Can you be Religous and a Scientist

[David F.]

Erm, no, Bob - if anything, since my refutation of David's interpretation comprised of a single sentence, I might have been saying that your viewpoint was overly complicated!
I'm so glad you're here, saves me typing pretty much the same thing.

But in fact, sideshowbob simply demonstrated that your attitude - that we should just take your explanation with no comment and say OIC - is pretty much unfounded. Over on another thread, spidergoat (a believer) posted part of Exodus XXI and asked what it meant (it was to do with why the Evil Bible had cited it, I guess). I posted a quick explanation that it was about the Bible's endorsement of slavery and sexism. But all I had done, in effect, was sort out the arcane 17th Century English and summarise it briefly in plain 21st Century English. What you did was take a passage which is written in fairly plain English, and interpret it in a way that was clearly nothing to do with how it was originally intended to be read, by adding words that aren't remotely there, and by providing dictionary definitions which do not particularly support your point. You also state (without even a saving "in my opinion") that the viewpoint is of someone on the waters of the earth - something the actual Genesis neither says nor implies at any point.

Whoops, I didn't mean to go into detail about why your explanation was not instantly jumped on as expressing an unrealised Truth so that we could move on. What I wanted to say was that there is actually nothing in sideshowbob's post cited above which could be construed as remotely disprespectful or insulting to you - merely disagreement and a mild complaint about your arrogance. Your post in reply, by contrast, said "Now, either give me some concrete examples of where I am wrong so we can discuss this, or run along and play." You complained that sideshowbob had not shown respect, and you respond with utter disrespect. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise Luke 6:31

Silas, I don't object to someone explaining where I have made a mistake and showing the correct answer/interpretation. I only object to a blanket "you're wrong" which means nothing to either of us. If you can't or don't see the differences between the words Create and Made, then I can understand why my reading is different than yours (mine is not unique but is held by several churches - it is called the Gap Theory, because there is a huge gap of time between verse 1 and verse 2).

You did the same thing to me though. You accuse me of adding words? What words? Please give specifics. Further, You simply state that I am wrong and the story of Genesis is not told from the point of veiw of someone standing (sitting, lying, positioned) on the surface of the Earth. It's not? I thought this would be fairly obvious. If you think I am wrong, then don't just voice your negativity (that's what Bob does) - give an alternative.

 

[sideshowbob]

David F:

The point is that there is nothing in the text to indicate that there is a gap between verse 1 and verse 2.

Your inability to imagine any other interpretation of Genesis is not Silas' problem or mine.

It is not our responsibility to tell you any or all of the alternatives to your interpretation. It is enough to point out that yours is not the only possible interpretation.

Detailed discussions of other interpretations belong in a different thread.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

David F.: You accuse me of adding words? What words? Please give specifics. Further, You simply state that I am wrong and the story of Genesis is not told from the point of veiw of someone standing (sitting, lying, positioned) on the surface of the Earth. It's not? I thought this would be fairly obvious.
*************
M*W: We had a discussion about this some time ago and, as I recall the post somewhat, I don't remember who actually posted it. The discussion was about Adam being created somewhere OTHER than on the Earth and then sent to Earth. Do you know anything about this? The name "adama" means "red earth" or "earthling."

 

[spidergoat]

Today, almost half a century after the publication of the Encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition in the theory of evolution of more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.

Pope John Paul II

http://www.cin.org/users/james/files/message.htm

 

[Cris]

David F,

As I pointed out, all four of these are supernatural events.

No that is not correct; they are only claims of supernatural events.

The only evidence is testimony.

Again that is not correct. It is only evidence if the testimony is true and no one can show any truth in the claimed testimonies.

There is no scientific proof - which neither proves nor disproves the veracity of the events.

In which case nothing rationally useful can be said about the claims - they become nothing but curiosities until something more substantial appears.

This is why Christians stress faith over proof.

And somehow that is considered useful? Christians insist that the claims are true despite the absence of evidence – that is simple irrational thinking. Calling such an action “faith” changes nothing about the irrational nature of Christian claims.

 

[Silas]

I think you're needlessly splitting hairs, Cris. The statement "they are supernatural events" does not require the qualifier that they are only claims. That was David's entire point - it requires faith in them. That there is no evidence except testimony is equivalent - for the sake of the current argument - to David's statement that the only evidence is testimony. That you and I don't accept that as real evidence is entirely beside David's point ... for the moment.

I also would quibble with James' dismissal that it is only one set of fundies' interpretation of Christianity. It is quite probable that the vast majority of the (is it one billion now?) Christians on the planet don't quite understand the basis of the religion in Original Sin and of Christ's sacrifice, but I've no doubt that that is the fundamental theology.

I believe the majority of people who call themselves Christian do not take the Genesis story literally, however. You don't need a physical God walking around an actual Garden of Eden and a Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to understand that the world is full of sin and that everybody is damned for eternity unless they accept Christ. David Jenkins, the late Bishop of Durham went so far as to not believe in the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection, either. You takes your choice and build a moral universe from what you can accept. I would also point out that you don't have to believe everything in science to reject large parts of the Biblical story on common sense grounds, and yet believe in Christ. Or indeed not believe in him - something common to a great number of irrational people all over the world, as well as rational ones.

 

[Silas]

You did the same thing to me though. You accuse me of adding words? What words? Please give specifics. Further, You simply state that I am wrong and the story of Genesis is not told from the point of veiw of someone standing (sitting, lying, positioned) on the surface of the Earth. It's not? I thought this would be fairly obvious. If you think I am wrong, then don't just voice your negativity (that's what Bob does) - give an alternative.

You know, dammit, I actually had in my head that I was going to type the additional words, which were specifically that stuff about the light breaking through clouds or possibly a curtain. But it seems I forgot, sorry about that.

I did in another thread castigate you most thoroughly for your misreading of Genesis (on poetic grounds). However, here I did not state that you were wrong - I'm following sideshowbob's point that your interpretation is not the only one - and that for yours you have to considerably bend the plain meaning of the text, not to mention fill in unwritten parts, to achieve it. (Please don't go on about your dictionary definitions again. Your dictionary definitions are not convincing arguments - and again, you are not automatically right; this is not a matter of fact, it is a matter of opinion, and I and sideshowbob are entitled to ours.)

Why on earth is it obvious that the point of view of Genesis 1 is from the surface of the Earth? I've always pictured it in my mind as if I could see the whole of creation - which in modern terms would mean from space. There's blackness, and God creates light. There's a mighty, limitless sea (which represents Chaos), but God shields off part with a "firmament" (a solid structure like a bowl), and under the bowl God forms the Earth into parts of dry land. There are holes in the bowl, which is where rain comes from.

It's not eyewitness testimony - it's general (God-like) narrative. No physical point of view need be implied - no more than if you read about the creation of a star or a galaxy in an astronomy textbook.

If there's a huge gap between verses 1 and 2, you'd think that someone might think of mentioning that in the book, or would at least mark the time lapse with a full stop. Instead of which it says, "1 In the Beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth 2 AND the Earth was without form and void." God creates heaven and earth, and immediately there's a description of what the Earth is like at this point in the creation process.

 

[David F.]

You know, dammit, I actually had in my head that I was going to type the additional words, which were specifically that stuff about the light breaking through clouds or possibly a curtain. But it seems I forgot, sorry about that.

I did in another thread castigate you most thoroughly for your misreading of Genesis (on poetic grounds). However, here I did not state that you were wrong - I'm following sideshowbob's point that your interpretation is not the only one - and that for yours you have to considerably bend the plain meaning of the text, not to mention fill in unwritten parts, to achieve it. (Please don't go on about your dictionary definitions again. Your dictionary definitions are not convincing arguments - and again, you are not automatically right; this is not a matter of fact, it is a matter of opinion, and I and sideshowbob are entitled to ours.)

Why on earth is it obvious that the point of view of Genesis 1 is from the surface of the Earth? I've always pictured it in my mind as if I could see the whole of creation - which in modern terms would mean from space. There's blackness, and God creates light. There's a mighty, limitless sea (which represents Chaos), but God shields off part with a "firmament" (a solid structure like a bowl), and under the bowl God forms the Earth into parts of dry land. There are holes in the bowl, which is where rain comes from.

It's not eyewitness testimony - it's general (God-like) narrative. No physical point of view need be implied - no more than if you read about the creation of a star or a galaxy in an astronomy textbook.

If there's a huge gap between verses 1 and 2, you'd think that someone might think of mentioning that in the book, or would at least mark the time lapse with a full stop. Instead of which it says, "1 In the Beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth 2 AND the Earth was without form and void." God creates heaven and earth, and immediately there's a description of what the Earth is like at this point in the creation process.

I thought I was being very clear, on at least two different posts, that I was guessing as to what it meant for the light to come in on the first day yet the sun, moon and stars are not visible until the fourth day (clouds, dust, translucent atmosphere, whatever... my words were something along the lines of...) All the verses say is that this happened, and we are left to conjecture as to how - so I conjectured.

The positioning of the narrator is not all that critical to my understanding. I only say that because it seems to be true. One sees the light start to shine on the dark waters as God is moving about on them. Then one sees the dry land rise up and the waters recede and the plants start to appear on the land and the fish in the sea and the animals on the dry land. None of this would be all that obvious from a space point of view so it seems to me that the narrators position must be on the surface. If you don't agree, that is fine. If you prefer a God-like none-position point-of-view then by all means I agree. I don't believe that it changes anything.

As to the full stop between the first two verses, there are no full stops in Hebrew (remember, the bible was written in Hebrew, not English). There are no punctuations - no spaces between words, no commas or periods, no capital letters, there are not even any vowels. In Hebrew, the characters litterally form an unbroken matrix on the page. The only way to know where one word ends and another begins is that some letters have a slightly different form if they are at the end of a word. Where the stops should be is for the reader to decide. If you the reader think there should be a full stop, then by all means stop - place a period where you think it should be. Your guess is as good as anyone elses. Hebrew more correctly has no full stops at all and is read as one long continuous phrase. The word you seem intent upon - the And - is in Hebrew "aweth" which can be translated as "and" or "the" or "and the" or "but" or in some cases is completely ignored and not translated at all, take your pick. Perhaps it should be:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth but the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and God said Let there be light and there was light...​

Doesn't this absolutely insist that the Earth was created before God brought in the light - before the first day?

I am not making up the gap theory. It seems abundantly obvious that the Earth existed before God said "Let there be light" and there is no clue in the text to tell us how long a period that was. If you prefer the word "huge", that is fine with me, although I usually prefer not to speculate other than to say that there was some period of time (probably less than 4.6 or 15 billion years although I cannot be sure). There are two versions of the gap theory. Both say that God created the heavens and the earth in some undefined amount of time before He began the process of creating the plants and animals. But, one, the "ruin-reconstruction" version of the gap theory, tries to place evolution, dinosaurs and such (some even include Satan and his fallen angels in this period) prior to the creation period and then have them all destroyed in favor of a second creation. I don't subscribe to this last idea. Those who do are simply trying to reconcile evolution and creation into a single picture with no support from scripture. I tend more toward the inital rock/water Earth, floating in the vastness of the Heavens, on which life had never existed and God spent six days preparing and forming life, for the first time, on Earth.

 

[David F.]

David F.: You accuse me of adding words? What words? Please give specifics. Further, You simply state that I am wrong and the story of Genesis is not told from the point of veiw of someone standing (sitting, lying, positioned) on the surface of the Earth. It's not? I thought this would be fairly obvious.
*************
M*W: We had a discussion about this some time ago and, as I recall the post somewhat, I don't remember who actually posted it. The discussion was about Adam being created somewhere OTHER than on the Earth and then sent to Earth. Do you know anything about this? The name "adama" means "red earth" or "earthling."

Sorry, I don't know anything about this.

 

[David F.]

I believe the majority of people who call themselves Christian do not take the Genesis story literally, however. You don't need a physical God walking around an actual Garden of Eden and a Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to understand that the world is full of sin and that everybody is damned for eternity unless they accept Christ. David Jenkins, the late Bishop of Durham went so far as to not believe in the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection, either. You takes your choice and build a moral universe from what you can accept. I would also point out that you don't have to believe everything in science to reject large parts of the Biblical story on common sense grounds, and yet believe in Christ. Or indeed not believe in him - something common to a great number of irrational people all over the world, as well as rational ones.

Yes, this is my point exactly. Many Christians do not understand their own religion. They just have a vauge idea that "Christ died for my sins" without any fundemental idea of how or why. But, for the bible to hang together, Jesus must be without sin to die for the sins of the world and to be without sin, he cannot have a human father to pass sins to him (read the second commandment). Paul also makes the claim that "by one man sin came into the world ... and the gift by grace, by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many." So if there is no "one man" by which sin came into the world then no "one man, Jesus Christ" can take it away. It is not essential that Christians understand their faith, but it is essential to the faith that these things are true. For Christianity to make sense, for God to be just, these things must be factual, not metaphorical.

 

[sideshowbob]

Doesn't this absolutely insist that the Earth was created before God brought in the light - before the first day?

Only if you're tied to the idea that Genesis 1 is an accurate chronology.
It seems to me that light before sun and plants before sun is not intended to be a chronological order. You can jump through whatever hoops you like and make up "cloud-like" layers to obscure the sun. Occam's Razor, anyone? Can't you just consider the possibility that it isn't a chronology at all?

It seems abundantly obvious that the Earth existed before God said "Let there be light" and there is no clue in the text to tell us how long a period that was.

Since there is "no clue", the time period could have been anywhere from 15 billion years to one nanosecond. That's where the Gap Theory falls completely flat.

From science, we know that the age of the universe is about 15 billion years, from "the beginning" to today, and we know that the age of the earth is about 4.5 billion years from "God created the heaven and the earth" to today.
That much we know. Any reasonable interpretation of Genesis has to fit into that time frame.

 

[robtex]

I understand science to be secular which is the absense of religion in scientific application as opposed to the rejection of it. Since religion does not fall under the scientific meathod
it really has no place in the sciences and any religous theory that does creep in does so at the detrement of the said scientific theory. Having said that science as I understand it, does not include relgious theory in its content meaing it does not accept or reject it. A scientist could be a theist, or anything else but the day he/she puts religion theory that is not testable under scientifc parameters is the day he or she took their science and converted it to philosphy.

 

[Silas]

I thought I was being very clear, on at least two different posts, that I was guessing as to what it meant for the light to come in on the first day yet the sun, moon and stars are not visible until the fourth day (clouds, dust, translucent atmosphere, whatever... my words were something along the lines of...) All the verses say is that this happened, and we are left to conjecture as to how - so I conjectured.

My only quibble here is that you previously did not speak as if you were conjecturing, but more like your view was patently the only one ... which it certainly wasn't.

The positioning of the narrator is not all that critical to my understanding.

Except when considering "Let there be Light".

I only say that because it seems to be true. One sees the light start to shine on the dark waters as God is moving about on them. Then one sees the dry land rise up and the waters recede and the plants start to appear on the land and the fish in the sea and the animals on the dry land. None of this would be all that obvious from a space point of view so it seems to me that the narrators position must be on the surface. If you don't agree, that is fine. If you prefer a God-like none-position point-of-view then by all means I agree. I don't believe that it changes anything.

As it happens, I have now changed my view on this since my last post. No, seriously!

I grew up in the Apollo era, so my picture of the Universe comprised outer space and a spherical Earth from a very young age. From that point of view, it has to be said that Genesis 1 really does not make a lot of sense. But in reconsidering the world view of the people who wrote Genesis I realised how wrong I was. There was no "outer space" in the millennia before Christ (nor for at least one and a half millennia afterwards either!). The world was as we could see - land surrounded on all sides by a sea, covered in a hemispherical lid. Possibly the sea just went on and on forever, but the portion under the lid constituted "the Earth". I must totally admit that if one's view of the Universe does not automatically incorporate space, but a darkness-covered, limitless sea, it is actually quite hard to picture that in any other way than being on or at least near the surface of said sea, as you said - and that Light of course is something that comes into being and has to shine down upon it. "Let There Be Light" could indeed now carry a connotation that the light (as all electromagnetic radiation did) already existed, but that God is permitting it to shine on the waters of the Earth.

The trouble is, of course, is that you can only adopt that viewpoint by totally rejecting the Universe as we now know and understand it to be. I now understand the Creation story far better than ever I did before, since I've opened my eyes to the actual primitive viewpoint. But that only serves to impress even further how far Genesis 1 is from the truth. It does not represent in any way the Big Bang, or the formation of the Earth as a spherical object orbiting a star - one star amongst billions. With no conception of space, or the stars and planets being large bodies like our Earth, it's suddenly makes a lot of sense: the Universe consists of formless, chaotic Water. And God put down a lid on part of the water ("Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters"), then he pulled the waters to "one place" and "let the dry land appear". I have never been able to make much sense of these statements in view of a spherical Earth hanging in space. But if the entire known Universe consists of land, sea and the sky coming down on all sides to meet the sea, then it makes perfect sense. It is simply a world view which does not tally remotely with what we have discovered in the 2500 years since that was written. And I'm not really talking about difficult things like the evolution of life on Earth- I mean basic stuff like the spherical Earth, the solar system and the distant stars.

As to the full stop between the first two verses, there are no full stops in Hebrew (remember, the bible was written in Hebrew, not English). There are no punctuations - no spaces between words, no commas or periods, no capital letters, there are not even any vowels. In Hebrew, the characters litterally form an unbroken matrix on the page. The only way to know where one word ends and another begins is that some letters have a slightly different form if they are at the end of a word. Where the stops should be is for the reader to decide. If you the reader think there should be a full stop, then by all means stop - place a period where you think it should be. Your guess is as good as anyone elses. Hebrew more correctly has no full stops at all and is read as one long continuous phrase. The word you seem intent upon - the And - is in Hebrew "aweth" which can be translated as "and" or "the" or "and the" or "but" or in some cases is completely ignored and not translated at all, take your pick. Perhaps it should be:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth but the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and God said Let there be light and there was light...​

Doesn't this absolutely insist that the Earth was created before God brought in the light - before the first day?

I thought afterwards that saying that full stop thing was silly. I looked it up in Hebrew on the Unbound Bible (http://unbound.biola.edu/) and in fact they provided a full stop at the end of the first verse, just like the KJV! Also they have spaces between the words. So it was a stupid point which isn't supported by either kind of reading.

I am not making up the gap theory.

I'm sure nobody thought you'd made up the Gap reading yourself. In fact, without trying to be offensive about it, it seems like you're recycling stuff you've been force-fed by religious dogmatists.

It seems abundantly obvious that the Earth existed before God said "Let there be light" and there is no clue in the text to tell us how long a period that was. If you prefer the word "huge", that is fine with me, although I usually prefer not to speculate other than to say that there was some period of time (probably less than 4.6 or 15 billion years although I cannot be sure).

There is no clue in the text to how long the gap was, because there is no clue in the text that there ever was a gap. Let's say that you're right. The human brain is not constructed to understand such huge timespaces as 4,600,000,000 years or 15,000,000,000 years. But what would such time periods be to God? Your belief that the gap is not in the billions of years is due to your unwillingness to abandon a human-centred view of Creation. If I were a Creation Scientist, I'd simply accept the scientifically determined age of the Earth and the Universe as a whole and simply not presume to pry into God's reasons for waiting so long.

There are two versions of the gap theory. Both say that God created the heavens and the earth in some undefined amount of time before He began the process of creating the plants and animals. But, one, the "ruin-reconstruction" version of the gap theory, tries to place evolution, dinosaurs and such (some even include Satan and his fallen angels in this period) prior to the creation period and then have them all destroyed in favor of a second creation. I don't subscribe to this last idea. Those who do are simply trying to reconcile evolution and creation into a single picture with no support from scripture. I tend more toward the inital rock/water Earth, floating in the vastness of the Heavens, on which life had never existed and God spent six days preparing and forming life, for the first time, on Earth.

Well, well. Who'd have thought that relatively new, apologetic, interpretations of the Bible would spawn their own equivalents of rabbinnical legends?

It seems to me, though, that the view which you reject actually has more to recommend it - since it makes use of the parts of creation we know only through Science - such as dinosaurs (and presumably other stuff like the distant stars) which of course is not mentioned in scripture because the people who wrote the scripture knew nothing of those things! It seems to me a more intellectually justifiable position to let science fill the gaps that science knows about, and let the Bible fill the gaps that science can't possibly approach (such as the ultimate origin of the Universe). The ruin-reconstruction even tallies with the current consensus regarding a catastrophic end to the Dinosaurs, 65 million years ago.

 

[MacM]

There are lots of religious scientists.

It's hard to be a religious fundamentalist and a scientist, though. In fact, practically impossible.

James R, is in my opinion right here. (for a change ). But seriously religion in my opinion is a substitute for knowledge and understanding the working of nature.

It is when such evidence becomes distorted by a scientist in an effort to "Force Fit" such evidence to have a different meaning that the scientist ceases to become scientific.

Denial of understandable evidence and distortion is the dividing line. A true scientsit must waive prior "God did it" conclusions when other evidence and understandings present themselves.

 

[MacM]

The efforts of Athiests are not surprisingly focused at pulling down one or more of these pillars of Christian belief. These are all supernatural events and thus are without proof. All four must stand or Christianity is a farce. It is hard to see how one can believe in both Christianity and Evolution.

That seems to be because you want to accept the Bible to literally. Just how have you concluded that evolution is not God's plan and modis operandi?


Why do you want to insist that science is anything but discovery of God's work?

 

[David F.]

That seems to be because you want to accept the Bible to literally. Just how have you concluded that evolution is not God's plan and modis operandi?


Why do you want to insist that science is anything but discovery of God's work?

Actually, I agree with you. Science is indeed the discovery of God's work - and lots of scientists are theists. Could God have worked through Evolution? God could have, but apparently he did not.

I had a very intelligent friend once who insisted that God directed evolution from single-cells to man and then, at the appropriate time, God put a divine spirit into the man and turned him into Adam. Could God do this? Yes, nothing is too hard for God. Did God do this? That is the great question. That is the subject of our discussion. What evidence is there that God worked through evolution rather than as Genesis describes?

 

[sideshowbob]

What evidence is there that God worked through evolution rather than as Genesis describes?

The point is that Genesis does not describe what we see in the real world. Plants could not have existed before the sun was created (or "made"), for example.

Since Genesis does not accurately describe what we see in God's creation, we can draw two conclusions:

1. Genesis was not intended to be a scientific description of the real world.
2. Genesis can not be used to "trump" scientific observations.​

The question was: Can you be religious and be a scientist?
The answer is: Only if you don't let a dogmatic view of your religion get in the way of what you observe in the real world.

 

[MacM]

Actually, I agree with you. Science is indeed the discovery of God's work - and lots of scientists are theists. Could God have worked through Evolution? God could have, but apparently he did not.

I had a very intelligent friend once who insisted that God directed evolution from single-cells to man and then, at the appropriate time, God put a divine spirit into the man and turned him into Adam. Could God do this? Yes, nothing is too hard for God. Did God do this? That is the great question. That is the subject of our discussion. What evidence is there that God worked through evolution rather than as Genesis describes?

The true question is:

1 - What evidence is there that a God did anything?

2 - Assuming a God one now must justify the conclusion by showing if he creted everything that means he created time and sapce. How do you scientifically jsutify a God existing before time-space.

3 - Further you must account for God creating himself. It is not acceptable to content that physical (real things) can or has existed forever. That concept of eternal existance requires that one accumulate an infinite number of time intervals.

Infinity by definiton is greater than any finite number. Put in the most simple terms "Eternal Existance" is an oxymoron. It cannot exist.

 

[MacM]

Actually, I agree with you. Science is indeed the discovery of God's work - and lots of scientists are theists. Could God have worked through Evolution? God could have, but apparently he did not.

I had a very intelligent friend once who insisted that God directed evolution from single-cells to man and then, at the appropriate time, God put a divine spirit into the man and turned him into Adam. Could God do this? Yes, nothing is too hard for God. Did God do this? That is the great question. That is the subject of our discussion. What evidence is there that God worked through evolution rather than as Genesis describes?

The true question is:

1 - What evidence is there that a God did anything?

2 - Assuming a God one now must justify the conclusion by showing if he creted everything that means he created time and sapce. How do you scientifically jsutify a God existing before time-space.

3 - Further you must account for God creating himself. It is not acceptable to content that physical (real things) can or has existed forever. That concept of eternal existance requires that one accumulate an infinite number of time intervals.

Infinity by definiton is greater than any finite number. Put in the most simple terms "Eternal Existance" is an oxymoron. It cannot exist.

On the other hand there is no proof and can never be that there is no God.

 

[MacM]

Actually, I agree with you. Science is indeed the discovery of God's work - and lots of scientists are theists. Could God have worked through Evolution? God could have, but apparently he did not.

I had a very intelligent friend once who insisted that God directed evolution from single-cells to man and then, at the appropriate time, God put a divine spirit into the man and turned him into Adam. Could God do this? Yes, nothing is too hard for God. Did God do this? That is the great question. That is the subject of our discussion. What evidence is there that God worked through evolution rather than as Genesis describes?

The true question is:

1 - What evidence is there that a God did anything?

2 - Assuming a God one now must justify the conclusion by showing if he creted everything that means he created time and sapce. How do you scientifically jsutify a God existing before time-space.

3 - Further you must account for God creating himself. It is not acceptable to content that physical (real things) can or has existed forever. That concept of eternal existance requires that one accumulate an infinite number of time intervals.

Infinity by definiton is greater than any finite number. Put in the most simple terms "Eternal Existance" is an oxymoron. It cannot exist.

On the other hand there is no proof and can never be that there is no God. The choice of beliefs therefore must be based on sound and pragmatic observations.