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'My road to atheism was paved by science . . . But, ironically, so was my later journey to God.'
—Lee Strobel
During his academic years, Lee Strobel became convinced that God was outmoded, a belief that colored his ensuing career as an award-winning journalist at the Chicago Tribune. Science had made the idea of a Creator irrelevant—or so Strobel thought.
But today science is pointing in a different direction. In recent years, a diverse and impressive body of research has increasingly supported the conclusion that the universe was intelligently designed. At the same time, Darwinism has faltered in the face of concrete facts and hard reason.
Has science discovered God? At the very least, it's giving faith an immense boost as new findings emerge about the incredible complexity of our universe. Join Strobel as he reexamines the theories that once led him away from God. Through his compelling and highly readable account, you'll encounter the mind-stretching discoveries from cosmology, cellular biology, DNA research, astronomy, physics, and human consciousness that present astonishing evidence in The Case for a Creator.
Also available in mass market and audio CD editions.
"...Strobel exposes the shortcomings of Darwin's theory of evolution quite effectively...Strobel insists that with a fresh examination of the evidence which science now presents, Darwin's theory of evolution is no longer reasonable. There are too many gaps, unexplained hypotheses and conceptual flaws...This is an excellent book for those who wish to think seriously through the theory of evolution, and for those who continue to wrestle with Christianity's claims for a creator God. It is well written, the documentation is verifiable and Strobel's skills as a journalist and lawyer are self-evident in the book's composition..."
"...While the subject matter is complicated and 'heavy in the head,' Strobel presents the information in a highly fluid, conversational manner. While science may not have discovered God, he finds that science is giving faith an immense boost as new findings emerge about the incredible complexity of the universe."
The deadline was looming for the "Green Streak," the afternoon edition of the Chicago Tribune, and the frenzied atmosphere in the newsroom was carbonated with activity. Teletypes clattered behind Plexiglas partitions. Copy boys darted from desk to desk. Reporters hunched over their typewriters in intense concentration. Editors barked into telephones. On the wall, a huge clock counted down the minutes.
A copy boy hustled into the cavernous room and tossed three copies of the Chicago Daily News, hot off the presses, onto the middle of the city desk. Assistant city editors lunged at them and hungrily scanned the front page to see if the competition had beaten them on anything. One of them let out a grunt. In one motion, he ripped out an article and then pivoted, waving it in the face of a reporter who had made the mistake of hovering too closely.
"Recover this!" he demanded. Without looking at it, the reporter grabbed the scrap and headed for his desk to quickly make some phone calls so he could produce a similar story.
Reporters at City Hall, the Criminal Courts Building, the State of Illinois Building, and Police Headquarters were phoning assistant city editors to "dope" their stories. Once the reporters had provided a quick capsule of the situation, the assistants would cover their phone with a hand and ask their boss, the city editor, for a decision on how the article should be handled.
"The cops were chasing a car and it hit a bus," one of them called over to the city editor. "Five injured, none seriously." "School bus?"
"City bus."
The city editor frowned. "Gimme a four-head," came the order-code for a three-paragraph story.
"Four head," the assistant repeated into the phone. He pushed a button to connect the reporter to a rewrite man, who would take down details on a typewriter and then craft the item in a matter of minutes.
The year was 1974. I was a rookie, just three months out of the University of Missouri's school of journalism. I had worked on smaller newspapers since I was fourteen, but this was the big leagues. I was already addicted to the adrenaline.
On that particular day, though, I felt more like a spectator than a participant. I strolled over to the city desk and unceremoniously dropped my story into the "in" basket. It was a meager offering-a one-paragraph "brief" about two pipe bombs exploding in the south suburbs. The item was destined for section three, page ten, in a journalistic trash heap called "metropolitan briefs." However, my fortunes were about to change.
Standing outside his glass-walled office, the assistant managing editor caught my attention. "C'mere," he called.
I walked over. "What's up?"
"Look at this," he said as he handed me a piece of wire copy. He didn't wait for me to read it before he started filling me in.
"Crazy stuff in West Virginia," he said. "People getting shot at, schools getting bombed-all because some hillbillies are mad about the textbooks being used in the schools."
"You're kidding," I said. "Good story."
My eyes scanned the brief Associated Press report. I quickly noticed that pastors were denouncing textbooks as being "anti-God" and that rallies were being held in churches. My stereotypes clicked in.
"Christians, huh?" I said. "So much for loving their neighbors. And not being judgmental."
He motioned for me to follow him over to a safe along the wall. He twirled the dial and opened it, reaching in to grab two packets of twenty-dollar bills.
"Get out to West Virginia and check it out," he said as he handed me the six hundred dollars of expense money. "Give me a story for the bulldog." He was referring to the first edition of next Sunday's paper. That didn't give me much time. It was already noon on Monday.
I started to walk away, but the editor grabbed my arm. "Look-be careful," he said.
I was oblivious. "What do you mean?"
He gestured toward the AP story I was clutching. "These hillbillies hate reporters," he said. "They've already beaten up two of them. Things are volatile. Be smart."
I couldn't tell if the emotional surge I felt was fear or exhilaration. In the end, it didn't really matter. I knew I had to do whatever it would take to get the story. But the irony wasn't lost on me: these people were followers of the guy who said, "Blessed are the peacemakers," and yet I was being warned to keep on guard to avoid getting roughed up.
"Christians...," I muttered under my breath. Hadn't they heard, as one skeptic famously put it, that modern science had already dissolved Christianity in a vat of nitric acid?
IS DARWIN RESPONSIBLE?
From the gleaming office buildings in downtown Charleston to the dreary backwood hamlets in surrounding Kanawha County, the situation was tense when I arrived the next day and began poking around for a story. Many parents were keeping their kids out of school; coal miners had walked off the job in wildcat strikes, threatening to cripple the local economy; empty school buses were being shot at; firebombs had been lobbed at some vacant classrooms; picketers were marching with signs saying, "Even Hillbillies Have Constitutional Rights." Violence had left two people seriously injured. Intimidation and threats were rampant.
The wire services could handle the day-to-day breaking developments in the crisis; I planned to write an overview article that explained the dynamics of the controversy. Working from my hotel room, I called for appointments with key figures in the conflict and then drove in my rental car from homes to restaurants to schools to offices in order to interview them. I quickly found that just mentioning the word "textbook" to anybody in these parts would instantly release a flood of vehement opinion as thick as the lush trees that carpet the Appalachian hillsides.
"The books bought for our school children would teach them to lose their love of God, to honor draft dodgers and revolutionaries, and to lose their respect for their parents," insisted the intense, dark-haired wife of a Baptist minister as I interviewed her on the front porch of her house. As a recently elected school board member, she was leading the charge against the textbooks.
A community activist was just as opinionated in the other direction. "For the first time," she told me, "these textbooks reflect real Americanism, and I think it's exciting. Americanism, to me, is listening to all kinds of voices, not just white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants."
The school superintendent, who had resigned at the height of the controversy, only shook his head in disdain when I asked him what he thought. "People around here are going flaky," he sighed. "Both poles are wrong."
Meanwhile, ninety-six thousand copies of three hundred different textbooks had been temporarily removed from classrooms and stored in cardboard cartons at a warehouse west of Charleston. They included Scott Foresman Co.'s Galaxy series; McDougal, Littel Co.'s Man series; Allyn & Bacon Inc.'s Breakthrough series; and such classics as The Lord of the Flies, Of Human Bondage, Moby Dick, The Old Man and the Sea, Animal Farm, and Plato's Republic.
What were people so angry about? Many said they were outraged at the "situational ethics" propounded in some of the books. One textbook included the story of a child cheating a merchant out of a penny. Students were asked, "Most people think that cheating is wrong. Do you think there is ever a time when it might be right? Tell when it is. Tell why you think it is right." Parents seized on this as undermining the Christian values they were attempting to inculcate into their children.
"We're trying to get our kids to do the right thing," the parent of an elementary student told me in obvious frustration. "Then these books come along and say that sometimes the wrong thing is the right thing. We just don't believe in that! The Ten Commandments are the Ten Commandments."
But there was also an undercurrent of something else: an inchoate fear of the future, of change, of new ideas, of cultural transformation. I could sense a simmering frustration in people over how modernity was eroding the foundation of their faith. "Many of the protesters," wrote the Charleston Gazette, "are demonstrating against a changing world."
This underlying concern was crystallized for me in a conversation with a local businessman over hamburgers at a Charleston diner. When I asked him why he was so enraged over the textbooks, he reached into his pocket and took out a newspaper clipping about the textbook imbroglio.
"Listen to what Dynamics of Language tells our kids," he said as he quoted an excerpt from the textbook: "Read the theory of divine origin and the story of the Tower of Babel as told in Genesis. Be prepared to explain one or more ways these stories could be interpreted."
He tossed the well-worn clipping on the table in disgust. "The theory of divine origin!" he declared. "The Word of God is not a theory. Take God out of creation and what's left? Evolution? Scientists want to teach our kids that divine origin is just a theory that stupid people believe but that evolution is a scientific fact. Well, it's not. And that's at the bottom of this."
I cocked my head. "Are you saying Charles Darwin is responsible for all of this?"
"Let me put it this way," he said. "If Darwin's right, we're just sophisticated monkeys. The Bible is wrong. There is no God. And without God, there's no right or wrong. We can just make up our morals as we go. The basis for all we believe is destroyed. And that's why this country is headed to hell in a handbasket. Is Darwin responsible? I'll say this: people have to choose between science and faith, between evolution and the Bible, between the Ten Commandments and make-'em-up-as-you-go ethics. We've made our choice-and we're not budging."
He took a swig of beer. "Have you seen the teacher's manual?" he asked. I shook my head. "It says students should compare the Bible story of Daniel in the Lion's Den to that myth about a lion. You know which one I'm talking about?"
"Androcles and the Lion?" I asked, referring to the Aesop fable about an escaped slave who removed a thorn from the paw of a lion he encountered in the woods. Later, the recaptured slave was to be eaten by a lion for the entertainment of the crowd at the Roman Coliseum, but it turned out to be the same lion he had befriended. Instead of eating him, the lion gently licked his hand, which impressed the emperor so much that the slave was set free.
"Yeah, that's the one," the businessman said as he wagged a french fry at me. "What does it tell our kids when they're supposed to compare that to the Bible? That the Bible is just a bunch of fairy tales? That it's all a myth? That you can interpret the Bible any way you darn well please, even if it rips the guts out of what it really says? We've got to put our foot down. I'm not going to let a bunch of eggheads destroy the faith of my children."
I felt like I was finally getting down to the root of the controversy. I scribbled down his words as well as I could. Part of me, though, wanted to debate him.
Didn't he know that evolution is a proven fact? Didn't he realize that in an age of science and technology that it's simply irrational to believe the ancient myths about God creating the world and shaping human beings in his own image? Did he really want his children clinging desperately to religious pap that is so clearly disproved by modern cosmology, astronomy, zoology, comparative anatomy, geology, paleontology, biology, genetics, and anthropology?
I was tempted to say, "Hey, what is the difference between Daniel in the Lion's Den and Androcles and the Lion? They're both fairy tales!" But I wasn't there to get into an argument. I was there to report the story-and what a bizarre story it was!
In the last part of the twentieth century, in an era when we had split the atom and put people on the moon and found fossils that prove evolution beyond all doubt, a bunch of religious zealots were tying a county into knots because they couldn't let go of religious folklore. It simply defied all reason.
I thought for a moment. "One more question," I said. "Do you ever have any doubts?"
He waved his hand as if to draw my attention to the universe. "Look at the world," he said. "God's fingerprints are all over it. I'm absolutely sure of that. How else do you explain nature and human beings? And God has told us how to live. If we ignore him-well, then the whole world's in for a whole lot of trouble."
I reached for the check. "Thanks for your opinions," I told him.
STANDING TRIAL IN WEST VIRGINIA
All of this was good stuff for my story, but I needed more. The leaders I had interviewed had all denounced the violence as being the unfortunate actions of a few hotheads. But to tell the whole story, I needed to see the underbelly of the controversy. I wanted to tap into the rage of those who chose violence over debate. My opportunity quickly came.
A rally, I heard, was being planned for Friday night over in the isolated, heavily wooded community of Campbell's Creek. Angry parents were expected to gather and vote on whether to continue to keep their kids out of school. Tempers were at a boiling point, and the word was that reporters were not welcome. It seemed that folks were incensed over the way some big newspapers had caricatured them as know-nothing hillbillies, so this was intended to be a private gathering of the faithful, where they could freely speak their minds.
This was my chance. I decided to infiltrate the rally to get an unvarnished look at what was really going on. At the time, it seemed like a good idea.
I rendezvoused with Charlie, a top-notch photojournalist dispatched by the Tribune to capture the textbook war on film. We decided that we would sneak into the rural school where hundreds of agitated protesters were expected to pack the bleachers. I'd scribble my notes surreptitiously; Charlie would see whether he could snap a few discreet photos. We figured if we could just blend into the crowd, we'd get away with it.
We figured wrong.
Our shiny new rental car stood in sharp contrast with the dusty pick-up trucks and well-used cars that were hastily left at all angles on the gravel parking lot. We tried to be as inconspicuous as possible as we walked nonchalantly beside the stragglers who were streaming toward the gymnasium. Charlie kept his Nikons hidden beneath his waist-length denim jacket, but there was no way he could conceal his long black hair.
Continues...
Excerpted from The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel Copyright © 2004 by Lee Strobel. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
CONTENTS Chapter 1 White-Coated Scientists Versus Black-Robed Preachers 7
Chapter 2 The Images of Evolution 17
Chapter 3 Doubts about Darwinism An interview with Jonathan Wells 31
Chapter 4 Where Science Meets Faith An interview with Stephen C. Meyer 69
Chapter 5 The Evidence of Cosmology: Beginning with a Bang An interview with William Lane Craig 93
Chapter 6 The Evidence of Physics: The Cosmos on a Razor's Edge An interview with Robin Collins 125
Chapter 7 The Evidence of Astronomy: The Privileged Planet An interview with Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Wesley Richards 153
Chapter 8 The Evidence of Biochemistry: The Complexity of Molecular Machines An interview with Michael J. Behe 193
Chapter 9 The Evidence of Biological Information: The Challenge of DNA and the Origin of Life An interview with Stephen C. Meyer 219
Chapter 10 The Evidence of Consciousness: The Enigma of the Mind An interview with J. P. Moreland 247
Chapter 11 The Cumulative Case for a Creator 273
Appendix: A Summary of the Case for Christ 293
Deliberations: Questions for Reflection or Group Study 299
Notes 307
Acknowledgments 329
Index 331
About the Author 341
1 WHITE-COATED SCIENTISTS VERSUS BLACK-ROBED PREACHERS The deadline was looming for the 'Green Streak,' the afternoon edition of the Chicago Tribune, and the frenzied atmosphere in the newsroom was carbonated with activity. Teletypes clattered behind Plexiglas partitions. Copy boys darted from desk to desk. Reporters hunched over their typewriters in intense concentration. Editors barked into telephones. On the wall, a huge clock counted down the minutes.
A copy boy hustled into the cavernous room and tossed three copies of the Chicago Daily News, hot off the presses, onto the middle of the city desk. Assistant city editors lunged at them and hungrily scanned the front page to see if the competition had beaten them on anything. One of them let out a grunt. In one motion, he ripped out an article and then pivoted, waving it in the face of a reporter who had made the mistake of hovering too closely.
'Recover this!' he demanded. Without looking at it, the reporter grabbed the scrap and headed for his desk to quickly make some phone calls so he could produce a similar story.
Reporters at City Hall, the Criminal Courts Building, the State of Illinois Building, and Police Headquarters were phoning assistant city editors to 'dope' their stories. Once the reporters had provided a quick capsule of the situation, the assistants would cover their phone with a hand and ask their boss, the city editor, for a decision on how the article should be handled.
'The cops were chasing a car and it hit a bus,' one of them called over to the city editor. 'Five injured, none seriously.'
'School bus?'
'City bus.'
The city editor frowned. 'Gimme a four-head,' came the order— code for a three-paragraph story.
'Four head,' the assistant repeated into the phone. He pushed a button to connect the reporter to a rewrite man, who would take down details on a typewriter and then craft the item in a matter of minutes.
The year was 1974. I was a rookie, just three months out of the University of Missouri's school of journalism. I had worked on smaller newspapers since I was fourteen, but this was the big leagues. I was already addicted to the adrenaline.
On that particular day, though, I felt more like a spectator than a participant. I strolled over to the city desk and unceremoniously dropped my story into the 'in' basket. It was a meager offering—a one-paragraph 'brief' about two pipe bombs exploding in the south suburbs. The item was destined for section three, page ten, in a journalistic trash heap called 'metropolitan briefs.' However, my fortunes were about to change.
Standing outside his glass-walled office, the assistant managing editor caught my attention. 'C'mere,' he called.
I walked over. 'What's up?'
'Look at this,' he said as he handed me a piece of wire copy. He didn't wait for me to read it before he started filling me in.
'Crazy stuff in West Virginia,' he said. 'People getting shot at, schools getting bombed—all because some hillbillies are mad about the textbooks being used in the schools.'
'You're kidding,' I said. 'Good story.'
My eyes scanned the brief Associated Press report. I quickly noticed that pastors were denouncing textbooks as being 'anti-God' and that rallies were being held in churches. My stereotypes clicked in.
'Christians, huh?' I said. 'So much for loving their neighbors. And not being judgmental.'
He motioned for me to follow him over to a safe along the wall. He twirled the dial and opened it, reaching in to grab two packets of twenty-dollar bills.
'Get out to West Virginia and check it out,' he said as he handed me the six hundred dollars of expense money. 'Give me a story for the bulldog.' He was referring to the first edition of next Sunday's paper. That didn't give me much time. It was already noon on Monday.
I started to walk away, but the editor grabbed my arm. 'Look— be careful,' he said.
I was oblivious. 'What do you mean?'
He gestured toward the AP story I was clutching. 'These hillbillies hate reporters,' he said. 'They've already beaten up two of them. Things are volatile. Be smart.'
I couldn't tell if the emotional surge I felt was fear or exhilaration. In the end, it didn't really matter. I knew I had to do whatever it would take to get the story. But the irony wasn't lost on me: these people were followers of the guy who said, 'Blessed are the peacemakers,' and yet I was being warned to keep on guard to avoid getting roughed up.
'Christians . . . ,' I muttered under my breath. Hadn't they heard, as one skeptic famously put it, that modern science had already dissolved Christianity in a vat of nitric acid?
IS DARWIN RESPONSIBLE?
From the gleaming office buildings in downtown Charleston to the dreary backwood hamlets in surrounding Kanawha County, the situation was tense when I arrived the next day and began poking around for a story. Many parents were keeping their kids out of school; coal miners had walked off the job in wildcat strikes, threatening to cripple the local economy; empty school buses were being shot at; firebombs had been lobbed at some vacant classrooms; picketers were marching with signs saying, 'Even Hillbillies Have Constitutional Rights.' Violence had left two people seriously injured. Intimidation and threats were rampant.
The wire services could handle the day-to-day breaking developments in the crisis; I planned to write an overview article that explained the dynamics of the controversy. Working from my hotel room, I called for appointments with key figures in the conflict and then drove in my rental car from homes to restaurants to schools to offices in order to interview them. I quickly found that just mentioning the word 'textbook' to anybody in these parts would instantly release a flood of vehement opinion as thick as the lush trees that carpet the Appalachian hillsides.
'The books bought for our school children would teach them to lose their love of God, to honor draft dodgers and revolutionaries, and to lose their respect for their parents,' insisted the intense, darkhaired wife of a Baptist minister as I interviewed her on the front porch of her house. As a recently elected school board member, she was leading the charge against the textbooks.
A community activist was just as opinionated in the other direction. 'For the first time,' she told me, 'these textbooks reflect real Americanism, and I think it's exciting. Americanism, to me, is listening to all kinds of voices, not just white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants.'
The school superintendent, who had resigned at the height of the controversy, only shook his head in disdain when I asked him what he thought. 'People around here are going flaky,' he sighed. 'Both poles are wrong.'
Anonymous
Posted April 25, 2004
Many of us are on the quest for God, and often you wonder, when challenged with evolution and other 'scientifically established' results if your inner thoughts are so wrong. Asking questions, finding answers, and inner whisperings are all satisfied in this book. Scientists are beginning to realize, with excellent reasoning, that for us to be on this quest, there has to be something that exsisted before us, that created us and the quest we are on. The miracles of life, the exact conditions that make our universe and our life, could not have been accidental, nor could the complete equipment that we have, which gives us the ability to make the quest for God. If you are on the quest for God, this is an easy book to read, with lots of references for further enriched and in depth reading.
9 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
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Posted June 27, 2009
I Also Recommend:
I'm not sure if LouisEagle and Strongbark read the same book as I did...I read The Case for the Creator and felt that Strobel provided a great deal of substantiation -- interviews with world-reknowned scientists (and not just Christians although many came to that belief after their own research led them there...they weren't supporting their belief after the fact, rather it is whether the science took them). Interviews were taped, transcribed and reported verbatim. Strobel doesn't interject his beliefs, rather he plays the skeptic and asks the questions that personally troubled him and prevented his initial belief in God. Everything is footnoted for further study and reference and there is even a section for additional independent study and reading at the end of most chapters. For the open minded reader it is really quite helpful. If you have an open mind, I think you will find the science most intriguing. I literally couldn't put the book down. I'm also recommending another book I couldn't put down and have now read several times -- The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard. One of the most intelligent discussions I've read to date.
6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 28, 2010
This book is effectively the same literature that is found in other Intelligent Design/ Discovery Institute materials. The arguments are the same, just in new packaging. This book is almost solely scientific. It would be interesting to see what Strobel thinks about the theological implications of ID. Strobel tries to align the Intelligent Design theory to the Genesis creation account, but I am unconvinced. There is a growing body of scientific evidence that disproves the arguments here and there are logical answers to the questions they pose that are not addressed. Overall, not an earth shattering book. If you purchasing it, you probably already agree with what is in the book, and more importantly want to believe in the arguments they make.
4 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 12, 2008
As an engineer who appreciates well thought-out scientific investigations - this book is excellent! I Highly recommend it. After reading this book one can see it takes alot more faith to believe in evolution than creation. The author studies both sides of about 10 scientific issues. Would go one step further and say the young earth model is more accurate but the author is not trying for that angle - he establishes 'A case' for a creator. Check it out!
4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 8, 2008
What magnificence! For anyone who seeks the infallible truth, I recommend this book more than any other in my library. These pages started me on a vigorous Strobel 'fit.' It inspires fierce motivation for precious discovery. Relentless factual affirmations with a matter of fact approach found unflinching when persuading the faithless. Thoughtfully written, this book should be a prerequisite for belief. Don't be left behind!! I dare any atheist to investigate ... it will save your eternity.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 29, 2012
This book did wonders. I used it as a tool for helping my athiest friend see the light. She has niw been a Christian for over a year now and I believe this book served as a major help - all while cementing my faith as well. If the number of pages seem intimidating, try the dvd.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 30, 2011
He claims to argue from an atheist point of view however when he discusses the matter at hand with the expert he does not make much of a challenge to the discussion. Such as discussions on evolution, they come to conclude that life could not have become as is without a creator. Ignoring that is not the realm of evolution at all. When they talk about 'complex' life they do not see any way they could have come about via natural selection. They do not bring up the dna evidence for the relationships of species.
This is a man who is writing for people who believe or want to believe.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 12, 2011
Lee makes no new arguements for the case for god. Same old lame arguments.
1 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 24, 2010
I am still reading this book and am almost finished. My mind is just completely BLOWN AWAY. I've always loved science and philosophy and debating topics (like the ones in this book) with other people. It almost seems as if he wrote this book just for me (allthough i know that's not the case). If you have a truely open mind (athiests are welcome), then read this book. And if you know someone who is a science teacher or student, buy this for them as a gift. Probably the most thought prevoking book i have ever read, and i read a s@#$load of books.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 27, 2004
There are few science books written by Christian fundamentalists that I would bother to pick up. Sometimes curiosity gets the better of me. That is not a good thing. Its like when you have seen a really bad movie and lamented the lost time you could have used profitably. Save yourself the trouble, this book misrepresents science, It is highly selective, and does not provide information from scientists expert in their fields, only those selective of supporting arguments for an 'American style' Christian fundamentalism. It is the kind of book that makes your intellect feel dirty. Enough to drive you to intellectual asceticism. Ouch. Read truly inspired and enlightening science books instead. The books listed will show many cases of self organising phenomena.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 15, 2013
). Lee Strobel grew up in a nominally religious home, but the nearly universal teaching of Darwinian evolution in his educational experience, beginning in high school biology and throughout college, led him to become an atheist. However, after the Yale-educated law journalist’s wife was converted to Christ, he began to rethink the foundations of his unbelief, embarking upon the adventure of a lifetime by using his talents as an investigative journalist to examine the facts. I purchased all of Strobel’s major books, including The Case for Christ and The Case for Faith in a combined edition and The Case for the Real Jesus, but decided to start with what I would consider “the beginning,” The Case for a Creator. After all, the Bible opens with the statement, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
After writing about his own background, influenced by images of Darwinism yet eventually developing doubts, Strobel interviews scientific experts in several fields—cosmology, physics, astronomy, biochemistry, biological information, and consciousness—to show how their studies provide astonishing evidence for creation rather than purely naturalistic evolution. To be honest, this book sometimes borders on the academic, delving into subjects which would be far beyond the comprehension of most people, including myself. However, Strobel does try to translate the language of the scientists and philosophers he interviews into more popular style so that it can be more readily understood by those without scientific training. Each chapter also contains suggestions for further reading on particular issues of science and faith.
Of course, rabid atheists will dismiss Strobel’s work with a wave of the hand as nothing more than a biased attempt to bolster a dubious claim that is based only on mythology to begin with. One person said something to the effect that all Strobel did was interview creation scientists to prove creationism. However, the scientists whom he interviewed are not “creation scientists” but primarily proponents of Intelligent Design, and there is a difference. The book accepts, at least on the surface, the idea of “the Big Bang” and a billions-of-years existence for the universe, so there will be disagreement on certain points. I realize that some tension exists between young earth creationists and advocates of Intelligent Design, but even as a young earth creationist myself I believe that the two groups have common cause. Strobel concludes that, when correctly interpreted, science and biblical teaching support each other and quotes physicist Paul Davies who says, "…science offers a surer path to God than religion." With much of what passes for “religion” these days, he may be right.
Anonymous
Posted January 3, 2013
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Posted November 20, 2012
Through discussions with many scientists, Lee Strobel makes a strong case for a Creator. I found it fascinating that as science evolves more and more, the case for an ultimate designer of our universe is strengthened vs. weakened. At times the science speak is difficult to understand but overall this is a fascinating read.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.barnard27
Posted July 19, 2012
This book does a lot for providing more scientific reasons for the existence of an intelligent designer(God). The book is written well and is neither hard to follow nor boring.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted April 20, 2012
I'm 14 and although I think that it is great that he wrote a student version this one is in no way too hard for anyone to understand... it is a great mix of writing styles and facts that is interesting and factually sound!
I wasso excited to get and read this book!!!!!
bluesy51
Posted March 27, 2012
I am a Christian so I thought that this book would help increase my faith and I could learn something new. What Strobel attempts to do is take interviews with a science minded Christian and use his "views" as scientific evidence for the existence of God. I felt that it was a insult to my intelligence. I guess it just goes to show you that science and faith don't always mix well. The author finds someone to interview and suddenly he is a believer because of the "sceintific evidence", which frankly he doesn't prove he just talks about his scientific ideas. Much a the book goes somthing like this: " Well this particular organism is so complex so there is no way it could have evolved, therefore it was put here by God." I mean, come on.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.doc77
Posted January 27, 2012
While I have always been a believer, this book seals my belief in a Creator and the fact that 'accident' holds no water and that random evolution can no longer be assumed. The science is a little heavy for us 'non-science' types, but it is necessary to approach the topic that way. The book will be a confirmation for believers and a new light for non-believers. Well worth it.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Elkan
Posted November 28, 2011
I first picked up this book because I have two college-aged children who are surrounded by athiests at school. I wanted to find a reference book for them to use to fight back against the professors and other students who mock their faith. This book hits a homerun for that purpose!
This book is not for the "uneducated" in science. But, if you (or someone you know) is educated at the college level in science, then this is the book!!!! Mr. Strobel proves, without doubt, that God exists. The fascinating way that he does it truly remarkable. He takes the arguments that agnostics and athiests have formulated (to prove that there is no God) and uses these arguments to prove that God does exist! The facts in nature speak for themselves and all of the facts, if understood, point directly to a creator.
Please consider this book for yourself if you are in college and doubting the existence of God. If you have college aged children, this is a must buy for Christmas!
Anonymous
Posted February 25, 2012
Love Lee Strobel. This book does not disappoint. Lots of information and resources . I liked it alot!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Adriaan
Posted January 30, 2011
This book explains the term "The TRUTH is out there" in a way that can not be wished away or ignored as fantacy. Evolutionists may want to avoid this book, your believs may be severly shaken.
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Overview
'My road to atheism was paved by science . . . But, ironically, so was my later journey to God.'
—Lee Strobel
During his academic years, Lee Strobel became convinced that God was outmoded, a belief that colored his ensuing career as an award-winning journalist at the Chicago Tribune. Science had made the idea of a Creator irrelevant—or so Strobel thought.
But today science is pointing in a different direction. In recent years, a diverse and impressive body of research has ...