"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." (Psalm 19:1)
https://discussions.godandscience.org/
agnosticfornow wrote:Hi 1over137 - I guess I meant to say I believe we are an insignificant species relative to the temporal and spatial scale of the universe. b.t.w. I like your quote from Thessalonians!
Well, if I think about this, imagine that we would see the boundary of the universe or nothing in the universe, just meer darkness. And imagine we would 'see' beginnning of the universe.agnosticfornow wrote:Hi 1over137 - I guess I meant to say I believe we are an insignificant species relative to the temporal and spatial scale of the universe. b.t.w. I like your quote from Thessalonians!
Thanks.Hana, I heard the guys at reasons.org saying the universe is like the surface of a balloon. Wherever one is on the surface, we'd never see the edge of the universe. Although, I really can't say I understand that concept.1over137 wrote:Well, if I think about this, imagine that we would see the boundary of the universe or nothing in the universe, just meer darkness. And imagine we would 'see' beginnning of the universe.agnosticfornow wrote:Hi 1over137 - I guess I meant to say I believe we are an insignificant species relative to the temporal and spatial scale of the universe. b.t.w. I like your quote from Thessalonians!
Maybe we would wonder why wee see 'the wall' or meer darkness. Well, isn't it great to observe great vast creation?
Your assumptions have assumptions. The estimate is faith, plain and simple. Why are you so quick to place your faith in something you've never seen, from someone you've never met?agnosticfornow wrote:Thank you for all your responses, especially Sam1995 and theophilus.
Sam1995 - I don't get why an omnipotent God would need to wait billions of years to get our planet in a perfect state for humanity to flourish.
theophilus - You say "[o]nly things that can be observed or tested scientifically can be considered scientific facts and estimates of the age of the universe or the earth don't fall into either category." Taking your definition then it is a scientific fact that the universe is at least 12 billion years old since scientists have recently observed/measured with some pretty fancy telescopes distant supernovae that exploded about that long ago: See
http://www.space.com/18298-oldest-farth ... sions.html. As for the age of the Earth, that would be harder to directly measure with our current technology. But the 12 billion year minimum age of the universe is sufficient for the present context and my query about anthropocentrism. 12 billion years of the universe kicking around, and then suddenly the Christian God decides to stir up some action on our planet. In partial response to one of jlay's points, I see insignificance based at least on the scale of time (2000 years versus 12,000,000,000 years) and size (our planet versus size of observable universe).
theophilus has mentioned that it is dangerous to limit my questioning to one group of people because people outside of that group may have the answers I seek. That's a valid point but in my past experience I have had much more enlightening conversations with those with whom some I share more common ground. Interfaith discussions for example tend be between the moderates not the extremists.
theophilus also notes that there is no reason to believe we are getting special treatment since we don't know what the Christian God is up to in other worlds, if there are other worlds. I would think that being created in His image and likeness is getting special treatment. In any event, would it be fair then for me to take your point as your acknowledging the **possibility** of the Christian God doing His thing on other possible worlds, e.g. sacrificing Christ's siblings (or perhaps Christ himself over and over again) to save other alien races created in his image and likeness from their sins, etc. etc.?
jlay - my estimate of hundreds of millions habitable planets in our own galaxy. Sorry, make that billions of habitable planets:
http://kepler.nasa.gov/news/newsaboutpl ... NewsID=198
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/28 ... tronomers/
I acknowledge jlay's point about presuming there is a conflict. My bad. At present, **I** see a conflict, and would like to continue to hear the views of those who don't see one and why.
