Posted on 02/28/2011 1:23:34 PM PST by Abathar
The last couple of sentences brought everything back into perspective so they didn’t lose too many readers... :)
Absolutely it’s a worldview issue.
We all have the same evidence, and we all interpret it through our presuppositional worldviews.
The worldviews are not compatible, and are therefore inherently in conflict, trying to destroy the other.
And this battle is far bigger than we can imagine.
I’m a Christian, so don’t get me wrong.
But where DID God come from?? I’ve wanted to know since I was 5
I guess it all depends on who you ask, I’ve heard a few answers to that.
I’m pretty sure there are plenty of people here who could give you an earful on the subject though...
Creation and evolution are not incompatible.
“That’s because one cannot create something from NOTHING. But God can.”
Agree. Stephen Hawking stated in his book, A Brief History of Time, that he “believed there’s a god because the other side of the Big Bang can not be explained by science”. I paraphrased, but think I was close...
“That’s because one cannot create something from NOTHING. But God can.”
Agree. Stephen Hawking stated in his book, A Brief History of Time, that he “believed there’s a god because the other side of the Big Bang can not be explained by science”. I paraphrased, but think I was close...
sh-boom!
Or maybe there is no “nothing.” It’s just a concept we had to invent because we can’t see everything.
But God can!
Hegelian dialectic at its finest.
“A being that exists outside of time, who in fact created time-space, cannot, by definition, have an origin.”
And the definition of a ‘being’ in that environment is 2,000 percent total meaningless!!! Its existence is therefore meaningless.
Yep, that about does it!
Scientists don’t claim to know how life began.... they’re to busy trying to convice us about global warming..ah...I....mean climate change
ping
Panspermia, chicken, or egg, something came first, so we suppose, and from what was the first thing derived, dust?
Maybe life is not a progression of linear activity in the sense there was a beginning. Perhaps it’s just continuously changing without end nor beginning as time is not absolute.
The answer to that question is sadly unknowable, until such time as you or I are in a position to ask, and said divine being is inclined to answer.
It’s ironic...I was raised Catholic, broke from the church, and live much of my young adulthood in a state best described as “aloof agnoticism.”
As I’ve gotten older, and more fascinated by science, science continually brings me back to God.
Scientists are not stupid people, but they are flawed the same as all of us. Some become partial to a theory and tend to discard opposing views the same way some politicians become blind to evidence that their position is incorrect on an issue.
That said, could God have made the Earth pre-aged to 4.3 billion years? Sure, in an universe where God makes all the rules, He can do whatever he wants, but that said...
I personally don’t believe he did.
I believe the Big Bang (or something very like it) happened. The evidence is huge in support of it. We see the other galaxies speeding away from us like ripples on a pond, and extrapolating back 14 billion years, they all converge on a single point.
For that reason, I also believe it’s likely that the Earth is 4.3 billion years old and accreted from a protoplanetary disk of leftover dust and gas from the Sun’s formation, which in turn was made possible by a supermassive star exploding and providing the metal-rich dust which are the building blocks of our solar system.
That aside, I’m also unshakeably convinced that it all did not just “happen.” The Big Bang is the only evidenced example of the creation of something from nothing in the history of the Universe, and if you need any conviction on how unlikely it was for the conditions for life to just happen on Earth, I’d heartily recommend “Rare Earth” by Brownlee and Ward...Two scientists who look at how many stars had to line up for humanity to even have a home.
This whole rambling response is a roundabout way of getting to your answer - Whatever God is, He was before the Big Bang. To me, that means that if the Big Bang was His ultimate act of Creation, He is external to our universe or above it, or outside it, much as the programmer of a video game created the code and the rules by which the game is played...He can watch and see how his instructions are carried out and how his program runs. He can even intervene and change the rules when he sees fit, but nothing that happens in that game affects him - He is outside of it, yet he is its creator.
To me, the universe is God’s will translated into the laws of physics - His programming language, most of which is still a mystery to us. We simply do not have any means available to us to speculate on how He came to be, what His nature is, or how whatever reality He inhabits compares to our own. We can simply gather information, and try determine for ourselves if Life, the Universe, and Everything spontaneously exploded from a singularity and spawned sentient life...Or the same thing happened under the thoughtful supervision of Something Greater.
Isn't that about the same as saying that if an infinite number of tornados struck juckyards, eventually a running Cadillac will come out of the debris?
> And the definition of a ‘being’ in that environment is
> 2,000 percent total meaningless!!! Its existence is
> therefore meaningless.
2000 percent ??
Your statement is meaningless.
When you see God, and that time will come, have fun explaining to Him that His existence is meaningless.
bm
well, maybe scientists could start to admit there is a logical, reasoning, Creator/Creators who planted the planet?
"In the beginning was the Word (Logic)(Reason)(Principled Order)(Logos)(Jesus) and the Word was with God and God was the Word." John 1:1.
Scientists, in particular, archaeologists, are every day discovering historical evidence that proves the Bible as an accurate historical document.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.