For centuries many scientist believed the universe had always existed. The scientific position was that the universe was static and had simply existed forever. But then in 1929 Edwin Hubble looked through his telescope and made some scientific observations regarding the length of lightwaves and what he observed in the universe. Hubble discovered that light in the universe was not uniformly static but in the blue-red spectrum, there was a "Red Shift" in light. In other words, the lightwaves of distant stars were longer than scientists had thought. Like the Doppler Effect has sound waves that are longer/shorter/longer as a car or motorcycle speeds toward and then past us, the light waves were longer indicating the universe was expanding. Accordingly, if one was to run the "expansion" time clock backwards, the universe had a point where it (space, time, and matter) had a beginning. It was just in the recent twentieth century that science understood, and affirmed, that the universe had a beginning.

The book of Genesis in the Bible is widely accepted to be written by Moses in the early 1400's B.C. In the very first verse of the Bible we read in Genesis 1:1,"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Here we see the beginning of: Time - "In the beginning;" Space - "the heavens;" and Matter - "the earth."

Thousands of years ago, God's word proclaimed for all to know that the universe (time, space, and matter) had a beginning - and got it exactly right! In reality, it took science millennia to catch up. The Bible also identified the Cause of the universe as being transcendent, supernatural, all-powerful, eternal, infinite God - and got it exactly right.

Here see clearly that science has not disproved, but has affirmed the Bible!

In the Bible the book of Isaiah was believed to be penned in the 600s B.C. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 22 tells us that God is the one who stretches out, expands, the universe, "Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in." (Isaiah 40:22c)

Here we see the heavens are expanding, being stretched out like a curtain but even more so like a voluminous tent in which one dwells in!

In Isaiah 45:12 the Bible tells us of God, "It is I who made the earth and created mankind upon it. My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts." (NIV) Clearly the Bible stated more than once that the universe is expanding. The vastness of space is stretching as the universe expands.

Thousands of years ago, God's word proclaimed for all to know that the universe was expanding - and got it exactly right! It just took scientists unto the twentieth century to catch up.

Here see clearly that science has not disproved, but has affirmed the Bible!

There was a point when cultures believed that "time" was unlimited and has always existed. Then scientists came to understand that the universe had a beginning, meaning that "time" had a beginning.

What does the Bible say about "time," and does the Bible say that "time" has always been or that, as scientists believe, "time" had a beginning? Speaking of God, we read in 2 Timothy 1:9, "who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began."

The apostle Paul wrote in Titus 1:2, "in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began."

Clearly the Bible states clearly that "time" has not always been, but had a beginning - and the Bible got it exactly right. Once again we see that science has not disproved the Bible, but affirmed the Bible when it finally caught up.

Who was around prior to the existence of time and had the intelligence, will, and power to bring the universe and time into existence? The God of the Bible and no one else.

It wasn't until the early 1500's that Magellan was the first person to, technically, circumnavigate the earth. In 1492, when Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, many people of the time thought that if he sailed far enough, Columbus would sail off the edge of the flat earth. But science and technology have confirmed for us that indeed the earth is not a flat plane, but is instead a round circle or sphere. Many cultures believed the earth was flat and this was taught in both Hinduism and Buddhism.

What does the Bible say about the shape of the earth? In the book of Isaiah, penned in the 600s B.C., we read in the first part of Isaiah 40:22, speaking about God, "It is He who sits above the circle of the earth." (Isaiah 40:22a) Wow! Here the word "circle" entails that which is defined like vault, horizon. In other words a sphere! All one had to do was read this passage and believe it, for God's word tells us that the world is not flat but is a circular sphere.

Cultures used to believe that the earth was held up on the back of a giant man or on the back of a giant turtle. One could imagine those holding to a flat earth concluding that some type of pillars or legs must be holding the flat earth in place. Other teachings pointed to a giant man (Atlas?) or the back of a great elephant. Before the advancement of technology and modern science, what might you have believed held up their earth? The book Myths and Legends states, "When one examines the writings of the Hindu, Buddhist or Greek pagan worships, for example, one finds clear reference to the concept of the earth being held up by a man, elephant, catfish, or some other physical support." The Greek mythology claims that "Atlas" held the earth up.

In what many assert as the the oldest book in the Bible (penned around 2100-2000 B.C.?), speaking about God we read in Job 26:7, "He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing."

Once again we see the Bible telling us that the universe is expanding, and we read that God "hangs the earth on nothing." While many could only speculate and science could not confirm for millennia, the Bible affirmed that it was God that hung the earth, and that God hangs the earth on nothing - no pillars, no mythological man, no false animals. It is an amazing claim that something hangs on nothing, no support below and no rope or cable above. This is an amazing truth fo the Bible given thousands of years ago - and the Bible got it exactly right!

For thousands of years people wrongly attributed the weather to a false "thunder god, rain god, or god of lightening." People did not understand the reality of how the world's weather systems work. There are predictable weather patterns (giving your local weather forecaster the benefit of the doubt), change of seasons, jet streams circling the globe, high and low pressure systems, etc.? Modern meteorology and technology have given us weather satellites and pictures from the space station and many advances to help us better understand how Earth's weather patterns work.

What does the Bible say when it speaks of God establishing the earth and meteorology? In the book of Ecclesiastes (possibly written around 950 B.C.) in chapter one, verses 6-7 we read, "The wind goes toward the south, And turns around to the north; The wind whirls about continually, And comes again on its circuit. All the rivers run into the sea, Yet the sea is not full; To the place from which the rivers come, There they return again." Here the Bible clearly affirms the reality of weather systems that are in motion around the earth - and the Bible got it exactly right!

We also read in Job 26:8, "He binds up the water in His thick clouds, Yet the clouds are not broken under it." Here we see the reality of how evaporation and rain works, not by some false "rain god," but just as God has established and how was made known thousands of years ago - and the Bible got it exactly right!

Even today, in the twenty-first century, many will try to tell you that the unborn baby is not human but is a glob of tissue. This argument for abortion has been around for a long time. But what does Science say to us and about us who were conceived in our mother's womb?

It wasn't until 1953 that Watson and Crick discovered the amazing double-helix DNA structure and it was until 2001 that the Human Genome Project produced its first report. The complexity and amount of information in the intricate double-helix DNA is truly amazing. Wikipedia tells us "The human genome is the complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoded as DNA within the 23 chromosome pairs in cell nuclei and in a small DNA molecule found within individual mitochondria. The total length of the human genome is over 3 billion base pairs. The genome is organized into 22 paired chromosomes, plus the X chromosome (one in males, two in females) and, in males only, one Y chromosome." The intricacy and complexity of our molecular fabric is truly amazing.

What does the Bible say about our molecular fabric? Psalm 139:13, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." (NIV)

Psalm 139:13, "For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb." (NASB)

Notice the words "knit" or "wove." These wonderfully describe and help us picture in our mind the strands of DNA that are there at conception - human DNA, our molecular fabric knit and woven together by God. The genetic information of this human being is there, knit or woven as the Psalmist pointed out millennia ago. The Bible addressed this and it has only been recently that science has caught up and show us once again - the Bible got it right!

A common treatment just a few hundred years ago was the medical treatment of "bloodletting." Medical science and doctors practiced bloodletting with an understanding that it would treat or cure disease. This practice of bloodletting was used as recent as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - and at times they even used leaches to literally suck the blood from a patient!

Perhaps the most famous incident of bloodletting was that used to treat George Washington. Early on the morning of December 14, 1799, Washington suddenly awoke with severe difficulty breathing and swallowing. George Washington was a firm believer in bloodletting and promptly ordered estate overseer George Rawlins to remove nearly a pint of his blood. Three physicians were also summoned, including his personal physician Dr. James Craik, along with Dr. Gustavus Brown and Dr. Elisha Dick. Craik and Brown thought that Washington had “quinsey" or "quincy", while Dick thought that the condition was a more serious "violent inflammation of the throat". By the time the three physicians finished their treatments and bloodletting, half or more of George Washington's blood content was removed over the course of a few hours. Dick recognized that the bloodletting and other treatments were failing, and he proposed performing an emergency tracheotomy as a last-ditch effort to save Washington's life, but the other two doctors disapproved. Tragically, George Washington died that very night, around 10:00 p.m., December 14, 1799. (Source: Wikipedia article)

While this practice may seem barbaric and medieval to us, especially to be practiced into the nineteenth century, what hematological guidance does the Bible teach? We only have to look to Leviticus 17:13-14 to see what the Jews were told from God thousands of years ago, "Whatever man of the children of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who hunts and catches any animal or bird that may be eaten, he shall pour out its blood and cover it with dust; for it is the life of all flesh. Its blood sustains its life. Therefore I said to the children of Israel, 'You shall not eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off.'"

The life of all flesh is in the blood, and when you remove significant amounts of a person's blood, you are not healing the person but removing their very life when you drain, or "let," their blood!

This medical fact was repeated again in Deuteronomy 12:22-23, "Just as the gazelle and the deer are eaten, so you may eat them; the unclean and the clean alike may eat them. Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life; you may not eat the life with the meat." The Bible stated the fact, the truth, "the blood is the life."

Once again we see an area of science where for centuries medical science got it wrong, but the Bible presented the correct facts. Today, modern medicine does not practice bloodletting, but instead seeks to save a life by giving a person more blood - lifesaving blood - through a blood transfusion. It took science millennia to catch up to the accuracy and correctness of the Bible - because the Bible had it right all along!

Your college or university professor, or today even your high school teacher, may not ever tell you this, but some of the most brilliant scientists that have ever lived, and some who are alive today... believed in God! These brilliant minds know that science has not disproved the Bible or the existence of God. Indeed, many were motivated by God's creation to explore and learn more, not only about the created universe, but for some to know God more. They sought to discover and investigate and do research in scientific fields, not because the were atheist, but because they were theists, these brilliant individuals believed in God and in the truths and reality presented in God's word. And this motivated them to explore God's creation!

Indeed, a Pew Research Survey in 2009 revealed that 33% of scientists today believe in God. Don't expect your professor to share or embrace this fact, but it is reality - one out of every three scientists in the United States professed believing in God. Wait for it... another 18% stated while not believing in "God," they believed in a "higher power!" And another 7% replied to the survey with "Don't Know" or didn't/wouldn't answer. In fact, according to this Pew Research Survey, less than half, 41% was the number that said they didn't believe in God - less than half! (source: http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/)

Who were some of these famous scientists who believed in God and of many who's faith motivated them in their field of scientific expertise? Let's look at some of them now:

Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) - Copernicus was the Polish astronomer who put forward the first mathematically based system of planets going around the sun. He attended various European universities, and became a Canon in the Catholic church in 1497. Copernicus referred sometimes to God in his works, and did not see his system as in conflict with the Bible.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) - Kepler was a brilliant mathematician and astronomer whose work established the laws of planetary motion about the sun. Kepler was an extremely sincere and pious Lutheran, whose works on astronomy contain writings about how space and the heavenly bodies represent the Holy Trinity of the Godhead.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) - Galileo is often remembered for his conflict with the Roman Catholic Church. His controversial work on the solar system was published in 1633. Galileo expressly said that the Bible cannot err, and saw his system as an alternate interpretation of the biblical texts.

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) - Descartes was a French mathematician, scientist and philosopher who has been called the father of modern philosophy. He had a deep religious faith as a Roman Catholic, which he retained to his dying day, along with a resolute, passionate desire to discover the truth. His system began by asking what could be known if all else were doubted - suggesting the famous "I think therefore I am". Actually, it is often forgotten that the next step for Descartes was to establish the near certainty of the existence of God - for only if God both exists and would not want us to be deceived by our experiences - can we trust our senses and logical thought processes. God is, therefore, central to his whole philosophy.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) - Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and theologian. In mathematics, he published a treatise on the subject of projective geometry and established the foundation for probability theory. He was raised a Roman Catholic, but in 1654 had a religious vision of God, which turned the direction of his study from science to theology. Pascal began publishing a theological work, Lettres provinciales, in 1656. His most influential theological work, the Pens?es ("Thoughts"), was a defense of Christianity.

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) - In optics, mechanics, and mathematics, Newton was a figure of undisputed genius and innovation. Known for discovering gravity, it should be noted that long before calculators and computers, Newton invented Calculus. Newton was devoutly religious and saw numbers as involved in understanding God's plan for history from the Bible. In his system of physics, God was essential to the nature and absoluteness of space. In Principia he stated, "The most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."

Robert Boyle (1791-1867) - One of the founders and key early members of the Royal Society, Boyle gave his name to "Boyle's Law" for gases, and also wrote an important work on chemistry. As a devout Protestant, Boyle took a special interest in promoting the Christian religion abroad, giving money to translate and publish the New Testament into Irish and Turkish. In 1690 he developed his theological views in The Christian Virtuoso, which he wrote to show that the study of nature was a central religious duty." Boyle wrote against atheists in his day (the notion that atheism is a modern invention is a myth), and was clearly much more devoutly Christian than the average in his era.

Michael Faraday (1791-1867) - Michael Faraday was the son of a blacksmith who became one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century. His work on electricity and magnetism not only revolutionized physics, but led to much of our lifestyles today, which depends on them (including computers and telephone lines and, so, web sites). Faraday was a devoutly Christian member of the Sandemanians, which significantly influenced him and strongly affected the way in which he approached and interpreted nature.

William Kelvin (1824-1907) - Kelvin was foremost among the small group of British scientists who helped to lay the foundations of modern physics. Lord Kelvin was a very committed Christian, who was certainly more religious than the average for his era. Interestingly, his fellow physicists George Gabriel Stokes (1819-1903) and James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) were also men of deep Christian commitment

Max Planck (1858-1947) - Planck made many contributions to physics, but is best known for quantum theory, which revolutionized our understanding of the atomic and sub-atomic worlds. Planck was a churchwarden from 1920 until his death, and believed in an almighty, all-knowing, beneficent God (though not necessarily a personal one). Both science and religion wage a "tireless battle against skepticism and dogmatism, against unbelief and superstition" with the goal "toward God!"

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) - Albert Einstein is probably the best known and most highly respected scientist of the twentieth century, and is associated with major revolutions in our thinking about time, gravity, and the conversion of matter to energy (E=mc2). Although never coming to belief in a personal God, he recognized the impossibility of a non-created universe. The Encyclopedia Britannica says of him: "Firmly denying atheism, Einstein expressed a belief in "Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists." This actually motivated his interest in science, as he once remarked to a young physicist: "I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details." Einstein's famous epithet on the "uncertainty principle" was "God does not play dice" - and to him this was a real statement about a God in whom he believed.

Francis Collins (1950-Present) - Francis S. Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, the world’s largest collaborative biological project, is a scientist and believer and finds no conflict between those worlds. However, the former atheist didn’t always embrace these perspectives. It wasn’t until he went to medical school and encountered life and death issues at the bedside of his patients where he was constantly challenged with the question “what do you believe, doctor?” that he began searching for those answers. Through that journey, he found Jesus Christ. Collins has led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, Collins said he sees DNA as “the information of all living things, as God’s language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God’s plan.”

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) - It may be surprising but the scientist did believe in God and believed there could be a relationship between faith and science, quoted saying “I have never denied the existence of God. I think the theory of evolution is fully compatible with faith in God. I think the greatest argument for the existence in God is the impossibility of demonstrating and understanding that the immense universe, sublime above all measure, and man were the result of chance.”

Source: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/sciencefaith.html and www.beliefnet.com regarding Francis Collins, Charles Darwin.