This is Dr. Jason Gastrich's opening statement from his second debate with Eddie Tabash.  This debate took place on February 25, 2007 at CFI West in Hollywood, California.  You can watch or hear this debate by finding the appropriate links on this page.

1. The resurrection

I brought up the resurrection in our last debate, but Eddie didn’t reply to the issue. He confused it and compared it to Islam. Let me explain again why the resurrection is a unique, historical event that must be true.

We find in historical documents that all but one of Jesus’ apostles and many of the early disciples died horrible deaths.

Matthew was martyred in Ethiopia. John was boiled in oil, yet lived. James was thrown to his death from the Temple because he wouldn’t deny Christ. Bartholomew (also known as Nathaniel) was flayed to death with a whip for preaching the gospel. Andrew was tortured and crucified on an X-shaped cross for preaching the gospel. Thomas was stabbed with a spear on one of his missionary trips, as he was trying to set up a church. Matthias was stoned and beheaded for his faith. Paul was tortured and beheaded for his faith.

The important fact that Eddie missed or ignored is this: All of these men were witnesses of either the resurrection or a hoax. They were there! Eddie wants us to believe that they witnessed a hoax, continued to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ (which would be absurd in itself), were tortured, and died a horrible death for their faith in something THEY KNEW was a lie.

On the other hand, it’s much more reasonable to conclude that these apostles and disciples witnessed a legitimate resurrection by the living Christ, causing them to stand firm in their faith, despite the consequences. How else could you account for all of them going to their grave because they refused to deny Christ?

Since many people who could verify whether the resurrection was true or false decided to die for their belief in the resurrection, this becomes strong evidence for the resurrection.

2. Near death experiences

In 1989, atheistic philosopher Sir Alfred (A.J.) Ayer had a near death experience. He was in intensive care from a bout with pneumonia. His heart had stopped for four minutes and he had a "very vivid" experience. He said, "I was confronted by a red light, exceedingly bright, and also very painful even when I turned away from it. I was aware that this light was responsible for the government of the universe. I also had the motive of finding a way to extinguish the painful light." He also said that there were two other creatures who were said to be in charge of space that were present. This experience would seem to correlate with the scriptures. God is called the light in both testaments and the trinity or the triune Godhead (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit) are all present and in charge.

Gary Habermas and JP Moreland wrote a very interesting book called Immortality (the newer edition is called Beyond Death). It talks about near death experiences or NDEs and it shows how these accounts lend credibility to life after death. Many scientific studies have been done and books have been written on NDEs by psychologists such as Karlis Osis, Erlendur Haraldson, and Kenneth Ring, cardiologist Michael Sabom, and pediatrician Melvin Morse.

These accounts include:

1) People with no brain activity and in a coma, somehow leaving their body and seeing their family at home and recalling what they were doing, wearing, saying, and eating

2) People who had loved ones who had died, unbeknownst to them, and in their last moments, they saw these people and felt comforted

3) People who saw friends and relatives that had died

4) A girl who had a near-death experience during heart surgery said she saw her brother, but she never knew any brother. And her Dad told her that she actually did have a brother who died before she was born.

Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross was a well-respected, Swiss psychiatrist who wrote over 20 books on death and dying and she was awarded 20 honorary degrees. She is the one who originally penned the Five Stages of Grief (or the Kubler-Ross Model), which is denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Here is a moving and evidential, near death experience from Immortality, which quoted Kubler-Ross and her account:

"In a family who experienced a fiery car wreck and the mother died at the scene. Her two sons were taken to two different hospitals. While Kubler-Ross sat at the bedside of the youngest child, he came out of his coma during a commonly observed "clear moment." Although in considerable pain, the child was quiet and at peace.

The doctor asked him how he felt. The little boy responded, "Yes, everything is all right now. Mommy and Peter are already waiting for me." Then, with a contented little smile, he lapsed back into his coma and died. But he had not been told that the other members of his family had already expired. Then as Kubler-Ross walked past the nursing station, she was told that a call had just come in from the other hospital telling them that Peter, the older brother, had died just minutes earlier."

After investigating cases like this all over the world, Kubler-Ross came to this remarkable conclusion:

"In all the years that I have quietly collected data . . . every single child who mentioned that someone was waiting for them mentioned a person who had actually preceded them in death, even if by only a few moments. And yet none of these children had been informed of the recent death of the relatives by us at any time."

Maybe the phrase "I see dead people" should be re-examined and considered a bit more closely.

For more on NDEs, see Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ "On Children and Death", Melvin Morse’s "Closer to the Light", Osis and Haraldsson’s "At the Hour of Death", Michael Sabom’s "Recollection of Death", or Kenneth Ring’s "Life at Death: A Scientific Investigation of the Near-Death Experience". They’ll all indicate the same thing: that there is indeed life after death.

Since people who were pronounced clinically dead, with no heart beat, vital signs, or brain activity were able to see people who had died and see other events that happened elsewhere, we conclude that there is life after death.

3. Scientific arguments for God's existence

1. Where did the space for the universe come from?

2. Where did matter come from?

3. Where did the laws of the universe come from (like gravity and inertia)?

4. How did matter get so perfectly organized?

5. Where did the energy come from to do all the organizing?

6. When, where, why, and how did life come from dead matter?

7. When, where, why, and how did life learn to reproduce itself?

8. With what did the first cell capable of sexual reproduction reproduce?

9. Why would any plant or animal want to reproduce more of its kind since this would only make more mouths to feed and decrease the chances of survival? (Does the individual have a drive to survive, or the species? How do you explain this?)

10. How can mutations (or recombining of the genetic code) create any new, improved varieties? (Recombining English letters will never produce Chinese books.)

11. Is it possible that similarities in design between different animals prove a common Creator instead of a common ancestor?

12. Natural selection only works with the genetic information available and tends only to keep a species stable. How would you explain the increasing complexity in the genetic code that must have occurred if evolution were true?

13. When, where, why, and how did

a. Single-celled plants become multi-celled? (Where are the two and three-celled intermediates?)

b. Single-celled animals evolve?

c. Fish change to amphibians?

d. Amphibians change to reptiles?

e. Reptiles change to birds? (The lungs, bones, eyes, reproductive organs, heart, method of locomotion, and body covering are all very different!)

f. How did the intermediate forms live?

14. When, where, why, how, and from what did:

a. Whales evolve?

b. Sea horses evolve?

c. Bats evolve?

d. Eyes evolve?

e. Ears evolve?

f. Hair, skin, feathers, scales, nails, and claws evolve?

15. Which evolved first (how, and how long, did it work without the others)?

a. The digestive system, the food to be digested, the appetite, the ability to find and eat the food, the digestive juices, or the body’s resistance to its own digestive juice (stomach, intestines, etc.)?

b. The drive to reproduce or the ability to reproduce?

c. The lungs, the mucus lining to protect them, the throat, or the perfect mixture of gases to be breathed into the lungs?

d. DNA or RNA to carry the DNA message to cell parts?

e. The termite or the flagella in its intestines that actually digest the cellulose?

f. The plants or the insects that live on and pollinate the plants?

g. The bones, ligaments, tendons, blood supply, or muscles to move the bones?

h. The nervous system, repair system, or hormone system?

i. The immune system or the need for it?

16. There are many thousands of examples of symbiosis that defy an evolutionary explanation. Why must we teach students that evolution is the only explanation for these relationships?

17. How would evolution explain mimicry? Did the plants and animals develop mimicry by chance, by their intelligent choice, or by design?

18. When, where, why, and how did man evolve feelings? Love, mercy, and guilt would never evolve in the theory of evolution.

19. How did photosynthesis evolve?

20. How did thought evolve?

21. How did flowering plants evolve, and from what?

22. What kind of evolutionist are you? Why are you not one of the other eight or ten kinds?

23. What would you have said fifty years ago if I told you I had a living coelacanth in my aquarium?

24. Is there one clear prediction of macroevolution that has proved true?

25. What is so scientific about the idea of hydrogen gas becoming human?

26. Do you honestly believe that everything came from nothing?

After you’ve answered those questions, please think about your answers and thoughtfully consider the following questions.

1. Are you sure your answers are reasonable, right, and scientifically provable, or do you just believe that it may have happened the way you have answered? (Do these answers reflect your religion or your science?)

2. Do your answers show more or less faith than the person who says, "God must have designed it"?

3. Is it possible that an unseen Creator designed this universe? If God is excluded at the beginning of the discussion by your definition of science, how could it be shown that He did create the universe if He did?

4. Is it wise and fair to present the theory of evolution to students as fact?

5. What is the end result of a belief in evolution (lifestyle, society, attitude about others, eternal destiny, etc.)?

6. Do people accept evolution because of the following factors?

a. It is all they have been taught.

b. They like the freedom from God (no moral absolutes, etc.).

c. They are bound to support the theory for fear of losing their job or status or grade point average.

d. They are too proud to admit they are wrong.

e. Evolution is the only philosophy that can be used to justify their political agenda.

7. Should we continue to use outdated, disproved, questionable, or inconclusive evidences to support the theory of evolution because we don’t have a suitable substitute (Piltdown man, recapitulation, archaeopteryx, Lucy, Java man, Neanderthal man, horse evolution, and vestigial organs)?

8. Should parents be allowed to require that evolution not be taught as fact in their school system unless equal time is given to other theories of origins (like divine creation)?

9. What are you risking if you are wrong? An unbeliever once said, "Either there is a God or there is not. Both possibilities are frightening."

10. Why are many evolutionists afraid of the idea of creationism being presented in public schools? If we are not supposed to teach religion in schools, then why not get evolution out of the textbooks? It is just a religious worldview.

11. Aren’t you tired of faith in a system that cannot be true? Wouldn’t it be great to know the God who made you, and to accept His love and forgiveness?

12. Would you be interested, if I showed you from the Bible, how to have your sins forgiven and how to know for sure that you are going to Heaven? If so, call me. And if you’d like to see read these questions and consider them, you can find them at http://mustsee.jcsm.org.

The bottom line is this: Evolution is not a good theory — it’s just a pagan religion masquerading as science.

Since these questions cannot be answered by modern science and since the theory of evolution isn’t a valid or tenable theory of our origins, we conclude that divine creation is true.