Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Colossians 2:8

There are lots of belief systems in this world competing with the God's Word. One of mankind's favorite things to do is to explore this world and try to figure out why things are and how they work. God gave man a lively imagination that can help solve problems ranging from designing art to designing practical devices. Unfortunately, some philosophers use it to design systems of beliefs that do not line up with the way God designed the world to work.

Wisdom is not the same thing as intelligence. There are many intelligent people whose native gift in intellect is wasted by an indiscriminate pursuit of knowledge. They think that accumulating any information is a valuable education, without stopping to consider whether the source of that information is a worthwhile one to explore.

Some beliefs are obviously wrong. It is clear that the Earth is not flat, even though that was once a widely held belief. Yet the Bible says in Isaiah 40:22

It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the Earth; and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. . .

and in Job 26:6 says

He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the Earth upon nothing. . .

God inspired these two men to write about the true shape and suspension of the Earth in empty space long before mankind ever developed astronomy and space flight to confirm now evident scientific fact. Astronomers search the vast distances of space for information about the universe and its beginning. They launch enormously expensive space telescopes to gather information more clearly than they can obtain from an Earth telescope, and puzzle over the results. They propose one theory after another, and never seem to come to an understanding of the One Who made it all from their scientific efforts.

Physicists probe matter for the smallest particles they can find to explain how larger ones are made. They build more powerful particle accelerators searching for the ultimate building blocks of matter, as well as an answer to the "Big Bang" that started it all. They keep coming closer to the mathematical solution that ties it all together, but never consider that the ultimate solution is the acknowledgement of the One who created everything out of nothing to begin it all.

As biologists study the life forms on Earth, their incredible complexity puts evolution at increasing doubt. The more deeply biologists probe into the structure and chemical functions within living cells, the more improbable it becomes that there is any way that these cells came into existence except from the hand of an all wise Creator. The ignorance of scientists in Darwin's time made the theory of evolution plausible, the increasing knowledge of scientists in our time makes it increasingly implausible.

The creation around us, from the farthest flung galaxies to the smallest living creatures, are a testimony to the existence and greatness of God. The starry heavens show an order in their travels that is so mathematically precise that the positions of celestial bodies can be predicted with great accuracy far into the future. The seasons repeat predictably year after year on our planet, a world tailor-made for human life to exist. Despite repeated attempts to find new worlds suitable for human habitation, no other planet has been found where humans could colonize it without extensive life support systems. Indeed, no other planet has been found where any life of any form has been proven. It exists only here on Earth.

Similarly, when man's philosophies about his origin, psychology, sociology, and governments are compared to God's Word, any differences between the two always come out in God's favor, not man's favor. To make up philosophies about mankind without looking at what the Bible has to say is rather like trying to figure out how your car runs without consulting the manufacturer's manual. You might guess right and congratulate yourself on your cleverness, but it would be so much easier to just read what God had to say about it in the first place.

One of the main driving forces behind both evolution and atheism is the wish to deny the existence of a Higher Power that might stop a person from doing everything he wants to do. There is an innate wish for freedom in every human being that is warped by sin into a wish for total control over one's life no matter what harm that might bring to others. Every parent who has had to deal with a rebellious child wanting to do something sure to harm himself has dealt with this. Every police officer and judge who has dealt with a defiant lawbreaker who is repeatedly arrested for one crime after another has dealt with this. Even something so small as a neighbor who spitefully blows his leaves onto your yard and refuses to stop doing it is an expression of this.

Mankind tries to deal with this by passing law after law after law, only to find that the new laws don't help any more than the old ones did. He tries education programs, only to find that people just know more about the harm that their bad habits cause without necessarily changing them a bit. The problem isn't one of enforcement or ignorance. It is a sin problem, but the atheists try to solve that by getting rid of God. Unfortunately, that doesn't get rid of sin.

Don't be deceived into relying on man's wisdom without checking the ultimate source of wisdom first. Man's intelligence is a poor reflection of His Creator's mind, and all too often is distorted by pride and overconfidence in his abilities. The Institute for Creation Research, www.icr.org, is dedicated to the scientific study of evidence supporting the Biblical account of creation. Examine their data with an open mind, and you will find credible grounds in the available data to support the Creation model. The evolutionary model of creation is on increasingly shaky ground as scientists try their utmost to unravel the secrets of the beginnings of life and of the universe. God told us the truth of our origins in the Bible.