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 ...
Fantastic post!
"Personally, I believe both in Genesis and the Big Bang, and do not find them in conflict in the least. FWIW. For God reveals Himself to us in both...."
And -- as I know you are aware -- I also believe in both -- and find them to be (as observational data is gathered) in ever-refined harmony.
It is a sad testimony that some (misguided, IMO) Christians insist that two revelations of our Creator are in conflict.
That simply cannot be -- and I am ever-more convinced that I perceive the source of that error... (Hint: see tagline...)
Thank you, Hegewisch Dupa, for your kind words!
Yes, that is sad, dear brother in Christ. And yet I suppose that those committed to the doctrine of sola scriptura do not recognize God's other revelations: the Revelation of His incarnated Son, Jesus Christ — He Who IS our Savior, Final Judge, and Logos Alpha–Omega (as a fact ratified by the soul, not merely as a "story" told in the Holy Scriptures); the Revelation by means of the Creation itself (see: Romans 1:20); and the Revelation of the Holy Spirit abiding with us. And it seems clear to me that there is NO conflict among the various revelations He has given us, and continues to give us.
I gather such folks believe that it's all about the "correctness" of what one knows (or thinks one knows), and not about how one lives. Yet one's eternal salvation does not depend on the correct choice of a preposition in the interpretation of a holy text — as one FReeper recently seemed to suggest.
God does not "reduce" to a text.... We cannot live in openness to God if we are trying to reduce Him to a text that conforms to the level of our own imperfect understanding....
JMHO FWIW. Thanks so much for writing, dear brother in Christ!
Beautifully said, dearest sister in Christ, thank you!
Perhaps, but at reply #2 which in this strange realm is more like reply #1 (we are extra tricky around this joint) there was some of laughter of the enjoyable sort.
I for one blame Jim Thompson (for this teeny-tiny universe).
Big bank. That was an interesting typo.
Too big to fail? oh noes, not another bail-out.
Uh, wait there is none of another sort of "bailing out" possible. We are kinda' stuck here. Though still... an ejector seat could come in mighty handy? Keep one's fingers crossed and their eyes upon the hills from where our salvation cometh.
But let me know if the red-shift turns blue so I can assume the position.
More seriously, Shroeder appears to have figured out something possibly very significant, but I read a couple of his early books rather than the articleat the link you provided to get some grasp (as much as the feeble little claws of my mind could handle) as to how he used relative points of observers to show how the disparate and seeming conflicting information which he was dealing with can be resolved with no significant contradiction remaining, as far as the basic premises and conclusions went. Brilliant, using well reasoned usage of principles from both disciplines...
BEEP! to those who haven’t already taken note.
Ditto; the article the Big Bang.
Thanks, betty.
So very true, dear YHAOS!
Personally, I believe both in Genesis and the Big Bang, and do not find them in conflict in the least. FWIW. For God reveals Himself to us in both....
The Big Bang is good science fiction... “it could have happened”.. does not mean it did..
Eternity FUTURE is owned by many although un-provable..
But eternity PAST seems to be rejected by many as well..
With eternity past the big bang could be a pipe dream.. (probably)
Science fiction MUST be fairly logical or whats the point..
Reality need not be logical at all... nothing to “prove”..
What IF the big bang did not happen.?..
I realize the big bang makes “it” simpler..
Lazy inspiration maybe.. or good science fiction.
Not that I don’t like good science fiction meself.. I do..
Maybe my imagination goes a little farther..
“Eternity PAST”... What a concept...
You know............. whatever eternity is...
bonus: https://vimeo.com/90279986
Not at all "entirely". There is an equally abhorrent false dichotomy driving force to be found in the pecuniary "creationists" like the Institute for Creation Research, with their "Brian Thomas M.S." and the infamous Ken Hamm -- who make big bucks by propagating the inane 15th century mind-barfs of Bishop Ussher. ...And their militant YEC adherents blindly follow them.
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A pox on both their houses!
How very unscientific of you! Can you list any yrc freepers that you know worship the Earth? For me, at least, I can attest I’ve read and understand both sides of the creation evolution arguments. ymmv.
Well then by all means provide us with your proofs of this “equally abhorrent false dichotomy.’ If that’s too much for you perhaps you could provide some examples that show this belief to be so evil.
There are more YEC followers than you think there are, and Sir Isaac Newton was one too...
Yes, entirely. The subject is the “tension” between Theology (which in our society would be the Judeo-Christian Tradition) and Science; not some factional dispute between competing liturgical formulas.
There cannot be "tension" in a tug-of-war without adversaries on both sides pulling in their preferred direction.
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There is guilt on both "sides".
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I recommend that you follow my forthcoming discussion with BrandtMichaels re "false dichotomies plus the excluded middle"...
Intended to include you, as the OP...
In the instance under discussion, (See the title of the OPA) there are not only "false dichotomies" (fomented by both the "YEC side" and the "Science side") they are quite often "false dichotomies with the middle excluded":
("H'it's MY way and NOT yore way -- and there ain't no middle ground 'cause that would mean compromising MY way!")
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... and you hear that (with differing linguistic "flavors", of course) from both the "atheistic evolutionist science" side , and from the "polarized holier-than-thou YEC" side.
Hence the title of the OPA...
(BTW, referring to my #76 may be helpful -- while I go offline and prepare a discussion "with more Scriptural meat on its bones"...)
Oh OK then, since no division exists there is only one true reality reflecting our worldviews, ala we must be in complete and total agreement, the Bible is the inspired word of God and it is absolute truth.
When evolutionists claim that science affirms transformation of one kind of lower thing over vast periods of time into another kind of higher thing, the questions that need asking are these: What kind of science affirms evolution and exactly what is evolution?
The first question is answered by James Herrick,CS Lewis and the Catholic historian Dr. Thomas Molnar.
In the impeccably researched, “The Making of the New Spirituality,” James Herrick observes that the scientific tradition in Renaissance Europe developed around three basic approaches: the organic, the mechanical and the magical. It was magical and/or occult science that provided the greatest impetus for scientific exploration. (p. 45)
C.S. Lewis underscores this point in “The Abolition of Man:”
“You will even find people who write about the sixteenth century as if Magic were a medieval survival and Science the new thing that came in to sweep it away. Those who have studied the period know better. There was very little magic in the Middle Ages: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the high noon of magic. The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse. I allow that some (certainly not all) of the early scientists were actuated by a pure love of knowledge. But if we consider the temper of that age as a whole we can discern the impulse of which I speak.”
In “God and the Knowledge of Reality,” the Catholic philosopher and historian, Thomas Molnar (1921–2010), reveals the ‘temper of that age’ as a spirit of rebellion against the Christian God, and this is why occult science and evolutionary transformism provided the greatest impetus.
During the Renaissance, certain Christian theologians, mystics and scholars such as Emanuel Swedenborg had discovered Hermetic magic and occult Jewish Kabbalah texts which they studied and translated resulting in Hermetic Kabbalah. Then like Pico della Mirandola, they argued that occult hermetic science – the divine technology or Magic Way of reaching divine status and powers through ritual procedures (spiritual evolution) is the best proof of the divinity of Christ. In other words said Molnar,
“.....by the time of the Renaissance the esoteric texts of the first centuries A.D. had acquired in scholarly and humanist circles an unparalleled prestige, confronting as equals the texts held sacred by the church. In Pico’s estimation, ‘nulla est scientia que nos magis certificet de divinitate Christ quam magia et Cabala’ (there is no science that would prove for us Christ’s divinity better than magic and the Cabala.)” (pp. 78-79)
Hermetic magic and Jewish Kabbalah are ancient Mystery Religion traditions, as affirmed by G. H. Pember in his classic work, “Earth’s Earliest Ages.” Pember thoroughly examines the role of fallen angels in connection with the magic (occult transformism) they taught to pre-flood generations and compares them to the explosion of spiritism (open intercourse with evil spirits), astrology, the Mysteries and other occult traditions sweeping over Christendom.
Pember writes that the Mysteries are no longer veiled in mystery but boldly presented by the powerful occult brotherhood that emerged out of the Renaissance as the fruit of modern science, especially evolutionary philosophy, which the brotherhood assert was included in the instructions given,
“...to the initiates of the Hermetic, Orphic, Eleusinian, and Cabbalistic mysteries, and were familiar to Chaldean Magi, Egyptian Priests, Hindu Occultists, Essenes, Therapeutae Gnostics, and Theurgic Neo-Platonists.” (Pember, pp.243-244)
Both ancient Egyptian Hermetic magic and esoteric Cabala imply evolutionary transformism from lower kinds of things into higher kinds of things over vast periods of time. Cabala is directly traceable to Chaldea (Babylon).
What this means is that evolutionary science is occult Hermetic-Cabala transformism traceable to Chaldean sorcery, Mysteries, etc. revised and revamped for modern Western appetites.
Either the living Word Incarnate (John 1:1) spoke everything into existence in six spontaneous acts (days) of creation or everything came into existence as a result of evolutionary transformation of primordial matter over billions of years.
If you affirm the former you’ll be accused of being unscientific, anti-evolution, and stupid but you’ll have a firm foundation for your inner person and eternal life unlike your accusers.
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