The Big Bang theory was totally rejected at first. But those who supported it had predicted that the ignition of the Big Bang would have left behind a sort of ‘hot flash’ of radiation.
If a big black wood stove produces heat that you can feel, then in a similar manner, the Big Bang should produce its own kind of heat that would echo throughout the universe.
In 1965, without looking for it, two physicists at Bell Labs in New Jersey found it.
At first, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were bothered because, while trying to refine the world’s most sensitive radio antenna, they couldn’t eliminate a bothersome source of noise. They picked up this noise everywhere they pointed the antenna.
At first they thought it was bird droppings. The antenna was so sensitive it could pick up the heat of bird droppings (which certainly are warm when they’re brand new) but even after cleaning it off, they still picked up this noise.
This noise had actually been predicted in detail by other astronomers, and after a year of checking and re-checking the data, they arrived at a conclusion: This crazy Big Bang theory really was correct.
In an interview, Penzias was asked why there was so much resistance to the Big Bang theory.
He said, “Most physicists would rather attempt to describe the universe in ways which require no explanation. And since science can’t *explain* anything – it can only *describe* things – that’s perfectly sensible. If you have a universe which has always been there, you don’t explain it, right?
“Somebody asks you, ‘How come all the secretaries in your company are women?’ You can say, ‘Well, it’s always been that way.’ That’s a way of not having to explain it. So in the same way, theories which don’t require explanation tend to be the ones accepted by science, which is perfectly acceptable and the best way to make science work.”
But on the older theory that the universe was eternal, he explains: “It turned out to be so ugly that people dismissed it. What we find – the simplest theory – is a creation out of nothing, the appearance out of nothing of the universe.”
Penzias and his partner, Robert Wilson, won the Nobel Prize for their discovery of this radiation. The Big Bang theory is now one of the most thoroughly validated theories in all of science.
Robert Wilson was asked by journalist Fred Heeren if the Big Bang indicated a creator.
Wilson said, “Certainly there was something that set it all off. Certainly, if you are religious, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis.”
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s installment: “Why the Big Bang was the most precisely planned event in all of history.”
Sincerely,
Perry Marshall
For further reading:
“A Day Without Yesterday” – Albert Einstein, Georges Lemaitre and the Big Bang
Where Did Life And The Genetic Code Come From? Can The Answer Build Superior AI? The #1 Mystery In Science Now Has A $10 Million Prize. Learn More About It, Here – https://www.herox.com/evolution2.0
OK, I’ll admit it, I’m an agnostic bordering on atheist. I don’t claim to know the answer but I doubt that there is one benevolent being (or not so benevolent, depending on whether you read the old or new testament) that created all we can sense. I reject the notion that the universe had to be created by what many describe as “God” because it could not have been created from nothingness. That argument could be used to dismiss “God” him/herself.
Here is my theory:
We will never be capable of understanding what created the universe, any more than an ant could understand how to fly a rocket to the moon. If you accept the fact that the universe was created in a big bang, then what’s to say that the universe isn’t the result of scientific research taking place in some particle accelerator? Wouldn’t a “big bang” pretty much describe what takes when scientists conduct their experiments in those things?
I think the world would be a lot better place if we stopped spending so much energy on trying to explain just HOW we got here and concentrated more on what we do while we ARE here.
Robert,
Let’s take the suggestion “we will never be capable of understanding what created the universe…” and see how it works for us.
If we change that just a little bit, to “we will never be capable of understanding how the universe works.” Well, that’s what most people believed 1000 years ago. Now we believe the opposite, almost to the point of bravado. I seriously doubt we can COMPLETELY understand it, but at least in my opinion, every puzzle immediately in front of us is somehow solvable.
This belief – that the universe itself is intelligible, that it operates according to laws that we can understand, has GREATLY served us in science and technology.
If technology is so productive and the secrets of the universe are in ordinary physics books and wikipedia, then why wouldn’t we want to apply the same sort of confidence and optimism to the philosophical and theological end of the question? It’s not like those questions are any less urgent.
Robert, I submit to you that the agnostic position, while admirable for its honesty, never scratches the itch. Nobody is ever really going to be satisfied with “we just can’t know.” Ultimately I think it’s a weak and empty response to the most pressing of questions. You can do better than that. You DESERVE better than that.
And yes, I agree we should concentrate on what to do while we are here but the “what” always stems from the “why.” Try as we might, we can’t avoid the question, “why are we here?”
Perry
Warm Greetings. The stuff you have provided appears to deviate from the scientific stuff because the things quoted are approximate rather than an accurate measurement of scientific facts. What is all your concern about is the evidence of god rather than an explanation of Big Bang nor the origin of universe………………… ?
Sorry if they sounded too hard. True thoughts from you are always welcome to solve clinical mysteries……
This discussion, though scientific enough to be interesting, and theological enough to be intriguing, is hopelessly off of the point. The beginning of the universe, or universes, or multiverses is not the point. There are no answers to these questions for now. But there are questions that one may, and should, ask of one’s self.
There are two of them, and they are all that really matters. First, does prayer work? In other words, if there is a God, is He an interventionist? And second, is there life after death.
All of the theoretical posturing and debating is simply wearisome and an unproductive use of time- oh, I forgot, time does not exist. What kind of statement is that!? Yeah, I have read Hawking, and I try to understand a little about the efforts to develop a grand unifying theory, and string theory, and universes in bubbles and on and on.
But will someone address what it matters? We know that to us, time does exist. To us, time is infinite- as is the universe. It’t not? So what? Those questions cannot be answered, and it is a fool’s errand to attempt. But…
Can prayer work? and can we go to heaven? Ah, there is the meat of the matter. It hardly makes sense to discuss the big bang, since its truth or falsity is irrelevant to us. Relevant: can we change our existing world through prayer, and do we have another world to go to when we die?
Hi Perry,
It’s really interesting to see that a lot of readers now realise that the universe was created by a Superintelligence.
I’m more interested in your ideas/views on a spirit world that co-exist with the world that we now live in..
Jay,
This might help you:
http://www.perrymarshall.com/travelogue/india/june-12/
http://www.perrymarshall.com/interview
http://www.coffeehousetheology.com
I read somewhere how someone had worked out the seven days of creation in terms of the Law of Relativity of Time. The actor in creation is God, so in that case you could say that God is in the center and the light radiated around and out from him from the beginning (the Big Bang). This mathematician or scientist had worked out the timing given the light traveling away (ultimately becoming the universe, planets, etc) vs being static in the center (God – the author/actor of Genesis 1.) He was able to equate the billions of years that the light had traveled with the 6 days of creation (we’re still in the 7th) at the center. Does that make sense? I would love to find that source or have someone explain it to me again.
You could be thinking of Gerald Schroeder’s “The Science of God” but I’m not sure.
He used the relativity of time rather than heat, but got to the same conclusion. Given the relativity of time and the speed at which everything was traveling at the beginning, you could have huge differences in time at different points of reference.
It is a joy to see that the more we know, the more the Bible is proved correct. Everyone who has tried to discredit it has lost.
The problem with the theory of Evolution is that if you take it to its logical extreme, it is absolutely absurd. Life doesn’t come from nothing and the fossil record does not agree with the theory. Yet we continue to teach it in our schools – what is the science in that?
Denial of evolution is one of the many ways that Christians make themselves seem irrelevant to many of us. First, evolution does not deal with the origin of life- abiogenesis, but with the development of different and progressively higher orders of life as it has, well, evolved. And fossil findings completely support the theory of evolution. (A scientific theory is a unifying set of ideas, observations and findings that result in testable predictions. So “theory” as used in this context could also be used in, say, the “theory of relativity” or the “theory of gravity,” for that matter.) If there is ever discovered a fossil of a man, or any modern animal, in the layers where we find fossils of the jurassic era. then evolution will be disproved. But I am betting they won’t. Any takers?
Another way that Christians make themselves seem stuck in their dogma is illustrated by your explanation of what God wants from us. Talk about a stretch!
Forgot to ask. What is the absurd conclusion reached by taking evolution to its logical extreme?
One absurd conclusion of evolution taken to its logical conclusion is that life came from nothing, but you call that abiogenesis. If you want to separate beginnings from development, that’s fine. I would still contest that evolution only operates within a small sphere of life – adaptation within a species to changing environmental conditions. But an animal cannot deviate far from its natural state and development of species from one to another has no foundation in the fossil record or our understanding of how DNA works.
Adaptation of the beak size on a finch is one thing; changing from fish to reptiles is another. Evolution claims far more than adaptation.
I would also point out that there are differences between theories and natural laws. Gravity is a law, relativity of time has been promoted from theory to law, evolution remains a theory.
When a theory meets a law, the law wins, so I have never understood how the theory of evolution has survived against the law of entropy – the two are counter opposites and the law is supposed to overrule the theory, unless of course everyone has so much invested in the theory that they ignore laws of science. And you accuse Christians of being stuck in dogma.
Strangely enough, the older scientists won´t let the Cambrian explosion challenge the theory of evolution, even though the fossil record is so much against long slow change (i.e., evolution) that they have had to make up these theories about punctuated development, for which there is absolutely no evidence.
The fossil record is in complete support of creation as described in Genesis 1. I am not defending what people have added to Genesis 1 over the centuries. I suggest you go back to the source and read it (it’s only 31 verses) so you know what Creation really is.
Oh, I have read it. Fine fable, but a far cry from science. Your previous reference to the “seven days” – as you say, “we are now in the seventh” is a great example of how Christians are forced to adapt their book of divine inspiration with adjustments of their own. Now, seven days does not mean seven days- it means whatever you find convenient and in support of the beliefs you hold. Holding to beliefs through faith is one thing. “I believe it and that is all there is to it.” That’s fine, but it is not science.
One quick word about theories. The word “theory” does NOT mean the same thing in science as it does in a murder mystery. Widely misunderstood by the public, which often graces “creationism” with the word theory – which it clearly does not deserve- a scientific theory is widely recognized as the working set of facts and observations which have not been disproven by even one contradicting fact or testable result. Contrary to your statement about the Cambrian explosion and the “punctuated development” I offer the following link:http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080421-lizard-evolution.html about the Croatian experiment which happened within OUR lifetime. You might also take a look at the walking catfish.
Incidentally, when do you expect any scientist to refer to the “law of creationism” or the “law of intelligent design.” Don’t you find it remarkable that no Christian ever tried to explain Genesis in terms of billions of years until scientists proved that there were billions of years that must be explained? I’m guessing here, but I doubt that Martin Luther ever felt a need to describe how we are now in the seventh day. And therein lies the problem for Christians. Either modify, time and again, their beliefs to fit the newest findings, or declare themselves as entrenched in increasingly irrational beliefs.
Even the moderator of this discussion refers to evolution as an “engineered process,” which I see as a more reasonable reaction to the observable record. Even “engineered process”, however, is a reaction to the observations rather than a prediction of them. Evolution and geology make predictions: they stand with their chins raised into the wind and say “If you dig down to the 270 million year level, you will find a fossil rich environment below it and virtually no fossils directly above it. And at the higher levels the fossils will be different from those below.” Where oh where do creationists make any sort of similar prediction, and then stand upon it?
David – you get all worked up about 31 verses! The Bible was never intended to be a science book. Nonetheless, what it says about creation is amazingly consistent with what we are slowly discovering to be true. The Bible claimed there was a beginning long before scientists came around to the idea of the Big Bang. How many times was Genesis 1 declared mistaken by scientist who thought the universe was eternal? Even Einstein claimed the universe was eternal to his own profound regret. The Bible was right all along.
The only real point of contention in Genesis 1 is the “seven days” because the order of creation, as mentioned above, is consistent with what science claims to be true. I say claims because science should and generally does correct itself as it continues to advance, something that Einstein was willing to do. You need to be a little more humble about the fallibility of scientific theories.
The seven days would not have been understood by Luther, as you point out (I doubt he spent much time on it), because he had no idea that time is relative, not absolute. The actor in Genesis 1 is God, so the point from the center would have had a different measure of time than the light escaping from it. Maybe you can work out the math – I’ve seen it done and it gets to seven days. So is it only science that can use advances to understand reality? Just because I believe in God, I am not allowed to see the interplay between science and the Bible? Seems rather dogmatic of you.
Let me reiterate – laws are proven, theories are not. Evolution remains a theory and there is much evidence to disprove it. The problem is that it is the only theory that effectively denies any external involvement. So all problems are explained away (infinite universes?).
Does Creationism make any predictions? I don’t believe in Creationism – I believe in the Bible and the Bible makes incredible predictions that have come true to the letter. For one example, read the last half of Daniel – historians have had to concede that it is so correct that it could only have been written after the fact, but the evidence shows that it was written by Daniel while in exile in Babylon.
You won’t win if you try the predictions argument with the Bible. I recommend that you test it – God put it there to be tested, so go for it. Some predictions pertaining to the end times have yet to come true, but appear to be lining up well enough to be scary. A little more study with a slightly more open mind would be well worth your time.
Dear Kristi,
This is way too long, but please read and be patient.
After reading your comment (and being scolded quite thoroughly) this AM, I drove 300 miles to see an instutionalized relative, spent the afternoon with her, and drove home. So, I had several hours to think about you and your beliefs. I decided that this COULD be fun, if you are so inclined. I have only one comment, and then a proposal.
Comment: please accept my apology if I seemed, in any way, “all worked up.” Trust me, I am not. After a near-death experience three years ago, I simply refuse to get worked up. There is not a hostile bone in my body, and I will not spend another second of this precious life in negativity. No hate, no anger, no mis-management of my emotions. To quote my favorite gospel song, “there’s so little time and we’re only passin’ through.”
Some 42 years ago, in high school, I had some success in debate. (Darn near won state, but got beat in semi-finals by the team that DID win state.) If you know nothing about formal debate, let me shed a little light. (If you know a lot about it, please humor me.)
A debate is a formal argument, with judges, in which there is a single question upon which a participant must be prepared to argue both sides. For example, in my senior year, that question dealt with whether manditory arbitration should be enforced to settle labor/management issues in basic industries. The debate starts with the affirmative team proposing a definition of the terms. E.G., what is a basic industry? What is mandatory? Etc.
A few of the rules include: 1) personal opinions do not count. The opinions of others, preferably experts, may be cited but they must be quoted and cited; 2) No name calling or personal references. It is an exercise, nothing more. 3) A valid point, supported by evidence, made by the opposing participant must be answered, or that point is lost. 4) Proof cannot come from an obviously predjudiced source. (For example, one could not expect to quote Jimmy Hoffa and gain ground when debating strike-busting.) Sound fair?
I learned in debate that EVERY issue is complicated. At the end of the year, three years in a row, I did not know how I stood on any of the three issues we debated. Arbitration, foreign military aid, or criminal investigation procedures. Never did I form an opinion that lasted. From this experience I developed a VERY open mind. Curiosity and knowledge are extraordinarily important to me, as they are to you. I may presume too much, but I do presume that you are on this site because you have an open mind and seek answers. And I presume that you will accept answers (real answers) that contradict your existing belief system – because I know that I will.
Kristi, if you read my earlier posts, you know that I consider the big bang/evolution/universe(s) discussions to be interesting, but irrelevant. I think there are two questions. One – is there life after death? Two- is there an interventionist God who determines the fate of those living and dead?
Of what matter are the other questions until one has a grasp on his/her beliefs on these two?
If this sounds OK to you, then I propose the following definition of the debate question:
Does there exist an intelligent Being, omnicient and omnipotent, who intervenes in the fate of man and has the ability to reward those who believe in Him with a life after death in Heaven and the ability to damn those who do not believe in Him to hell. And, if so, does that “belief” require that the individual express an acceptance of God’s Son as a personal savior as a litmus test which decides the eternal fate of the individual?
These are the relevant questions as I see them. If you have a different view, then I welcome it.
Good night,
Your friend,
David Legan
Hi David,
I like your approach and I agree with you completely on the fundamental issues. I love science, but probably because I see it conforming more and more with my theological beliefs. I am no scientist, neither am I a theologian (I work in Finance), but I read a lot. So I will take you up on your debate.
You may have to put up with me breaking rule #1 of debating (as you listed them) because God is a very personal experience to me. We’ll take that as it comes.
Question #1 does there exist an intelligent Being, omniscient and omnipotent, who intervenes in the fate of man and has the ability to reward those who believe in Him with a life after death in Heaven and the ability to damn those who do not believe in Him to hell?
It seemed that your example of debating implied that we start with definitions, right? (no formal debating experience here) I will take the Biblical view that God is intelligent, omniscient and omnipotent. If you believe in any kind of creation event, this God is very powerful and very smart. There isn’t much to debate here.
Does he intervene in the fate of man? Again, I would say yes, with the caveat that he established mankind with free will and he respects our choices. How can I prove that? The Bible says that God can turn the heart of the king (and so by inference, all lesser subjects). Many people have claimed miracles. Perhaps the simple survival of Israel is the best proof – they are God’s chosen people and while they have suffered greatly, they have survived. What are the odds of that?
Let’s get back to the caveat of free will because it affects the final two clauses of your question. I would not use the reward vs damn verbs (they are pejorative anyway). It is perhaps a subtle point, but we each choose our own destiny. The very definition of hell is distance from God. So during our time on Earth, we each make a decision about whether we want to be close to God or far from God. Once our time is up, God grants us that wish – in an extreme form.
The problem with wishing to be far from God is that few people appreciate how much good in this life comes from God – he blesses the evil and the good (Scripture again, but consistent with simple observation). Scripturally, all good comes from God. God is love. God created beauty. God is the first and best mathematician, artist, biologist, sculptor, etc. His creative genius is evident throughout the world he created. To separate oneself from that is to damn oneself to hell, but when the time of judgement comes, I don’t think anyone will contest the result. God is also just and, in the end, there will be justice or else Jesus didn’t have to die on the cross (but we’re not there yet).
Is there any way to prove apart from Scripture that God is those things and that all good things come from him? perhaps not, but where does the definition of good and evil come from? where does our conscience (that voice in our head that tells us right from wrong) come from? little kids are quick to say “that’s not fair” – how do they know? It is part of our nature, part of being human, “written on our hearts” is how the Bible phrases it.
If someone does not want to be close to God in life, why should they go to Heaven for eternity? where God is the center, where he is worshipped, where the only light comes from Him. That would neither be consistent with God’s respect of our self-will nor what that person chose. Once they get to that point, they may wish they could change that choice – and believe me, I wish they could too, but I don’t make the rules. That makes this issue our most important choice, perhaps the first purpose of our life. It is no idle matter.
I am going to leave question number 2 for next time. This is too long already. I suspect that you will question my primary information source, but then we get into the credibility of the Bible, which can be supported and maybe you will want to go in that direction. The inherent premise of your comment is correct in my opinion – we each make our own choices and our view of science and scripture follows.
That is theologically inaccurate. Calvin would say, or really Paul himself, that God renews our hearts first, then we respond with faith. Faith is a gift from God. If God is working on your heart, then you need to consider your response to Him very carefully. If you will read God’s word, it will work on you. Apply your open mind to it – look for predictions that came true, try to understand the logic and beauty of it, see God’s emotions (!), be amazed at the consistency across a thousand years and many different writers.
Why? Because God will reveal himself personally. He makes himself real in his own way to each one.
So I have given you a bunch of personal beliefs that probably do not qualify in a debate. I honestly tried to think outside the box of my beliefs, but I didn’t come up with much. Maybe I am not so open-minded!
Let me know if you want to get into the Jesus issue. It is much less politically correct and far more difficult (issues of sin and redemption, the strangeness of this God coming to die for us). I enjoy the discussion and appreciate your openness. Sorry for the scolding.
God bless,
Kristi
Well, as new friends I must say that you gave me WAY too much on which to respond. There are a couple of things, and I will keep this short because I am fighting real battles on three fronts: divorce, IRS, and traffic court.
First, let’s go here. Your quote:
Is there any way to prove apart from Scripture that God is those things and that all good things come from him? perhaps not, but where does the definition of good and evil come from? where does our conscience (that voice in our head that tells us right from wrong) come from? little kids are quick to say “that’s not fair” – how do they know? It is part of our nature, part of being human, “written on our hearts” is how the Bible phrases it.
Will and Ariel Durant, the famous husband and wife historians, spent their entire lives writing “The History of Civilization (Until 1787.” They stoppped there at the beginning of the industrial revolution, figuring that everything that came latere was adequately documented. It was a massive multi volume work, which I never finished. But, at an impressionable age (19 and trying desperately not to get drafted for Viet Nam) I read their “synopsis.” It was titled “The Lessons of History” – only 100 pages- and it made so much logical sense to me that it formed many of my basic opinions about morality, good and evil, etc.
Roughly paraphrased it stated that morality was relative to the time and the society. Per se, When man roamed the earth as hunter/gatherers there was a shortage of men. They led more dangerous lives, and were killed by sabre tooth tigers and such while the women tended the children. So, with an imbalance of the man to woman ratio, and the survival of the tribe at stake, it was necessary to keep all of the women pregnant all of the time. Judging good/evil and moral/immoral at that time, it would have been evil and immoral for a man to have only one wife. More babies, more chance of the tribe surviving.
Then, humans began to domesticate animals and experiment with agriculture. They began to plan for the future- rather than hunting today for what they would eat that night. The numbers of the sexes equalized. Now, if a woman became pregnant without the protective services of one dedicated man, she became a burden to the tribe. Of possibly more significance was the fact that a womanless man was a terrible danger to the tribe. That’s still the case. Crime is concentrated beyond all reasonable measure in the 17 to 30 year old group of unmarried men. But, I digress.
During this entire time there were elders (call then witch doctors or sages or whatever) within the tribe who had it figured out. They did not have to work. No hunting, gathering, or planting or watching sheep for them – they were held in respect and did nothing but think, counsel, develop language, meditate, etc. They were the smartest guys on the block. And they realized that some human actions were just not good for the tribe. Don’t steal your friend’s stuff, don’t impregnate his wife, and so on. Forgetting for a moment your own personal views of these things being “just plain immoral”, think instead of the impact they would have had on a fragile tribe fighting for survival in a very dangerous land. So, over time, these rules were codified. “How do we enforce them” they asked one another. ( Probably passing around a peace pipe packed with cannabis.) Well, we need a higher power. “I’ve got it” said one. We give it the teeth of the gods. We tell them that without the approval of the gods, they are in REAL trouble. Poor harvests- the gods are angry. Volcano- REALLY angry. Bountiful crops – we did something right. This appealed to man’s natural desire to believe that he can somehow control his fate. Do we need to sacrifice a goat this year, or should we go all the way and sacrifice a virgin?
The whole point is that hte smartest men figured out what was best for the tribe, and that became the morality of the day. The most recent examples that you can observe are the changing attitudes toward sex that have occurred in my lifetime. First, pre-marital sex was verbotten- the girl might get “in trouble.” It was not so much about morality as it was consequence. Then we got THE PILL, and those fears slipped away and the world became more promiscous. Then AIDS came along, and it instantly became more “moral” to limit sex to single partners. It was not about good v evil; it was about consequence. Always has been, always will be. They have even discovered a gene for “conscience” and there are an untold number of examples of individuals (people, animals, insects) doing what is best for the group while ignoring their own best interests. Honey bees, for example, die after stinging the one who threatens the hive? What’s in that for the individual? Nothing, he is a dead bee. But, some evolutionary twist resulted in a bee that would sacrifice his life for the good of the hive. I do not see this as an isue of conscience exactly- I see it as a natural evolution of animals who are fighting for survival OF THE SPECIES, not just themselves.
I will close with this puzzle for you: How can God be both omnicient and omnipotent. If He is omnicient, he knows everything. If he is omnipotent, he can do anything. He even knows that he will change his mind. So, he must either know everything in advance, or be incapable of changing his mind. Can’t have it both ways.
Respectfully,
(As Jackson Browne wrote)
From a heithen and a pagan, on the side of the Rebel Jesus)
David
David – I started a new conversation because we ran out of room. Check it out below when you have the chance. Cheers! Kristi
Hi Khristi:
Perhps you should syudy a little more before you say whay someon beleived or didn’t and who makes predictions and who doesn’t.
The Big Bang people were not the only ones who expected to find the cosmic background radiation and it is just as easily used to refute the BB as it is to support it. It is simply false to say they alone expected it or that it proved the BB. There are scientists from all backgrounds who see it as poor science.
Read this guy : haltonarp.com .
The bottom line for a true believer are the words of Christ, the words of God, not the opinion of any scientist, scientists are fallible human beings, God is not fallible .
Even if the creationists were the lousy scientist you have been convinced they are i would not change the fact the Bible teaches a recent 6 day creation.
You are wrong about them and dead wrong about Luther. All of these ideas come from the enemies of God and you lap them up with out ever bothering to check and see if they are true or not.
Martin Luther said the earth was 3961 years old in his day . Which is very close to what Issac Newton, The Jewish Historian Josephus , Augustine, Origen and ALL the church fathers before 1800 believed. The people who say otherwise have put “science’ over scripture and popularity over integrity. Anyone who knows the history and claims creationists views are not what God’s people and Jesus Christ Himself taught since the beginning are quite simply lying .
Playing Humpty Dumpty and saying that the beginning does not really mean the beginning would not fool anyone not wanting to be fooled. If Jesus Christ was so evasive that we had to wait 1800 years to have an atheist tell us what He really meant to say why then believe anything else He said?
Luther used the Bible to determine the age of the earth. If you can’t trust the history of such boring things as genealogies why believe it when it teaches that people walk on water and spit in peoples eyes to restore their sight?
If we can’t trust the Bible when it touches on history which is 67% of the Bible there is not much point going any further. If Jesus is really God as the Bible teaches He created this universe and does not need a science book to tell Him when He did that, or does He according to you?
Luther also rejected the idea that Moses’ words about creation are a special genre of literature that could be called ‘religious history’ He had heard that argument already back in his day. Luther’s response? ‘ . . the statements which Moses has so far made (up to Genesis 2:9) deal with natural science or with politics or with jurisprudence or with medicine.’ So far, said Luther, Moses hasn’t even touched on religion or theology!
Therefore the creation account could not possibly be a special ‘non-literal’ ‘religious language’.
# L.W., Vol. 1, p.19.
Alleged discrepancies and errors in the text have long been pointed out. Luther discussed a number of these such as the creation of light before the sun, moon, and stars, and the observation that there were plants before sunlight. Luther answered them by saying that such would-be theologians are ‘toying with ill-timed allegories (for Moses is relating history).’
# L.W., Vol. 1, p.73.
Not only did Luther understand the issue but a return to a literal interpretation os Genesis was a very major part of his 95 thesis . If “science : can refute the Bible atheism is true.
“Just because I believe in God, I am not allowed to see the interplay between science and the Bible? Seems rather dogmatic of you. ”
There is no interplay. The Bible is God’s word. If God says that the universwe was created 6000 years ago in 6 days it was. A Christian who is not dogmatic is not saved.
Christ was dogmatic!
Joh 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Jesus Christ was a Young Earth Creationist , He created the Young Earth!
Joh 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Joh 1:2 The same was in the beginning with God.
Joh 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Mat 19:4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
Jesus was dogmatic that Adam and Eve were created at the beginning and He created them so how can a Christian disagree?
The creationists have made the mst amazing prediction in astronomy since Newton, who of course was also a creationists. Making blanket statements ment to discredit people you disagree with with no evidence is not a very good example of open mindedness and fairness, not to mention educated.
Forrest,
I’ve provided answers for this elsewhere on this site. Halton Arp’s theories are 50 years old and have been clearly replaced. The new Hubble telescopes have conclusively shown that the quasars or quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) he identified are distant objects that go back to within 650-700 million years of the big bang creation event (see http://www.reasons.org/results-refurbished-hubble)
You continue to insist that the Big Bang theory has not been scientifically proven. To keep insisting on that implies that you do not understand how the science works. The Big Bang is the MOST CHALLENGED, MOST TESTED and MOST VERIFIED theory of all time. The remaining uncertainty is appreciated only if you know how science works.
Here’s how science works with uncertainty (indicated by the ±).
100% ± 100% – a paper theory with testable predictions but no tests
100% ± 50%
100% ± 10% (or .1) – 99.9%
100% ± 1% (or .01) – 99.99% – MANY scientists would say the theory is ‘proven’
100% ± 0.01% (or .001) – 99.999% – MOST scientists would say the theory is ‘proven’
…
100% ± 0.0000000000000001 – 99.9999999999999% – the theory is undisputable
This last number is the current number for Einstein’s theory of Relativity (and the basis for the Big Bang). Any possible objection that you have to the Big Bang is only challenging the ± 0.0000000000000001 uncertainty. So throw you objections at the Big Bang – but don’t expect to ultimately win.
Will a new theory replace Einstein’s theory? Only in the sense that a ‘more comprehensive theory’ (i.e. one that includes his theory’s findings) is proven. One of the most attractive candidates for this more comprehensive theory (i.e. ‘theories of everything’) is String Theory. String Theory is more comprehensive in that, if proven, will include both Einstein’s Relativity theory (i.e. Gravity) and Quantum Physics. (By the way, currently string theory is ±70-90% and, as such, we may see competing theories challenging string theory).
Your insistence on pushing obsolete scientific ideas (e.g., Halton Arp, Fred Hoyle) that are near ±100% uncertainty does no one any good and adds no value to the discussion that Perry is putting forward on this web site.
Jim Runyon
Respected Sir
I am a optimistic, and belive in all-mighty, in whatever form and whatever religious he may belong to.But, sir, I have doubt that, i dont know whether this question get me any good/bad luck for me, But, why this all-mighty power appear and prove that his presence is exists and why it cannot put an end to misunderstandings and killing each for no benifits to upgrade their believs in
God.If, the GOD is there, i request him to appear to world and put an end to this
present days unethical things what’s happening in this world.
If, he exists, why he is playing with the lives of innocent creaters of this earth and why he is not showing-up himself.
when it is going to be happen.In Gods point of view time has no less calculations, like a million years are equel to one second.
is it ture.What ever it is, EVERY CREATURE ON THIS EARTH SHOULD BE LIVE IN PEACE AND HAPPY. That’s my and all living beings pray.
Dear Shaik:
God is not mocked. Demanding your creator perform on cue is a bit much.
There are no innocent people, we have all lied, all stolen , all lusted .
If God wanted to He could have made us love Him and each other,
Then love would have no meaning at all.
These are the “facts” we can get from anywhere.But I, as a student major in Physics.I doubt whether time itself is just a kind of feelings.
What we know depends on what we get. If we could saw ultrared rays,then would we find the Big Bang Theory earlier?
Then how we observe will have what kind of effects on the things we observe?
Are we fated to be structed in our sense organs?
Why does everything have to relate back to the Christian Bible?
I’m open to the possibility of an intelligent mind being responsible for creation. But why does this mind have to be the God as described in the Christian bible? The book of Genesis is so full of vague metaphors and imagery (a snake feeding fruit to a naked chick) it has no scientific value. It can be interpreted too many different ways.
Most intelligent people can hold two opposing views at once and I think plenty atheists would be open to listen to this point of view. But it is a serious turn off when you keep trying to force everything to fit the Bible.
Try proving “The Mind” first.
If successful, then feel free to find out which religion “The Mind” prefers.
Bigus,
I think Information Theory provides a general argument for design that is not specific to any particular theology.
I also think the world needs a position like that. It is certainly possible to discuss intelligent design apart from any specific religious viewpoint.
If you read and listen to my lectures and the Infidels debate most of it centers on the technical questions and the implications to “The Mind” as you say. There is plenty for you to chew on there. I think I have already done what you have asked.
The thing is, people immediately want to jump to the next question. It’s inevitable that the next questions that come up are theological. Read what happened when I gave this presentation to 120 engineers at Bell Labs: http://evo2.org/bell-labs/
People are free to take a deistic or simply theistic view of this information. They can be Jewish or Muslim or Hindu and that’s fine. But I think there is also a case to be made that Christian theology matches modern cosmology and, yes, information theory rather well. And it is no accident that the two worldviews that are battling it out in the West are Christianity and Secularism. The secularists aren’t arguing against Zeus and Apollo because that worldview already failed many centuries ago. There are a number of good reasons why Christianity is going strong today.
Hi Penny:
What the world needs is to accept The Lord Jesus Christ as their God and saviour .
I certainly am a huge fan of Information Theory and agree it is a bulletproof argument for a creator. That being said it is a worthless argument for a creator. That may seem a bit contradictory but what good is an argument if it has no benefit even if it is irrefutable?
200 years ago Bishop Paley promoted the Watchmaker Theory to prove the existence of a creator. The argument from Information Theory , while more technically advanced , is the same argument. . It was also bulletproof yet it failed miserably for the same reason Information Theory does. Not to say it did not influence some people but is logic and science was all it took to change minds evolution would never have survived the Watchmaker Theory and surely Information Theory should instantly end the debate, but as we both know it has not come close to doing that.
The reason it failed is that origins is a religious matter, one can create models to test one idea over another but it still has a very real faith aspect regardless of your belief system.
The Watchmaker failed because it accepted millions of years and therefore the explanation for death and suffering goes from the result of our sin to what God considers very good.
Gen 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day
A lady here recently boldly claimed that there was millions of years of cancer and death before man came along so death is not the punishment for sin or the reason Christ had to die for us. Why would a smart person who did not really want to believe in God anyway for moral reasons choose to worship an inept and cruel God that used death to create? Why would an intelligent person
accept such special pleading as to believe only the parts you tell them to?
Why do you care if people believe in an Intelligent Designer if they die and spend an eternity separated from Him? Do you think it will increase morality, will people not commit crimes because it might displease a god who created the cancer that killed their their child so painfully ? The reason Charles Darwin became an atheist was not because of evolution, he promoted evolution because he became an atheist. He became an atheist because the church accepted millions of years and he realized it was strange to say the least to believe the first verse in the Bible was untrue but a man being born of a virgin, walking on water, raising the dead, giving sight to the blind and dying for 3 days and then rising again was true.
When his darling daughter died he said how could a loving God allow this.
Only a straight forward reading and belief in Gen 1-11 gives us a reason to believe. An infinite creator God created the information in living systems as well as the time space and matter for them to exist in. He gave us free will and we brought death on ourselves. Yet He loved us so much He created us knowing His son would suffer and die for our transgression millions of years is a philosophical belief, the foundational belief of atheism. Why do ID theorist refuse to even look at the creationist scientific arguments against it?
That my friend would end the debate if enough mainstream scientist went past neo-catastrophism to scriptural geology. That is the only hope to end it.
There is nothing vague about it, you simply refuse to believe it out of hand.
Genesis is a history book written by the only witness to creation, the Creator Himself.
Scientism , the belief science can answer all the why questions, is as religious as a person can get. If you reduce the creative acts of God to fit your human reasoning you would then be equal to God, you are not.
Isa 29:16 Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?
There is a word for someone who accepts mutually exclusive ideas as true, intellectually schizophrenic. No offense but that is a perfect definition of clinical insanity.
When you can’t decide if you have a mind you do have a problem.
Without the Bible you are forced to believe that death and suffering are good things, that they actually create . It is not logical to claim that Christianity is illogical by definition , and then give no explanation as to why.
It is simple enough to prove God exists because information cannot arise by itself from matter. It is a non material entity and the only source known to science is an intelligence. That intelligence pre-existed all life.
You complain that Christians are “turning” you off by arguing from the Bible. That is an illogical and emotional argument, it is fallacious. Why does it “turn you off” and why should the truth turn you on? That is the question you need to ask, is it true, not does it “turn me on” .
An atheist once gave me a brilliant argument for Christianity.
All the religions other than the Abrahamic religions have a changing view of the character of God so they can be eliminated ot of hand. Islam is a mixture of Judaism, Christianity and Arabian animism and Allah is capricious so he could not have given us scientific law.
The difference between Christianity and Judaism is some dietary laws and who Jesus Christ of Nazareth is.
Another way to see is all the religions other than Christianity and Judaism believe in the eternity of matter, they are pantheistic. That leaves only the religion of the Hebraic God that has a supernatural creator outside of time and space that created time and space.
The biotic code is a language, that is proof of an intelligent creator of that language. Language do not create themselves,nothing does.
yes i want to join this group and i want to know more about space resarch on stars plantand galexyies.
I really like to read your newsletter, finding out a lot of interesting stuff about science and the history of science but most of the time when I open your blog to read the comments I end up reading a bunch of religious argues, and the whole topic switches to one question, is there a God ?
this is just something interesting that I noticed on this blog…
now there are questions of course…a lot of them hehe, but maybe you’ll have answers on few rather simple ones..I’m not a scientist
1. Is there any other scientific theory about the origins of the universe except the big bang theory and the theory that says it always existed there and always will ?
2.Since most of the scientific conclusions need gravity as one force that explains huge amount of other things, what sources would you recommend for gaining more knowledge about gravitation
Penny there is not a shred of proof a single star has ever formed by chance. Emergence from a dust cloud is emergence from a dust cloud, not proof of stellar evolution. You have built your house on sand, there are tens of thousands of secular scientist that doubt the BB. It is shoved down their throats just like biological evolution. It will be trashed one day , as most such theories are, and then what have you done? What “Reason to Believe” will your followers have then? No Penny we don’t need secular interpretations of science to build our faith on, we need God’s word that is true from the beginning.
The Bible says that God created the stars on day 4.
What witness is there in denying God’s word means what it says?
People don’t go to heaven for believing anything but the Gospel of Christ but that Gospel is built on Genesis 8-11.
Please don’t tell me the verse that says the morning songs sang at creation was literal, the morning stars are angels.Job is literally true but it is written in poetry. If they were stars then then Genesis is wrong and there is no reason to believe the Bible at all.
As far as the drivel that those who obey God and accept His divine word regardless of the latest fad interpretation of science are putting God in a box I will say this:
If you want to worship a God who spent millions of years experimenting with life by letting them eat each other and dying from cancer ,starvation and drowning go ahead. I would not worship such a God. My God , the God of the Bible gave us a perfect world and the choice to obey Him or not. The death and suffering is our fault,not His. If your God was God then death is very good and Christ died for nothing.
God knew before the creation of the world, that man (Adam and Eve, if you will, but really all of us) would choose to sin, and that Jesus would come to die on the cross. God chose to create the world anyway – sin is our fault but God was not caught by surprise. Salvation by the blood of Christ was not Plan B.
Many creatures died of cancer, starvation and drowning long before Eve chose to eat of the apple, so sin should not be held responsible for the difficulties of the animal kingdom. God allows natural disasters to happen and a cruel world to exist for reasons that we do not understand. Yea though he slay me, I will believe in him.
It is not our place to judge God. So many of the comments I have read in this website are subtle or even blatant attacks on God’s character – what he should or should not have done – and we are all way over our heads when we venture into man judging God. Who are we to say how God should have created the world? or what his creation should be like?
God’s ways are not our ways – as high as the heavens are above the earth are his ways from ours. We won’t understand God’s plan or his justice until we reach eternity, and by then, those who chose to judge their creator will find themselves facing judgment by a perfect and holy God.
Dear Kristi King:
We should not judge God but that is precisely what you are doing. This idea that because the Bible does not give us a step by step scientific explanation of how God created so we can just ignore what the Bible does say about, how He created is humanistic philosophy. The BB contradicts the chronology in Genesis and no amount of Hugh Ross’s historical revision will ever change that fact. He is saying the Bible cannot be trusted and he judges God on the changing opinions of sinful man.
The public has been brainwashed to believe ancient man was too stupid to understand how God created. I have news for you, so are we! . How arrogant is that! Ancient man was just as intelligent, if not more so. The bottom line is the Bible claims to be true from the beginning and Jesus Christ said scripture could not be broken .not for us pick and choose what to believe based on the latest atheistic interpretations of science. If Genesis is a myth why not the gospels as well? After all the Gospels say Jesus was the last Adam so if the first was a myth so was He. Jesus Christ said Adam and Eve were created from the beginning of creation ,not after billions of years of death [ Mark 10-6] . Why did Jesus need to die if death is a very good thing to God? Jesus Christ believed in a literal Global Flood as well. [Mat 24:37] No where in the Bible is there a hint that Genesis 1-11 is any less historical than the histories of Abraham and Joseph. It is quoted by all the prophets, all the apostles , and Jesus Christ and more than any other book of the Bible by a vast margin.
I do not like arguing with fellow Christians but one of us is right and one of us is wrong and we do not worship the same God. Read Ex 8-11and tell me honestly the Bible does not empathically insist the creation was a literal, recent , 6 day creation.
Dear Forrest,
Either you have misunderstood me or I was not clear or both. First of all, I believe absolutely in the Bible as the Word of God. Secondly, I don’t have a problem with Hugh Ross’s reconciliation of Genesis with what we have seen in science, but if forced to choose between the two, I choose Genesis. I find it amusing that “science” rejected the Bible because science believed in an infinite universe and later had to correct itself to accept the Big Bang. Whatever your differences are between the Big Bang, Hugh Ross and Genesis are beyond my scientific knowledge. To me, it seems that the 31 verses of Gen 1 are remarkable in their consistency with what we have been able to ascertain. No other religious book even comes close.
I even believe in a Creation event of seven 24-hour days, but those days can be perceived differently due to the relativity of time.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear when I said “Many creatures died of cancer, starvation and drowning long before Eve chose to eat of the apple, so sin should not be held responsible for the difficulties of the animal kingdom” – please note animal kingdom, not mankind – huge difference! Let’s go back to Darwin, so I can explain what I meant. At the time of Darwin, the preachers of the day were showing God to be all sweet, loving and kind, so the cruelty of the animal kingdom and the death of a young girl did not fit and could not be explained, so they rejected that God and developed the theory of Evolution. There was no reconciling creation with the Creator they were then preaching.
My point is that the God of the Bible does allow difficult things to happen. We do not know why and we certainly don’t like it (who can defend the death of a young girl? or the suffering of the Holocaust?) but God says very clearly that his ways are not our ways, and we cannot understand him, therefore we cannot judge him. We are the clay, he is the potter.
You are the one who said that you would not worship a god who allowed millions of years of death by cancer, starvation and drowning. Even if you want to say that death only entered the world with Adam, you still have to accept the fact that God knew that it would. God knew that Adam would sin. God created the devil, knowing that he would fall and take angels with him. Jesus knew that he would come and die before the time began.
I didn’t say Adam and Eve were a myth – my point is that every single one of us has chosen to sin. You have misinterpreted me. Just be careful about the kind of God that you say you will worship. The God of the Bible is absolutely holy and just, as well as loving and kind, and we cannot comprehend him. Read Job again.
Dear Kristi:
One must choose, if Hugh Ross is correct every Church Father, all the Prophets, and all the Apostles were dead wrong. Not only that but Jesus Christ not only did not bother to correct them but agreed.
Jesus confirmed Adam and Eve were created in the beginning in Mark 10-6. He confirmed the flood was global.
To accept Ross you have to place the ever changing ideas of man “science” as superior to God’s word or believe Hugh Ross who has demonstrated he is ignorant of even common greetings in Hebrew is a superior Bible scholar to Martin Luther . John Wesley, and Augustine of Hippo combined.
Might as well say all Christians before the “scientist” “proved” Genesis was just a fable were idiots. Why would you want to join a group that took thousands of years to find out their Holy Book was wrong from the very first verse?
Yes you did say Adam and Eve were a myth,the Bible teaches they were created on the sixth day of creation and the same day all the land animals were created. So if there were animals dying millions of years before that the whole Bible is a lie as there are over 200 references to Genesis 1-11all through the Bible and not one even remotely suggests it was not literal history. It was written in the same literary style as the history of Abraham,Issac and Jacob. Genesis is historical narrative.
Before 1800 no one ever questioned that. It is a question of authority, the Bible’s or the scientists. God was there, they were not. He is infallible.
Sadly New Age Christians think they should and will be accepted by the world instead of scorned, persecuted and killed like the Bible says. But just as they are willing to change Genesis to appease the world they change the teachings of Jesus Christ as well.
The Bible claims to be the living Word of God, if its not , there is no God.
I have not misrepresented you at all, I never said we are not personally responsible for sin, you are misrepresenting me. You are angry because I have forced you to realize that what you present as Christianity does not mess with what the Bible says, it entirely contradicts it. The Bible is all true or all false.
What is it you think I missed in Job? God said to Job:
1:1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.
1:12 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.
God allowed Satan to abuse Job,that is His prerogative.When Job complained He was read the riot act:
Job 38 (King James Version)
1Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
2Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
3Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
4Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
5Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
6Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
7When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Did you miss this? You seem to prefer the Hugh Ross version to God’s.
Ross says that the Bible needs to be reinterpreted, to fit man’s ideas.
God was there!
Then in 40:15
15 Behold now behemoth, [b]which I made with thee[/b]; he eateth grass as an ox.
16Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly.
17 [b]He moveth his tail like a cedar[/b]: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.
18His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron.
19[b]He is the chief of the ways of God:[/b] he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him.
20Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play.
21[b]He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens.[/b]
22The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about.
23Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth.
24He taketh it with his eyes: his nose pierceth through snares.
This creature is the largest land animal that ever existed and it was alive in circa 4000 B.C. Is the Bible true or not? If it is I say this was a sauropod dinosaur. Everything fits. Largest land animal ever , tail like a Cedar Tree, bones like iron, lives in the swamp.
Unless there was a creature larger than a dinosaur this tells us God created dinosaurs on day 6 of creation and they lived with man before
and after the flood.
In the end Job was given double all he had, including his children who awaited him in heaven That is a short summary but you cannot accept the simple truth man and dinosaurs lived at the same time because you are unwilling to be laughed at even if it means ignoring the very words of God.
I have many things to answer to God for but changing His Holy Words is not one of them. If you doubt one of His words you doubt ALL of them
If you ever stop judging God from a humanistic viewpoint then maybe this will help. Yes God knew all these things would happen but WE caused them ! We are at fault! We sinned, God cannot! He could have made us robots to do His bidding without question or fail and to love Him because we had no choice.
Would you want children like that?
If Martin Luther or John Wesley were alive today Hugh Ross could not allow them to speak at his meetings nor could any mainstream church. That my sister is the truth.
..
Forrest,
You continue to use ‘binary thinking’ (the lowest level of thinking) where your interpretation of scriptures is the only correct ‘Christian’ way of interpreting scriptures and everyone else is wrong. You also seem to think that all current scientific findings are ‘atheistic’. Strangely, you, from other posts, seem to accept 50-year old scientific theories that supposedly support you narrow view of scriptures, such as Halton Arp and Fred Hoyle (an atheist), even though their theories have been clearly replaced by current cosmology (see my other responses). It seems very clear that you don’t see the scientific endeavor as a means of discovering the amazing design God’s creation, even though scriptures command us to do so (Rom 1).
It seems to me that you are a ‘SCIENTIFIC GNOSTIC’ in that you have a negative, world-denying view of matter/nature. By your rejection of the physical world, you seem to see the world as somehow illusory, intrinsically defective, or outright evil. As you may know, Gnosticism is considered to heretical by the Christian Church. Be careful!
From a historic Christian perspective, one’s attitude toward the physical world is very important. Christianity (like Judaism and Islam) has a positive, world-affirming view of matter/nature are the work of God’s creative activity and are therefore both real and good.
God is not surprised at any of the scientific findings (although he may be puzzled by some of the current theories that deny the amazing design behind the universe). Let’s study nature hard, and see God’s character is his creation.
Jim Runyon
sir
what is the difference between classical physics and quantam physics?
dear perry,
The whole logic looks like one of those programming errors creating infinite loops; if god is necessary to create universe then by same logic we need another creator to create the creator; father,grandfather, great grand father…….. where do we end? Are we sure we are not looking for a proverbial black hair in a pitch dark room where there is none?
Are our existing level of knowledge sound enough to have all building block knowledge to construct a theory of god? Even Neanderthal man felt he knew the science of life, are we so sure our descendants wont feel same way about us a good one millennium down the line?
I am not trying to punch hole in your logic-
The word God is loaded surely such intelligence wont outsource his marketing to self appointed
The logic set by you looks good but so was the
Dear Prashant :
Everything that had a beginning had a cause
God had no beginning ; therefore no cause
One could argue that there was a God that had just enough information to create the universe and the the “Over-God” created that God and the Over-Over-God had just enough information to create the Over-God ad infinitum. Or you could just sat there was one God with infinite information, which is more logical? With all those Gods nothing would get created.
There are some other problems with the OverGod theory. It has to , as with all Pagan religions , to assume matter created itself. But nothing can create itself as it would then have pre-existed itself which is logically impossible.
Perhaps even more absurd it means that the matter created God.
That means matter created intelligence .
Personally I believe mst people who use the “Who created God” argument are trying to convince themselves there is no God so they have no moral obligation to obey Him.
How is it that the “hot flash” is persisting nearly 14 billion years after the Big Bang? Will it last forever? How did this primordial atom that exploded in a Big Bang come? Wherefrom the immense energy of the Big Bang come?
This is to continue my conversation with David Legan as we have run out of room:
David –
There is always a chicken vs. the egg argument – did God create morality or did people create God to justify it? I would say that there are three things to refute the later case – 1) as I mentioned, where do kids get the basis to say, “that’s not fair”? having raised two of them, I know they were saying that long before I had instilled such a refined sense of societal objectives – it was just there, pre-existing my input, and 2) morality is fairly consistent. Polygamy vs. monogamy may be a higher ideal, but I would argue that most societies find murder and rape, even stealing, to be abhorrent. There is no basis for consistency, unless you want to claim that it is the best route for society, but that goes against Survival of the Fittest, and thus point 3)…
The very idea of morality argues against Darwinism because there is an implicit compassion and caring for members of the society whereas pure Darwinism supports the Nazi approach of killing anyone deemed to be weaker and the strongest should do so. Morality and Darwinism are diametrically opposed.
Think about this – the ancient Jews took very seriously the laws given in the Pentateuch. Their smartest, best-educated guys sat around thinking about ways to live according to the guidelines given by God. This ended up being the Torah, if I am not mistaken. This fits your paradigm precisely so far and is well established fact of history.
What is interesting is the result – they so exceeded any rational basis for living that it became impossible to live up to that standard and, according to Jesus, unnecessarily burdensome. Certainly not an improvement to society. Just supporting the priests, pharisees and sadducees became an enormous burden. Something about that failed – and thus contradicts the theory put forward by the authors that you mentioned.
One more example – have you ever read about psychopaths? it is fascinating and terrifying – they have no morality, they don’t care about anyone else, they are utterly cold and heartless (some are worse than others). It appears that they are born this way – it even shows up on MRIs in the way they process information, so it is genetic, not environmental. It doesn’t matter what family they are from or how they were raised.
Which means what? maybe morality isn’t technically written on your heart, but it is wired into your brain. This isn’t evolution at work because evolution is utterly opposed to morality.
As for your examples, I suspect that there were many women in the 60s and 70s who still felt that promiscuity was immoral. It is interesting though because the incredible force of “Hollywood” is over-riding morality (one reason that I choose to raise my kids outside of the US – and I’m glad I did). There is clearly an interplay between society and morality, but all societies that have lost their morality fail (Rome being the classic example).
Honeybees, ants – rather than an “evolutionary twist” (that is really pushing it, my friend!), I would claim design. The behavior of ants and honeybees is directly contrary to survival of the fittest but perfectly consistent with design (I admit, design can explain anything)
Finally, your paradox – I can´t explain God, and I won´t try because it wouldn´t do him justice. But I don’t think he changes his mind, I think he has it all figured out. Somehow, and I don’t know how, that balances with his respect for our free will. How can a loving, forgiving God be absolutely holy and just? What justice is there in forgiveness? How can God do both? There are lots of paradoxes with God, but his ways are not our ways – and he is far beyond our understanding.
Good luck with all the things on your plate. I hope this proves a welcome, intellectual diversion.
Your friend,
Kristi (in Mexico)
Hi Kristi,
Just a couple of things:
One, I think an explanation of the issue of Free Will and the paradox I posed to you is essential for any argument against Predestination. If God has it all figured out, then he has it all figured out. Psychpaths and all.
As for your twist on honeybees, I think it is stretching it to believe that God designed honeybees that way, but not all stinging insects. Your equating genocide with Darwinism is simply mistaken. Man has no business meddling with evolution in such a manner. The horrorific nature of the Holocost makes that particular event difficult to discuss. Just to say that Hitler did not know anything about improving the survival of the species. He was concerned with improving the German people. Men in battle throw themselves on grenades. Muslims wrap themselves in bombs and explode in buses. We care for our elderly and sick. We imprison those who threaten us. These are all acts of evolutionary certainty. In each case the individual (or group) is doing what is thought to be best for the group. Ancient men bandaged their wounded, cared for them, and then buried them with tools and trinkets. Why would they do such a thing? Ultimately, those animals who did no such thing perished. Man was building a society of interdependence. Think of it this way: there is no such thing as an “altruistic act.” Every action by a living being has, at its core, the self interest of the individual. In some cases, that self interest is no more than serving the group to insure the survival of his own genes.
In short, evolution and morality are not at odds with one another. Both have the same putpose: survival of the species.
Enjoy your holiday,
David
Hitler used the idea of eugenics to justify killing the “less fit” , an idea he could never have sold if not for Ernst Haeckle’s teaching that Christian charity in his words was :
an effete fraud, a perversion of the natural order” , He also said evolution showed the blacks were barely above the Gorilla in evolutionary terms and Darwin heartily agreed. Racism existed before Darwin but as Gould said it skyrocketed when evolution made racism “scientific” .
Darwin himself lamented that we try and preserve life with vaccines and make ever effort to save lives better lost to natural selection.
To try and disassociate Darwinism with the philosophy that made the rise of men like Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot possible is historical revisionism.
Evolution is the absence of morality and it is nonsense to try and say it is its own morality. It is an ad hoc and totally circular argument. When man rapes and kills it is to selfishly spread his genes and when he is monogamous and cares for the sick he is selfish and trying to spread his genes. A theory that explains everything, explains nothing.
Let me see if I understand the basic premise of evolutionary theory: within an established species, one individual is born with a mutated gene that gives him/her a unique advantage. As a result of that advantage, that individual thrives, propagates and passes that mutated gene with the beneficial adaptation onto his/her successors.
White moths survive better (stand out less) on white walls, so more white moths survive and thus dominate until the walls turn black from soot (classic example) and thus the black moths have the advantage and you get more black moths. Simple adaptation – no morality involved.
Thus, theoretically, the individual with the mutated gene that caused one million nerve cells in the brain to connect with one million nerve cells coming from the eye (because that is the way it happens in the fetus) was born able to see and he had such an advantage that all unseeing babies died out (over a long period of time or because he slaughtered them, for purposes of evolution, it doesn’t matter). Or the animal that happened to get the 20 steps to get blood to coagulate could certainly thrive relative to all the other animals that bled to death with the smallest cut.
These are individual mutations that allow one to thrive and propagate, while the rest die out. Evolution is highly individualistic and absolutely amoral.
So, let’s say along comes a guy who is willing to sacrifice himself for the good of the community (a genetic mutation) and because he lives amongst a bunch of pyscopaths, they are perfectly happy to let him do it. So he dies, probably before he propagates, and there is little reason to think that the family of a self-sacrificing individual in a selfish society would thrive. So how does that gene mutation develop?
It may well be that it is good for the species, but with evolution via genetic mutation, you aren’t going to get there. Pure survival of the fittest will destroy the weak and a self-sacrificing individual is technically weaker than the more selfish ones, on a purely individual basis.
Now, if you have a society of self-sacrificing individuals, such as honey bees, then they all thrive, but I imagine that the queen is rather selfish. She needs to be in order to assure propagation, but she certainly thrives in that self-sacrificing environment. (Why would God make honeybees and ants to live in community while wasps and other insects don’t? I don’t know, I don’t care and I don’t think it is relevant)
Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and Saddam Hussein killed millions of people. According to evolution, they were the stronger ones (and probably psycopaths) because they had some adaptation that allowed them to destroy their competitors. On the other hand, suicide bombing is a poor strategy for success (unless you have enough of them) and Kamakazis did not help the Japanese to any significant degree in WWII. The strongest individuals survive – evolution! (which is one reason that I hate the theory)
Conclusion? You can’t jump from survival of the fittest to survival of the species using pure evolution. You could try to use punctuated development to say that a community developed and then won out over the rest of the population, but there is no basis to consider punctuated development as a reality. It is an explanation to fill the enormous gaps in the theory of evolution and it requires more faith than believing in a creator.
There are major problems with Evolution as an explanation for the beginning of life and development of life as we know it and certainly communities, but it is the only explanation that denies the existence of outside interference and so it is deemed the only scientific theory. We need to be more open-minded in studying origins. The scientific community is as entrenched and dogmatic as the Catholic church was when Copernicus and Galileo were advancing their theories. The pendulum has got to swing back and from what I hear of the new generation of biologists, it is. Sadly, the old evolutionists have to die out because they are too dogmatic to allow any other way of thinking.
To go from design to the God of the Bible is a separate conversation and as for the predestination/free will paradox, I agree: it is a paradox, I cannot understand it or explain it. Two thousand years of theologians have not adequately addressed it either. I don’t think that we can understand an intelligence and power so far above our own. God says that our ways are not his ways.
I can only say this: I know that I have free will – I have made enough very bad decisions to prove it. Many people prove their free will by holding out on God until the end. On the other hand, the creator of the universe has to be outside of it, which is also what the Bible claims. Once outside, he is not subject to time and therefore should not suffer any great suspense about how things are going to work out. To support that point, there are many predictions in the Bible that have come true, which proves that God at least knows what is going to happen. From personal experience, I feel that he has been and is currently in control of all the elements of my life, but I have turned that control over to him, as an act of my own will. Yet, I can still make stupid choices, usually because I don’t listen. Does that make any sense?
Happy 4th – I pray for morality to make a resurgence in our country.
It is clear that you have never been attacked by a group of wasps. They certainly DO live in a community.
Your example of the lone “moral” individual in a population of psychopaths is simply verbal sleight of hand. There would not be one moral person, there would be one psychopath.
And I do not doubt your ability (or mine) to make stupid choices. I simply think that a belief in an omnipotent and omnicient God means that He could change the stupid ones, or at the very least that he knew in advance that they were coming. C’mon, your response of “not being able to understand God” is disingenuous. Either you believe it, or you don’t. Your postings have been filled with statements about what God wants fgrom us, so you certainly seem to understand some things. But it doesn’t matter to me. Though, I must say that the holocost, the Black Plague, and the Christmas Day tsunami (not to mention dropping that tornado on the Alabama church during Wednesday night prayer meeting) make me wonder what He is up to……On the issue of predestination you have to take a stand. One way or the other. God did it, or he did not. You decide.
DL
Okay, I’ll take the bait – God is responsible for everything, including creating the devil with full knowledge that he would fall and take so many with him. More than even God knowing which of us will choose him, he has to renew our hearts and minds so that we can. Faith is a gift of God, so that we cannot boast. I am a Calvinist and I believe that we are chosen.
There is an element of free will, and God does not wish any to perish, but he most certainly knew from the beginning, chose to proceed and provided a way for us.
God took responsibility for his creation by coming here personally, living as one of us, but without sinning, and then taking everything that the devil could throw at him to try to get him to quit (because at any second while on the cross he could have called for a legion of angels), but he saw it through and he paid the price for my sin and yours.
So yes, he did it, but he paid the price himself. That is one reason why Jesus has to be God – it would have been cruel to send someone else to pay the price for the choices he made.
Suffering is a tough question, but I find great solace in Job. God never directly answered Job about why, but he did answer who, and Job was satifisfied and later restored. I know that when things are bad and I can still praise God, it is much truer praise than when times are good. Ultimately, accepting the difficult issues that you mention are part of faith and trust, with a recognition that we cannot see into eternity and so we do not know how God will choose to resolve these issues. Maybe we are only here to make a choice, but that gets us back to free will!
Kristi,
This will be my last post. I am frustrated with the site (certainly not with you), because there seems to be no one on the site with questions. All have their beliefs and wish only to find “information” to support those beliefs. It seems that everyone on the site is a believer – many if not most seem to chide the moderator for taking reasonable stances which “seem” to correspond with scientific fact. Most simply deny all of science and preach to the audience, which seems a lot like preaching to the choir.
I know there are those who are genuinely looking for answers. I admire them and pity them simultaneously. They must be living in a state of continuous confusion about their spirituality. Simply does not make sense to me. As you point out so frequently, it is a matter of faith. One is either a believer in life after death, or they are not. As for me, well, I don’t believe in ghosts. Not Casper, not the Holy Ghost. I just want to live out my final years with no pangs of conscience about the wrongs I have committed against friends and relatives. I make peace with those who are still alive, and forgive myself for my wrongs against those who are gone. But, I do not expect to get another chance to make it all good in heaven. I am gonna make today count.
So, I admire your faith. You have found answers which make you comfortable. And so have I.
Peace, out.
David
David – I didn’t mention the most important factor, and that is why. Why did God do this? it cost him enormous pain, not just dying on the cross but bearing all our sin. The Bible is very transparent about God’s emotions. He also asked us to share in his sufferings – and those who love him most often suffer most. So why?
In my opinion, it is because he loves us and wants us to love him. But we cannot love him if we do not have the choice. Only free will allows us to make the decision about whether or not we want to spend eternity with God. It isn’t a choice between chocolate and vanilla; God has given us the whole panorama of good to evil from which to choose.
That way, your decision to spend eternity close to him or far from him is yours alone. He will respect that decision because he wants us to love him freely.
Hi Perry,
Would like to thank you for the daily updates.
For the record, I never doubted that God is the creator of universe.
However, I would like to ask about our universe being expanding? Is it about the spaces between stars and galaxies but there’s no effect on total density, or the density/mass of our universe is expanding as well? I was just a little confused because what I know is that new born stars are from neutron stars explosions, and these neutron stars upon exploding will turn out to be blackholes but it is believed that over time they evaporate. Hope you can further explain the expansion of universe. Thanks.
Regards,
Dhen
I would just like to understand how the “BIG BANG ” can be proved just by finding heat radiation in the atmosphere or in space for that matter? are there more facts to prove that the “BIG BANG” actually occured? and how can an explosion create the universe and life in itself? wouldnt the “BIG BANG” destroy everything? if it is possible please explain and present more facts on this topic. thank you and kind regards. Sticklix
It puzzles me that I rarely se any challenges to the Big Bang theory itself.
For instance Halton Arp , a secularist, was blackballed so badly for presenting the evidence from the Hubble Space Telescope that there are concentric rings of stars about every million light years as far as we can detect that he is know Germanys best astronomer instead of ours.
Once you determine the Milky Way is at or near the center of the universe all of modern cosmology comes crashing down and thta it what the empirical evidence suggests.
The BB is a lot more philosophy than it is science and it is not allowed to question it. As Dr. Arp found out it is economic suicide, a career ending decision to follow the evidence it it leads to another conclusion.
Does this not make you wonder what are they so afraid of?
Basing your theology on any origin science, even creationists is ludicrous.
If radiometric dating proved George Washington lived in 10k B.C. would that override the historical records? No, and no interpretation of the past , no matter how smart the people are who made it will ever override the Bible.
God was there, we were not. God is smarter than we are , and He cannot lie.
check it out!
http://haltonarp.com/
http://cosmologystatement.org/
.
Forrest,
I’ve provided answers for this elsewhere on this site. Halton Arp’s theories are 50 years old and have been clearly replaced. The new Hubble telescopes have conclusively shown that the quasars or quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) he identified are distant objects that go back to within 650-700 million years of the big bang creation event (see http://www.reasons.org/results-refurbished-hubble)
You continue to insist that the Big Bang theory has not been scientifically proven. To keep insisting on that implies that you do not understand how the science works. The Big Bang is the MOST CHALLENGED, MOST TESTED and MOST VERIFIED theory of all time. The remaining uncertainty is appreciated only if you know how science works.
Here’s how science works with uncertainty (indicated by the ±).
100% ± 100% – a paper theory with testable predictions but no tests
100% ± 50%
100% ± 10% (or .1) – 99.9%
100% ± 1% (or .01) – 99.99% – MANY scientists would say the theory is ‘proven’
100% ± 0.1% (or .001) – 99.999% – MOST scientists would say the theory is ‘proven’
…
100% ± 0.0000000000000001 – 99.9999999999999% – the theory is undisputable
This last number is the current number for Einstein’s theory of Relativity (and the basis for the Big Bang). Any possible objection that you have to the Big Bang is only challenging the ± 0.0000000000000001 uncertainty. So throw you objections at the Big Bang – but don’t expect to ultimately win.
Will a new theory replace Einstein’s theory? Only in the sense that a ‘more comprehensive theory’ (i.e. one that includes his theory’s findings) is proven. One of the most attractive candidates for this more comprehensive theory (i.e. ‘theories of everything’) is String Theory. String Theory is more comprehensive in that, if proven, will include both Einstein’s Relativity theory (i.e. Gravity) and Quantum Physics. (By the way, currently string theory is ±70-90% and, as such, we may see competing theories challenging string theory).
Your insistence on pushing obsolete scientific ideas (e.g., Halton Arp, Fred Hoyle) that are near ±100% uncertainty does no one any good and adds no value to the discussion that Perry is putting forward on this web site.
Jim Runyon
Of course science constantly results in new and differing opinions. Research and an open mind will do that for you. Insistence on a set of beliefs, which must be re-written every time a scientist makes a new discovery, is not to be appreciated. There is nothing nobel about attempting to reconcile the facts to one’s beliefs. There is, however, great honor and nobility in admitting that one does not have all the answers and continuing to search. I have not met a Christian who does not KNOW that he/she is “right.”
It’s just that we are passionate about our beliefs, David, as we should be. My basis for thinking I am right is not in my opinion, but in the Word of God and the experiences that have taught me that it is true. I would hope that is something different than intellectual arrogance.
You might what makes us so passionate about our beliefs. More people are dying for Christian beliefs due to persecution than ever before in history. There must be something to it.
Hi David:
True Christians never claim they are “right” , no one is “right” . They are saved and forgiven because the Bible is true.
Despite your belief to the contrary not one word of the Bible has been proven untrue and just because weak Christians try and reinterpret the Bible to “fit” with “science” does not constitute proof they need to.
Nothing in empirical science refutes single word. of the Bible . I believe you have confused interpretations and ‘just so stories about the past with facts.
Much of empirical , operational science on the other hand directly refute evoution and ,millions of years and that fact is simply ignored.
Forrest –
“We are saved by grace through faith” – we are not saved by works or by knowledge, even if that knowledge is of the Scriptures. The Pharisees made that mistake and were condemned. The thief on the cross had only faith to present to Jesus and he was saved.
When Jesus separates the sheep from the goats, he does not do so based on knowledge, rather relationship. Jesus is looking for what we did for or to him, to our fellow man, for the least of our world.
Paul talks about faith, hope and love – isn’t it strange that the greatest of the Pharisees does not include knowledge, theology or even science?
God gave us the Bible so that we could know Him. He showed us creation so that we could understand how great he is and where we came from – that we were created by Him. I take him at his word and praise Him for his incredible power and ability. I use science to appreciate the works of God even more. God also reveals himself through his creation.
May God bless your ministry. I pray that you will reach many with your faith, and that it will be a faith that serves them and makes Jesus real to them.
Blessings,
Kristi
I’m not sure how this is relevant at all to the existence, or not, of a god. Most scientific theories are met with skepticism at first, especially when there is little data to go on. As for the then-widespread assumption that the universe was in a steady state and always had been- that widely shared misapprehension was just a continuation of a centuries-old supposition that, we should note, had nothing to support or contradict it for all of human history until the 20th century. Assumptions of a steady-state universe worked very well with physical observations, up until that time.
It was not even until the 1920s that we had actual confirmation that other galaxies even existed.
So it is hard to suggest that scientists working up until the currently accepted theories came about were doing any less or more for religion than the Big Bang scientists. Indeed if you consider the Big Bang compatible with your religion, you should consider the irony that the scientists who continue to refine the theory are probably on average more atheistic than any in the last 500 years.
Which leads me to my final observation: the Big Bang theory is no more inherently compatible with religion than any other. If anything though, it is less compatible with religion than the steady-state theory, in which everything was poofed into being in more or less its present form with no large-scale forces driving these large objects together or apart.
Terry,
Why I embrace Christianity as opposed to other views, and why I think the Bible described the Big Bang first:
http://evo2.org/faq/#christian
and
http://evo2.org/audio/newevidence.htm