Larger segment of Generation Y turning to God

The Roanoke Times ^ | 12/16/2004 | Jill Hoffman

[mike182d]

The creation story details HOW LONG CREATION TOOK and has nothing to do with dating from then to now.

Interesting tidbit: there is a book called "The Science of God" by a Jewish scientist/theologian (I forget his name), and he makes the point that we know from science that "time" is relative to the mass of the matter on which it is measured (i.e. time is "slower" on Jupiter than it is on Earth). Thus, when one reads the creation accounts, they cannot go by Earth-time, as the Earth had not yet been created. We would have to establish a "Universe-time," so to speak, that can be measured of the universe as a whole and not from any specific body of matter within the universe. He was able to establish a "universe-time" by using perceived Red-Shift, radiation left over from the Big-Bang, and found that from the point of singularity to the existance of the species homo sapiens it took 6 "universe" days.

Food for thought :-)

[susiek]

From the standpoint of whether the school can stop it, it may be. The Court has basically drawn the line so that schools can't allow some groups but not others based on viewpoint--it stops schools from telling Christian groups that they can't meet just because they use the Bible, but it could also open the door for other religions. Schools can ban all groups, but if any content related to student issues is allowed, then groups coming from any viewpoint must be allowed.

[BikerNYC]

God, however, exists necessarily.

Why? I completely disagree.

There is no necessity for a God's existence. It is a perfectly logical and rational question to ask why there is a God instead of nothing at all.

If God did not exist perhaps we and anything else in our universe would not exist either, but postulating God's eternal existence does not answer the question of why such an eternal being exists in the first place.

Why can't there be absolutely nothing...no humans, no Earth, no universe, no space, no time, no God?

[mike182d]

Why? I completely disagree.

I think you miss the point of the argument. You assume a definition of God, then apply the property of necessity to your idea, then automatically assume that it is untrue. Instead, work the other way around:

A thing's existence is either necessary or contingent. The existence of everything in the cosmos is contingent, in that it did not exist at one point, it now exists, and in the future will cease to exist. You cannot have an infinite series of contingent beings as the answer for the sum is never greater than the whole. There must be something that exists necessarily, outside of the realm of contingent beings, that is the cause of their existence. This we call God.

You don't have to call it "God" if you don't want, but a necessary being must exist to explain the existence of everything contingent. We just happen to call this necessary being God.

[Bluegrass Conservative]

Schools can ban all groups, but if any content related to student issues is allowed, then groups coming from any viewpoint must be allowed.

Could they ban all religious-oriented groups?

[Terabitten]

Makes me proud to have gone to Virginia Tech. Blacksburg really is God's country.

[rwfromkansas]

Hmm. Did he find the universe day matched up with generally accepted scientific lengths of time it took from the creation to the emergence of man?

[Terabitten]

Known to his Emmaus cult followers as "The Christian". :)

I don't understand your reference. Can you explain?

[mike182d]

Hmm. Did he find the universe day matched up with generally accepted scientific lengths of time it took from the creation to the emergence of man?

The duration of time established by science is based upon the length of one "earth" day.

[susiek]

That argument has been tried, but the Court rejected it on the reasoning that religious groups do not talk about only religion, they also exist to deal with general "student life and issues" content. A religious group that talks about sex, drugs, etc. can't be banned if the school allows any non-religious group to talk about those things. I guess if the school had a rule against religious content and there was a religious group that never addressed anything but religion, the school could claim a total content-restriction not limited by viewpoint. But of course, the student groups use the Bible to talk about general issues, so they can't be banned on viewpoint alone.

[rwfromkansas]

I assume there is a way to convert though?

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Generation Y

What will media demographers when they run out of letters?

[reaganaut]

Every young generation likes to rebel against the older generation

True, my hubby's rebellion against his liberal hippie mother was wearing a dress shirt and tie, going to Church with his Grandmother, and voting Republican. Even after the 'rebellion' wore off, he still does all of the above. :)

I think she was hoping he would "come to his senses" and marry a liberal feminist, she wasn't happy when he brought me home (anti-feminist, Christian, conservative, NRA member).

[BikerNYC]

The existence of everything in the cosmos is contingent, in that it did not exist at one point, it now exists, and in the future will cease to exist.

Can this be established? I don't think there are too many scientists who believe that there is convincing evidence to establish that the mass-energy of the universe came into existence as some point and will someday go out of existence.

You cannot have an infinite series of contingent beings as the answer for the sum is never greater than the whole.

Why not? I don't think this can be established either.

but a necessary being must exist to explain the existence of everything contingent.

Your belief that everything in the universe is contingent appears to be a conclusion drawn from experience and empirical evidence that you have found, evidence which is never complete or finalized. You have made an empirical generalization of what is contingent and that generalization might need to be revised or withdrawn if further evidence suggests a better conclusion. (Quantum Mechanics already details that there are some uncaused events in the universe and uncertainty principles make it very difficult to determine before and after at the Planck scale.) Your use of the word "must" is, therefore, unfounded.

In addition, where did the principle "there must be something that exists necessarily, outside of the realm of contingent beings, to explain the cause of contingent beings" come from? Why does that have to be true? Did the necessary being create the principle? Does the principle precede the necessary being? Is the necessary being subject to rules of logic or physics that it cannot itself control? Can a necessary being end its existence without being the cause of contingent beings? If so, why didn't the necessary being do that in our case?