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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 6:03 am
Ok, this is a topic on the Christianity vs. Science issue. I have my own opinion on this issue, but I would like to see yours first if you don't mind. Just because my opinion was informed by an expert who wrote a book about it. (The Reason for God is the book.) I'm afraid my opinion would just come up with replies like, "Oh, yeah. I agree. That makes sense!" So in that respect, what do you think?
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 9:20 am
My opinion is ... I need to hear a question, or at least a better-phrased statement.
Sorry, not trying to sound like a smart-alec, there. There's some people that think science and faith are opposed. Me, I think science (interpreted properly) and faith (also interpreted properly) complement each other. It's the so-called "experts" in the fields who try to turn this into a flamewar, and make both sides look like idiots, in my opinion.
Here's an example. At its most basic, science is taking what we've observed, and using that to make a guess about what we can't yet observe. We observed the weather yesterday and last year to make guesses about the weather tomorrow. There's nothing inherently unfaithful or sinful about that; even Jesus talked of people who observe ... not "observers of times", like astrologers, but people who looked at the sunrise and said "probably rain today".
Conversely, if faith tells us something that cannot in some way be supported by science, then either science is inadequate or faith is wrong. For example, Noah's ark. If we can find evidence, from sources around the world, of a flood (whether it be verbal legends or archaeological layers), then we have a basis for accepting the Noah's ark story. If, on the other hand, we can't find that evidence anywhere, then we're apparently supposed to believe that either God's lying about the whole ark bit, or that the evidence is there, and that we simply haven't found it yet.
Now, science is a great tool. But it's used by too many as a religion. And in that regard, it's as flawed as any faith. The difference is, many of those who treat science as a religion are in denial about it.
At least, that's my take on it.
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 11:35 am
I'd have to agree with Dragonbait on pretty much all points there. I'll color code this post for kicks I think...
I think God created everything, God created us, and we then created Science to help us better understand the way everything works... or... probably put better... we created Science to help us understand how God made everything. So if you extrapolate God made Science. And so when Science disagrees with God, essentially God wins, because he can poke Science and it crumbles like sandstone.
A good example would be Noah, like Dragonbait said. But an even better example might be when Jesus walked on water. All of Science at the time said that if you go into the water you sink, and it still does! But since God is the creator of everything, he knows how to break the system.
I believe God made everything, and He put certain rules into place on how they should behave such that He could instead of focusing on holding the universe together He could instead focus on us, and our trivial human problems. But He also programmed in a back door (to use a programmer term) and several cheat codes (to use a gamer term) so that He could break the rules.
I hope that makes sense... 'cause thats basically how it works in my feeble human mind.. >_>
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 5:55 pm
Ok, you got me on that one 'Bait. I probably should have come up with a question to answer. But to complement your opinions, it is effectively impossible for science to prove Christianity wrong. In example, Science vs. Miracles: Science - Jesus couldn't have performed miracles like walking on water or turning water into wine. It's not possible. Christianity - Wait. So you're saying, because science can't test the supernatural, the supernatural can't exist? What?
This is the point The Reason for God makes. I find this very effective in poking holes in aetheist arguements. Also, about Noah's ark: science tells us that much of the earth was under water at one point in time. Granted, the rain lasted 40 days and the flood 150, but that doesn't mean the already-existing sea life couldn't have expanded some.
So, on another note, let's pose a question: Evolution. Do you think it contradicts the Bible? See Genesis 1 for reference.
((Just so you know, I'm not prodding at scientists. Studies show that 40% of scientists believe in a God [not necessarily Christian, but intelligent design or creationism] ))
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 6:21 pm
I, personally, am of the opinion that science enforces Christianity when not twisted by aetheist scientists who are God-haters. Now, I'm okay with scientists not believing in God, but when they twist science to contradict God, that is plain and downright disrespectful to all involved.
For example, many scientists of note (Galileo, for example) made amazing scientific progress and found that absolutely none of it contradicted their faith.
On evolution, I completely disagree. On human evolution, at least. Genisis 1:26 says: "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness. . . ." Now unless God is a monkey, human evolution is a flat-out contradiction of the Bible, because "the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." (Gen. 2:7) There is no mention or even reference of any kind to evolution, so I believe it to be wrong.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 10:51 am
I gotta confess, I'm a limited believer in micro-evolution, but that's as far as it goes.
That is, for example ... I'm blessed with a good immune system. Meadow is exceptionally flexible. If our offspring inherits her flexibility or my immunity, that's a micro-evolution, a genetic quirk being passed on through the generations. Our line has adapted. But the odds of this adaptation remaining in our line (especially considering how spread out that line can get over a couple of generations) is pretty thin.
This isn't that unusual; actually, it's the basis for selective breeding. People bred dogs for different sizes and abilities based on the size and abilities of the parent dogs. Come on; you honestly think God wanted there to be poodles and Great Danes? No, those are purely human creations.
But, I don't believe that a dozen or so micro-quirks could appear to be one giant evolutionary step, even viewed across millennia. That would be like looking at a poodle and a Great Dane and saying they can't possibly be the same type of creature, that one must be an evolutionary jump sideways, some sort of ugly mutation. Sorry, no; they're just results of human tampering.
No, I do not believe that we are evolved from Cro-Magnon, which evolved from (or bred with, the theory changes) Neanderthal, etc.
By the way, Ninja ... Darwin never said "monkey". Evolutionary theory never says "monkey". The belief is in ape-like ancestors; the only people who say "monkey" are creationists using the straw-man argument.
And actually, the Bible does say God made us in His image, but most theologians interpret that as having a triple nature: body, mind, spirit. This explains why, of the six billion humans on the planet, so few look exactly alike. The alternative is to believe that God (laying aside the Jesus element for the moment) was himself human, even before we were created. Um, ... no.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 11:30 am
Okay, both very good points. My personal belief is that humans came about instantaneously, like 'Bait sort of implied. Self-awareness is not an evolutionary factor. Natural selection only acts on genes, so self-awareness had to be a given. Therefore, humans could not have evolved from "lower" life forms, but rather were self-aware from the start. However, from there, humans could have progressed slightly, such as becoming larger, smarter, and faster: these would have been helpful in surviving, especially since war came around just a few generations after the Fall. This also explains why we are taller now than our ancestors, more advanced than our ancestors, and humans keep setting new records for speed and strength.
However, Darwin never said anything about human evolution, so we'll never know what the first guy thought about it. So let's move on to animal evolution. 'Bait, you have made your point, but you can expand if you want. My personal beleif is that somehow, groups of a species were seperated over a long period of time under different conditions, and this is how some new species came about. (This is a fairly common belief as far as evolution goes.) Also, natural selection makes sense, but you can't say that completely different species came about unless you went all the way back to creation and worked your way up from there.
On the other hand, if you went back to the origin of species' creation, God might have started from simple life forms and guided a sort of natural selection to build a multitude of different species, and then worked even more from there through the isolation of groups (as I previously mentioned). It all depends on your personal beliefs.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 5:37 pm
I think evolution, even in such small quantities as micro-evolution... is something we will never know for certain until we get to heaven and we can ask the big man upstairs. Sure, there is selective breading of different animals together (such as dogs and cats, and even humans do a certain amount of it to themselves), but I don't think you can consider that "evolution". Evolution is change over time, while breeding is putting two animals together to bring out certain traits. You can see this in Dragonbaits example of poodles and great-danes. The bible clearly states though that God created everything... the earth under our feet, the birds in the sky, the animals and plants, the stars the sun and the moon... As for evolution, change over time? I think it very well could be a plausible explanation for why some species look similar to other species, especially if you bring God into the mix... who knows, he could have some kind of plan for a creature that would have otherwise died out, and so He instigated some kind of change in that creature to help it survive? This is the kind of thing that I don't think we will know until we get there.
Also... if you consider that God only gave himself 6 days to create everything. He could very well have made a base species, then tweaked the design a little to build yet another unique species. Thats how I would have done it myself... give myself a half a day to create all the birds in the sky... alright lets get to work. Ok, theres one... now, lets make another one just like that one, except lets give it a longer, harder beak for pecking at grubs in trees. Alright, that ones done... lets make another with a bigger wingspan so it can fly higher! poof... ok, lets make one that can tuck its wings in to fly even faster... boom... done... now lets give all these things the ability to reproduce by themselves so I don't have to make a gazillion of each one... yea... ok... done with the birds, lets move onto the fishes... well... I liked how the reptiles came out... lets work off of that, and boom! reptiles that can breath underwater. and so on...
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Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2009 5:49 pm
Dragonbait By the way, Ninja ... Darwin never said "monkey". Evolutionary theory never says "monkey". The belief is in ape- like ancestors; the only people who say "monkey" are creationists using the straw-man argument. And actually, the Bible does say God made us in His image, but most theologians interpret that as having a triple nature: body, mind, spirit. This explains why, of the six billion humans on the planet, so few look exactly alike. 1st paragraph: Oh, sorry. I'm uninformed and I honestly was too lazy to check my facts there. 2nd paragraph: Once again, you trump my informed-ness. I am uninformed in a lot of aspects like that. I self interpreted that verse with "His image" being a physical likeness. Which looking back wasn't actually too intelligent of me, being the "smart" ((that's how all my classmate's describe me; I'm trying not to be prideful here)) kid that I am. A little tidbit: I could be ((and probably am)) wrong here, but I'm pretty sure there are about 300 million people in the USA. If there are about 6 billion people on the planet, that's 20% of the world's population. That's almost a quarter of the world's people, in one country. WITH MORE PEOPLE COMING. This is sad to me, because people come here to be free, but if we keep overcrowding like this then we're going to have to either go to war and expand or send the immigrants back home where they are opressed/poor. Sorry to get off topic, that just occured to me.
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Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2009 9:05 am
*Shrug.* Ninja, there's a difference between intelligence and knowledge. I have limited intelligence, but I can find facts. Conversely, just because you're uninformed (by your own words), doesn't mean you're not smart. It just means you need to study.
Kenshin, it's equally possible that the Lord could have created a "base species" that was capable of ... self-modification. I mean, I don't know that the first bird He created looked anything like any modern species, but you could reasonably assume that both the modern hummingbird and the bald eagle had a common ancestor. Or He might have created each individually; I don't know.
**********
I think we need to draw a distinction, though, between life and sentience. I'm going to say sentience is the biblical life, as in "God breathed into Adam, and Adam became a living being". God didn't breathe into the fir tree or the elephant, as far as we can tell, yet we humans call them "alive". So, there's our distinction. The only creatures we call "sentient" are the ones God breathed into: humans.
Using that concept, it is possible that there were ... proto-humans, non-sentient or semi-sentient "bald monkeys" before Adam. I personally wouldn't buy it, but I can see where some might try that. Indeed, many (including the Kabbalists, if I remember aright, and the "Christian Identity" people (Wiki them if you have to)) have believed in a "pre-Adamic race" as a possible source of Cain's wife. This might, arguably, be Neanderthal; close enough to the same species that they could breed, but still different.
Point is, there's life, there's sentience, and then there's evolution. Evolution we could argue until Christ comes back and explains it in detail, so I'm not going to bother. Sentience ... well, even Jesus described us as sheep, so I'm not entirely certain humans have sentience; to me, we're just a bunch of mindless idiots. Yes, I'm a cynic.
Life ... ah, there's the fun bit. Science teaches that life started spontaneously in primoridal ooze. To me, this is like taking a high school science lab, pouring the contents into one vat, then tossing a lightning bolt through the thing and expecting it to do something other than go "boom". To me, the idea of life being started by God makes a lot more sense. On the other hand, I can understand why some say it's just begging the question; it leaves us with "so, where did God come from, then?" Not much of an answer to that one.
Science talks about one (evolution), has an explanation of sorts for another (life), and never touches the third (sentience). Christianity talks of life and sentience, but never touches evolution. The "New Age movement" speaks of sentience and evolution, but not life. This is a good, amusing balance!
But that's just my take on things.
**********
For those who haven't figured it out yet, I've always considered "devil's advocate" to be a high calling indeed. Plus which, I like to make certain that people who are arguing over a given topic don't sound like idiots. As a result, and in my extreme vanity, I'm not above correcting either side if I feel they're mistaken on a point or two. Conversely, if I'm the one who's wrong, I like to be corrected.
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Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 11:03 am
I really don't know enough about the "church views" vs "science views" to add much to this topic, but I'll try.
I beleive that the church and science theories some how fit together. Most great scientists were religious, and they managed to do pretty well. I lean towards to Big Bang theory, even though I was raised to beleive the Catholic story. I know that science plays a huge part in evolution, but I know God is a major force as well.
-Robynn
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Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2009 11:18 am
Here's what I think. God made science. Men use science... some unbelievers place lies in science to fool everyone. It's still in the text books and so the future generation and the generation now and before are going to, were, and are going to be fooled. If you have the time visit my profile and click on the link under "CREATION EVANGELISM" Creation EvangelismGod bless you. On and also look at "Was heaven promised to man?" Was Heaven Promised to Man?"Pretty shocking stuff here my friends.
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Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 1:07 pm
Well, without reading anything except your question, my opinion on the subject is that God made science to explain SOME of his miracles if you will(us being here is a miracle) but when Man wants to take credit for all with science, that is when Man sins. I say some things because some things don't have a "pure" science explanation. Of course, you could say that when the Holy Spirit takes you, scientifically you aren't in control anymore. The Holy Spirit has taken over your body and mind and you have no control over your actions or what you say. That's how I see it. Just like evolution. God wanted there to be evolution. My opinion(could be wrong) is that God took a previous idea and made it better. enhanced it if you will.
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Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 1:33 pm
To me, that sounds more like possession than "filled with the Spirit", but I'll not pick nits right now.
I don't think God made science. Oh, certainly, I know Jesus made everything that was made, but ... science isn't really a thing, in that sense. It's not an item, it's not a force ... we could argue that it's a religion, but I'll leave that one alone. Science borders on being a philosophy; it's a study of the material world and the rules that this world follows.
Miracles or supernatural events ... well, yeah, of course they're non-scientific. That's what "supernatural" means; "above or outside the natural world". That's not to say they can't exist, of course.
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Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 9:21 am
Science doesn't say that Jesus counted perform miracles, those are people.
God answers the who, what, where, when and why questions. Science answers the how. Science does not prove or disprove God.
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