Posted on 08/07/2004 2:28:51 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
Your "next logical step" has been taken countless times over recorded history -- every time there is an unexplained phenomena. This tendency to attribute the unexplained to God is the essence of superstition, and it is exactly what science rejects.
I have no trouble with faith, except when it puts curiosity and inquiry out of bounds.
It is very sad to observe people who base their faith on a specific list of unexplained phenomena. They are forever in retreat. I find it much more satisfying to believe that existence is both infinitely explainable and infinitely deep. I could be wrong, but I doubt if I will be proven wrong anytime soon.
Or in denial. Or at war with those who seek new information. Or posting in blue font in these threads.
Respectfully, I submit to you that in error, you hold a thought of the Creator constrained to time and the physical realm - His creations, so you can't more clearly see His eternal quality. That line of thought will confuse one everytime. It did me for years.
No "circularity", but a Creator who created and controls time and views it as one event, a whole - not a sequence of events one after another. The "In the beginning" quotation from scriptures - it refers to creation - not the Creator.
Conversely, the above author (who might be speaking past the scientist in this case) - as well as Hawking in his lecture on imaginary time - specifically target their material to debunk the belief in God as Creator. This is not helpful to anyone.
And certainly there are many doctrines and traditions among men. Some of a particular faith may believe they alone know the true doctrine; as evidence, the debates on the religion forum sometimes turn quite hostile on this very point.
But there is only one God, one Truth, one beginning. I have known Him personally for more than four decades as the triune God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But my experience is of no direct help to you because nobody can walk your Spiritual path, but you:
"every time there is an unexplained phenomena" = "every time there is an unexplained phenomenon".
I would hate to be on the side of those who think Mt. improbable can't be climbed.
I wonder what the probability is of hydrogen gas mutating into iron, or gold without divine intervention.
In a nova, it happens every time. But I think that's transmutation. Or is that a word left over from alchemy?
Great scientists like Bohr and Dallaporta have observed that science must stay within that which can be observed or measured. Beyond that, the scientist enters metaphysics.
I would add that it is not inappropriate for a scientist to have a metaphysical point of view, but it is inappropriate for the scientist to misrepresent his metaphysical view as science proper. However, when he carefully separates the two and labels them accordingly, there ought to be no offense taken.
Then, if the sciences should stop at that point alone, there would be no prollem. Their rejection that there COULD be attributes of a Divine Creator is rejection of the exact conclusiveness they exhibit when they presume another drug may slow cancer, or that stem cells may aid Alzheimers. They follow the evidence to a conclusion.
You can't have evidences pointing to a logical conclusion and "selectively" choose your results - not and be clinically honest. They either are or they're not, they either do or they don't... Hawking's "point of singularity" and Hubbel's "regression" theories point to a "time" when all was One, or "In the beginning.."
BUMP - what you said!
immutable placemarker
On the whole it seems highly improbable that hydrogen ions would spontaneously and randomly self assemble themselves into heavier elements. Perhaps some ID person would calculate the odds for us.
THEIST: Yep, God sure arranged it carefully! ....There is really no other productive argument which can be made along these lines.
To be truly illustrative, your dichotomy should include some adjectives.
ATHIEST: Yep, we sure are staggeringly, mind-blowingly, down-to-the-most-impossible-and-exquisite-detail...lucky.
The other day I was reading on how stroke victims can slowly heal their damaged brains. The circuitry for living can gradually "rewire" itself through the nerves which previously handled different "information."
How I marvelled. And I also marvel at those who do NOT marvel.
I'm not good at creationist math, but I believe that 1720 is one of their highest numbers.
Very simplistic fundamental type view, but I can see where a zealot would think he was making some sort of a point saying that. Exactly what was the 'point' we could leave to mental health pros to define.
There either is a God and all that implies, or there is not a God and all that implies.
Suit yourself. I'd bet that the answer to the creation of the universe is much more elegant that your vision that a 'god' decreed it to be so.
The existence or nonexistence of God can't be resolved by scientific rigor and material measurements, so waiting for the deciding test is futile.
Who's waiting? I'm living my life as best I can, [and its been good] without a "need for god".
One has to ultimately come down on either side.
You think so, - I don't..
-- Why not leave me to live in that liberty? Isn't that the American way?
Actually, Hawking seems no longer to believe in eithae a singulatity or a beginning. My personal belief is that existence is an inpenetrable mystery, but that anything that can be observed is fair game for science. And by that I mean, it is the task of science to expect and search for naturalistic explanations for everything that can be observed.
Sure. Essentially zero outside of the Big Bang and pretty low inside it. Conditions, conditions, oh the conditions
Number of atoms per 10,000,000 of hydrogen
hydrogen
10,000,000
sulfur
95
helium
1,400,000
iron
80
oxygen
6,800
argon
42
carbon
3,000
aluminum
19
neon
2,800
sodium
17
nitrogen
910
calcium
17
magnesium
290
all other elements
50
silicon
250
Deferring to the physicists on this one...
Well, then pose your questions more precisely. As a matter of quick observation, in a typical earth lab, water remains water "forever", despite having hydrogen ions flitting about.
I am merely observing that there are many impossible things that become possible when understood.
There are many purported phonemena -- UFOs, ESP, ghosts -- whose existence can reasonably be doubted, but when an object or phemenon unquestionably exists, the notion that it is the result of a miracle always erodes with time and research. At least I would not like to be on the side that asserts that naturalistic explanations will never be found.
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