We may argue about whether God is possible. But the Bible doesn't argue about this, because God is the one speaking!
In the Bible, God is not just a concept or idea, He is a historical character whom people have met.
When we use science we are doing experiments and calculations about the present world. But we are not doing experiments in the past. Some who believe in evolution argue that we should make guesses about the past based on the present. This philosophy is called "uniformitarianism" they say "the present is the key to the past". 1
The problem with that idea is that you can't know.... what you don't know. If you are in the basement of your house, how do you know what the clouds look like over the roof?
We did not observe and do experiments millions or billions of years ago; because we were not there. Our only ability to observe the past is through history. History is the records or accounts of people from the past. When we look at the past here is what we find. Most of the history outside of the Bible starts getting hazy if it were recorded before 800BC.2 In other words we may hear about something thousands of years ago. But we don't have any timeline to prove that the writer is giving us a legitamite account. (for instance writing a genealogy) The historical records that we do have stop nearly 5,000 years ago.3 The only historical record we have that goes further is the Bible which according to it's records and geneologies goes back 6,000 years ago.
The other ancient accounts have a lot of similarities. They believe in a world wide flood, they have similar geneologies and they believe there were giant reptiles(dinosaurs) they called dragons. also they believe in one creator God. The chinese used to pay homage to their god "shang di" which sounds similer the most high God "el shaddai" a name for the God of the bible.4
We don't find stories of "goo to you" evolution. You never see cave paintings about when the monkey decided to become a man!
When we look at the Bible we know that God was real because real people talked to Him. In the Garden of Eden, God talked to Adam and Eve and the snake simultaneously. Then their were conversations with Cain and Abel. We see God sending messages to the prophets for the next 1500 years. We have millions of other accounts of God speaking and millions and millions more of people feeling God's presence. But here at the start we see God having a conversation with two people at once.
The Bible considers itself to be factual. psalm12:6 The words of the Lord are pure words:
as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
7 Thou shalt keep them, O Lord,
thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.
The bible discourages people from believing in mythology.
2Timothy 4:2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
Colossians 2:18 Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
In fact, when Rome took over the world they hired a Jewish historian by the name of "Josephus." 5 He gave them a giant volume of the history of the jewish people and his records are completely in harmony with the Old Testament. So the old Testament was admitted to be a factual historical account.
Later in England, there was a genius historian named arch bishoip James Usher. 6 He compared all of the historical records biblical and pagan. Still siding with the biblical view of history.
But what about the pagan creation stories and myths? Early on in Greek societies there were many ancient geniuses who we know as philosophers. The ones before the time of the philosopher Socrates we call "pre-socratic".7 They helped developed mathematics and many other disciplines of study. When they studied the poets and myths. They came to realize that there beliefs in many gods was irrational. they realized that these stories were made up and had not factual value. Even though there were lots of good morals and entertaining stories. They also decided not to believe in atheistic materialism(the idea that every thing is the same substance and there is no god.) The reason being that you could never exceed what you have observed. This was illustrated in the parable called the toroise and achilles. 8
So the history of the pagans was debunked or disproved. The history of the evolutionists was never recorded and proved to be irrational. And the history of the jews would soon take over the ancient world as the truth. As far as creation itself, God told us that He did it, and I think He is a credible eye witness!
1.http://biblesmack.blogspot.com/2013_02_01_archive.html
2.http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/tj/v12/n1/chronology
3."Civilization, as historians identify it, first emerged between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago when people began to live in organized communities with distinct political, military economic and social structures. Religious, intellectual, and artistic activities also assumed important functions in these early societies."
"Although Historians use documents to create their pictures of the past, such written records do not exist for the prehistory of humankind. Consequently, the story of early humanity depends on archaeological and more recently biological information, which anthropologists use t create theories about our early past. Although modern science has fostered the development of more precise methods, much of our understanding of early humans relies upon considerable conjecture."
Comprehensive Volume WORLD HISTORY by William Duiker and Jackson J. Spielvogel
As far as Biblical history and the ancient texts the Bible...
"It is the most
http://biblesmack.blogspot.com/2013_07_01_archive.html
4.http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v20/n3/china
5.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus
6.http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v20/n2/archbishop
7.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-socratic_philosophy
8.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes
