by Christ's blood. Our physical death becomes that time when we are rid of these vessels of clay and enter into eternity knowing that we will have no part in the second death. In 1 Corinthians 15:55, Paul rejoices, saying, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

In an interview of Bill Nye, published in the NY Times, we read this interesting exchange:

NYE: I think the fear of death figures prominently in creationist thought. That the promise of eternal life is reassuring to people who are deeply troubled by the troubling fact that we’re all going to die. And it bugs me, too. But I press forward rather than running in circles screaming….

NY Times: And ultimately, death is a part of evolution.

NYE: It’s the key. The key is that you can pass on improvements by having kids. And there aren’t enough resources for any population to go completely unchecked, whether the population is humans or crickets. There isn’t enough for everybody, so you compete. And this is one of Darwin’s enormous insights.

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life,” (John 11:25). According to Nye, death is “the key” to evolution. He cites the high priest of evolution, Charles Darwin, and describes this doctrine of death as an “enormous insight.”  Rather than trusting in the One who promises eternal life, Nye would rather we be philosophical about death. We might fear it individually, but it keeps populations in check. It drives organisms to improve. In the bigger picture, death is good!

Because it plays such a key role in evolution, some people almost regard death as noble. Biologos, a group that identifies itself as Christian, has an article titled, Death and Rebirth: The Role of Extinction in Evolution. Wow, “death and rebirth!”  It almost seems to put evolution on equal footing with the Resurrection! In the article, the author makes this claim:

Extinction is actually a common feature of life on earth when viewed over long (e.g. geological) timescales. By some estimates, over 99% of the species that have ever lived have gone extinct [this is a lie, by the way].... Such an extinction event (of a single species, or perhaps a handful of species) alters the environment of other remaining species in an ecosystem. This, in turn, may influence the ability of some of these remaining species to reproduce compared to other species.... As the ecosystem landscape shifts due to loss of species, new biological opportunities, or niches, might arise. These new niches are then available to support new species to fill them.

There you go. Animals go extinct but that makes way for new animals to evolve. It's the circle of life. Some things live and some things die and it's good.  God tells us about this evil mindset in Proverbs 8:36, “all they that hate me love death.”

When a tsunami or earthquake kills thousands of people, critics often say that such tragedies are evidence there is no God. How should we answer?  Christians who believe in an “old” creation and theistic evolution have no “good news” for unbelievers.  If God used evolution to create us, then death and tragedy are intentional. If the earth is billions of years old, then earthquakes, volcanoes, and floods are rather ordinary.  They are how God shapes the earth. Over the supposed billions of years the earth has existed, there would have been millions of earthquakes. Why then should we consider any one of them a tragedy? It's just another tink of God's hammer as He continues shaping the earth just as He's always done. If a tsunami kills thousands of people, then what of it?  I suppose they're just another step in the evolutionary ladder who have gone the way of Homo ergaster or Australopithecus. 

The role of death in evolution is the complete opposite of what death truly is. Death is an intruder into the creation. It is the consequence of Adam's sin and later, of our own sins. It is an enemy that will one day be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26). Death should be dreaded by the lost and they should seek a way to avoid it. The gospel – the good news – is that there is life in Jesus!!  It is supposed to be the job of Christians to take this message to the lost, to preach this gospel to every creature.  James 5:20 says, Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.  

As we’ve already seen, there is precisely one penalty for sin - death. All have sinned; all die. The mortality rate among people is exactly 100%. Some people die in their sleep; some people die at the point of a sword; some people die very old; some people die very young; but everybody dies! We all have the same destiny - a grave. We all also have the same opportunity - salvation through the Son.  That’s the message we need to give to the lost and dying.

I see Nye as only a little bit removed from a witch doctor. He mixes a little bit of science with a lot of religious beliefs. He is a faithful apostle of the world, spreading a terrible gospel. Evolution is the religion of death.

Questions for unbelievers

If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times: people who don’t believe evolution don’t understand evolution.  Have you heard it too? At its root, this is nothing more than a No True Scotsman's argument (that is, everyone who understands evolution believes it), but the reason it continues to be used is because it seems to shift the burden of proof away from the critic.  In other words, it’s not that atheists can’t explain their theories - it’s that creationists can’t understand them.  Um, no.  I think it’s 100% that atheists can’t explain their theories.  

Atheists often claim they simply lack a belief in God.  They should call themselves agnostic but they don’t.  Instead, they pretend they’re merely withholding judgment about the existence of God until they see evidence for Him.  I recently discussed the problem with this position (here) and pointed out that their lack of belief in God necessarily requires a belief in something. If you press them with reasonable questions - like where did everything come from? - they often respond with an uncommitted, “I don’t know.”  Other times, they throw out terms like evolution, the Big Bang, or science.  

It’s my belief that not only do unbelievers have no good answers to questions about origins, the vast majority of them don’t even understand the answers they give.  Further, I think creationists reject the arguments of skeptics because the creationists understand the issues better than they do!  I don’t reject evolution, for example, because I don’t understand it; I reject it because I do understand it and I can see that it’s absurd!

To that end, I thought it would be fun to compile a list of questions I’d like unbelievers to answer.  Skeptics often publish lists of questions under headlines like, “Questions no Christian can answer” but ignore the hundreds of answers that they’ve already heard.  So even though I’m tempted to call this, “Questions no atheist can answer,” I won’t.  I’ll just ask the questions, and let the sheer weight of their rhetoric weigh on skeptics’ minds.  This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list of questions - it’s only meant to provoke thought.

Let’s get started:

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

Do you believe God doesn’t exist?  

If you believe there is no god anywhere, isn’t that a knowledge claim?  

If you only claim there is no evidence for God, do you allow for the possibility there could be a god?  

Do you believe the scientific methods that we use to study the natural universe are adequate tools to examine the evidence for a supernatural god?  

Are miracles evidence for God?  If “no,” why not?   

THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE

Do you believe it’s more reasonable to believe the universe poofed into existence out of nothing than to believe in an eternal Creator?  

If everything poofed into existence at the Big Bang, what prevents new matter/energy from forming out of nothing now?  If the universe poofed into existence from nothing, why doesn’t that violate the 1st Law of Thermodynamics (the conservation of matter/energy)?

If you believe energy is eternal, how is that any more scientific than saying God is eternal?  If you believe energy is eternal yet hasn’t been completely exhausted (entropy), how is that not like believing in perpetual energy?  

ABIOGENESIS

We’ve never observed life being formed from non-living chemicals.  If a scientific theory is tested and observed, can there really be a “theory” of abiogenesis?

How is abiogenesis substantially different from spontaneous generation?  

If we somehow created metabolic life in a lab, how could we be sure that’s how it supposedly happened in the past?  

If we don’t know how life formed in the first place, how could we confidently say God didn’t create it?  

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

Can something be true if it can’t be demonstrated scientifically?  

Is science the only way to determine what is true?  

Can a miracle be studied via the scientific method?   Is the scientific method an adequate tool to study the supernatural?   

How much of science is philosophical rather than testable?  

Can the scientific method be used to study historical events or persons?   

Is there any scientific evidence that supports the premise that every phenomenon has a natural explanation?   

CONCLUSION

These are just a handful of questions I could ask. Do I really need to explain the points behind any of these questions?  Where did everything come from?  Why are we here?  Is there a god?  Is there anything beyond the mundane?  What is the truth?  These are questions that people have asked for all of history.  Yet the committed skeptic can only answer any of them with a shrug and dogmatic faith that there is an answer and it’s not God!!  They are materialists of the worst sort.  They reject the idea of anything beyond the natural, but they cannot offer any compelling reason for why they do so.  They claim to believe in “science” but struggle to answer even simple questions about our world.  Theirs is a paradigm that claims to seek out “truth” and understand “reality” but fails to do either.

Their unbelief is a belief!

I’ve said many times that atheists play word games.  Specifically, they like to redefine terms in their favor.  Evolution, for example, doesn’t mean what most people think it means - “the process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth.”   No.  They say it means, “any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next.”  They get really upset when you don’t use the same definitions as they do, like they’re the Word Czars or something.  

One word they have consistently redefined is atheist.  Most people define an atheist as someone who doesn’t believe in God or someone who believes there is no God.  Am I right?  However, just like the word evolution, atheists get in a huff when you don’t define atheist the same way they do.  They claim an atheist is someone who lacks a belief in God.  In other words, they say they’re not trying to make any claim about the existence of God; they’re just expressing their lack of belief in Him.  Hmmm.  Something about that doesn’t sound right.

First, there’s already a word to describe when people are unsure about the existence of God; it’s called agnosticism.  How is the atheists’ twisted definition of atheism substantially different from agnosticism?  There must be a reason they prefer using such a vague definition rather than adopting the already existing term.  I’ve asked many and they usually try to draw the distinction that agnosticism is the belief that the existence of God cannot be known, while they simply lack a belief that He exists.  It sounds like a case of splitting hairs.  

When people resort to equivocating over the meanings of words, they begin to open themselves up to contradiction.  Do they know God doesn’t exist?  Do they only think He doesn’t exist?  Do they admit He might exist?  Why do they object when people say He does exist?  You can see the difficulty with their position.  They want to attack theism without having to defend their position.

Frank Turek has used this analogy to expose the weakness of the modern definition of atheism: There are two detectives investigating a murder.  There are fingerprints, DNA, and a murder weapon that all point to one suspect.  Detective A is certain the suspect is guilty.  Detective B looks at the same facts and says he doesn’t believe the suspect is guilty.  So Detective A asks, “Then what about the gun, the blood, the fingerprints, and all the other evidence?  How do you explain all that?”  Detective B only replies, “I don’t have to explain it.  I just don’t believe it’s him.”  

I know it’s not a perfect analogy, but do you see the comparison?  You can show an atheist all the evidence we have for God: we can discuss the historical certainty of Jesus, we can point to the ontological necessity of a supernatural First Cause, we can appeal to the existence of absolute morality, and the atheist can just sit cross armed saying, “That’s not enough.”  He offers no rebuttal, he doesn’t concede an inch, he simply just doesn’t believe.  In the case of the detectives, there is a dead body and there is evidence that points to one suspect; why should we not consider what is possibly the most likely explanation?  Likewise, why should we deny the plausible explanation that God created everything and default to the incredible belief that nothing created everything?

Psalm 19:1 says, The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.  When I look at the starry night and see the grandeur of the universe, I consider its complexity, design, and beauty.  Knowing that God created it doesn’t end scientific inquiry; rather it makes me wonder more.  It tells me something about God.  I understand the cause of the universe must be something outside of the universe, something “supernatural” by definition.  God is the First Cause, the Unmoved Mover that Aristotle argued must exist.  He must be greater than all burning stars.  He must be eternal and timeless, to have created time.  He must be omniscient and personal, to have created the mind and consciousness.  Knowing God exists helps me to make sense of the universe.

Everyone has a worldview.  There is a method by which we see the world and make sense of it.  For someone to deny that God is behind the universe, he must necessarily believe that nature is all there is.  They may claim they don’t believe God created everything, but they don’t have any alternative explanation.  They must necessarily believe in some other “undivine” creator.  They may claim God isn’t the moral Lawgiver, but they must have some basis to believe something is right or wrong.  They acknowledge how things are but will not consider why they are.  When they do consider how and why anything exists, they intentionally ignore what could be the most likely explanation. 

The problem for the atheists is their disbelief is actually their belief.   They pretend to be blank slates looking at the evidence but are committed to naturalism.  They somehow think it’s more intellectual to assume nothing created everything than God having created everything.  

In closing, read these telling words of Richard Lewontin:

Evolutionists ... have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

Design by “poofery”

Did the creation create itself?

I usually avoid commenting on social media but I still belong to several Fake Book groups where Christians/creationists debate atheists/evolutionists.  I do this primarily to hear what unbelievers are saying and to get inspiration for my blog. 

Recently, one unbeliever made this comment:

EVERYBODY Believes that Intelligent Order, Design and Fine Tuning Can Exist WITHOUT the Need of a Creator.

Please excuse the arbitrary capitalization and the lack of the serial comma, I posted exactly what was said so that I can’t be accused of misrepresenting the point.  This person is saying that order and design can exist without a creator.  

Since I seldom hear any original thoughts from atheists/evolutionists, I knew I’d already heard this before.  I made a brief comment and linked to a post I’d made some time ago, namely that Design is Obvious and how design typically suggests there is a designer.   Richard Dawkins, wrote about this very thing in his book, The Blind Watchmaker, where he said, “The complexity of living organisms is matched by the elegant efficiency of their apparent design. If anyone doesn’t agree that this amount of complex design cries out for an explanation, I give up.”

I used the old joke about the chicken crossing the road to make a point.  It's been my experience that the most obvious answer to nearly any question is usually the correct one.  The first time people hear the chicken riddle, they usually search for some deep meaning or clever answer yet completely overlook the obvious answer – to get to the other side.  So why does everything look designed?  Maybe it’s because it is designed!!  

Evolutionists go to great lengths to explain away design but the more they explain, the more they prove my point. They would not put in such effort if they didn't grasp the clear implication of design is that there is a Designer. It's almost funny to see how they reject the most reasonable answer for such an unlikely one. It's like they're saying, “No! The chicken did not want to get to the other side!'

Anyway, the Fake Book poster replied to my comments with the following argument:

If everything that looks designed is designed, that tells us that God is designed and created OR if God is not designed and created then no, not everything that looks designed is designed.

You may see right away that his argument suffered from a first cause dilemma.  If God were created, then who created God?  Then who created that creator?  And then who created that creator?  You can see where this is going. This is what is known as an infinite regress; it's a logical fallacy where a speaker projects a causal chain of events backward without any definite point that starts the chain.  

Aristotle said there must be a “first cause” or what he described as “The unmoved mover.”  In our case, we may call Him the Ultimate Designer.  Pretend, for a moment, that you're walking through a forest and you happen upon a log cabin. It's crude and has only a dirt floor. It has no electricity, plumbing, or glass windows. It's just basically logs, notched and stacked, with openings cut out for the door and windows. There's not a stick of furniture inside nor any other sign of anyone having lived in it recently. What questions might you ask yourself? I would think your first thoughts would be, I wonder who built this? Does someone live here? Where is he now?

I'm fairly certain no one would ask, “That's incredible! I wonder how these logs fell into the shape of a cabin?”

You see, logs organized into the shape of a cabin show design. Sections having been cut out to allow light and access show purpose. Design and purpose are the characteristics of created things and created things are the proof of a creator. The cabin obviously had a creator. Withholding judgment about the existence of a builder of the cabin is not the sign of a rational, thinking person. It's the stubborn refusal of a fool to acknowledge the obvious!

Dawkins said above that complexity and design “cries out for an explanation.”  But what is there to explain?  Even a crude cabin is proof of a creator.  What needs explaining is how complexity and design could come about without a creator!

After having said all this, I thought the case was closed.  A supernatural, first cause is the only thing that makes any sense when considering the origin of everything.  Like the foolish man in Matthew 7:24-27, any worldview that is not founded upon Christ, is built upon sand.  It cannot stand up to scrutiny.  But rather than try to rebut anything I’d said, this Fakebook poster decided to declare victory and make the following, outrageous claim:

The uncreated first cause proves that a creator is unneeded.  Once we have established that existence without creation, an intelligent mind without an intelligent creator and a consciousness without a creator can all exist, what reason is there to conclude that there is only one example of such things?

Unbelievers are in denial about the religious nature of their beliefs about origins. They are trying to posit a creator with similar attributes that we normally associate with God. In other words, they want us to believe there is a supernatural, eternal, uncaused cause for the universe – but it's still not God! It's just something like God. The skeptics are invoking a god-like non-god to explain the same things Christians credit to God.

I've said before that unbelievers in God are believers in poofism. There was nothing then, POOF, there was everything. Time, space, matter, and design just poofed into existence. They're essentially saying the creation created itself. They don't know what caused it to happen but they're sure it wasn't God. //RKBentley scratches his head//

I don't believe in God because it sort of makes sense. I believe in God because that's the only thing that makes sense. Everything we know about the universe confirms over and over there is a supernatural cause behind it. Deep down, skeptics tacitly admit this too. They just stubbornly deny Elohim is the Creator.  The god of atheism is a capricious, clumsy, invisible god that is indistinguishable from dumb luck. They seek to rob God of His glory by worshipping the undivine god of evolution. How sad.

Dan Barker’s Free Will Argument for the Nonexistence of God (FANG)

Dan Barker is a former evangelical, Christian preacher turned zealous atheist. He and his wife, Annie Gaylor, co-preside over the activist atheist group, Freedom From Religion. He also spends a lot of time debating Christians. By the way, in his own words, his apostasy began with a rejection of a historical Adam & Eve and his embracing of evolution – but that will have to be the subject of another post.

Barker has put forward an argument against the existence of God that he calls the Free Will Argument for the Nonexistence of God (which he identifies with the acronym FANG).  I’ve heard other people use this argument but they always give credit to Barker.  I’ve also seen Christian apologists respond to the argument who claim to be responding to “Barker’s” argument.  I've heard similar types of arguments but I’m going to say this particular argument is originally his.

Instead of just saying what his argument is, I’ll cite his own words (source):

The Christian God is defined as a personal being who knows everything. According to Christians, personal beings have free will.

In order to have free will, you must have more than one option, each of which is avoidable. This means that before you make a choice, there must be a state of uncertainty during a period of potential: you cannot know the future. Even if you think you can predict your decision, if you claim to have free will, you must admit the potential (if not the desire) to change your mind before the decision is final.

A being who knows everything can have no “state of uncertainty.” It knows its choices in advance. This means that it has no potential to avoid its choices, and therefore lacks free will. Since a being that lacks free will is not a personal being, a personal being who knows everything cannot exist.

Therefore, the Christian God does not exist.

Barker’s argument reminds me a little of the Omnipotence Paradox people sometimes use to argue that God cannot exist. In that case, critics ask, “Can God make a rock so big that He can't lift it?”  The answer is either yes or no but, either way, it would mean there is something God cannot do so, therefore, an omnipotent God cannot exist. Barker's argument is very much along the same lines and could be described as an Omniscience Paradox. At the end of the day, it's simply another gimmick of logic.

His argument is a tangle of logical fallacies that I’m going to have to sort out.  There’s a straw man, mixed with equivocation, tied up with a non sequitur.  I’ll break them all down here.

Let’s start with the straw man.  Barker said, “The Christian God is defined as a personal being who knows everything. According to Christians, personal beings have free will.”  First, if we had to define God, I doubt any Christian would start with, “a personal being who knows everything.”  Certainly, God is omniscient but that is an attribute of God - not necessarily a defining characteristic.  Also, the term “personal being” is somewhat vague.  I mean humans are personal beings, too, but obviously God is not like a human being.  Furthermore, there is much debate about whether or not humans have free will but I’ll talk about that more in a minute.  

You can already see how Barker is setting up his straw man.  He’s telling us how Christians define God and what we think about free will.  Tsk, tsk.  Since when does an atheist get to say what Christians think of God?  This is also where Barker also starts to equivocate, by changing the definition of God.

Barker continues equivocating by changing the definition of “free will.”  The Cambridge Dictionary defines free will as: the ability to decide what to do independently of any outside influence.  That certainly applies to God.  He is free to act any way He decides and no one or no thing can affect what He purposes.  But according to Barker, “In order to have free will, you must have more than one option, each of which is avoidable. This means that before you make a choice, there must be a state of uncertainty during a period of potential: you cannot know the future.”  Since when does free will hinge upon not knowing the outcome?  If I jump off a bridge, I’m pretty sure what the outcome would be.  I would still have the choice to jump or not.

Free will is a notoriously thorny subject. One might even ask if humans have free will; Indeed, many have asked that question for centuries. We may have choices but we have little say in the consequences. I could choose not to eat, for example, but then I couldn't choose not to be hungry. I could choose not to breathe, but then I couldn't choose to keep living. 

Sometimes life seems like a game of chess that we’re playing against a better opponent. We might think we are deciding which pieces to move but our decisions are only unavoidable responses to the better moves the other player is making. The game we think we're playing is really the game he is playing and we continuously have fewer and fewer choices until, finally, we have no choices. Checkmate!

As we live day to day, it may seem at any moment like we are free to choose from a near infinite number possibilities, but the consequences of each decision continuously restricts the number of our future options. I could decide to walk to work instead of driving. However, walking takes longer so the decision to walk affects what time I decide to get up in the morning or whether I decide to get to work on time. Do you see what I mean? My future choices are the victims of the consequences of my present choices.

This applies to the theological realm as well.  If God is sovereign, then perhaps I cannot choose to believe or deny Him. Perhaps everything I do is as He has commanded and I can do nothing by my own will.  This debate has raged between Calvinists and Arminians and is outside the scope of this post. Regardless, Barker fails to see how this is a problem for his argument. He is hoisted upon his own petard, if you will, because if humans do not have free will, how is that an argument for their non-existence?  This is where Barker’s argument becomes totally non sequitur.  

If you think about it, it's rather ridiculous to argue that free will must mean making a decision without knowing anything about the outcome.  Barker is essentially saying that since God knows the future, He cannot exist.  What?  Let's reduce this to the absurd: do rocks have free will?  Do rocks exist?  It's rather obvious that free will is not a condition of existence yet that is what Barker argues!

Consider this passage from Isaiah:

Isaiah 46:9-11, Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.

The Bible attests that God knows the future. Let me rephrase that: God brings to pass those things He has already purposed. It's not a prediction as though God's some kind of psychic.  He has and has always had the ability to make things any way He wanted and He made them this way. According to Barker, that's proof He doesn't exist. //RKBentley shakes his head//  

Here's a Bible quiz. See if you can identify who is being discussed in this verse:

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. (Micah 5:2)

Hmm... a Ruler born in Bethlehem whose going forth has been from eternity. Who could that be? Pretty easy, huh? Let's look at another passage:

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)

Still too easy? Here's one more:

For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.. (Psalm 22:16-18)

Did you have any trouble identifying the subject of any of those verses? Probably not. It's not hard to identify that it's Jesus who is being discussed in each passage. However, there's something very interesting about these verses that critics of the Bible seldom stop to consider. All of these passages are taken from the Old Testament! These passages that so clearly discuss accurate details of His birth, His passion, and His death, were written hundreds of years before the events actually occurred. Furthermore, these are but a handful of the dozens of Old Testament passages that I could have cited.

Once a thing that God has proclaimed comes to pass, it reveals the sovereignty and authority of God. When Jesus came and fulfilled the prophecies spoken about Him centuries earlier, it established His status as the Messiah. It proved that God is the sovereign Lord of the universe. It proved the things spoken by the prophets were true. It proved the Bible is the word of God.  Knowing the future isn’t an argument that God cannot exist!  Good grief!!  If anything, it proves He exists!

To all the critics who read my blog, let me ask you something: do you deny that the Bible is the word of God? You probably do – otherwise you'd likely be a believer. Even still, you have to admit that what the Lord spoke about Jesus centuries in advance, came to pass in exactly the same way He spoke it. It's proof that He is God and that the Bible is His word. If you're still not convinced, then let me ask you this: when you read the above passages, didn't you think they were talking about Jesus? You can deny it if you'd like but I know you did!