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Theory-Affirming Evidence About the Universe
Bill Kendrick writes "Astronomers using a radio telescope at the South Pole have recorded a flicker of light from nearly 14 billion years ago that verifies most modern theory about the cosmos. Way back then, light and matter were only just beginning to separate from each other."
err - Christians really only get 2. Really!
You poor misguided soul. "He's YOUR god. They're YOUR rules. YOU go to hell." He is my God. They are HIS rules. And if you don't get right with my God, You are going to hell. There is only one way to heaven and that is through Jesus Christ. Christianity is not a way of dealing with death. It is a promise. Why would you want to go one believing in a dead guy stuck in the ground? I prefer to serve a living God thank you very much. And on the money issue. Buddy, if you read the Bible you will quickly see that everytime God commands you give money, He always says you will get something in return. Everytime! And as for George Carlin, well he better get the Truth too.
-- Only a developer would see the 'Go to' part of "Go to Hell" as the problem.
The thing about these smart people is that they know that everything is one big guess that happens to fit the available evidence. (OK. It is actually a bunch of little guesses mixed with facts and combined into one big guess. and facts are just guesses that most of us agree on.)
Having an open mind means being open to both the idea that everything you know is right and that everything you know is wrong.
Occam's Razor (the theory of takest the simplest explanation over the more complex one) allows science to move forward and ignore some evidence that it doesn't have an explanation for because explaining that evidence involves a more complex theory.
This is a good thing. It allows science to move forward without being mired in minutiae. However it also leaves room for doubt and future breakthroughs. Don't assume the experts are right if you don't think they make any sense.
Take, for example, a blind man mapping a field with a stone elephant in the middle of it. His map will show 4 posts in the field. He could spend a lot of time examining the posts and perhaps discover their true nature as part of the stone elephant but that detracts from his goal of mapping the field. His resulting map is correct and allows him to move on to the next step, whatever that is, but it also leaves room for a future mapper to do more research and show that the 4 posts on his map actually represent a stone elephant.
Coding Blog
Nowhere in the Bible does it mention the Earth's age. Sure some Jews/Christians believe it was only 6000 years, but there are plenty of others (like myself) who believe in the Bible and still believe the earth is quite a bit older.
Anyway when I read this:
"when matter and light were only just beginning to separate from one another."
I thought of this:
Genesis 1:3 And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
I believe Genesis was inspired by God, but written though a person. I think the author of Genesis did a pretty good job trying to find words and descriptions for what they were shown.
Saved By Grace,
Brian Ellenberger
So what youre saying is: over these billions of years when man slowly evolved, there was never any opportunities to for their fossils to form.
Im not just talking half man-half ape... It could be 1/4 man 3/4 ape... or anywhere in between there.
Never a chance for those fossils to form?
billions of years?
I understand that not EVERYTHING fossilizes, but were talking b/millions of years here. It takes a more than little faith for me to believe that too.
Fix Your Own TV - RiddledTV.com Avoid the Landfill
There is no faith in atheism, just as there is no colour in white. It represents a vacuum.
If the hand of god came down, and the sky thundered "The day of judgement is neigh, only true believers shall be spared from my wraith", you can be sure as hell that every atheist would convert to whatever religion the hand told us to.
It's been a long time.
You cannot use logic or science when discussing religeon.
Religeon says BELIEVE, don't doubt, don't apply logic or reasoning. Stay dumb and send me the money.
Science says DOUBT, because doubt brings questioning, reason, logic, and finally the answer.
The point you seem to be missing is that Science is a process and Creationism is a part of a faith.
Science at one time did believe the world was flat. Science questioned itself and eventually rejected an absurd notion. Faith doesn't do this.
It doesn't matter to reality one whit what people believe. The world was always round, regardless of our perception of it. All science is, is humankind's effort to gain a more correct perception. And it's an ongoing effort, which is why things like cosmology matter.
Science isn't a myth, it's a process. A process that produces results, by the way. So, the next time you turn on a light or flush a toilet, thank a scientist.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Oh no, you found THE CAPS LOCK KEY!
Actually, I used the Shift key. And, I closed my <i> tag.
Hundreds of years ago, prior to the discovery of viruses and other invisible realities, I'm sure there were those who believed in things that were invisible that were causing these diseases in their communities, but they could not prove it. They didn't have the means. I'm sure many of these people were laughed at. Today we respect them.
We respect them not because they believed in invisible things that happened to be real, but because they sought out and eventually obtained evidence that those things existed. In the process, they created "miracles" of science like vaccines and antibiotics. Had they simply wasted their lives telling everyone "Believe in my tiny invisible germs or you'll die - no, I don't have proof, but they must exist, otherwise how would we get sick?" we would not have respect for them, despite the fact that they turned out to be right.
It has taken man long enough to discover some of the invisible realities, and just think, these are only created things. How much more complex our Creator must be! Praise God, and God Bless America.
I'm guessing you think you're replying to an atheist, I hope it doesn't disappoint you that I agree that our Creator is mighty complex. I believe that He and His creation are far too complex to have been properly described by the nomadic hunter-gatherers of dozens of centuries ago. They are also too complex to be fully comprehended by the scientists of the 21st century, but every discovery gives us a slightly clearer picture.
Advances in the scientific understanding of nature should give believers a greater appreciation of His wisdom, rather than scaring them witless because it happens to disagree with what the Sumerians believed about creation centuries before the Bible was written down.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
You're right. I can not prove that there is no God. Additionally, I can't prove any negative. The catch to the situation is that while you're busy looking for things that might exist solely on the premise that no one can say they don't, science is busy cataloging those things that can be proven to exist. One of these activities leads someone, and the other... well...
You'll have to pardon me, I'm going out to look for all those invisible unicorns every keeps telling me don't exist...
Hmm, your explanation of "beginning" seems self-contradictory since events before "time" can't happen if time a requisite parameter of an event. It may be true in a "God can do anything" kind of way, but even then it doesn't make sense scripturaly. I think it means something much more plain and simple, and people are just getting way to "cosmic" about it.
I read a site once "How to talk creation to a Jehovah's Witness" that was pointed to from the AiG people. They brought up a good point, that if the day was 1000 years then why did God create plants and then wait a thousand years before creating the insects to polinate them?
But that doesn't matter much to me since I personally think that the 1000 years time thing sufferes from the same problem as the 24hour thing (i.e. the sun hadn't been made yet). So I never subscribed to that view anyway.
I just take the Bible for face value.
I don't think plants being around on the third day discredits it either, since light existed on the first day, before the sun came around. And since light was present from the first day, there is no reason that you can't have plants.
People just think its the sun, becuase it is such a common light to us here on earth, but not becuase they read Genisis very well. Don't worry, not until a few years ago did I realize the "light" in the first verse wasn't the sun either. The sun is just way to prevelant in our lives for us not to think it is.
But I motice that God points out clearly in those verses that his first light and day was something different then what we are used to.
Here's the verses again...
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
It seems pretty clear to me that the "sun" is the greatest light during the day and he made it the fourth day. He also says that "days" didn't happen in some sence or other until the fourth day, along with seasons and years. Its all just straight forward and plain to me.
If AiG realized that, I think they'd realize it corresponds with AiG's other positions a lot better also, like starting with a small select group of "types" of animals becoming the many species we have seen since the Fall rather then populating the earth him/herself. God did things in stages, you need water, light and earth before vegetation and begetation before animals...etc. I think it started out small in the garden and things were told to "multiply and replenish the earth."
Actually I digress. I actually came to a simular conclusion as them on many respects independantly before I read them, which is why I liked their site so much. And when they tied it all together with the Fall it made a lot of sense with what I already believed.
If i instead read several verses that say the same thing, then I can be sure of it. This is where JW's and Mormons etc. have their problems.
Actually, the JW's and Mormons would probably argue that you are only taking verses that sound the same, and ignoring the ones that may not point where you want it to.
One of them being God's reproval of Job where he says...
"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"
Honestly, I think Job was an anti-deluvian work. probably the only one book except the Book of Enoch that survived the flood. But that is just my theory. Either way, I think that laying the foundation of the earth was either before the "beginning" or during the first two days, yet we already have "all the sons of God" or all the players to go on to the stage. To me "Beginning" or "The beginning" means the start of some particular stage in God's plan, specifically relating to us. It could be the start of the whole universe or "time" but I don't find anything beyond it being the start of a stage in God's plan.
Also, since the "days" weren't created until the fourth day (in God's time) that makes the "Ancient of Days" Adam rather then God (which makes sence since God's throne doesn't have wheels which show God giving power to move). I don't agree with the JW's or anyone else who thinks Adam was a bad guy, since Christ is called the "second Adam" and "last Adam" at different times. Christ wouldn't be considered an "adam" if "Adam" wasn't a good guy.
Speaking of crazy beliefs, I've been perplexed how Christians say "you can't be saved by your works" and then tell people "you will be saved if you do this..." which is usually a very specific and prescribed "work" they have to do (like praying, acknowledging, etc...) That sure sounds an awful lot like they are being saved because of something they are doing.
Actually, if you read up on the creationist's theory (vs the evolutionary theory), as far as I am concerned, the creationist theory does hold some water
The creationists don't *have* a theory. A theory has to have evidence, and it has to be refutable. Saying "God did it!" fails on both counts.