"...if God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn't he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why is he constantly repairing and complaining?And how he answers it:
"No, there's one thing the Bible makes clear: The biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer. He's not good at design, he's not good at execution. He'd be out of business if there was any competition."My reflection on these statements:
(1) God IS omnipotent and omniscient. What is the basis of Sagan's claim that God didn't "start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants?" God knows the end from the beginning, and everything in between. God's being is timeless, eternal. He lives in the Eternal NOW; man lives in serial, linear, irreversible time. God already knows how everything turns out. But man doesn't.
Why does Sagan think that God is endlessly "tinkering" with His creation? And where does Sagan find God "complaining" about anything?
Actually, he might have heard about that "tinkering" business from Sir Isaac Newton, a monotheist, who did tend to think God made a mechanistic universe. That was all the rage in his day (see: Laplace's Mécanique Céleste). That being the case, God would have to step in from time to time to set matters aright; because mechanisms tend to accumulate errors over time. The point is, Newton was a totally faithful believer in the Creator God. Sagan seems to have missed that part.
The kind of "creation" that Sagan expects God should have made would be a thoroughly, perfectly determined "machine" from the get-go, one in which nothing genuinely novel, nothing new could ever come into existence. It would make man's free will, reason, and creativity perfectly irrelevant, superfluous. In which case Sagan himself, his science, and his own statements about God would be perfectly irrelevant and superfluous.
(2) God is not, as Sagan claims, a "sloppy manufacturer." Indeed, He is not a manufacturer at all; for all a manufacturer can build is machines. God did not build "machines." Rather, He created souls capable of living in sonship with Him, their Father. Sagan's claim that God is good at neither design nor execution, and that He'd be "out of business if there was any competition" suggests to me three things: (a) in the first place, Sagan is making himself "the measure" of God; yet (b) though he makes this claim, to make the claim itself is a backhanded acknowledgement that God exists; and finally (c) Sagan proposes himself as God's "competitor," and a far superior competitor at that.
At this point, "the cat's out of the bag," as they say.
Again, dear sister, you are conflating cosmology and Darwinian myth.
When it comes to God, theology, and religion, Sagan (like Richard Dawkins) is a complete ignoramus. Why do you take him seriously? He is a "know-nothing."
Also, you are imputing much nastiness to Hugh Ross — arrogance, malfeasance, the inversion/falsification of actual Reality. Why??? I feel sure he didn't ascribe to the "theory" that life/soul/spirit arose from chemicals/matter. That the "evolution" of man proceeded from the lowest and crudest of life forms? Why are you beating a dead horse???
Darwin's theory of Evolution is a non-starter. Yet you keep on (inadvertently) promoting it. Why???
You seem to agree with Dr. Sarfati that "denial of the literal and historical meaning of Genesis (young earth view)" is the result of "imposing outside ideas upon the Bible."
Turn that idea on its head, and you come closer to the Truth: there is nothing "truthful" in science that contradicts the Holy Scriptures.
Which is why I am 100% CERTAIN that Darwin's theory is some kind of satanic joke.
FWIW. Thank you so very much, dear sister in Christ, for sharing your thoughts.
I am assured of at least one thing: God created the Universe so that IT would eventually manifest Him in The Son, The Word made flesh Who dwelt among us. I shall continue to seek the how of that creation until He lets me know it irks Him for me to do that. So far, He is feeding me clues, presently, daily.
The dangers of evolutionary thinking (scientism) are captured by GK Chesterton. The problem with modernity, said Chesterton, is the program and attitude of scientism, a "serpent...as slippery as an eel," a "demon...as elusive as an elf," an "evil and elusive creature." (The Restitution of Man, Michael D. Aeschliman, p. 43)
Strong words, but entirely applicable given the attitude of intolerance toward special creation that eventually overtakes the minds of many evolutionists. Consider the following:
1.In Kirktonholme primary school, East Kilbride, Scotland, Headteacher Alexandra MacKenzie and her deputy Elizabeth Mockus were redeployed to backroom duties while an investigation was to be carried out. A number of parents had complained about two books which had been handed out to their children during a school assembly. One answered the question ‘How you know God is real?’, and the other was titled ‘Exposing the myth of evolution’.
2.A parent and also a Member of the Scottish Parliament have called for an investigation, after a physics teacher, Leonard Rogers, during a discussion on the big bang with his class at a school in Midlothian, informed them that evolution was not proven. Apparently, he also told the class that he was a Christian with strong creationist beliefs.
3.As a result of the first two news stories, the Scottish Secular Society called for the ban of creationism in science classes in Scottish schools. While they acknowledged that they had no issue with pupils understanding that not everyone accepts evolution, they stated that the only place that creationism had in Scottish schools was “within a discussion context in religious and moral education classes”.
4.Professor Alice Roberts, in an interview with the Times Education Supplement (London), has called for new laws in the UK to extend the ban of teaching creationism beyond state-run schools to all independent schools, which would include privately run Christian schools.10 (The attack on biblical creation in UK schools continues, Phil Robinson, creation.com)
The vicious name-calling, increasing intolerance toward and censorship of special creation and of all who profess and teach it should raise the eyebrows of any rational thinking person. If the evidence for evolution really is so overwhelming why the anger, name-calling, ridicule, scorn, and intolerance? Why can no challenges be discussed?
betty: you are conflating cosmology and Darwinian myth
Spirited: Not at all. The point I've been making over and over is that evolution is the antithesis of special creation. It -IS- an alternative cosmogony. So what is evolution, whether the Enuma Elish, Darwinian, Teilhard's conception, Michael Dowd's, or Hugh Ross's idea? Answer: the universal life force (aka, the Force, Zoe, Kundalini, serpent power, seething energy of Lucifer, etc) that can be actualized within man because man is "one with" the One Substance that mechanically emanates everything in existence like waves form across an ocean.
The universal life force connects everything with the One Substance. Orwell's Big Brother had actualized the universal force, hence he had power over matter and claimed that reality existed within his skull.
Now when Hugh Ross claims that God is the director of evolution, in his arrogant presumption he has taken it upon himself to make God the director, for example, of Greek hylozoism (hyle=nature/cosmos, zoe=universal life force)or of the serpent power of Kundalini or of the serpent power of the Egyptian Orphites (snake worshippers). At the very least this is blasphemy.
betty: you are imputing much nastiness to Hugh Ross — arrogance, malfeasance, the inversion/falsification of actual Reality. Why???
Spirited: Dr. Jonathan Sarfati is a Messianic Jew; a chess-master with a PhD in chemistry. In his younger years he professed no religious beliefs but today he writes for Creation Ministries International, a Christian Apologetics ministry. His book, "Refuting Compromise: A Biblical and Scientific Refutation of 'Progressive Creationism' (Billions of Years) as Popularized by Astronomer Hugh Ross" clearly and unconditionally demonstrates the serious biblical and scientific problems in the teachings of Hugh Ross, the Big Bang and the canon of supporting theories attendant upon it.
Over and over again, Sarfati shows that Ross subtly wrests the plain meaning and intent of the early Church Fathers so as to make what they actually said agreeable with what Ross wants his followers to accept. Throughout his book, though Sarfati is gracious toward Ross, he nevertheless unflinchingly reveals the abundance of inconsistencies, illogic, wresting of truth, and other problems with Ross's teachings.
Darwin's theory is certainly a Satanic doctrine. But so are all evolutionary programs.