Results 1 - 6 of 6
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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Plants were created, and then stars? | Gen 1:14 | Morant61 | 46868 | ||
Greetings Parable! Thanks for your response to my post my friend! I decided to respond here, just to confuse you! :-) I am not anti-science in any way. In fact, when I was younger (before I was called into minsitry), I wanted to be an astrophysicist. So, I love knowledge. However, there is definitely a conflict between modern science and Scripture. I think the best reason for this conflict is found in one of your latest paragraphs. You wrote: "The point is not that science proves the Bible, but rather that science, when done properly, as a means of looking at God's creation, cannot be contrary to the Word and in fact must agree. In the end, when all is known, we will see that there is no discrepancy between Creation and the Word, for such would imply a schism between what God does and what He says." The problem is that science is not always done properly. And, science sometimes deals with issues that are beyond its scope - such as origins. So, we are forced to choose between what the Bible says and what science says - and many choose science over the Bible. Yet, science has been wrong many times before, and probably will be many times in the future. I heard someone joke the other day about the first Earth day. The warning then was that a new ice age was coming, now it is global warming. :-) Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |
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2 | Plants were created, and then stars? | Gen 1:14 | Parable | 46906 | ||
This followup is not intended to address biblical matters, but rather explain my perspective on science in general in light of my faith in Christ. Science addresses our knowledge of the universe. As a human endeavor, science is subject to both the constraints and the liberties afforded by the human condition. Thus, the structure and meaning of science give insight to both the universe in general, and the human condition in particular. If this were not true, science would not have meaning for us as we strive to build a world view in which we make sense of what we experience and observe. In other words, science can help us to understand ourselves as part of the universe. And, perhaps more profoundly, because the human condition shapes how we practice science, the structure and content of science inherently imply something about the human condition that we cannot elucidate directly. So, in effect we get two jewels for the price of one, if we are able to see the human condition reflected in our knowledge system called science. Perhaps most importantly, in the limitations of science, we see the limitations of ourselves. Ultimately, according to the purely scientific approach, all observable phenomena are explainable in terms of fundamental physical processes alone. These phenomena include not only the processes of physics, chemistry and biology, but also the processes of psychology, sociology, history, religion and art, to name a few. Perhaps the most elegant accomplishment of science will be the understanding of consciousness, self-awareness, emotion, logic, mathematics, language, memory and imagination. I suspect these latter phenomena may be understood by induction from the human condition as reflected in science rather than through deduction from the data per se, yet this understanding is no less valid for being gained in this way. In science, the universe is not defined, but its properties are modeled in terms of four fundamental elements, i.e. matter, space, energy and time. The ultimate goal of science is to develop an understanding of how matter, space, time and energy can be explained in terms of each other, or as diverse manifestations of one ultimate fundamental reality, such that all observable phenomena can be understood, including the origin of the universe and its ultimate destiny. For example, a central question is how matter and energy can be equivalent, as inspired by the observation that matter can be converted entirely into energy, according to Einstein's famous equivalence, as in nuclear fission, for example. Another is how the force of gravity can be communicated between masses and how gravity is somehow equivalent to the other three fundamental forces, i.e. electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Yet another is how the entirety of the universe can be accounted for in an infinitely dense, dimensionless singularity at the start of space-time, as hypothesized in the cosmological theory of the Big Bang. Finally, given what we believe from science, what will happen at the end of time? The Big Crunch, the infinite expansion of the universe until it gets spread so thin as to be reduced to nothing, or some other possibility we have yet to imagine? To me, faith in Christ liberates us from the hopelessness and tyranny imposed by a purely scientific world view and nothing in science, when done properly, can ever contradict the Word of God. |
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3 | Plants were created, and then stars? | Gen 1:14 | Hank | 46914 | ||
Parable, I've read your post with relish -- call it what you will, a treatise or a testimony perhaps. Especially do I like the last paragraph, and particularly the fragment that reads: "...nothing in science...can ever condradict the Word of God." Of the fruits I've plucked from my 53 years of being a Christian and studying the Bible is the deep conviction of the reality of absolutes. There is, I believe, such an entity as absolute truth, or to re-cast the idea, truth is truth, absolutely, and really needs no qualifying adjectives. I have heard truth described in all sorts of ways. One says there are many kinds of truth. Another says truth is relative. Another says truth is truth for A but not truth for B, and so on. I heard a speaker say one time that there are scientific truths and there are biblical truths, and they conflict with one another. But this can't be. Truth may conflict with error or falsehood, but it can't conflict with itself. Two plus two have always been four, in every era, in every location. And so I believe that God's truth is simply that. God's truth. No less true now than it was when the earth was formed. No less true on earth as it is in heaven. --Hank | ||||||
4 | Plants were created, and then stars? | Gen 1:14 | Parable | 46923 | ||
I agree with you, Hank. There is an old saying, "the truth that needs to be proven is only half-true". To me, it means we trust "obvious" truths and we are always suspicious of those that need to be "proven", especially when the derivations depend on questionable assumptions and complicated reasoning. The idea that truth is relative comes from the idea that our standard of reference for comparison cannot be defined absolutely. In science, this most definitely true, because we have no way to determine that a location is absolutely fixed, so there is no way to establish a reference frame that is completely non-inertial, a fundamental requirement for absolute measurements. And, even if the speed of light may be the upper limit on velocity, it is not clear that this limit is fixed, especially in the vicinity of a black hole, because velocity refers to location and space itself becomes warped near black holes. Furthermore, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle establishes limits on how precisely we can know position and momentum or energy and time for a given system. This implies that science itself has established that it is not possible to measure absolutely precise values for anything. In other words, it simply is not possible to eliminate uncertainty from any measurement. Your point about arithmetic is different and it is because arithmetic is counting and that seems to be one of those "obvious" truths we accept. Despite our other problems, we seem to be able to count things very well. In fact, all branches of mathematics can be related back to the simple act of counting, which is not the same as taking a measurement, and this is why we put such stock in mathematics. Of all the sciences, math is the only one where we say the answer is right or wrong, but even this is subject to the qualification that the fundamental axioms apply. The bottom line is, science explores the wonder and beauty of Creation, but it cannot speak directly to issues that are best addressed through faith. |
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5 | Plants were created, and then stars? | Gen 1:14 | Morant61 | 46932 | ||
Greetings Parable! Thanks for the input my friend! I pray that more men and women of faith will get involved in doing science. p.s. - What are of science are/were you involved in? Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |
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6 | Plants were created, and then stars? | Gen 1:14 | Parable | 46952 | ||
And that more scientists will come to faith! I specialize in chemistry, physics and materials science/engineering. Grace and Peace My Brother, Parable |
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