Why I Believe – Heavenly Easter Eggs

Posted on by Erik Popp
Video game easter egg

This is part of a series: Why I Believe
Previous: Why I Believe – The Conscience

In video games and movies, an easter egg is a message/feature/etc that’s hidden in the main work for geeks to find.  Game developers hide their names in the game, things from one franchise mysteriously appear in another, and private jokes hide in the most inaccessible places in the virtual world.  There’s at least one easter egg in the Bible.

If there was only one verse like this, it could be merely an interesting coincidence.  They’re in poems and prophecies, which make heavy use of rhetoric and symbolism.  But at least 17 places in the Bible mention it, so they’re clearly not a coincidence.  Here are a few of them:

Continue reading Why I Believe – Heavenly Easter Eggs

Why I Believe – The Conscience

Posted on by Erik Popp
The conscience is a built-in compass

This is part of a series: Why I Believe

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Have you ever been in a store and felt like stealing something?  The food/toy/whatever looks so good, and maybe it really is as good as it looks.  You look around, and you don’t see anyone nearby.  The door isn’t far away.  You know that you could take it and never get caught.

But you (hopefully) don’t.  Why?  What is this unseen hand that keeps you from taking what you want?  It’s your conscience.  And its very existence is irrefutable evidence that there is a god, that he is your creator, and that he is holy.

Continue reading Why I Believe – The Conscience

Why I Believe – The Mirror to the Soul

Posted on by Erik Popp
Man looking in the mirror

This post is part of a series: Why I Believe

When I was a teenager, I took a world history course.  It was very eye-opening.  A lot of things that happen today made a lot more sense.  I also found out how true the Bible is when it says that the human heart is “desperately wicked“, and “the most deceitful of all things“.  This 2000-year-old book explains and predicts human behavior better than many of the most popular philosophies today.

I found that time and again, kings and countries steal land whenever they get the chance.  And their people very often applaud the crime.  I found that slavery is normal, and racism is normal.  Ironically, the people who are deepest in sin are among the most sure that they are in the right.

You never hear a racist say, “I’m evil, so I hate the Jews or the Arabs, or Whites or Blacks”.  Instead, they say, “race X is evil, so they deserve all the evil things I want to do to them”.  The evil that they see in others is actually the darkness in their own hearts.

Continue reading Why I Believe – The Mirror to the Soul

Testing Evolution – What My Results Mean

Posted on by Erik Popp
The elephant in the room

This is part of a series: Testing Evolution

I wrote a simulator to test evolution, so I could see who was right: my parents, or most scientists. My parents turned out to be right. Not only is evolution totally incapable of going from molecules to Man, but the very process that most scientists think causes evolution mostly causes devolution. Given enough time and chance, we will devolve to extinction. Even the research of evolutionists shows very clearly that this is true.

How can this be? Are my parents smarter than the many great scientists who believe in evolution? Am I smarter, or do I have some hidden knowledge that they don’t? No. My parents aren’t stupid, but they’re not geniuses either. And the things they know are far from secret – they’re published in the beginning of the best-selling book of all time.

While most scientists believe what their professors taught them about evolution, my parents believe the Bible. The Bible says that God created the universe and life in 6 days, and then it was finished. The Bible also says that all creation is “in bondage to corruption“. It makes no exception for life.

The Bible says that those who willfully refuse to acknowledge and honor the Living God – their maker – will, while “claiming to be wise”, become fools. It even says that at least in some cases, God supernaturally enhances this human tendency, by sending on such people a “strong delusion” as punishment.

And this is exactly what happens in real life.

Continue reading Testing Evolution – What My Results Mean

Testing Evolution – Opposing Evidence

Posted on by Erik Popp
Bar of Gold in the Balance

This is part of a series: testing evolution

I figured out how to test evolution, wrote an evolution simulator, ran it, and found that evolutionary biologists see the same results in actual living things. Now I’ll list some evidence I’ve found that, on the surface, contradicts my findings. I argue that the evidence for my simulator’s accuracy is far stronger than the evidence against. I found that in the long term, evolution isn’t the main thing that happens – devolution is, and devolution eventually leads to extinction.

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Testing Evolution – Supporting Evidence

Posted on by Erik Popp
According to the law of infinite probability, my laundry should eventually fold itself

This post is part of a series: Testing Evolution

EDIT: Here’s a my evolution simulator

I figured out how to test evolution, wrote an evolution simulator, ran it, and listed some testable claims I can make if it’s accurate. Now I’ll list some evidence from biology that shows I’m right – in the long term, evolution is not the main thing that happens: devolution is. This is not a full list. This evidence is easy enough to find that I was able to put this together fairly quickly by looking through a top 10 list of genetic disorders. Some of them are caused by mutations that don’t consistently eliminate themselves by natural selection. These mutations build up in the gene pool over time, causing devolution. If enough of them build up, they’ll eventually drive all life on earth extinct.

Continue reading Testing Evolution – Supporting Evidence

Testing Evolution – How to Tell if I’m Right

Posted on by Erik Popp
Theory and Reality

This is part of a series: testing evolution

I figured out how to test evolution, wrote an evolution simulator, and ran it. If my simulator is accurate, here are some things that should happen in living things.  I’d love to see how many of these have already been found.

EDIT: Here’s a link to my evolution simulator (project page)

If my simulator is correct, then here are three phenomena that should appear in living things:

  1. Evolution
  2. Irreducible Complexity
  3. Devolution Leading to Extinction

Continue reading Testing Evolution – How to Tell if I’m Right

Testing Evolution – The Results

Posted on by Erik Popp

This is part of a series: Testing Evolution

I figured out how to test evolution and I wrote an evolution simulator.  Here are the exact results I get when I run it, and some examples of the same phenomena from biology:

Continue reading Testing Evolution – The Results

Testing Evolution – How I Did It

Posted on by Erik Popp
Muller's Foundry Screenshot - A Mutant That's Better Than the Original

This is part of a series: Testing Evolution

I’m writing this post mainly for anyone who wants to make their own version of my evolution simulator, to prove to themselves that I really got it right. I’ll still try to make it accessible to non-geeks.

I figured out how to test evolution, now it was time to actually do it. In this post, I’ll describe in detail the way that I wrote my evolution simulator.

Outline

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Testing Evolution – How to Do It

Posted on by Erik Popp
Sketch by Leonardo da Vinci

This is part of a series: Testing Evolution

This post is mainly written for anyone who wants to duplicate my results. I’ll try to make it accessible to non-geeks, but there are a lot of technical details.

Summary:

  • I used an evolution simulator to test evolution because that was the easiest way to do it with my skill set
  • My big insight: mutation and natural selection are, for lack of a better term, platform-independent
  • I clarify what exactly mutation and natural selection are, and why I can do the same process to self-copying programs
  • I give examples of other evolutionary algorithms, to give an idea of what most of their authors’ goals are and how they write them
  • I list the main differences between my algorithm and most evolutionary algorithms
    1. They do artificial selection, while mine does natural selection
    2. They usually make their creatures a collection of settings or useful attributes, while I made mine actual programs written in a general-purpose programming language
    3. They mutate as few things as practical, while mine mutates the entire creature’s source code
    4. They reward small, but insignificant improvements, while mine only rewards changes that significantly improve a creature’s ability to spread its genes
    5. They put the creature copier in the simulator, while I put it in each creature

I wanted to test Atheism by testing evolution, but I needed to decide how.

Continue reading Testing Evolution – How to Do It