Evidence for God from Science

crochet1949 wrote:I've always avoided Shakespeare simply because I've never been in to that type of literature.

That is apparent.

The point I was trying to make it is Shakespeare's authenticity has never been questioned.

Not at all! The wikipedia article on 'Shakespeare authorship question' lists five serious contenders and several minor ones.

It's always been accepted as authentic literature.

No, it hasn't. See the wikipedia article.

And then the 'my interpretation' is simply different than 'your interpretation'. How many ways can 'thou shalt not commit adultery' Be interpreted?

That's a bit selective, if I may say so. How do you interpret Genesis 6:1-4?

I guess I really don't understand How anyone can know all of that. I know -- it's all the light-year 'stuff' which goes way over my head. But how does anyone really know what all is really out there? And, yes, we do have the huge telescope -- but Still. Okay -- God put whatever is out there, There. He created it -- so it Is there.

You're rambling somewhat incoherently here, Crotchet. Just because you don't understand how people can know things you don't, doesn't make them fanciful or untrue.

hugh -- Rambling? somewhat incoherent? More rhetorical than anything. I've commented a few times to various people that just because they don't understand God and , thus, don't believe He exist -- does Not make Him not real. Cause He is very alive and well. It's the Hubble Telescope I was referring to. I didn't mean to imply they are untrue or fanciful. Any more than God doing it is. It just bothers me sometimes that people can't simply enjoy the fact Of the universe / its magnitude. They seem to need to attach it to evolution. God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis tells us He did.

Genesis 6:1-4 Who were the sons of God? Angels? So far -- men had been living up to almost 1,000 yrs. 930 / 960 etc. years -- God had chosen to put us on this earth, we'd been causing all sorts of trouble. All sorts of evil, continually - He was about to cause that world-wide flood and destroy all the evil that had accumulated. And Then the life spans would be shortened drastically. Like the 120 yrs mentioned.
The passage says that when the angels mated with the earth women, they produced giants. Mighty men of valor.

How's my interpretation?

Crochet,

Please don't forget to respond to my post, or you'll make me sad:
http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... 69#p200169

RickD
I Don't want to make you sad -- after all you Are board moderator.
So -- go to vs 5 "God called the light Day and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. Verses 3 and 4 would be in that first day. The' evening and the morning' signifies a day. I compare that to when a baby is considered a 'day' old -- a 24 hr period of time
. vs 16 "two great lights , the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night . He made the stars, also." That would suggest the sun and moon. That's what we have Now.

hugh -- the Wiki article about Shakespeare didn't sound all that negative -- there was a guy mentioned -- can't remember his name, but I didn't pay any more attention to his various plays than I had to. I heard enough 2nd hand from students who had to read British Lit. I guess that's what the lit classes were / are about -- to get us to think / analyze -- I'd rather Enjoy literature.

crochet1949 wrote:RickD
I Don't want to make you sad -- after all you Are board moderator.
So -- go to vs 5 "God called the light Day and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. Verses 3 and 4 would be in that first day. The' evening and the morning' signifies a day. I compare that to when a baby is considered a 'day' old -- a 24 hr period of time
. vs 16 "two great lights , the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night . He made the stars, also." That would suggest the sun and moon. That's what we have Now.

But when was the sun created? If we take the text at what seems like face value, verse 16 is describing the sun and moon being created on the fourth day.

Is that how you see it, the sun being created on the fourth day?

If yes, then how is there morning and evening on days 1-3, without a sun?

Because apparently there is a difference between Light and Dark / day and night AND the sun and moon and stars being created. According to the text -- the 1st day was made by God. Every day there is light and darkness. Apparently God had enough light to speak everything into existence.
Are you waiting for me to say "I don't know"?
God created in His own time and His way.

Crochet: Every day there is light and darkness. Apparently God had enough light to speak everything into existence.
Are you waiting for me to say "I don't know"?

Yes, Crochet, remember, there isn't just light during those three days, there is also DARKNESS - implying the sun/moon system is already in existence. And a "day" isn't just light - it's a cycle of the earth rotating between the sun side and the side the sun doesn't illuminate.

crochet1949 wrote:Because apparently there is a difference between Light and Dark / day and night AND the sun and moon and stars being created. According to the text -- the 1st day was made by God. Every day there is light and darkness. Apparently God had enough light to speak everything into existence.
Are you waiting for me to say "I don't know"?
God created in His own time and His way.

There's nothing wrong with saying, "I don't know". But just think about what I said, along with what Philip just said. Go by what the text says. Without making assumptions. Because young earth creationists always accuse old earthers and theistic evolutionists of not reading what the text says. So, stick to your plain reading of the text, and then explain how there is light AND darkness on the first three days. Evening and morning on the first three days, if the very thing that we use to measure a day, to measure morning and evening, is the sun setting and rising. The earth rotating. How can it be if there is no sun until the fourth day?

I've been researching / Googling it. Many interesting articles talking about just what was being created 1st. Very basic -- Day and Night were created. Then vs 6-9 the Firmament was made. It was called Heaven. And the earth and seas were created next.
God is said to be the light of the world. In the book of Revelation - at the very end - heaven won't need any light because God will be there -- Natural light. So then God gave us Artificial light in the sun and moon.
It's really fascinating when you think about it.
Genesis Assumes the existence of God. God is the Original source of Light and the giver of Life.

As I have said before, I don't really have a problem with Young Earth Creationists, as long as they stick strictly to their guns. Yes, God could have created the phenomena of light and dark, exactly as we experience them today, exactly as if the sun was in place, only without it actually being there, and then popped it in whenever it thought good. He could have created fruit trees before fish - or even before insects, which would be more of a bother - and woman from a rib of Adam. He could have 'seen that it was good', but allowed men to make such a mess of it that he decided to wipe it all out with a global flood and start again. And so on with all the capricious miraculism of the opening books of the bible.

Or the universe and life could have proceeded according to the scientific laws mostly discovered by us in the last few thousand years, knowledge and understanding of which will no doubt continue to be refined long into the future.

No scientific inquiry can distinguish between the truth of these two propositions. My question was, what can we derive of the nature of God, based on these two scenarios?

This is a theological question, but to my mind the whimsical, artistic, bored, angry, loving, emotional God portrayed by a literal interpretation of the bible lacks any real majesty, or much authority other than crude power. I am not surprised that Richard Dawkins or Stephen Fry don't have much time for such an anthropomorphic God, who appears to have been made in the image of man (and a rather unpredictable man at that), rather than man being made in the image of God. Biologists looking at baby caterpillars eating their mothers from the inside, Geologists looking at the successive extinction of almost all living things in global catastrophes, or Historians looking at Auschwitz all make thoroughly valid points about the callousness of a God who creates a perfect world and then, by giving man 'free will' is absolved from all responsibility for the ensuing suffering, like a thoughtless parent giving a toddler a chemistry set.

On the contrary, the God revealed by Science really does have majesty, authority, and, as Darwin so elegantly worded it, 'grandeur'. Here is the huge, ponderous unfolding of a vast universal, coherent, rational organisation. I would be happy to discuss with atheists the theological problem of whether this unfolding is part of a plan, and whether there may be a culmination to it, and what that culmination might be, but I could not defend the slaughter of thousands of 'first born' children, simply because a cruel Pharaoh wouldn't let his workforce walk off into the desert.

If we Could , indeed, understand God in all His Wondrousness - - His Ways -- His perfect reasoning -- His perfect justice-- then wouldn't we be on His level -- rather than being the human beings He created us as.
Jesus Christ / God in the flesh / lowered Himself to our level - on purpose --/ He became as one of us. With all our emotions, all of our 'stuff'. But because He was Also God -- He could be here without sinning.
He lets us see just how human we are capable of being. And that's Not a pretty picture. Because of our free will -- our knowledge of both good and evil, we are capable of a great deal of Good and also capable of doing some of the most horrific things known to mankind. And - because He Did make us == and we proceeded to act so horrid continually -- He Did choose to destroy His own creation. He Does have that sovereign right to.
But On the Other Hand. He also Loved / loves His Creation / Man /that He made a provision for us and our sinfulness. that's why Jesus Christ His Son came into this world. To provide a remedy for the mess of our sin. Shed His blood for our sins / paid for them/ the price for our sin is physical death and deserving eternal hell. But we don't Have to end up there. That's the beauty of the cross -- Jesus took care of all of it -- we simply acknowledge our Need for the cross and accept it's remedy for our personal sins. Believe in our heart and thank Him.
You Do realize, though, that all those 'first born' who Pharoah Did slaughter -- were immediately with Jesus / in His loving arms for ever.
Just like all the thousands of aborted babies -- they are safe in the arms of Jesus. They get to by-pass This world and have heaven as their only home.
Those scientific laws came from God or we wouldn't have them.

Good for the first born. Pity about their families left on earth. I still think that's petty and vindictive.

Hugh: This is a theological question, but to my mind the whimsical, artistic, bored, angry, loving, emotional God portrayed by a literal interpretation of the bible lacks any real majesty, or much authority other than crude power.

Hugh, if that is how you view God, or if you reject that the Bible's descriptions of God are in error or made up, then you don't know the Bible. And if you fail to accept the Bible as true - why are you a Christian - how do you know that ANY of it is true???!!! You do realize that to accept Jesus - to even know that you need to be saved - means relying upon the truth of the Bible. And in that Bible, Jesus confirms the entirety of the New Testament as being true. Explain, please!

Hugh: On the contrary, the God revealed by Science really does have majesty, authority, and, as Darwin so elegantly worded it, 'grandeur'.

So you view certain attributes of God as crude, but believe that the blood-soaked carnage of evolution's history survival of the fittest, the brutality of carnivores ripping their prey to shreds shows "grandeur" - where is your consistency?

Kurieuo wrote:

Nicki wrote:

Kurieuo wrote:In Habakkuk's prayer (Habakkuk 3:6 NIV):

• "He stood, and shook the earth;
  he looked, and made the nations tremble.
  The ancient mountains crumbled
  and the age-old hills collapsed—
  but he marches on forever."

I guess those three days between the land rising out of the waters and the creation of man really make a difference, such that the mountains are "ancient" and hills are "age-old" but mankind isn't.

Was that supposed to be describing something back at the creation of man? Or maybe the writer thought of humanity as being as ancient as the hills. We describe something as ancient when it's only 2000 years old. The passage is poetry, after all.

Yes, you are correct to question. Perhaps it just means the the mountains and hills have endured through time i.e., your age of 2000 years or so.

We also have Wisdom being spoken of in Proverbs 8:22-25:

• "The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way,
  Before His works of old.
  23 “From everlasting I was established,
  From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth.
  24 “When there were no depths I was brought forth,
  When there were no springs abounding with water.
  25 “Before the mountains were settled,
  Before the hills I was brought forth;

For myself, the picture depicted to me in Scripture for mountains, heavens and other things, during the earliest times, isn't just a feature of "endurance", but rather representative of epochs, generations of existence of things before other things...

Genesis 2:4 KJV reads:

• "These are the generations [towledah] of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day [yom] that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,"

The "6-day creation" (not 7 because God rested on the seventh) had "generations", like generations of Adam (Gen 5:1), generations of Noah (Gen 6:9), generations of Noah's sons (Gen 10:1), seems to imply many happenings or eras of different generations -- only the heavens and the earth have them at the time of God's creations.

I expect you'll be forthright which I like, what are your feelings about such Nicki?

That could be right - I suppose the question is whether 'generations' or 'account' or similar is the better translation. I just thought it was reading a bit much into the Habakkuk passage to say it meant the mountains were much older than humanity. I haven't jumped off the fence into the YEC side yet, just