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The strange tension between theology and science
Washington Post ^ | April 24, 2013 | Michael Gerson

Posted on 04/25/2014 1:42:41 PM PDT by neverdem

In the late 1920s, astronomer Edwin Hubble established that the light we detect from galaxies is shifted toward the redder colors of the spectrum, indicating that they are moving away from us at enormous speeds. And the farther away galaxies are, the faster they are fleeing. Rewinding that expansion through mathematics — dividing distance by speed — indicates that something extraordinary happened about 14 billion years ago, when the entire universe was small, dense and exceedingly hot.

Scientists such as Alexander Friedmann and Georges Lemaitre had anticipated the big bang — which Lemaitre described as a “Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of creation.” Others theorized that such an event would have left a detectable residue of hydrogen plasma grown cold over time. In the 1960s, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson duly detected it — finding microwave background radiation in every direction they pointed their telescope. The whole sky glows faintly at a temperature of about 3 degrees above absolute zero. Part of the static between channels on broadcast television is an echo of the big bang.

These are some of the most regularly confirmed, noncontroversial findings of modern science. Yet a recent poll found that a majority of Americans are “not too” or “not at all” confident that “the universe began 13.8 billion years ago with a big bang.”

Some of this skepticism, surely, reflects the inherent difficulty of imagining unimaginable scales of time and space. And some fault must lie with American scientific education, which routinely transforms the consideration of wonders into a chore and a bore. But the poll also found that confidence in the big bang declines as belief in a Supreme Being increases...

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS: science; theology
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To: gleeaikin
Christianity has always supported inquiry and the spread of knowledge. It has been a way to understand the Divine.

Did you know that 105 of the first 107 colleges founded in the American Colonies were Christian?

Did you know that the reason why we can read today--the idea of a public education, which started with "hornbooks" (Google it) was because it was an expectation of Protestants that every person should be capable of reading, thinking, and understanding?

So many misconceptions stem from television and the bias from today's college professors.

The fact is, Christianity advanced knowledge. No other religion did the same. It is no coincidence that Europe came out on top, scientifically. It wasn't dumb luck. It was the influence of Christianity encouraging exploration and understanding, which was considered to be an essential part of a thinking mind.

Most of our history books contain more than a little anti-Christian bias....

21 posted on 04/25/2014 3:12:49 PM PDT by sauron ("Truth is hate to those who hate Truth" --unknown)
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To: BigEdLB
I'm Christian, and I believe in a 13 billion year old universe.

Where's the conflict?! Oh, there's conflict if we believe in a [little] God.

Looking up, seeing the universe of galaxies, filaments/galactic walls and voids, the large scale structure of the universe...I believe in a Great Big God.

As an edification pastor once explained in class, "The river cannot be higher than its source," when comparing the universe to God. The Creator must be larger than, exist prior to, exist outside of and beyond, the universe.

22 posted on 04/25/2014 3:18:26 PM PDT by sauron ("Truth is hate to those who hate Truth" --unknown)
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To: hinckley buzzard
Extrapolation from a poll of the Great Ignorati to a conclusion about theology and science is bad logic and worse reporting. The whole premise of this screed is laughable.

This essay if from one of GWB's speechwriters. I wouldn't call it reporting. Have you noticed that the right is routinely denounced by the left as anti-science because they doubt global warming, evolution and the big bang?

23 posted on 04/25/2014 3:22:28 PM PDT by neverdem (Register pressure cookers! /s)
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To: sauron

Would you rule out the possibility that God created the universe with time/light in place ?

Does “Dark Matter/Dark Energy”, need to exist ?

Do you know why it’s called “Dark” ?


24 posted on 04/25/2014 3:26:36 PM PDT by Zeneta (Thoughts in time and out of season.)
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To: Slyfox

Profound.

God’s gift to man - the ability to think and discover the wonder of Creation.


25 posted on 04/25/2014 3:28:33 PM PDT by sodpoodle (Life is prickly - carry tweezers.)
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To: Berlin_Freeper
Wow...WOW!

This answers (and asks) some Big Questions.

Thanks for the link.

26 posted on 04/25/2014 3:38:28 PM PDT by sauron ("Truth is hate to those who hate Truth" --unknown)
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To: gleeaikin

No, but thanks for the ping, g.


27 posted on 04/25/2014 3:39:58 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: sodpoodle

Sodpoodle,

Are you an Ex-pat or are you living in the UK ?

I agree with your comment 100% but I don’t think the post you replied to is profound in any way.


28 posted on 04/25/2014 3:40:08 PM PDT by Zeneta (Thoughts in time and out of season.)
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To: Zeneta
Would you rule out the possibility that God created the universe with time/light in place ? Does “Dark Matter/Dark Energy”, need to exist ? Do you know why it’s called “Dark” ?

As the Creator, he could have. Do I think he did? Hell no. It's not logical. Yet...it almost appears that way, doesn't it? Something for us to explore, and that's not a bad thing, is it?

Does dark matter/energy *need* to exist? Apparently, it does. Life has taught me that things exist for a reason. Our problem: we don't understand the reason. Again, life and history teaches us to be patient, we'll figure it out. We used to think we didn't need tonsils. We used to cut out stomachs over and over again to "cure" an ulcer.

Yes, I know why it's called "Dark." It's virtually undetectable using any instrumentation and sensing we currently have available, as it doesn't interact with anything in a significant way, or at all. Were you being condescending in asking me that, or serious? ;) (I already know.)

29 posted on 04/25/2014 3:47:38 PM PDT by sauron ("Truth is hate to those who hate Truth" --unknown)
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To: sauron

Yes, I know why it’s called “Dark.” It’s virtually undetectable using any instrumentation and sensing we currently have available, as it doesn’t interact with anything in a significant way, or at all.


That’s not why it is called “Dark”.

It’s called Dark because it is “Unknown”. It is advanced out of necessity to fit their models.

There are plenty of theories and millions of dollars being spent on the detection of this. When or if they do detect “Dark energy/matter”, it will no longer be Dark.

It only exists out of a theoretical necessity.

Without Dark Energy/Matter, everything falls apart.


30 posted on 04/25/2014 4:04:49 PM PDT by Zeneta (Thoughts in time and out of season.)
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To: neverdem
But the poll also found that confidence in the big bang declines as belief in a Supreme Being increases...

I really don't understand this. Scientists are driven to describe the physical universe, as accurately and in as much detail as possible. Yet some fundamentalists regard scientists as tools of the devil for being so literal and descriptive. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why describing creation as it actually is, and not as it was figuratively described in a book of moral lessons, is so threatening.

Nevertheless, religion will adapt to embrace the modern understanding of the world, just as it eventually accepted Gallileo's findings.

31 posted on 04/25/2014 4:10:38 PM PDT by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
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To: sauron

Wonderful. I only wish some of the literal 7 day creationists would expand their horizons with that understanding. Instead, they worship the earth.


32 posted on 04/25/2014 4:13:42 PM PDT by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
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To: gleeaikin
Galileo's story is more complicated than that. His scientific peers used the inquisition to silence him. He would have been burned at the stake except for Pope Urban (?) placing him under house arrest. This appeased the inquisition and his scientific peers, and saved his life.

Galileo's scientific peers are no different than the rabid climate scientist of today that want climate change deniers put to death.

33 posted on 04/25/2014 4:16:48 PM PDT by D Rider (Don't give sharp objects to small children)
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To: exDemMom

Nevertheless, religion will adapt to embrace the modern understanding of the world, just as it eventually accepted Gallileo’s findings


Galileo was a Christian.

http://www.bethinking.org/does-science-disprove-god/conflict-myths-galileo-galilei

He fought against an “Establishment” Church.

Christians should NEVER be subservient to the manmade construct of what science has become.

Can you use the “scientific Method” to prove “Logic” is real ?

If so, how ?

By using logic?

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

Robert Jastrow


34 posted on 04/25/2014 4:25:40 PM PDT by Zeneta (Thoughts in time and out of season.)
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To: neverdem

Actually, the big bank solves the problem of the six days of creation very nicely. It all has to do with how (and where) time is measured. This is because the universe is expanding at nearly the speed of light. Thus, while from our vantage point looking back our earth appears to be 14 billion years old. But if you measured time from the source of the big bang (the source of creation), then only six days have passed. It’s all in the math. The link below explains not only the math, but the theology behind it.

http://aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/Age_of_the_Universe.asp


35 posted on 04/25/2014 4:33:05 PM PDT by impactplayer
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To: impactplayer

My contention, after many years of looking into this issue has come to something very similar.

It’s the starting point of what we know as expansion in the universe.

My belief that the Earth is young, 6 to 10 thousand years, rests not solely on Genesis, but from the fact that what science thinks they know to be true contains so many conflicts and assumptions that it can not be called science.

The math of “evolution” is impossible.

Nevermind the TOE is “unprovable”. It doesn’t even qualify as a theory under their own standards.


36 posted on 04/25/2014 4:58:40 PM PDT by Zeneta (Thoughts in time and out of season.)
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To: exDemMom
I cannot figure out why describing creation as it actually is, and not as it was figuratively described in a book of moral lessons, is so threatening.

Many believe literally in the Bible as the word of God. They perceive these hypotheses as attacks on their religion, hence as personal attacks.

37 posted on 04/25/2014 5:00:23 PM PDT by neverdem (Register pressure cookers! /s)
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To: gleeaikin; GraceG
The Lemaître mentioned in the article was FATHER Georges Lemaître, a Catholic priest,

Galileo's heliocentric hypothesis was NOT the reason for his being sentenced to house arrest.

The problem as seen by the Scientists of the age, the vast majority of whom were connected to the Catholic Church one way or another was that to PROVE the motion of the earth, one would have to show some APPARENT motion of the stars, parallax.

No instrument was sufficiently precise to show parallax. Consequently, the motion of the earth was not proved. And so the Church said that while Galileo could certainly propose his conjecture, he could not describe it as certainly true. But he insisted on doing so, despite the lack of proof.

Despite his having been given public and official honors and patronage by the Church, Galileo (a lot of whose stuff I have read, though it was forty years ago) was gratuitously offensive. In my college, where we ALL read Galileo,we all agreed that he was baiting the Church.

He asked for it. He got it. I honestly think that if he were alive today he would have been diagnoses with a personality disorder. They guy was obviously brilliant and obviously obnoxious.

But to parlay his imprisonment into an anti-science stand does not stand up to history. It was because the scientists of the Church were MORE rigorous and logical than Galileo that they would not approve of his work.

38 posted on 04/25/2014 5:49:27 PM PDT by Mad Dawg (In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in aeternum.)
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To: Alamo-Girl; betty boop; neverdem

Popcorn time! ‘-)


39 posted on 04/25/2014 6:42:13 PM PDT by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias... "Barack": Allah's current ally...)
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To: neverdem; Alamo-Girl; betty boop
"But the poll also found that confidence in the big bang declines as belief in a Supreme Being increases..."

Not necessarily. The correlation actually is to prolonged exposure to unenlightened propagandizing by science-illiterate "ministers", taught by intellectually-inbred "professors" who think they can treat the few sentences in Genesis as if they were a graduate-level science text.

And the fire is kept smoking along by money-hungry YEC scamsters who deliberately (and/or egotistically) misinterpret Genesis and prey on the scientifically ignorant.

40 posted on 04/25/2014 6:52:36 PM PDT by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias... "Barack": Allah's current ally...)
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