i'm late to the gate on this thread, and skipped most of the middle, but
Science is theory. It is not fact. It is theory looking for fact. It really makes no pretense of final understanding. It is provisional in its pronouncements because it has been shown over and over again that the theory is wrong and needs to be fixed. This is the process of progress in Science. When a scientist postulates "A" he/she knows that it is unlikely that "A" is the final word on the subject. It is just another bit to add to string of information to ponder. When and if the final fact is found that would be the end of Science.
I welcome this debate and find it very interesting. Each of us must know that the last fact will not be found while we are alive to know it. Each of us must deal with this in our own way.
The bottom line is that the scientist and the non-scientist must ultimately defer to a Belief, which cannot be proved.
Since neither "A" nor "not A" can be proved, we should all discuss these issues with an understanding that it is also possible that the answer is not even in our alphabet yet. IMHO, it is likely that the TRUTH is completely out of the sphere of our knowledge, or even imagination.
Many religions address this problem by postulating God to be beyond our understanding. Science addresses this issue by saying that we don't know yet, but we are still working on it.
The stress between science and religion does not really come from the conception of Cosomological Origins, but from the application and extensions of those conceptions to the more mundane and human level of what do we eat, how do we conduct ourselves, who are our friends and so on.
My attitude is, I don't know. I will not know in this life. Oh well.
Folks who leave God out of it often have minds so open their brains have fallen out.
They sound like whining liberals.
Their tool of choice? Ad-Hominem attack. Thinking people are never persuaded by such nonsense. It actually makes their claims look more suspect.
'Course, they can always try to throw a few billion more monkeys at typewriters at the equation. Maybe they can find another trillion years or so to boot.
I gotta admit, it is mildly amusing to watch them squirm. They think they are still relevant.
I believe Darwinite has atomic number 111 in the periodic table.
You had me until the end....
For the Christian believer, the Bible presents the compelling and authoritative case for God's creation of the cosmos. Specifically, the Bible provides us with the ultimate truth concerning human origins and the special creation of human beings as the creatures made in God's own image. Thus, though we believe in more than Intelligent Design, we certainly do not believe in less. We should celebrate the confusion and consternation now so evident among the evolutionists. Dr. Stephen Meyer's article--and the controversy it has spawned--has caught evolutionary scientists with their intellectual pants down.Hmmmmmm?
For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints. (1 Corinthians 14:33)
ping
I love the etymology of the word 'hysterical' and its family of words (hysterics, hysteria, etc).
I make it a point to remind particularly skittish women about it! :-)
bump to read later