godsquadgeek
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Many have lost faith due to lack of apologetics. In polar express a boy deals with doubt too. many of us like the little boy in polar express started out our journey not believing in Jesus, but somehow someone put us on a train and brought us to Jesus to see for ourselves who this man is. For the boy, it meant seeing all those who believe, and mustering up the faith he needed to see for himself. But many won't do that with Jesus. We have to build an argument of facts that allows them to see what it is we believe in and why.
Peter stoner in his book Science Speaks
Online Ed. Professor P.Stoner’s work “science speaks-ch 3)
PETER W. STONER, M.S.
Chairman of the Departments of Mathematics and Astronomy at Pasadena City College until 1953; Chairman of the science division, Westmont College, 1953-57; Professor Emeritus of Science, Westmont College; Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Astronomy, Pasadena City College.
The Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship at Pasadena City College sponsored a class in Christian evidences. One section of the work of this class was to consider the evidence produced by the fulfilled prophecies referring to the first advent of Christ. The students were asked to be very conservative in their probability estimates. They discussed each prophecy at length, bringing out various conditions which might affect the probability of any man fulfilling it. After discussion, the students agreed unanimously on a definite estimate as being both reasonable and conservative. At the end of the evaluations the students expressed their feelings thus: If any one were able to enter into the discussions and help in placing the estimates, as they had done, that person would certainly agree that the estimates were conservative. The estimates used in this chapter are a combination of the estimates given by this class on Christian evidences combined with estimates given me later by some twelve different classes of college students, representing more than 600 students. I have carefully weighed the estimates and have changed some to make them more conservative. If the reader does not agree with the estimates given, he may make his own estimates and then carry them through to their logical conclusions.
The class then studied a simple eight prophecies of Christ. (each prophecy is explained in the book in detail)
If these estimates are considered fair, one man in how many men, the world over, will fulfill all eight prophecies? This question can be answered by applying our principles of probability. In other words, by multiplying all of our estimates together, or 1 in 2.8 x 105 x 103 x 102 x 103 x 105 x 103 x 104. This gives 1 in 2.8 x 1028, where 28 means that we have 28 ciphers following the 2.8. Let us simplify and reduce the number by calling it 10 to the 28th power. Written out this number is 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
This is the answer to the question: One man in how many men has fulfilled these eight prophecies? But we are really concerned with the answer to the question: What is the chance that any man might have lived from the day of these prophecies down to the present time and have fulfilled all of the eight prophecies? We can answer this question by dividing our 10 to the 28th power by the total number of people who have lived since the time of these prophecies. The best information available indicates the number to be about 88 billion or 8.8 x 10 to the 10th power.
To simplify the computation let us call the number 10 to the 11th power. By dividing these two numbers we find that the chance that any man might have lived down to the present time and fulfilled all eight prophecies is 1 in 10 to the 17th power.
Editor's note: It is probable that 88 billion or 8.8 x 10 to the 10th power assumes a growth rate for the earth's population which is much too small - that most of the people who have ever lived are still alive today - suggesting that this number may be too large by a factor of ten. If so, this will affect the final result by the same factor of ten; ten times fewer total people who might have fulfilled these prophecies means only one tenth the chance that one of them might have done it by accident. Our number would become 10 to the 18th power instead of 10 to the 17th power. The number used in this book is very conservative.
source: http://sciencespeaks.dstoner.net/Christ_of_Prophecy.html#c9