The bible and science?

Question

People say that Science is good for explaining "how" and "what", and that religion explains "why".

Why do things happen? Who knows for sure, at best we can only speculate, but for the religious fanatics out there who denounce science on the basis that it doesn't explain "why" the earth was created, or "why" was the human eye created in such a complex manner.

All I can say is why not, why wouldn't it be created. What universal law out there prevents such things from occurring on their own, no matter how complex they are given billions upon billions of years? Why is it that when people are faced with something they do not yet understand, they find the need to say that a "God" did it. Is it not possible that there are things out there which are just so advanced and so far beyond us that we as humans could never possibly comprehend it, but does that mean it was made by God?

If you showed a cave man a lighter, he would think you were a God. Are we cavemen or are we people of logic?

Answer 1

you watching too many movies depicting caveman. if you've been shown a flying car what would you do?

Answer 2

The question seems to be not so much what we are, but what God is. Since when does God have to be logical or rational as we humans understand those terms? Science is but a mere snapshot of scientific knowledge at some given point in time and its always wrong because its always incomplete and always will be. It cannot attempt to explain God"s realm that is intangible, because that very intangibility is impervious to scientific method. Its easy enough to prove they're way up a gum tree.

If the much vaunted by them Big Bang theory is correct, then you start out with an unfolding of dimensions/explosion of an enormous concenration of matter/whatever way you want to look at it. This implies that there is an enegry gradient between what is expanding and what is yet not and what has already (partly) expanded and what is only just doing so.

Question. How can you prove that measurments made at one point(ours) in this energy gradient are valid at any other point in a possibly varying energy gradient without actually being at that point and knowing what the energy gradient actually is at that point?
Answer. You cannot do so.

Therefore all theories based on the fact that the measurements will be the same anywhere/everywhere are totally ill-founded (witness the fact they are having to violate one of their own laws, ie the speed of light is not now considered totally constant). That means all of modern physics is foundered! Obviously a Perfect Creation can accomodate all possible things or else it would not be perfect. Thus it can accomodate all theories, but they can only reveal a part of the whole. String theory reveals a slightly larger part than the quantum theory and both are exterpolations of entriely mathematical concepts. The first of a point_particle and the second a vibrating, variable frequency string under a tension approaching 39 billion tons. Where is that tension coming from? The theorists dont attemp to anwer that question.

So dont worry, Science is as far from understanding the true nature of things as a Neanderthal is from understanding Relativity and God reigns supreme in his indifference to its mewlings. Only the vast majority of us humans are stupid enough to believe that Science is right.

As to approaching Christianity to Science, then consider that if a Day of Creation was roughly 660 million years down here, then most of the differences disappear!

John the Seeker

Answer 3

It appears that some atheists think that science disproves or debunks religion, and for them, science becomes a religion substitute, as it were. At least some atheists can be just as dogmatic and stubborn about their assertions concerning religion and human nature as any hard headed religious person, but being stubborn, they cannot see that.

Science and religion are really two different spheres; science investigates the creation, while religion ponders the creator. In most Western religions, at least, God and the material universe are two different things, so the study of one does not imply anything directly about the study of the other.

Many Christian scientists and philosophers have noted that it is impossible to have had any kind of science without an implicit assumption that the universe COULD be understood. We forget how big a leap of logic that was. Why should nature follow mathematical laws? We assumed that nature was designed by a rational mind that just so happened to think similar to the way that we do, so we assumed that nature COULD be understood by mere mortals and went to work on discovering nature's laws. Those who say that Greek rationalism alone gave rise to modern science ignore the obvious historical fact that it did not. Hero developed the first steam engine, but it did not give rise to an ancient industrial revolution, for example. Modern science and technology developed in the West only after Christian and Classical Greek though mingled in the Renaissance. People who claim that science could exist apart from the Christian world view, or that Christianity is harmful to science, must explain the fact that modern science and technology emerged in the Christian west first, not somewhere else in the world (even though we borrowed bits and pieces pf knowledge from other places, Europeans put it all together).

"How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture" by Francis A. Schaeffer }

Answer 4

The scientist's of many centuries ago like Newton, Galileo, Pascal, Copernicus and many others understood God of the Bible to be a reasonable god and creator of a universe that could be examined and explained in scientific terms which inspired them to seek out and understand it's mysteries in a logical way and thus was born the Age of Reason or Enlightenment.
Lately, science has gone astray of that reasoning and many modern scientists seek to explain the universe and creation in wholely natural terms with no external supernatural influence. The problem is, there is no logical, testable, observable way to explain the origin and evolution of life from non-life into higher and higher life forms, no matter how much time is thrown at the problem....it's statistically impossible for it to happen here or anywhere else in the universe and there is no evidence to support it outside of a belief system that has been developed over the past 150 years. There are laws of nature and genetics which are immutable and do not support the theory of evolution yet the belief persists because the only alternative is a creator God who makes rules for us and governs us and that is unthinkable to some.
Man's curiosity and intellect will allow him to unravel the secrets of the universe but only if he can logically accept that God created it.

Answer 5

Science would be able to explain the how of God, given enough time as evidenced by the little we now know about the universe. It took several years and advanced technology to discover the planets. Pluto was included in the 1950s and now they are saying it is not really a planet! No one owned a TV or a computer when I was born in the 1950s. Science and logic and self-evidence and mindful thought literally have to match up in order to have a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt that God exists and is Creator.

Answer 6

There doesn't HAVE to be a 'why'. Surely?

Look, our 'developed' brains are capable of abstract thoughts, OK?. We look for a 'why', probably not because there 'has' to be a 'why', but because we 'logically' decide that one is required as we observe the 'why' in our daily pursuits and observations of cause and effect. This gets mixed up with our human desires and ego, and then all of a sudden the whole Universe (or beyond) simply MUST have a human-type desire and mind behind it.

I believe we only do this because we reason that when we do something, we have a reason to do it, so henceforth there 'must' be a man or somesuch in the sky that does everything else.

Isn't this ego-projection and abstract thought leading down a philosophical cul-de-sac.

Why the 'why?' all the time?

Why not replace the simplistic concept of 'why' with a more expansive question? Are our questions about 'why' a childish attempt to grasp the possibility of some kind of transmorphic continuum observed from the ego, a kind of objective/subjective juncture of reason vs faith vs surrealism vs recurring abstract thought intervention at quantum level?

Huh?

Or you could just adopt the method of the above answer argue from incredulity.

Answer 7

I like your last paragraph. This makes a strong case for Judeo-Christian belief. If you read the old testament you will find that the God of the old testament was markedly different than the superstitious type beliefs of that day. They didn't believe in hand made gods, or gods of the wind and sun. All those things have demonstrated to be the result of ignorance. Yet the God of Judaism is frighteningly distinct. The notion of Yahweh is significantly different than the simplistic type gods of counterpart religions of that day. And I'll venture to say that the Jews of that day wouldn't have believed a man with a lighter was a god. So at least the Jews were people of logic.

Answer 8

The only logical explanation to the complexity of this world is intelligent design. I want you to take a wrist watch and take it completely apart so you just have a bunch of parts, then take a stick of dynamite and blow them up what are the odds that all the pieces will come together to make a complete working wrist watch again? even if we waited 10 millions years those parts are never going to form a wrist watch on their own with out intervention from intelligence. The same things with man kind even if all the "parts" were in one spot together they will never put themselves together with out intelligent intervention no matter how long we wait. and if they could then man kind would have been able to create something living out of something non living but we have yet to do that. Until we do the only intelligent conclusion is an intelligent creator, GOD!

Answer 9

From research, I know that the bible and science agree on many, many points. The creation account readily agrees with the fossil record, in view of creative days being creative cycles. Job gives some amazing accounts of scientific things that, at his time, no man could know, but God could explain. The description of the earth put the lie to foolish men's opinion that the earth was flat, etc; the rain cycle, including evaporation, is a biblical teaching; the bible described fetal development and the secrets of the womb long before mankind could 'get it'; and quantum physics is on every other page in the bible, if you ask me.
Your analogy of the cavemen and the lighter is apt; I feel it applies to us, as well, in view of the science of the Creator...maybe because we are cavemen of a sort ourselves, we look at the "lighter" and, because of our "logic", we don't see God.

Answer 10

We were caveman, hence the reason for religion because caveman could not understand what, how and why things happened around them. As time went on this idea of god was used to explain everything and in turn became a religion. Some no longer exist since we now in modern time consider it a myth such as Zeus. Anyway we are creatures of logic and in time I truly hope that our logic is greater and we realize that religion is not needed anymore than we need Zeus

Answer 11

We are cavemen, with a thin veneer.

People do not want to be a almost infinitely insignificant dot in a cold mechanical universe. - look up the total perspective vortex (LOL) - So they create something that makes them extra special and important.

I doubt all the logic in the universe can make them let go of what they have created because the reality is too scary for them.