What's the connection between MLKJ's vision of social justice and the creation/evolution dialog? Are all humans created equal, or not? Great article by Nancy Pearcey:

https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/nancy-pearcey/liberal-elites-are-killing-martin-luther-king-jrs-vision

Here are some more book reviews.  For earlier book reviews, see here.

Messy Journey, by Lori Wildenberg

This book is a collection of thoughts by a Christian mother, about parenting children who "go astray" from the way they were raised. Her daughter, who currently identifies as lesbian, currently has a good relationship with her mother and also contributed some parts of the book. The book shares anecdotes and discusses the importance of trying to keep the relationship going even when disagreements exist.  It talks about letting go of the urge to 'fix' one's child and surrendering the child to God.  It also has several other stories contributed by parents whose children are going through (or have gone through) various types of rebellion. This was an excellent book overall. I know many Christian parents whose children have wandered away from God, and I wish that all of them could read this book. The book does not provide "solutions" or "answers" per se, but encouragement for parents to know that they are not alone, and encouragement to keep trying, and true stories of parent-child relationships that have been restored. Recommended book.

Creation & Evolution: Compatible or in Conflict? by Jay Seegert

This is an excellent overview of the origins controversies, covering almost all of the related topics in a layman-focused, readable, general-audience fashion, with pictures and analogies. It covers both the scientific and Biblical arguments. It generally uses a presuppositional approach. For its audience, it explains things well (it does not go into deep depth in any area). This would be a great overview book to give someone.

Sing, by Keith and Kristyn Getty

This book is a discussion of congregational singing - its importance, the fact that God commands it, its benefits, how to do it, etc. It has some good points.

From Creation to Salvation: What Jesus and the New Testament authors believed about Genesis, by Lita Cosner

This book is basically a summary of the whole Bible, but with special emphasis on following the teaching about God's creation of the world, Adam/Eve, the Fall, Noah/Flood, etc (from Genesis 1-11) as it is developed and alluded to throughout the rest of the Bible. It has some good insights, but I was hoping for a more direct and powerful argument against the modern disdain for viewing Genesis historically that is often expressed in educated Christian circles. This book is almost closer to the "Stranger on the road to Emmaus" type of book or "One God One Message" type of book, rather than what its subtitle suggests. It is written in commentary style (semi-academic), with occasional sidebars of points about creation. I agree with all of the key doctrinal points it teaches, and most of the subpoints. It was not what I was expecting, but it still might be helpful for some people.

The Great Good Thing, by Andrew Klavan

He tells the story of his life, how he grew up in a Jewish family in New York City, became a writer, dealt with insanity and depression, then gradually over several decades (and therapy) came to a place of more happiness. Then, in the last 10 years, he came to believe in God, and then more specifically in Jesus the Christ. Beautiful book.

Zombie Science, by Jonathan Wells

This is a great book! He follows up on his 2000 book "Icons of Evolution", which pointed out supposed evidences for evolution used in biology textbooks which had already been discredited by scientists. In "Zombie Science", he shows that these are STILL being used 16 years later, and adds several more items. He discusses "vestigial" organs, whale evolution, Darwin's "Tree of Life", antibiotic resistance and cancer, and many other items. I was impressed with this book's balance and even-keeled tone. He never got 'preachy', just kept a smooth narrative running throughout the whole book. He believes in "Intelligent Design", (and an old earth), not creationism. But this book shows the extreme weakness of the evolutionary book. Well recommended!

Does literary patterning mean that a text can't be historical? Here's a great and thought-provoking article.

https://isgenesishistory.com/should-genesis-1-2-be-taken-literally/

Here's a fascinating quote from a prominent evolutionist:

"...a growing number of challenges to the classical model of evolution have emerged over the past few years, such as from evolutionary developmental biology [16], epigenetics [17], physiology [18], genomics [19], ecology [20], plasticity research [21], population genetics [22], regulatory evolution [23], network approaches [14], novelty research [24], behavioural biology [12], microbiology [7] and systems biology [25], further supported by arguments from the cultural [26] and social sciences [27], as well as by philosophical treatments [28–31]. None of these contentions are unscientific, all rest firmly on evolutionary principles and all are backed by substantial empirical evidence."
- Dr. Gerd Müller
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/08/evolutionary-theorist-concedes-evolution-largely-avoids-biggest-questions-of-biological-origins/

Cells are amazing! First the genome, then the proteome, epigenome/methylome, and spliceosome, now the transcriptome.

 
Recent years have seen error-correcting codes going forward and backward (and overlapping), codes based on 3D-fold neighbor proximity, protein folds based on alternate codon timing variations, meta-codes, methylation codes, circular RNA newly discovered to code for proteins.... it seems that almost every day they're saying, "You know those parts of the cell that we said were junk? It turns out they have a crucial purpose."

 
What's next, DNA that sends electric signals back and forth during transcription regulation?  Yes, that's today's headline.  Apparently the Designer of this amazing system is also a super-talented Electrical Engineer.

https://www.evolutionnews.org/2017/04/electric-dna-circular-rna-and-other-epigenetic-wonders/

 
Other references:

http://crev.info/2016/12/small-molecules-key-roles/

http://crev.info/2013/12/two-genetic-codes-is-better-than-one/

http://crev.info/2013/06/wonders-of-the-spliceosome-coming-to-light/

http://crev.info/2010/05/breakthrough_second_genetic_code_revealed/

http://crev.info/2008/11/biological_complexity_continues_to_astound/

http://crev.info/2010/09/synonymous_codons_another_gene_expression_regulation_mechanism/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161027093559.htm

https://www.evolutionnews.org/2017/02/more_marvels_in/

https://www.evolutionnews.org/2017/02/molecular_machi_4/

Here are some recent book reviews.  For older reviews, see http://tim223.xanga.com/category/book-reviews/

Making Sense of God, by Tim Keller
Another EXCELLENT book from Keller!  He wrote this as a 'prequel' to "The Reason for God" because he realized that millions of millenial Americans have so many preconceived notions about the folly of 'religion' that they would not even bother to read that earlier book.  He discusses many reasons people don't think it worth their time to consider Christianity.  He begins with the point that secular belief is not a 'default', but is a particular set of beliefs that needs justification just as much as religious beliefs do.  He focuses on the fact (with lots of quotes from secular philosophers and popular figures) that secular beliefs do not satisfy in many situations... times of suffering or approaching death... questions of identity and achievement, societal problems such as racism, etc.  He discusses individualistic freedom as an ideal (it is lacking), and the question of where do human rights, justice, and our sense of morality come from?  I found it a little more dry than some of his other books, and a little less pointed than "Reason for God", rather instead more of a 'conversation'... but it is still vintage Keller, packed with great quotes and good reasoning.  Definitely worth reading, maybe also discussing in a group.

 
Farewell Four Waters, by Kate McCord
This is a semi-fictionalized story of an American NGO worker living in Aghanistan, and the story of how she had to suddenly leave her work as tribal warfare exploded in the last decade.  It is based on her own true experiences.  She describes the confusion.. both logistical, and also emotional and spiritual... involved, and how she came to find peace in God's presence with her.

 
The scent of water, by Naomi Zacharias
In this book the author intersperses stories from her life, with stories about various people she met on her trips (primarily nonprofit humanitarian trips, helping to provide restoration for people who had been rescued from slavery or trafficking or prostitution, or other humanitarian ventures).  She emphasizes God's grace, His love for the outcast and outsider... and provides stories of people's lives being made whole through God's grace overflowing through other people.

 
Is It My Fault?  by Justin and Lindsey Holcomb
This is an excellent book that presents hope and advice, aimed toward women who are being abused by their husband or partner (i.e. suffering from domestic violence).  It emphasizes God's love and grace, the Biblical high value of women, etc.  It argues against the most typical rejoinders, such as 'God doesn't care about me' or 'It's my fault that I'm suffering', etc.  One of its most helpful points was its catalog of all the places in the Bible where people 'ran away from suffering' when possible, such as Jesus avoiding arrest, Paul using his citizenship to avoid flogging, many others fleeing persecution by running to a different city, etc.  In this pattern, separation can often be a helpful thing in domestic violence situations.  However, the authors briefly mentioned their support for divorce without any reference to the Bible's teaching that reconciliation after separation is preferred if possible.  I would have liked to see more direct _practical_ suggestions for helping people in these situations.  It was mostly a few brief suggestions in their appendices.  However, the bulk of the book had good theological points and would probably be helpful for an abused wife to read, especially in the context of discussing it regularly with a friend.

 
The Creation Answers Book, by Don Batten, David Catchpoole, Jonathan Safarti, and Carl Wieland
This is an excellent book going through the most common questions and objections people have to taking the Bible's creation account literally.  Its answers are good, succinct, footnoted, Biblical, etc.  Highly recommended!
Chapter 1: Does God Exist? Chapter 2: Six days? Really? Chapter 3: What about gap theories? Chapter 4: What about carbon dating? Chapter 5: How can we see stars in a young universe? Chapter 6: How did ‘bad things’ come about? Chapter 7: What about arguments for evolution? Chapter 8: Who was Cain’s wife? Chapter 9: Were the 'Sons of God' and/or nephilim extra-terrestrials? Chapter 10: Was the Flood global? Chapter 11: What about continental drift? Chapter 12: Noah’s Flood—what about all that water? Chapter 13: How did the animals fit on Noah’s Ark? Chapter 14: How did fresh and saltwater fish survive the flood? Chapter 15: Where are all the human fossils? Chapter 16: What about the Ice Age? Chapter 17: How did the animals get to Australia? Chapter 18: How did all the different ‘races’ arise? Chapter 19: What about dinosaurs?
It is available for free online at http://creation.com/the-creation-answers-book-index

 
Redeeming Love, by Francine Rivers
This is a romance novel set during the 19th century California gold rush.  It is loosely based on the Biblical account of Hosea and Gomer.  As romance novels go, this one is excellent overall (although with a few problematic/corny/sappy parts).  The main character, "Angel", has been abused most of her life, and finds it impossible to trust men.  An (unrealistically super-mature) Christian man decides that God is calling him to marry her... and does a great job of continuing to faithfully love her throughout her struggles, and eventually his constant love changes her, and she matures and comes to love him in return.  Some will object that the ending of the story wraps up too neatly, but I think that within its genre, it works ok.  It does a good job of showing the emotions inside someone who comes from a background of abuse, and why they find it hard to trust again.  It presents a good example of a man who surrenders his romantic situation to God and trusts Him to work it out.  It is also a great portrayal of God's love for us... He would stop at nothing to redeem us... His love is completely unselfish, and never stops.

 
A Wind in the House of Islam, by David Garrison
This book discusses each of nine different Islamic areas of the world, and discusses their history, and how very few Muslims had been believing in Jesus over the centurs a ies.  If one defines a revival "movement" as 1000 or more baptisms among a people group, there were none until the 19th century (2), then suddenly 13 in the 20th century, then suddenly an additional 69 in the first 12 years of the 21st century.  Garrison carefully researched each one, with more than 1000 interviews total, etc.  He then goes through each area and talks about the movements, and what seem to be the human factors facilitating each movement.   This is very interesting, and it does seem that God is doing amazing things in the Islamic world.  A caveat is that Garrison seems very positive on the "insider" approach (having a new convert stay within his/her Muslim community for a while, continue going to the mosque, etc, while quietly learning about Jesus in secret)... many other Muslim-background believers have expressed how harmful this paradigm has been to their (and others') spiritual growth.  Garrison generally tries to report in an unbiased way.  Two fascinating excerpts... the first from interviewing a Muslim-background believer about how he witnesses to other Muslims- p.216
<<I asked Nasr what he did to open Muslims' mind to the truth.  Nasr said, "If I am sitting with a Muslim, I might ask, 'What kind of prophet, when he's 53 years old, takes a 6-year old girl as his wife? And he....  ...it's disgusting- a little girl.'" I probed, "And you actually ask a Muslim these questions?" "Of course.  Why not? It's written right there. There's no argument." I continued, "Do you think this is something that you can do, but I, as a Westerner, should not do?" Nasr laughed. "No, no, no, no, no. I can do this, because I am a Muslim." I was struck by this casual admission, 'I am a Muslim', by a man who had now given his life to dismantling Islam. .... "So you can do this because you are in the culture?" "Yes," Nasr said. "There's a barrier against you. The first thought that comes to their mind when you question the Qur'an, is that you are against them, because you are an American.">>    I do not necessarily agree with the author's/speaker's sentiment here, but I find it very interesting.
The other excerpt was from the "10 Bridges" that he suggests God uses to establish revivals in Muslim areas.  Faith, Prayer, Scripture, Holy Spirit activity (including dreams), Faithful Christian witness, Learning from the body of Christ, Communication, Discovery, Islam itself, and Indigenization.  Cool quote from "Prayer" -[Aisha said] "I believe... that the prayers of people all over the world have been rising up to heaven for many years. In the heavens, these prayers have accumulated like the great clouds during the monsoon season.  And now they are raining down upon my people the miracles and blessings of salvation that God has stored up for them."

 
In Order To Live, by Yeonmi Park
The author tells the true story of her life in North Korea, followed by her escape to China with her mother at age 13, then escape to South Korea around age 16.  She mentions some of the abusee went through, but in a matter-of-fact way, without focusing on it inappropriately.  Her book explains "everyday life" in North Korea well... this is not a book focused on either the prisoners in prison camps nor the rich/elite people but on a family in-between.  Especially moving were her accounts of the people (many Christians) who risked their lives to help them escape from China, and ended up in prison for their troubles.  It is well-written, and a beautiful, powerful, story, showing the need for the gospel of Jesus in those parts of the world (too).  I recommend reading it.

 
Strange Fire, by John MacArthur
This book examines the problems associated with the charismatic movement, and compares the movement to the Bible's actual teaching on the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit.  MacArthur points out that modern "tongues" are gibberish, unlike the New Testament gift of actual world languages... modern "prophecies" are considered fallible (unlike Biblical prophecies), and modern "faith healers" (/etc) are generally charlatans and prone to moral failures.  He includes a lot of amazing quotes from such (false) teachers. I agree with almost everything he says in this excellent book.  One thing in which he may go slightly too far is that he seems to say that 1 Cor 14:39 and 1 Thess 5:20 are no longer applicable today because tongues and prophecies (and other such sign gifts) have ceased, along with apostleship.  I am not sure if I would feel comfortable being that dogmatic.  However, his points about the problems with the charismatic movement are very well argued and documented, and his emphasis on the Bible and the true ministry of the Holy Spirit is excellent.

(Visit this link for all my book reviews http://tim223.xanga.com/category/book-reviews/ )

Why God Calls Us To Dangerous Places, by Kate McCord
This is a beautiful, thought-provoking book, interwoven with stories from her experiences of 9 years in Afghanistan.  Why do we go (or support those who go)?  Primarily, because God loves those people, and His love begins to transform us so that we begin to love them too.  She has great insights about loss, PTSD, ministry burnout, etc... great insights on how to rest in God and be at peace when all around you comes crashing down, when your friends die (or are murdered), when you are threatened, etc.  When terrorists plot to attack us and do attack us, may our heart be that described in this book.  So far opposite from "let's nuke them all", let our heart instead be, "Who will go to tell them about the love of Jesus?"  See also my previous review of her (excellent) book "In the Land of Blue Burqas".

The 5 Love Languages, by Gary Chapman
You've probably heard of this book, even if you haven't read it.  I finally got around to reading it.  I was afraid that it was going to be oversimplistic... but it was not.  His main point is that people experience 'feeling loved' in very different ways (words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch), and that husbands and wives need to learn how to speak the other's love language.  He explains how he 'discovered' each one by various conversations with his clients (he is a professional counselor).  He includes lots of stories, including about those whose marriages were falling apart.  He is a Christian, but keeps most of the book 'generic' and secular... until the last chapter or so, when he explains about Christ's love.  Excellent, worth reading, overall.

The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield
This is the true story of how a very liberal and atheistic woman found Christ.  She explains her journey into identifying as a lesbian, and her journey to become an English professor at Syracuse University, teaching Gay and Lesbian Studies.  She happened to become connected with a caring Christian, who took the time to invite her to dialog regularly about matters of faith over dinner with himself and his wife.  Through this friendship, she reevaluated Christ and the Bible, and eventually came to believe in Christ.  This began to massively change her lifestyle, as she chronicles.  Later in her life, she became married, became an adoptive/foster mom, and homeschooled her children.  This is a beautiful, well-written, testimony... well worth reading.

The Verbally Abusive Relationship, by Patricia Evans
This book discusses relationships (primarily husband-wife) where one person (typically, but not always, the husband) verbally abuses the other person.  Most of the book is focused on description (and true stories).  She categories all people as holding to either a "Power-over" mindset or a "Personal power" mindset, which is rather simplistic, but there is some value in the distinction.  (The "Power-over" mindset perfectly describe the consequences of the Fall that the Bible discusses in Genesis 3:16.)  Chapter 11 and 12 have some great, helpful, advice on how to respond to abuse in a way that will hopefully cause the abuser to notice the problem and begin to change.  Basically, 'set limits'/'boundaries' in your own mind before the abuse happens (for example, 'I will not allow him to yell at me', or 'I will not allow him to demean me'), and then if it happens, respond forcefully 'Cut it out', or 'I will not accept that sort of speech', or, walk away.  In cases of physical abuse, of course, flee.  Chapter 13 on recovery is also good.  Convicting for all to read, and helpful if (/when) we have friends going through this type of marital stress, to be able to provide support and counsel.  Worth reading (or at least skimming, chapters 1, 11, 12, 13).  However, sadly, it is completely secular... so unable to discuss the powerful wisdom from Ephesians, etc.  Eggerichs' "Love and Respect" is more helpful in this area, and also even "For Men Only"/"For Women Only" by the Feldhahns (even though the latter mostly restrains itself to secular points).

And the Word Came With Power, by Joanne Shetler and Patricia Purvis
Powerful true story(ies) of how the Bible was translated for the Balangao people in the Philippines.  She shares many stories from her life there.  Especially powerful were all the times when God brought about events that she thought were catastrophic, but actually turned out for the best.  She prayed for the salvation of her host family for a LONG time, and nothing happened.  But eventually, they became believers in Jesus, and became powerful proponents of the gospel.  Also fascinating to hear about the confrontations between the evil spirits and the Spirit of God in the Christians.  Highly recommended book.

The Post-Church Christian: dealing with the generational baggage of our faith, by J. Paul Nyquist and Carson Nyquist
This book very well exposes and airs the reactionary complaints that millenials have against the 'institutionalized', 'tradition-bound', 'organized-religion', 'overprotective', 'cultural-christianity', 'anti-homosexual', 'judgmental', 'overly-political', 'hypocritical', Church (as they consider it).
Unfortunately, the response that J.Paul Nyquist tries to give to his son is rather weak.  He basically says 'try to be understanding to us (the older Christians), give us the benefit of the doubt, cut us some slack, understand our historical context'.  But our response should be to go back to Jesus, that iconoclastic, 'have you never read the scriptures' Man.
Typical paragraph from the book: "Thirty years ago, the American evangelical church member would never dream of being caught in a bar. Today, churches are being planted there. Amid the social environment found in pubs, we see opportunities to express the hope of Christ to those who enjoy a pint as they talk about life."
Their main takeaway points: don't give up on the church.  Increase authenticity, yes, sure, fine.  Remove excessive linkages between "God and country", sure.  Remove unbiblical legalism, yes by all means.  But don't throw out the Church - it has an important God-given function.   With this point, I agree.

You and Me Forever, by Francis and Lisa Chan
The Chans discuss marriage in this book, but first, they discuss putting Jesus at the center and top priority of one's life.  That is their main point... to stop focusing so much on marriage or singleness, and focus more on the kingdom of God in whatever station of life.  Since they are themselves married, it comes across as slightly tone-deaf to the struggles singles have, however, their bracing 'focus on Jesus'/'put His kingdom first' message is important and needed and overall Biblical.  They make much of Paul's instructions in 1 Cor. 7, and other passages.  They also generally live out what they preach, enhancing their message's impact.  Good book, a little strident at times, but worth reading and pondering.

Seven Marks of a New Testament Church, by David Alan Black
Excellent short book (only 50 pages).  He talks about these "7 marks"- Evangelistic preaching, Christian baptism, apostolic teaching, genuine relationships, Christ-centered gatherings, fervent prayer, sacrificial living, based on Acts 2.

Tactics, by Gregory Koukl
Excellent book.  When people hear of 'tactics' in the context of apologetics, most millenials are turned off because they assume it's about manipulation and argumentation, which they want to avoid.  Instead, Koukl presents ways of using questions to turn around conversations that start out with someone asking you a hostile question related to your faith, so that you can expose the deeper beliefs underlying the question, and move into a respectful, healthy, dialog.  This book is worth reading over and over, and practicing its contents, not for the purpose of manipulation, but for the sake of truly loving our neighbors, and helping them find out the awesome truth about Jesus.

From Heaven He Came and Sought Her
This book is a collection of essays about Particular Atonement ("Limited Atonement").  It thoroughly covers the historical views of the Church in the past centuries, and then gets into the Scriptural/theological discussion.  It's a tough, slow, closely-reasoned read, but worth slogging through.

The Genesis Account, by Jonathan Safarti
This is a scientific and theological commentary on Genesis 1-11.  It is a very thorough, even, solid, well-documented, well-reasoned, and objective commentary.  As a reference book, it's not for light reading (some of Sarfati's other books like "Refuting Evolution" or "Refuting Compromise" are easier to read), but it's well worth slowly reading.  It covers all the major scientific evidences for/against various age theories of the earth and evolution, and all the current and past hermeneutical interpretations of Genesis 1-11.  Excellent.

Cold Case Christianity, A Homicide Detective Investigates The Claims of the Gospels, by J. Warner Wallace
This is an awesome book.  It focuses on whether the gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) about Jesus are accurate or not.  The author was an atheist until his thirties, and a homicide detective who specialized in solving cold cases (unsolved crimes from decades past).  When he began to investigate the gospel accounts, he realized that they have all the marks of true eyewitness accounts.  This book covers the same historical facts as many other apologetics books (Josh McDowell, etc), but is extremely well-written, and with a fresh perspective.

Debating Darwin's Doubt, edited by David Klinghoffer
This book is basically a collection of online articles written as back-and-forth debate followup to Steven Meyer's "Darwin's Doubt".  It discusses the major objections of all the critics, and offers rebuttal.  It is a little hard to read, and a little repetitive, but overall a good, very solid and thorough, rebuttal of the critics' arguments and confirmation that Meyer's basic point was correct: the sudden appearance of Cambrian animals in the fossil layer cannot be explained through Darwinian/neoDarwinian evolution, nor through any other non-intelligent materialistic causes.  An Intelligent Designer is the proper inference to the Cambrian fossil record.

Most secular scientists believe in the (naturalistic) Big Bang theory (BBT) of the origin of the universe. However, this theory has huge scientific problems.

Producer Spike Psarris explains the BBT, and also the reasons why scientists keep trying to desperately patch it up, with unobserved/unobservable entities like "inflation", "dark matter", "dark energy", and "multiverses". He shows how the BBT is very unscientific, in that it contradicts known science such as the conservation of matter/energy, it postulates unobservable entities and 'miracles', and sweeps away the philosophical foundation of science: the assumption of an orderly, cause-and-effect universe. He includes a hilarious (and well-documented) discussion of "Boltzmann Brains", another aspect of the self-refuting nature of the BBT. He concludes with a brief explanation and celebration of the main alternative theory - the Genesis 1 story, that God created the heavens. He did not get into the starlight-time-travel problem in this DVD but said it would come in his next DVD. (There are good articles explaining this at creation.com and elsewhere, via time-dilation or space-stretching hypotheses.)

He nicely distinguishes the scientific, measureable facts observed in the skies (redshifts, blueshifts, spectral signatures, gravity waves, etc) from the interpretations people make about those facts. Last week's announcement about LIGO's discovery of gravitational waves is an example of real science (measureable, testable, repeatable), in contrast to the practically-unfalsifiable continually-patched-up LCDM BBT.

It's worth buying a copy of the DVD and watching it... Let me know if you'd like to borrow a copy from me...

This fun new 20-minute video from the Discovery Institute illustrates the question of "where did the information inside living cells come from?"   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA-FcnLsF1g

If even ONE single stable protein of practical biological length could not have formed by chance processes during the history of life on earth, much less a biologically functional protein, much less the hundreds of proteins necessary for new functional types of cells and new body plans, why do evolutionists keep insisting that all biological information was formed this way?

(Not even to mention the improbability of getting the first living cell from nonliving chemicals, and problems like Haldane’s dilemma of how to spread genes throughout the population within the short time of the Cambrian Explosion and Sanford’s dilemma of how to prevent genetic entropy from overwhelming beneficial mutations with harmful ones)...

(Not to mention, in a naturalistic scenario, why would one hold to the unscientific view that matter/energy appeared out of nothing, thus breaking all the laws of thermodynamics and scientific method causality?)

The failure of naturalistic theories like neodarwinian evolution to explain the origin of the  information built into living cells has long pointed instead to a Designer (and in my understanding, the best candidate is the God of the Bible, because there is actual evidence for His existence... such as the resurrection of Jesus from the dead...).

http://pleaseconvinceme.com/2013/the-minimal-facts-of-the-resurrection/

http://www.reasonsforgod.org/the-best-reasons/the-resurrection/

http://worldviewofjesus.com/2013/02/03/minimal-facts-argument-for-the-resurrection-of-jesus-Christ/