Posted on 12/13/2010 11:18:17 AM PST by SeekAndFind
An astronomer is suing the University of Kentucky, claiming he was denied a job running its observatory because of his Christian faith.
Martin Gaskell was once considered the leading candidate to be the founding director of the observatory, opened in 2008.
The Courier-Journal reports that a trial has been set for Feb. 8 after a federal judge ruled Gaskell has the right to a jury trial.
Gaskell argues that the school discriminated against him because he had given lectures in the past discussing astronomy and the Bible and his questions about the theory of evolution, even though he accepts it.
The university acknowledges there were questions about his beliefs, but there was valid scientific concern. It also claims there were other factors in denying him the job, including a poor performance review in a previous job.
Many on FR claim that a god who created this universe by using a long time frame and doing it by the current scientific paradigm of taking billions of years, letting the laws of physics, etc do their work and all is a greater god and gets more glory that a god who created it instantaneously.
That is not a fact, written in stone, but merely an opinion of some, as rationalization and justification in support of their position being *right*.
*God had to do it our way because we think that it’s better and He’d get more glory for it and it would prove that He’s a greater god than the one you believe in who did it instantaneously.*
Or some such nonsense.
Would that not also apply to those that think that God gets more glory in creating everything instantaneously in six day steps?
How old do you believe the sun to be?
The Age of the Universe
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1576941/posts
It's not a matter of whether God gets more glory by doing it one way or the other. It's a matter of whether one believes God when He says what He does in Scripture.
But as to the question....
How would God get more glory by creating the raw materials, establishing the laws, giving it a little nudge, and then sitting back and watching it happen be more glorifying than a God who actively constructed it Himself?
The error is in anthropomorphizing God and assuming that God is bound by human reasoning.
Modern day scientists have become as close minded and intolerant of other beliefs as those of religious persuasion that they condemn for those very same attitudes.
You have clearly demonstrated that the claim that this guy is making that his situation is because of his beliefs, is valid.
I grew up in an evangelical religion, and many, many of us had no problems understanding that the Biblical stories may have been the best explanation people had 2000, 4000, or more years ago, for things they could not understand, or for which they could not otherwise account. The fact is that God himself would be ashamed of people who refuse to acknowledge the gains that human knowledge, science, and technology have made in the past 2000 years.
God gave us brains to use. People who refuse to use their God-given reason and judgement deserve no special favors for jobs that require reason and judgement. Belief in God and quest for scientific discovery are not mutually exclusive. If you have one grain of faith in God, you should not be afraid to learn new things, even if the new things learned totally abolish previously held beliefs.
Truth and freedom are inseparable. There are many things that remain unknown, but many things that are known, and science is simply a set of methods of discovering what God wants us to discover.
God assures us that "more will be revealed", and more is revealed all the time. God must be sorely disappointed at those who refuse to grow and learn with His revelations.
And I don't consider the "climate change" frauds as scientists. They are as fraudulent as religious luddites.
The purpose of the scientist is to develop models based on observation. It is not possible to observe God so one can only observe the environment, develop a model and test it against additional observations. Of course one seeing the sun rise can say that 'God did it' and all future observations can be satisfied by that hypothesis. But that wouldn't be science.
Apparently you do not understand the difference between punishment and hiring someone to do the job as you expect them to do.
But doesn't the Bible do this all the time? Consider that God talked to Adam, God formed all the animals for Adam to seek a help-meet but after Adam found them lacking, God came up with another plan. In the Bible, God gets angry and destroys civilizations and most of mankind. God tells his faithful to go forth and destroy and rape entire cities.
But that is off-topic. To address post, whether one believes that God formed the universe by going 'poof' 7000 years ago or by going 'poof' 13 billion years ago requires that on attribute human properties to God.
Astronomy and cosmology are unique in entertaining theories which are arguably AS stupid as evolution and that arises from the continued insistence that gravity alone governs the nature of cosmic objects and interpreting redshift as distance and motion.
It’s no different than discovering the laws of physics.
You can’t see them, they are just deduced from observations of the physical world around us.
God attributes human properties to Himself.
He refers to his eye, His face, His hand, His arm, etc.
He loves, hates, gets angry, is grieved.
If you have an issue with that, take it up with Him.
I know and see the difference.
Not hiring someone on their religious beliefs precludes the hiring of them on their qualifications.
"Of course one seeing the sun rise can say that 'God did it' and all future observations can be satisfied by that hypothesis. But that wouldn't be science."
If that is true, then neither is it 'science' to claim that you can project sunrises back into unobservable, assumed time frames and develop models based on that assumption.
I knew John J. Grebe. Pretty smart guy. Somewhere I have some of his papers and they demonstrate the depth of his intellect and knowledge. He had numerous patents, etc. Apparently many would consider him a anti-science because of his beliefs. They are nuts.
He gave us brains so that we could find him.
Psa 53:1 ¶ [[To the chief Musician upon Mahalath, Maschil, [A Psalm] of David.]] The fool hath said in his heart, [There is] no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: [there is] none that doeth good.
Psa 53:2 God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were [any] that did understand, that did seek God.
The fact that these brains can be used to achieve "science"(knowledge) is "gravy".
That is the point of “poof”, it doesn’t require an explanation, that is what makes it easy to understand.
A universe that unfolds according to Laws, such that stars and planets form, does NOT mean that God is not their creator. So why does a physical explanation for how life changes make God not the ultimate creator of all living things.
As the Pope was quoted previously in this thread, the thought came before the form, thus they were all created within the mind of God before their physical form came into being.
You are correct that a God who sets up physical laws such that the universe forms over billions of years being a more amazing and transcendent God than one who goes “poof” is just an opinion. But it is my opinion.
Thanks for writing dear sister in Christ.
Not gravy... crumbs.
Nor is it science to presume that your observations prove that the non-God paradigm is correct. Seeing the sun rise and claiming a naturalistic cause is not science either.
If science doesn’t address the causes, as many claim, then atheistic scientists are in no better position to claim that science *proves* their world view and presumptions correct than it does to *prove* than a God believing scientists view that God is responsible for it. And it does not disprove God or God’s involvement.
The atheistic scientists apply two standards when debating. They think it acceptable to use assumptions about the cause of events when it doesn’t include God and think it unacceptable to use assumptions about events when it does include God. Double standards are unworthy of someone who claims to be an objective observer. It instantly demonstrates the fallacy of that claim.
Since science does not deal with the cause, assuming materialistic naturalism is a philosophical assumption no different than assuming God.
The observed evidence does NOT prove that the no-God paradigm is the correct one.
It has *agenda* written all over it.
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