(Dixon, TN) Can God and Science co-exist? If God is the Creator of all things, can we see His fingerprints in things like astronomy and geology and paleontology?
David Rives, Christian speaker, author, YouTube educator and the founder of Wonders Center and Science Museum in Dickson, Tennessee believes that it all goes together.
K-LOVE's Monika Kelly sat down with David Rives to hear what he had to say on the subject on whether science is at odds with God and scripture.
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Monika: So good to have you, David.
David: Thank you so much for having me, Monika.
Monika: Tell us a little bit about the Wonder Center in Science Museum.
David: The Wonder Center in Science Museum is in Dickson, Tennessee. It's about 35 minutes due west of downtown Nashville. We just opened about a year ago, but we wanted a place that was a positive experience for families and individuals. It's over a hundred thousand square feet and it makes it the largest science museum in Tennessee.
It's really an amazing place because every exhibit that you walk through, whether it's astronomy or biology or geology or dinosaurs and paleontology, every piece that you put your hand on, whether it's a real dinosaur bone or touching an actual meteorite that fell from space or going into a planetarium (that is one of the top 10 planetariums in the world) and being immersed by flying past galaxies on an interactive movie.
All of those different exhibits and hands-on displays and kids' exhibits, and all of these things are pointing back to God's design and how God's fingerprints are all over his creation. From every blade of grass to every butterfly that flies through the air, to the microscopic structure of our DNA, it's all pointing back to His Glory.
Monika: Well, what I love about what you've done is that you haven't separated science from God. Tell us a little bit about your background. I know that you were homeschooled. How did that shape who you are today?
David: You know, when I was about seven or eight years old, I started collecting fossils in my backyard. And, uh, those fossils all told a story. So I started to stick them in a fishing tackle box, and then that fossil collection grew and I knew that there was something special there and that I really enjoyed studying science. But when I was 16 years old, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with my life, but I had a passion for trying to take photos of space.
So I would connect these cameras to the back of telescopes and it was quite an art and it took many long sleepless nights, but pretty soon I had taken a picture of a of the great Orion Nebula and the great Orion Nebula is a nebula or a cloud in space, and I was just blown away with the beauty and the colors and all of the stars.
I said, "Wow. You know, this reminds me of a verse in Psalm 19 that says, "The heavens declare the glory of God. And it says that even day after day, utter speech and night and night shows knowledge, but there's no speech nor language where their voice is not heard."
And at that moment, I was about 16 years old and I knew that this was what I was supposed to do with my life.
I started a nonprofit ministry and began speaking at conferences and churches and communities around the state of Tennessee and eventually around the world on (the subjects of) astrophysics and astronomy and dinosaurs and all of these things that point right back to an amazing Creator who loves us so much that He created this world around us for us.
And then He made us in His image bearing His likeness so that we would have these fingerprints of His design, that we could give Him the glory for it. That's how my ministry began and that's how the museum was birthed.
Monika: So incredible. And for people that have a problem reconciling dinosaurs with God and with creation, what do you say?
David: You know, Monika, I lead dinosaur and paleo fossil digs, family digs in places like Kansas, and I've dug up the bones of massive creatures. We have massive dinosaurs in the museum. Some are replicas and then some we have the real bones. Well, for instance, when you first walk into the Wonder Center in Science Museum, you're greeted with a 55- foot-long Camarasaurus which is a sauropod dinosaur.
Its feet look kind of like elephants, and it had a big, long neck and a long tail.
If we go to the Bible, the Bible speaks. When God is talking to Job, and Job is in this very difficult spot, God is telling him, you know, Job, I'm bigger than all of your problems. He says, I created this massive creature, the chief among all of the creation.
And He said, and it's so big that it's got all of this strength in its belly and its bones are like bars of iron and it's called behemoth and it can sway its tail like a cedar tree. You know, it wasn't until about a hundred years ago that we started to dig up the bones of these massive creatures that had tails, just like massive cedar trees, and we realized that God and His infinite power and wisdom is pointing us to just how big He is by pointing us back to the things He created.
Job 40:15-24, New Living Translation
15 “Take a look at Behemoth,[a]
which I made, just as I made you.
It eats grass like an ox.
16 See its powerful loins
and the muscles of its belly.
17 Its tail is as strong as a cedar.
The sinews of its thighs are knit tightly together.
18 Its bones are tubes of bronze.
Its limbs are bars of iron.
19 It is a prime example of God’s handiwork,
and only its Creator can threaten it.
20 The mountains offer it their best food,
where all the wild animals play.
21 It lies under the lotus plants,[b]
hidden by the reeds in the marsh.
22 The lotus plants give it shade
among the willows beside the stream.
23 It is not disturbed by the raging river,
not concerned when the swelling Jordan rushes around it.
24 No one can catch it off guard
or put a ring in its nose and lead it away.
David: So when it comes to dinosaurs, Monika, we can be absolutely confident and just amazed at how big of a God we serve as people have come through the museum.
Monika: As you see people come through the museum, what is their reaction?
David: This is the most exciting thing because when I'm not on the road traveling, speaking in churches and conferences, I walk through the museum and I ask people, "So what do you think so far?"
I see these light bulb moments where they're walking through and normally when you walk through a science museum, whether it's the Natural History Museum in in New York, or whether it's the Smithsonian or any science museum, pretty much anywhere in the world, you're gonna get about 90% science and then you're gonna get about 10% a religion.
A religion that says, "Hey, you're just star stuff. You know, you just happened. You're an accident."
But our Christian faith tells us that we're so much more than that and we are seeing these light bulb moments where children are just absolutely enthralled, realizing that the very science, the world around them--nature is connecting us back to our Creator and ultimately is pointing us to the Gospel that we have a Savior who loves us who loves us so much that not only did He craft this world in space with the perfect factors for life for us to live and not just survive, but to thrive.
But then He loved us so much that He came to this earth to live, die, and be raised again so that we could be with Him for eternity. That is so incredibly exciting to see families and children and teens when they see our 1 million volt immersive Tesla experience where we put them in the same room with 1 million volts of lightning with nothing to separate them.
This experience has lightning that plays music to different frequencies. This Tesla experience is one of the top planetarium experiences in the world, and we are seeing the impact that it's having with public schools coming through, and private schools and individuals, families coming in from states away, being amazed at God's beautiful creation.
Monika: What is your mission for families?
David: You know, we are really perfect for families, from two years old and up all the way to adult couples and senior trips with churches. With families, I just really want to encourage them because we've been spoonfed a narrative for generations now that say, you know, hey, you are an accident of the cosmos.
That you're, you're star stuff. You're, you're here. But this life is all there is, and we want families to realize that all of science, all of the world around them, whether it's astronomy or biology or any other field--zoology with the live animals that we have here. All of it is pointing back to design and complexity.
Design requires a Designer. Creation requires a Creator and the brightest minds in science from an early age, even Nicola Tesla, the famous inventor, who invented the same electricity that we use when we plug things into our wall. He recognized that as much as he was a genius, he recognized that all of his mental power comes from God and his family, from an early age, taught him to trust the truths of the Bible.
So we want families to come through and be inspired by the science, by the kids', hands-on activities, by learning and touching and feeling and seeing and interacting, but at the same time, leaving knowing that it's not an accident, that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made.
Monika: Tell me about your YouTube channel.
David: Absolutely. Our YouTube channel is simply David Rives Ministries. That's David, R-I-V-E-S ministries. And we've got almost, I think, 600 videos on science and how it connects to our Christian faith and the design that we see all around us. It's all 100% free.
We also have a free email update where we send out a short video on science in the Bible, family friendly, and then relate it right back to our Christian walk.
Monika: That's incredible. Thank you so much for your time. David Reeves, the founder of the Wonder Center in Science Museum in Dixon, Tennessee.
David: Thank you so much, Monika. It was great being on.