The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God QUOTES

1 " I am a soul, and I have a body. We don't learn about people by studying their bodies. We learn about people by finding out how they feel, what they think, what they're passionate about, what their worldview is, and so forth.
...So my conclusion is that there's more to me than my conscious life and my body. In fact, I am a 'self,' or an 'I,' that cannot be seen or touched unless I manifest myself through my behavior or my talk. I have free will because I am a 'self,' or a soul, and I'm not just a brain. ~J.P. Moreland, PHD~ "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

2 " If it's true there's a beginning to the universe, as modern cosmologists now agree, then this implies a cause that transcends the universe. If the laws of physics are fine-tuned to permit life, as contemporary physicists are discovering, then perhaps there's a designer who fine-tuned them. If there's information in the cell, as molecular biology shows, then this suggests intelligent design. To get life going in the first place would have required biological information; the implications point beyond the material realm to a prior intelligent cause. -Stephen C Meyer, PHD "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

3 " Take the expansion rate of the universe, which is fine-tuned to one part in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion. That is, if it were changed by one part in either direction--a little faster, a little slower--we could not have a universe that would be capable of supporting life. ~Stephen C. Meyer, PHD~ "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

4 " Briefcase Crunch time. To escape the gravity of Jupiter, a spacecraft would have to travel over 134,000 miles per hour! Compare that to how fast space shuttles have to travel to clear the earth’s gravity–seven miles a second, or about 25,000 miles per hour. Get too close to Jupiter, and you’re not coming back! People are made for gravity. Astronauts in space have a great time floating around without gravity. But weightlessness eventually does bad things to bones and blood. Space experiments on rats in spinning cages (kind of like the centrifuge in our story, only not as dizzying) showed animals that got just a little gravity in space came back much healthier. Even before the Internet, people in Bible times had a pretty good idea of who set up the earth and the stars. Check out this psalm, written by King David nearly one thousand years before Jesus was born: “I think about the heavens. I think about what your fingers have created. I think about the moon and stars that you have set in place. What is a human being that you think about him? What is a son of man that you take care of him?” (Psalm 8:3 - 4). "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

5 " We need to admit that we can't get through even the challenges of today--much less the problems that lie ahead--without some outside intervention. "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

6 " If God so precisely and carefully and lovingly and amazingly constructed a mind-boggling habitat for His creatures, then it would be natural for Him to want them to explore it, to measure it, to investigate it, to appreciate it, to be inspired by it--and ultimately, and most importantly, to find Him through it. "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

7 " Greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, absorb infrared energy and help warm the planet. So they're absolutely crucial. The problem is that their concentration in the atmosphere needs to be regulated as the sun slowly brightens. Otherwise, the Earth would not be able to stabilize its surface temperature, which would be disastrous.

Plate tectonics cycles fragments of the Earth's crust -- including limestone, which is made up of calcium, carbon dioxide, and oxygen atoms -- down into the mantle. There, the planet's internal heat releases the carbon dioxide, which is then continually vented to the atmosphere through volcanoes. It's quite an elaborate process, but the end result is a kind of thermostat that keeps the greenhouse gases in balance and our surface temperature under control.

--Guillermo Gonzalez, Ph.D. (astronomer & physicist) "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

8 " Think about it, Lee - we already know that intelligent minds produce finely tuned devices. Look at the space shuttle. Look at a television set. Look at an internal combustion engine. We see minds producing complex, precision machinery all the time.

So the existence of a supermind - or God - as the explanation for the fine - tuning of the universe makes all sense in the world. "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

9 " If I had stopped asking questions, that’s where I would have remained. "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

10 " Would it not be strange if a universe without purpose accidentally created humans who are so obsessed with purpose? Sir John Templeton. "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

11 " It’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that this is materialistic philosophy masquerading as empirical science. The attitude is that life had to have developed this way because there’s no other materialistic explanation. "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

12 " Science and faith are not at war. When scientific evidence and biblical teaching are correctly interpreted, they can and do support each other. I’d say to anyone who doubts that: investigate the evidence yourself. "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

13 " CRUNCH! Izzy jumped off the bench, which made Alex laugh all over again. “Chill out.” He pointed at a cloud of smoke. “Look, it’s over, see? Number fifty-seven won.” Terrific. The driver of a purple-and-gray wreck waved at the cheering crowd as he circled the other dead and crunched cars. “Survival of the fittest, huh?” Alex put on that smirk that signaled he was about to pass out a little more college wisdom. “Just one more example of how evolution works.” “You’re kidding, right?” This was too lame. He actually believed that smashed cars at the demolition derby proved…what? “No, look.” Alex pointed to a big green car with the back end curled up. “See that Chevy there?” The one with all the smoke coming out of it? He went on. “That’s a ‘79. You can tell by the front end.” What was left of it. But Professor Alex wasn’t done. “Then look at that Chevy right next to it. It’s a ‘77, but it came from the same assembly line. The body is almost the same.” “Okay…” “So that’s the example my professor at Tech used to explain it. Cars that look alike. It’s how scientists look at fossils too. How they can tell that one life-form comes from the next…You know, evolution.” Oh. By that time they had followed the crowd off the grandstands and were making their way to Uncle John’s minivan out in the parking lot. Who was she to argue with a college kid? And yet…something occurred to Izzy about what her cousin was trying to tell her. She turned to him after they’d piled into the backseat. “Those cars you pointed out…” she started. “Yup.”Alex knew the answers. “Just another illustration of evolution.” “Whatever.” This time she couldn’t just smile and nod. “I was just wondering, though. Do you think a real person designed the older car?” “Well, sure.” This time Alex’s face clouded a bit. “And did a real person design the newer car too?” “Sure, but—” “And would there be a chance the designer might have used some of the same ideas, or maybe some of the same drawings, for both cars?” Alex frowned and sighed this time. “That’s not the point.” Wasn’t it? Izzy tried not to rub it in, just let her cousin stew on it. Yeah, so if the cars looked like they were related, that could mean the same person thought them up. Couldn’t it? Just like in creation. Only in creation it would be the same God who used the same kind of plans for the things—and the people—he made. Good example, Alex, she thought, and she tried to keep from smiling as they drove away from the fairgrounds. “Thanks for taking us to the derby,” she told her uncle John. “Maybe we should do it again next year. "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

14 " Briefcase A scientist named Tim Berra wrote a book called Evolution and the Myth of Creationism in 1990. In it, he said that Corvettes can help us understand evolution, because we can see how they changed from year to year. Whoops! Somebody forgot to tell Professor Berra that Corvettes don’t have baby Corvettes. And that Corvettes are designed by intelligent people. So Tim Berra scored a goal for the other side, since his argument was really for intelligent design! Today, it’s called Berra’s Blunder. No one is quite sure when the first demolition derbies were held. Some think a stock-car driver named Larry Mendelsohn organized the first one in Long Island, New York, in the late 1950s. But the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary first included the term “demolition derby” in their 1953 edition. That means there were probably demolition derbies at county fairs at least back in the late 1940s. Anyway, people have been smashing cars for a long time. "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

15 " The propaganda of the Copernican Principle has been that the long march of science has shown how common and ordinary our situation is. But the trend is in the opposite direction. The more you pile on the threats we’re discovering in most places in the universe, and you contrast that with the many ways we’re in a cocoon of safety, the more our situation appears special. "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

16 " Darwinists say they’re under some sort of epistemological obligation to continue trying, because to invoke design would be to give up on science. Well, I say it’s time to redefine science. We should not be looking for only the best naturalistic explanation, but the best explanation, period. And intelligent design is the explanation that’s most in conformity with how the world works. "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

17 " Science should be the search for truth, not merely the search for materialistic explanations. "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

18 " It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in numbers, has been rather carefully thought out. . . . The seemingly miraculous concurrence of these numerical values must remain the most compelling evidence for cosmic design. Physicist Paul Davies "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

19 " take a few quiet moments to soak in these closing words, so eloquently expressed by Alister McGrath, and let them become an impetus toward your adventure of a lifetime: Many have found that the awesome sight of the star-studded heavens evoke a sense of wonder, an awareness of transcendence, that is charged with spiritual significance. Yet the distant shimmering of stars does not itself create this sense of longing; it merely exposes what is already there. They are catalysts for our spiritual insights, revealing our emptiness and compelling us to ask whether and how this void might be filled. Might our true origins and destiny somehow lie beyond those stars? Might there not be a homeland, from which we are presently exiled and to which we secretly long to return? Might not our accumulation of discontentment and disillusionment with our present existence be a pointer to another land where our true destiny lies and which is able to make its presence felt now in this haunting way? Suppose that this is not where we are meant to be but that a better land is at hand? We don’t belong here. We have somehow lost our way. Would not this make our present existence both strange and splendid? Strange, because it is not where our true destiny lies; splendid, because it points ahead to where that real hope might be found. The beauty of the night skies or a glorious sunset are important pointers to the origins and the ultimate fulfillment of our heart’s deepest desires. But if we mistake the signpost for what is signposted, we will attach our hopes and longings to lesser goals, which cannot finally quench our thirst for meaning. "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

20 " Plate tectonics helps regulate global temperatures by balancing greenhouse gases. There's also another natural thermostat, called the Earth's albedo. Albedo refers to the proportion of sunlight a planet reflects. The Earth has an especially rich variety of albedo sources -- oceans, polar ice caps, continental interiors, including deserts -- which is good for regulating the climate. Whatever light isn't reflected by Earth is absorbed, which means the surface gets heated.

This is self-regulated through one of the Earth's natural feedback mechanisms. To give you an example, some marine algae produce dimethyl sulfide. This helps to build cloud condensation nuclei, or CCN, which are small particles in the atmosphere around which water can condense to form cloud droplets.

If the ocean gets too warm, then this algae reproduce more quickly and release more dimethyl sulfide, which leads to a greater concentration of CCN and a higher albedo for the marine stratus clouds. Higher cloud albedo, in turn, cools the ocean below, which then reduces the rate at which the algae reproduce. So this provides a natural thermostat.

-- Guillermo Gonzalez, Ph.D. (astronomer & physicist) "

― Lee Strobel , The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God