Posted on 03/20/2014 1:46:53 PM PDT by smoothsailing
You’ll have to check the cat in the box to be sure.
I was quite careful with my wording.
You may want to re-read what I wrote.
My point was that, in science, we cannot selectively choose things that confirm our thesis, then ignore things that falsify our thesis, or ignore things that add ambiguity to our thesis.
Except with Copernicus and Galileo. And now, it likes the evolutionary "by death came man" rather than the Biblical "by man came death."
re: why the Universe was 380,000 years old before the first light turned on.
you might find the answer in Genesis 1:5:
“...And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
God’s timekeeping started with half a ‘day’ of darkness. Then there was light.
Re: stretched microwaves and original light
Is it possible to re-compress the microwave in a computer model?
Gen 1:3 says there is ‘light’ with no further description. Gen 1:14 describes the first light wavelengths intended for man, beast and fowl. These wavelengths were not able to occur until the latter half of the 4th ‘day’ or they would have been mentioned earlier. Since 1:14 is very specific, it would not surprise me if the “light” present during Gen 1:3 is no where near the same wavelength(s) as those referenced much later in time, or even something we humans wouldn’t think of as “light” at all - but was to God.
Here’s to another research team being able to duplicate the results of this breakthrough.
Partial-zombie ... both dead and undead.
Praise God!!!
It may surprise you, but, as a physical chemist, I totally agree with that.
I'm preparing a much more comprehensive reply, and will share it with you when I'm done composing and formatting it...
FReepmail re this thread for you...
You don’t need to spend a lot of time on this.
I was troubled by the fact that “science” says the lights went on after 380,000 years, but the Bible says God created light on - what - the second day?
Plus, after God created the Earth, which I presume means “matter,” the conditions for creating light are already in place, and don’t necessarily require the hand of God to occur.
I felt the exuberance of some comments on this thread was misplaced.
I felt some people were saying that selective empirical data supported divine Creation, but, then later, some of them claimed God was speaking in metaphors when other data disagrees with the Genesis Creation story.
I'll share what I come up with, but it may take me a day or so to get it typed and HTML-formatted. I think you will find it to be interesting...
Be sure and ping us, dear brother in Christ!
Will do. And thanks for your encouragement, dear Sister in Christ!
What data disconfirms/disagrees with the Genesis Creation story? Frankly, I haven't seen anything solid along those lines. Though I have read a great many "opinions" from scientific cosmologists. Please clue me in?
I would appreciate a ping, also, please.
Science - First light 380,000 years after Big Bang
Bible - First light Day One (Day Two?) of Creation.
Just remember no discovery of Noah's ark, burial garments of Jesus, or any other proof that the Bible is right or its stories are real will ever convert a soul. God doesn't want to be a fact you have to come to grips with, he want's you to believe in him out of faith.
That being said, to some of us his glory is obvious. The details are amazing. Big and small. Long and short. Thank you Lord! And thank you all my FRiends.
-— I just got those chills on the back of my neck like when I hear an awesomely performed piece. -—
Peter Kreeft says that of his 20 or so proofs for the existence for God, the one that has resulted in the most conversions is: “The music of Bach. You either get this one or you don’t.”
Science — First light 380,000 years after Big Bang
Bible — First light Day One (Day Two?) of Creation.
Dear zeestephen, methinks you are conflating two categorically different time orders here.
Science is the creature of rational men. It is based on observation of the natural world, which must somehow also be “rational,” otherwise men could not understand it at all.
Absolutely fundamental to the scientific method is the Law of Cause and Effect: which holds that all natural phenomena can be explained only by reference to the cause(s) that elicited them.
Apparently, in the minds of many theoretical scientists, the only exception to the Law of Cause and Effect is the entire Universe itself. I’m referring to scientists who hold tenaciously to the theory that the Universe itself is uncaused; which is to say it is eternal, having no beginning nor end. I find this stance inconsistent with the scientific method, and thus rather paradoxical, to say the least.
Returning to the italics above RE: the thorny problem of TIME itself.
The measurement of time from the human point of view assumes time is a linear, irreversible series of “moments” moving inexorably from past to present to future. Moreover, time is defined in terms of such measures as “days” and “years.” A “day” is defined as the time it takes for the Earth to complete one single rotation on its axis. A “year” is defined as the time it takes to complete one orbit of the Earth around its Sun.
Of an “observer” who is completely outside the system of Earth and its “time,” and thus necessarily outside this purely human convention of time — an observer who is “timeless,” that is infinite and eternal — what can we humans say about how such a Being experiences time?
Back to the Law of Cause and Effect. It was Aristotle — who is considered the father of systematic, natural science — who first advanced the notion that, by logic, there must be a “first cause” of the Universe (he called it “Kosmos”) that itself must be an uncaused cause. He called this First Cause the Prime Mover. He reasoned that, absent a first, uncaused cause, there could only be an infinite causal regression, bottoming out nowhere. And if that were the case, there would be no way for human beings to understand anything about the world around them, and subsequently nothing for human reason or logic to do. Meaning: Science itself would be impossible.
Aristotle’s great teacher, Plato (like Buddhists), believed in an “eternal universe.” But Aristotle decidedly did not.
And thus, natural science was born. Four hundred years before Christianity hit the scene….
Back again to the “time problem.” There was a recent post on FR that took a good stab at this issue. If you are interested in catching up, I could refer you to here, here, here, and here.
In closing, there is no question that people’s worldviews definitely shape the way they think about their world. You have noticed this, too, for you wrote:
"My point was that, in science, we cannot selectively choose things that confirm our thesis, then ignore things that falsify our thesis, or ignore things that add ambiguity to our thesis."The great theoretical physicist, Erwin Schroedinger, was committed to the “eternal universe” model — and very likely because he was an adherent of Advaita-Vedanta philosophy.
So it’s not only Christians that have a “worldview.”
But it seems to me Christians — and Jews — have a “worldview” that actually pans out, in the truthful understanding of reality. I refer to you the stunning findings of BICEP2-B, which demonstrates that Alan Guth’s inflation theory is “in the money,” itself in turn premised on George LeMaitre’s Singularity — of the Beginning.
In the end, FACTS speak for themselves — IF WE WILL LET THEM.
Thank you so much, zeestephen, for engaging on this issue.
"In the beginning, God ..." Genesis 1:1
Thank you so very much your illuminating essay-post!
Is this "observer" the same Being experiencing a different time? Genesis for the most part was not written by a first hand witness. And IF the Words caused to be written down by Moses did not come from the Being, then all of the WORDS in the book are mere man made conjecture. Man sure did not hang the multipurposeful 'sun', that among other things marks time. How is this 'sun', a man made convention of time?
Being an outsider of the 'physicist' worldview, I find their explanations of 'creation' differ vastly from what the Instruction manual declares was, is, and will be. This 'big bang' theory tends to make the Creator incidental in the event. In reality does the Creator really care if a man famous physicist decides there is real evidence for 'creation'? What does his so called discovery mean to the Creator?
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