OUTDOOR TRUTHS: Keeping Warm, Atheist & God
By Gary Miller
In the winter, one of the most comforting experiences after coming in from the water or woods, is to warm by a hot fire. Even in survival situations a fire is said to not only provide warmth but to give a sense of comfort. Over the years, I have noticed how watching a campfire mesmerizes those who sit around it. It has a unique ability to draw individuals to its stage and keep them there. What has recently grabbed my attention is how a stack of logs can be reduced to such a small pile of ashes. It takes half of a wall to hold the wood and only a bucket to hold the ashes. I pondered that thought the other day as I shoveled the remains of my wood. Then I began to put the process in reverse. I imagined how my pile of ashes could be turned into various forms of life. This after all is the idea of macroevolution. It is that all life forms evolved from the smallest matter. The crux of the problem however, is that this belief also affirms that this smallest amount of matter accumulated from nothing. This seems impossible unless you redefine what “nothing” really means. What our atheistic friends are now saying is that nothing really means something. In fact they will tell you they have actually created something from nothing. And while the very statement is suspect, they forget it is “they” who have done it. That is, there was a “they” who started a process. What most Christians believe however is that God created out of nothing. He was the “they” who started the process and He literally created from “no-thing.”
When the Hubble space telescope showed that Einstein’s theory of relativity was correct, Einstein and everyone then knew that time, space, and matter had a beginning. And if time, space, and matter had a beginning, then something outside of time, space, and matter had to start the process. This was a perfect place to recognize God as the instigator of this wonderful universe – the One who is outside time, space, and matter. This would be too easy however. Evidently it takes more faith to believe that God created the universe out of nothing than to believe that nothing created the universe out of nothing. I guess I just don’t have enough faith to be an atheist.
Gary Miller can be reached via e-mail at gary@outdoortruths.org
