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To: madameguinot

Haven’t been up to Seattle lately. I used to live in SF where they have the Exploratorium and currently volunteer at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) in Portland. So short answer, no.

Question since you brought up Intelligent Design (and I ask this as someone who studied with Catholics who got burned by the whole Galileo thing (and I don’t mean the original ones, I’m not that old)): should we circumscribe God’s power based on what our current understanding of science is?

Let me explain. In Galileo’s time, the Catholic Church taught that it was “impossible” for God to creat a solar system such that it appeared (to us mere mortals) that we lived on an immovable Earth and the Sun rose around us (rising in the East and setting in the West). Turns out that it is entirely possible for God to do this. In fact he has. He has created a system where it feels to us like we are not moving but in fact we are on a planet which is rotating on its axis which rotating around the sun.

So I (to make a long story somewhat longer) am not a big fan of saying that God can or can’t, must or mustn’t do something.


8 posted on 06/03/2011 6:02:47 PM PDT by PhilosopherStone1000
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To: PhilosopherStone1000

Well, from a history of science standpoint,the book, The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution, by James Hannam is reviewed in the Nota Bene portion of the institute’s webpage and addresses this very thing.

The Institute doesn’t operate from an a priori argument that God created the world, let’s prove it. It draws from a rich tradition of historical science, ‘natural philosophy’ that was very well developed by the middle ages that provided a logical basis for scientific thought. I highly recommend their site.


18 posted on 06/03/2011 6:29:54 PM PDT by madameguinot (Our Father's God to Thee, Author of Liberty)
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To: PhilosopherStone1000
So I (to make a long story somewhat longer) am not a big fan of saying that God can or can’t, must or mustn’t do something.

That's what Bohr famously told Einstein, "Stop telling God what to do." This was his retort to Einstein's dictum, "God does not play dice with the universe."

38 posted on 06/03/2011 8:03:40 PM PDT by dr_lew
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