Posted on 10/11/2002 6:10:44 AM PDT by apackof2
Scientific Approach
The founder of Reasons to Believe presents a rational Christian look at UFOs and extraterrestrials.
Hugh Ross has a B.S, Physics, University of British Columbia; M.S. & Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Toronto.
Mr. Ross is the co-author of, Lights in the Sky & Little Green Men (NavPress, 2002)
Hugh has been stargazing since he was a young boy, and by the age of 17, he had become director of observations for the Royal Astronomical Society in Canada. As an astronomer, Hugh has logged thousands of observation time and has learned that science can and does address the possibility of lifes existence elsewhere in the universe. In the mid-'70s, Hugh was assigned the task of processing UFO reports at CalTech. At the same time, Hugh began an intense study of the Bible. "Secular society is gullible about the possibility that extraterrestrial life exists without having scientific evidence to prove it," says Hugh. "The motivation for this book is the need to communicate clear, satisfying explanations from scientific, theological, philosophical, and political standpoints."
Hugh says that he uses the scientific approach called "the process of elimination" to answer the question Is there a place where extraterrestrials could live in the universe? Over the years, science has made some significant advances. "The number of candidates for life sites within the Milky Way grows smaller each day," says Hugh. At one time, biologists speculated that extraterrestrial life forms might be based on exotic chemistry, not carbon as earthly life is. But today the conclusion is that all conceivable life forms must be carbon-based. And if life forms exist on other planets, they must be planets like Earth, orbiting a star like the sun in a galaxy like the Milky Way. "Ongoing research shows that this seems less possible as each year passes," says Hugh.
Residual UFOs
Most people think UFOs are physical. "But they cant be physical," says Hugh, "because they defy gravity." While Hugh does not say that UFOs arent real, no physical object can move like UFOs have been reported to move. Respected UFOolgists agree that there must be something real at the bottom of some UFO reports. Residual UFOs (RUFOs) is a terminology that refers to the UFOs that are left over after all the others are explained away. There is quite a bit of evidence that UFOs are real, such as crash sites. There are over 1,000 sites where allegedly the UFOs have crashed. "The ground is depressed, the trees and grass are burnt," says Hugh. "In these scenarios, we are dealing with non-physical reality." What this evidence suggests is that RUFOs are capable of producing physical effects, such as burnt grass, but are not physical themselves.
Hugh says the Bible proclaims the existence of a personal Creator who can act independently outside the cosmos and who is not restricted by the four, large space-time dimensions (length, width, height or time). The Bible also describes the spirit realm (the realm beyond matter, energy and space-time dimensions) and declares the existence of God and two or more distinct creatures: humans and angels. Hugh explains that humans remain physically restricted to the dimensions of the cosmos and cannot account for the unexplained phenomena. Angels, or fallen angels, remain as possible links. Fallen angels, or demons, intent on distorting Gods authority and purpose, draw attention away from God and the gospel and are an identifiable source of explanation.
The conclusion that demons are behind the RUFOs phenomenon is testable. According to the Bible, demons attack only those individuals who invite the attacks. "All that is necessary to further prove the conclusion of demonic involvements," says Hugh, "is to continue surveying people to ascertain who has encounters with RUFOs and who does not." Researchers continue to observe a correlation between the degree of invitations in a persons life to demonic attacks (séance, Ouija boards, astrology, witchcraft, palm or psychic reading). One reason why research scientists may be reluctant to say specifically that demons exist behind the RUFOs is because that answer points too directly to a Christian interpretation of the problem.
Reasons to Believe is an interdenominational ministry that communicates the basis for belief in the Bible as the true Word of God.
www.reasons.org
In your second reference, you are referring to an encounter between Jesus, who is God, and Satan, who are both capable of seeing things beyond that which is perceptible to humans. It is also not a lesson in geography. Of course, if you do not believe in the Divine, nor the Satanic, you will scoff at this. Then again, if you are wrong, your scoffing will not serve you well in the end, will it?
As to the reference to the waters above in Genesis. Many scientists who are Christians understand that there was a canopy of water over the earth that protected it before the flood. (Check out the lifespans before the flood, compared with the lifespans afterward). In the flood the canopy of water came down as rain, and flooded the earth (btw, all cultures on earth have legends of a universal flood), and was gone, leaving the earth unprotected.
The author of Genesis......most likely Moses......understood the power of God, his working through miracles, and I'm quite sure understood rain quite adequately.
If you allow the spiritual scales to be removed from your eyes, and view Scripture as it really is, without your cynicism, you might just find out what's really there.
It's 4:10, by the way. Daniel is telling of his dream. The dream was constructed to prophesy for Nebuchadnezzar, not to geologically describe the earth. In other dreams Daniel saw giant beasts etc., that were meant to be interpreted for the future. You're missing the point of these verses.
Matthew 4:8, "The devil took him (Jesus) to a very high mountain and displayed before him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence...." Ditto.
Satan is only allowed to be on the earth right now (and then) in the spirit. Therefore if Jesus and Satan were walking around while Jesus was fasting, they must've been in the spirit. Jesus was "God with us", He was able to go with Satan in this way.
Genesis 1:6-7, "Let there be a dome to divide the water and to keep it in two separate places... and it was done. So God made a dome, and it separated the water under it from the water above it." The author of Genesis 1 doesn't even understand rain!
There's water on Mars, the moon, everywhere. The water on other planets is separated from the water on earth. We've only penetrated a few miles into the earth's interior, there could be vast reserviors of water under the earth, and as a matter of fact scientists do believe there is a vast reservior under Malasia that holds as much water that is in the surface oceans.
Oh, aside from claiming that bats are birds, for example?
Where's this? The bible was written to teach how to know God. If it would've been written describing every scientific knowledge in the world it would not have been understood by anyone until our science caught up with it in the last few years. And there are still some things in it that science hasn't caught up to yet. The separation of waters may be one of those things. Gravity is a strange thing. There should be 0 gravity at the center of the earth. So is there anything at the center of the earth? Wouldn't anything at the center be drawn to the sides of the earth? Maybe. Maybe not.
Leviticus 11:6: The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is unclean for you.
I'm sure zoologists would be astonished to learn that rabbits chew their cud.
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Leviticus 11 20 " 'All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you.
21 There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground.
No flying creatures of any kind walk on all fours.
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Joshua 10 12 On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel: "O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon."
13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.
14 There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a man. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel!
Oh yes, this makes sense... Shouldn't the EARTH have been stopped still?
All this may be true. There is not, nor has there ever been, a dome of water hovering over the surface of the Earth.
Jesus was "God with us", He was able to go with Satan in this way.
My problem is one of physics. Assuming Jesus and Satan climbed to the top of the tallest mountain on earth (presumably much taller than, say, Everest), even then how were they able to view all of the nations on earth? You can't see the other side of the earth, no matter how high up you are, last time I checked.
So why bother climbing a mountain in the first place?
. Many scientists who are Christians understand that there was a canopy of water over the earth that protected it before the flood.
Huh? Were the laws of gravity still in their infancy? How did light get through the hovering ocean?
The problem with all the discussion about what is meant by a "day" is that even if it were somehow possible to travel back in time (and it isn't possible, in spite of a bunch of good science fiction stories), one could not travel past any of these major continuities and assume that the clock that you had with you would still measure time as it actually was then. You cannot apply current measures of time to what transpired on the prior side of each major discontinuity.
This is a major problem for evolutionary theory. It presumes a uniform time line and attempts to fit all the fossil evidence into it. But the time line is not uniform, and we really have no way to even define, let alone measure, how time transpired back then.
Denying the uniformitarian hypothesis is the pulling out of the table cloth underneath the whole house of evolutionary cards.
So how do we make sense of Gen 1? It is not an eyewitness narative of the actual event, but a revelation by God after the event. It cannot possibly be anything else. As a revelation, I take it as reasonable that it is structured as a sort of thematic outline and summary of what transpired. The structure of seven days is purposeful mainly for teaching us the lesson that time, as well as space, matter, and energy, is a creation of God, and that by counting our time in seven day increments and resting on the seventh we do acknowledge and honor God as the creator and Lord over time, including our time. How long did it actually take God? I have no idea -- He could have done it in an instant or in bilions of years, and we have no meaningful way to measure that would make any distinction between the two.
Good God (no pun intended), not another Velikovskian! You folks breed in the dark?
Leviticus was the rule book to tell people how to live. People back then thought that rabbits chewed their cud. It had to be written for people to understand.
Leviticus 11 20 " 'All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you. 21 There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground. No flying creatures of any kind walk on all fours.
Bats. "Walking on all fours" was probably a figure of speech.
--------- Joshua 10 12 On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel: "O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon." 13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. 14 There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a man. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel! Oh yes, this makes sense... Shouldn't the EARTH have been stopped still
Mars shows evidence of having been drawn toward a passing body magnetically. The solar system is a dynamic electromagnetic system not fully understood by science yet. The friction of the oceans should have stopped the earth's rotation long ago. Therefore there is an influence of the roatation of the earth. Plus, God can do what he wants at any time, just like He did with the Red Sea.
Damn! So much for impressing us with their technology. They should invest in a little quality control.
It says the dome separates the waters. The dome of the atmosphere separates the waters from the earth from the water out in space, if that's what it's talking about.
My problem is one of physics. Assuming Jesus and Satan climbed to the top of the tallest mountain on earth (presumably much taller than, say, Everest), even then how were they able to view all of the nations on earth? You can't see the other side of the...
You don't understand the concept of two spiritual beings having a contest of wit. Jesus casn see everything at once, He is "God with us". We are in the flesh age, we don't understand what is possible in the spiritual plane.
But, but, I thought the Bible was the infallable word of God? What happened?
Bats.
Nice try. Bats have two legs. Their forequarters evolved into wings. But now that you mention bats, why does Lev. 11:13-19 claim that bats are birds? Seems kind of strange.
"Walking on all fours" was probably a figure of speech.
What? You mean to say that the Bible is capable of metaphor, and that its contents are not all literally true?
But it only makes sense if there's water hovering just on top of the atmosphere. I think you're running the risk of taking the bible, um... er... metaphorically if you think that the water described is really only in the form of ice on the bottom of lunar craters.
You don't understand the concept of two spiritual beings having a contest of wit. Jesus casn see everything at once, He is "God with us". We are in the flesh age, we don't understand what is possible in the spiritual plane.
I don't think you understand. You got two supernatural beings whom you claim can see everything. If that were the case, why couldn't Satan show Jesus every nation on earth from the inside of a dark closet? Why bother hiking up a mountain in the first place?
Their technology is fine. They just don't enforce drunk flying laws.
It is. How isit not by telling people not to be fooled by the way a rabbit eats?
Nice try. Bats have two legs. Their forequarters evolved into wings. But now that you mention bats, why does Lev. 11:13-19 claim that bats are birds? Seems kind of strange.
Bats appear to creep. "Walking on all fours" must've been a figure of speech. The bible had to be written for people to understand.
What? You mean to say that the Bible is capable of metaphor, and that its contents are not all literally true?
It had to be written for worthy people to understand. The bible is full of parables.
Huh? You're telling me that electromagnetism is the dominant force in the Solar System? Ha ha ha.
The friction of the oceans should have stopped the earth's rotation long ago. Therefore there is an influence of the roatation of the earth.
What are you talking about?
I'm not sure I understand that sentence of yours, but when the Bible says that rabbits chew their cud, and that's clearly not the case, I'd say you've a case of Biblical errancy on your hands.
Bats appear to creep. "Walking on all fours" must've been a figure of speech. The bible had to be written for people to understand.
But I don't understand. How can creatures with two or six legs walk on all fours? And if the Bible were really written with clarity (and not accuracy) as its main goal, how come its chock full of all sorts of unclear peculiarities (like the origins of the wives of Cain and Abel)?
And yet you've arbitrarily decided that the six-day creation story can't be a metaphoric simplification.
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