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Why this scientist believes in God
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/collins.commentary/index.html ^

Posted on 04/04/2007 4:57:43 PM PDT by roostercogburn

ROCKVILLE, Maryland (CNN) -- I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views.

As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan.

I did not always embrace these perspectives. As a graduate student in physical chemistry in the 1970s, I was an atheist, finding no reason to postulate the existence of any truths outside of mathematics, physics and chemistry. But then I went to medical school, and encountered life and death issues at the bedsides of my patients. Challenged by one of those patients, who asked "What do you believe, doctor?", I began searching for answers.

(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Philosophy
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This paragraph alone is the ONLY reason CNN published this article. "Actually, I find no conflict here, and neither apparently do the 40 percent of working scientists who claim to be believers. Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things."

He is a believer of neither science or God. He is just scared to burn in hell just in case he is wrong.

1 posted on 04/04/2007 4:57:44 PM PDT by roostercogburn
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To: roostercogburn
"He is a believer of neither science or God. He is just scared to burn in hell just in case he is wrong."

That's an empty claim. He's a sientist that made a confession of faith, and you're just playing psychic mind reader.

2 posted on 04/04/2007 5:02:45 PM PDT by spunkets ("Freedom is about authority", Rudy Giuliani, gun grabber)
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To: DaveLoneRanger

))))) PING (((((


3 posted on 04/04/2007 5:05:10 PM PDT by NewLand (Always remember September 11, 2001)
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To: roostercogburn
He is a believer of neither science or God.

I think I get it. Any profession of Christian faith, however detailed, autobiographical and seemingly sincere on it's face, is clearly phony if the confessor deviates from roostercogburn's preferred scenario of life and earth history?

4 posted on 04/04/2007 5:13:03 PM PDT by Stultis (I don't worry about the war turning into "Vietnam" in Iraq; I worry about it doing so in Congress.)
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To: roostercogburn

Oh cockadoodle. To get the manner of creation wrong is not the unforgivable sin.


5 posted on 04/04/2007 5:23:25 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck
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To: roostercogburn
Good, sensible essay.

Many scientists now believe that there is strong evidence that this universe was prepared--balanced perfectly--for life. The fossil record is replete with not just evidence of evolution but with evidence of repeated evolutionary developments of the same solutions over and over again: in a word, convergence. All life has been patiently tending toward the same plan.

Intelligent design posits that such solutions bear witness of an organizing intelligence that has an end-purpose in mind. That intelligence need not have intervened in an ad hoc manner to create novel solutions. In fact, that is the least likely and sensible scenario. Rather, it would be sufficient and efficient to have written all of the solutions into primeval DNA and then loosed it into the world to strive and contend through catastrophe, calm, and competition to fill all available ecological niches with the astounding richness of life in all its forms.

ID theory does not deny evolution. It completes it and makes it intelligible.

6 posted on 04/04/2007 5:23:27 PM PDT by JCEccles
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To: roostercogburn
Mathematics is the language with which God wrote the Universe

Galileo

7 posted on 04/04/2007 5:25:42 PM PDT by HangnJudge
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To: Stultis

No, not at all.
I believe that he is trying to paint God as what he believes science shows him God must be. This is not faith. That is belief due to him being unable to find scientific explanation for his questions and the miracles of life.
Sorry if my opinion is so offensive to you Stultis. I bet this doc can prove that you did indeed evolve.
From a jackass


8 posted on 04/04/2007 5:31:16 PM PDT by roostercogburn
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To: roostercogburn

Numbers rule the Universe
Pythagoras

The people are destroyed for lack of knowledge
Hosea 4:6

When we cannot use the compass of mathematics, or the torch of experience,It is certain we cannot take a single step forward
Voltaire


9 posted on 04/04/2007 5:32:00 PM PDT by HangnJudge
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To: spunkets

Really care?

Your brain is based upon progressive Time in that one event acting upon another event determines subsequent events.

That is the way our brains think and that is science.

Science, though, has no idea how something came into existence out of nothing.

That is religion.

And religion is right.


10 posted on 04/04/2007 5:33:46 PM PDT by the final gentleman
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To: roostercogburn

Is that really needed?
So much for intelligent debate when we digress into namecalling.


11 posted on 04/04/2007 5:36:11 PM PDT by DeusExMachina05 (I will not go into Dhimmitude quietly.)
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To: roostercogburn

Creation through evolution.


12 posted on 04/04/2007 5:36:37 PM PDT by the anti-liberal (OUR schools are damaging OUR children)
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To: roostercogburn
Saved by works or saved by grace.

That is what this debate boils down to. You believe in saved by grace...some believe in saved by works. Some believe in saved by something else.

13 posted on 04/04/2007 5:38:09 PM PDT by mamelukesabre
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To: roostercogburn

>> [Former atheist finds God]

He’s probably suffering from ego fatigue.


14 posted on 04/04/2007 5:39:58 PM PDT by Gene Eric
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To: the anti-liberal

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week947/profile.html

The guy may be sincere, but he is trying to get folks to believe in evolution. And he feels bad for those of us who may be ridiculed in life due to our belief in Genesis.


15 posted on 04/04/2007 5:40:04 PM PDT by roostercogburn
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To: the final gentleman
"Your brain is based upon progressive Time in that one event acting upon another event determines subsequent events. That is the way our brains think and that is science."

No.

"Science, though, has no idea how something came into existence out of nothing."

Nothing can arise, or be created from nothing. Nothing is the empty set, there is zero to work with.

"That is religion. And religion is right."

If the religion does not contain reality, and is illogical, it is simple a fictional story.

16 posted on 04/04/2007 5:41:03 PM PDT by spunkets ("Freedom is about authority", Rudy Giuliani, gun grabber)
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To: spunkets

Uh, spunkets...think about what you just said.


17 posted on 04/04/2007 5:45:24 PM PDT by the final gentleman
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To: the final gentleman
If you wish to search for Miracle in our everyday life

You have only to look within your own mind. Even Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, could not explain the presence of a reasoning capacity within Humans except as an A Priori condition, a thing that cannot be explained purely through logical processes, but must be accepted as a preexisting condition. I recommend highly reading this text.

18 posted on 04/04/2007 5:47:47 PM PDT by HangnJudge
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To: roostercogburn

Do you suppose then that belief in evolution or belief in genesis differs somehow? Or that it matters?

Its both and it neither differs nor matters.


19 posted on 04/04/2007 5:51:26 PM PDT by Ramius ([sip])
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To: DeusExMachina05; roostercogburn
Is that really needed?

Who cares? I was pretty intellectually aggressive. If the best rooster can do is to call me a jackass it don't bother me.

20 posted on 04/04/2007 5:53:04 PM PDT by Stultis (I don't worry about the war turning into "Vietnam" in Iraq; I worry about it doing so in Congress.)
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