the current scientific view of creation?

Science has been able, with collected data and repeatable experements, to trace back the history of the universe to one 10^-43 th of a second after "The Big Bang" which they estimate, by mesuring the distances of the furthest stars and computing how long it would take that light to reach us, to have occured about 15-20 billion years ago. Anything further back is either conjecture or devine revelation, and both must be taken on faith.

I think the problem is that even Christians tend to miss the core issue here:

If the Christian god exists, then "he" by definition is omnipotent. Which means nothing in our existance needs to make sense.. There can be no explanation, because we cannot understand the context. When I see Christians trying to explain why something is the way it is, I can't help but think: Why are you wasting your time?

...to trace back the history of the universe to one 10^-43 th of a second after "The Big Bang"...

This was my understanding as well. Since Tony pointed out the my comment was both oversimplified and mistaken, I kinda wanted to hear his in-depth explanation.

exercise in ridiculous logic

sshhhh.....let's not confuse them......;)

Jesus made fish appear (apparently) out of thin air

Technicly speaking He made 2 (I think it was 2) fish last a very long time and feed many many people. That and there was more left over when they were done. And any scientist examining one of those fish would have to conclude that it had lived a normal life. And since we started with "real" fish then that scientist could very well be right.

But back to the stars, sure God could create them as you say. But why? Especialy why when He could just as easily have created them billions of years before He created Adam and Eve (He doesn't have to wait, He is outside time, remember?).

ok, now I'm confusing them.

Why are you wasting your time?

Mearly reveling in the beauty and complexity of what my Lord hath created

Mearly reveling in the beauty and complexity of what my Lord hath created

Ahh, not what I'm speaking of. I mean when people say things like "God did that so we can....". I don't understand how somone would presume to know the mind of a diety.

I think reveling in beauty and complexity (regardless of your opinion of the source) is about the best way you can spend a lifetime.

not what I'm speaking of

Oh, well then we are in agreence on that one. People should allways use "probably", "i think", and "it seems to me" disclaimers on those things.

People should allways use "probably", "i think", and "it seems to me" disclaimers on those things.

I think it's probably a good idea to do that all that time. At least, it seems to me that it's a good idea.

I think it's probably a good idea to do that all that time. At least, it seems to me that it's a good idea.

I was about to say "The 'I think' at the begining of your sentance was enough, the 'it seems to me' is redundant." Then I saw what you had done and fell out of my chair laughing.

At least, it seemed to me that I did.

Sorry, all this serious conversation and the joke flew right by me.

Science has been able, with collected data and repeatable experements, to trace back the history of the universe to one 10^-43 th of a second after "The Big Bang"

Not sure I understand how such a thing could be impirically provable.

Time is something He created. Therefore any statments such as "before God..." are, well.....invalid.

Exactly. Which doesn't explain how God was created. Which is no better than saying "before the big bang there was nothingness and then there was this explosion of matter". Both explanations leave even more fundamental questions dangling.

Which doesn't explain how God was created.

That's another problem. I believe that God wasn't created. He just was. Again, it goes to the very definition of supernatural. He simply doesn't exist on the natural plane, but above it. As far as time is concerned, I believe it can be taken to not be the constant in which we operate. This has been demonstrated many times. As objects move closer to the speed of light, time slows down. If time can be manipulated in this way, then time is no longer a direct ray into infinity. It becomes a palpable thing which can be manipulated. (albeit not by us, as we can't even come close to the speed of light.) Now, if God is omnipresent, then what does that do to his speed? Or does he even have one? If God is no longer bound by speed,or distance, then what of any boundaries of time?

Take another tack. Time runs in a line. Forward and backward. Both are measurable. Both seem to go to infinity. But if they go to infinity in both directions, then you could never have gotten to now since you could always go back further and further. This tends to point to time being a ray, not a line, with a definite beginning but no end. But then, we really don't know if there is an end either. It may just be a line, and we're racing unwitingly towards the end of it.

Another view of it. Time is simply another dimension. It can be modeled easily in a computer. Just because we happen to exist on a single slice of this four-dimentional space doesn't make it any less real. It just means we can only affect things that are on the same plane of existence as us. Now, since we are a computer related bunch, consider length, width, and height as a 3 dimentional array. That makes sense to us, and is something we can easily imagine. Now we can make this even more interesting and add a fourth dimention to the array. x ,y ,z, and t. We can still wrap our heads around this since we can see a three dimentional array moving through time. OK, no problem. We can see a 4-d array. Now what happens when you have a 5-d array? the computer has no issue making one, we just have a difficult time visualizing anything to represent what's going on in our limited 3-d world. What happens if there is a 10-d array? Again, the computer has no problems with it, but I certainly do.

This last one has something to do with the idea that we can represent a 3-d object on a 2-d piece of paper, and can represent a 4-d object in 3-d space. In other words, you can represent n+1 d whenever you operate in n degrees. If we could manipulate 4-d, we would have no issue understanding a 5-d. But the fact is that we don't.

All of that to say, we are bound by our little 3-d world, but God is not. Who are we to say what He can or cannot do since he does NOT exist on the same mortal plane of existence?

Then again, I personally believe that God literally said "Let there be light" and there was. I do not ascribe to the evolutionistic creation that many creationists believe. By this I mean that I don't believe that God manipulated evolution to achieve his creation. To me it boils down to whether or not He is all-powerful or not. Same goes for the walking on water, turning water into wine, healing people, and all the other miracles that Christ performed. It could be argued that He manipulated nature to perform these miracles, but I prefer the idea that He can simply makes things the way he wants.

All that being said, just because I believe this does not make it true. It just means that this is what I believe to be true. Everything COULD be a random series of molecular collisions that could be mapped out to the end of time, including emotions, physics, thought, and all those other measurable things, but I prefer no to believe that, for to me it takes away the concept of free will. All of a sudden our thoughts/emotions are no longer controlled by us, but rather by a cold, unfeeling, unthinking universe that is simply spinning out of control and we just happen to be a weird "concious" anomaly and I could just as easily be the matter that makes up my desk rather than the matter that is sitting at it. -=shudder=- What a bleak thought.

Since Tony pointed out the my comment was both oversimplified and mistaken, I kinda wanted to hear his in-depth explanation.

Your original statement...

"Before the big bang, there was nothing. And then that nothingness exploded."

... assumes that scientists have some sort of idea about what the universe was like before the big bang. They don't, not really. At least not in any concrete form, it's all very theoretical. You also say that "the nothingness exploded", but the current theory doesn't assume that matter exploded from nothingness. It's just that we don't know where the matter came from and we're making a lot of guesses about how it might have happened. They're just guesses at this point.

The original idea of the big bang theory comes from the observation that the universe is expanding. The idea is that the center of this expansion is the origin of the known universe, and that the expansion is the result of an explosion. It's not much more than that basic concept. Everything we're observing now seems to be consistent with that concept, but you have to admit, the vantage point from which we're viewing the universe right now is quite limited, so it all has to be taken with a grain of salt. You can't say, "Scientists believe that there was nothingness and then the nothingness exploded", because they really don't believe that. All they see is evidence that the universe as we know it appears to be the result of an expanding shockwave from a billions-of-years-old explosion. Anything beyond that, and they're still working on it.

This is different from other scientific discipines like biology or chemistry where we can directly observe the processes involved, and can get our hands on all the details and evidence we need. Some theories are just wild theories, others are a lot more concrete and tangible. We're getting a reasonably good handle on the workings of this planet, but the farther out you go from earth, the less we know and the more theoretical stuff becomes.

Tony, out of curiosity, have you ever read "Universe in a Nutshell" by Stephen Hawkings? Very interesting, even though a lot of stuff involving string theory and M theory goes WAY over my head.

One book that I've been trying to find, and really impressed me (although I was in HS at the time) was called "Genesis and the Big Bang". I read it for an AP Bio class that I needed some extra credit in... If anyone can help me find it, I'd really like to pick up a copy and see how it reads a decade later..

But basically, it was writen by a scientist and explained how both the Big Bang AND Genesis can be correct. To do so, he went back to the original Hebrew text and worked out each word and played with their various interpreations. I'm reaching here.. but he basically argued that telling people 2,000 years ago (long for the OT) that there was a universe and the speed of light etc, would have blown people's minds. So the text was writen in way that was easy to understand: that our world was created in 6 days. But by looking at each step, "There was darkness, then there was light", when taken in the right context can completely jive (I speek Jive) with the Big Bang.

I want to find the book again. It was quite interesting. Some stuff wouldn't stand up to modern reading (like how the chances of life outside of Earth is almost 0) but he really goes into detail on Realtivity and carbon dating etc...

Haven't read that. Yeah, stuff like string theory hurts my brain, too.

If anyone can help me find it, I'd really like to pick up a copy and see how it reads a decade later

Is this it?

Hmmm... maybe that link will work for you; it won't work right for me and I don't know why,

You can get there the hard way by going to Amazon.com, set the search to Books, and search for "Genesis and the Big Bang"

tanstaafl.

Wow! I swear I tried a Google a few months ago and nothing came up!

Thank you!

This is an excelent book on how the Bible lines up with current cosmological theory.

Which doesn't explain how God was created.

But "being created" necictates a time before God, which, again by definition is invalid.

If you had something that created God then you would have to ask how it was created, so on and so forth ad infinium. The point is, when you peel back all the layers, when you get to the heart of it, when you have found the "unmoved mover" that is God.

The point is, when you peel back all the layers, when you get to the heart of it, when you have found the "unmoved mover" that is God.

Yup. I see exactly what you're saying.

Depending on your personality, that either answers all your questions neatly leaving no loose ends, or it sounds like a complete cop-out which answers nothing at all.

A final answer to anything important generally does sound like a cop-out, if you ask me. (which nobody did)

even though a lot of stuff involving string theory and M theory goes WAY over my head.

The Elegant Universe Is an excellent 3 hour show to help you understand string and M theory, as it explains where they come from by covering the existing physics concepts first. You can watch it free via that link, or it is out on DVD as well.

Both explanations leave even more fundamental questions dangling.

"mu"

In fact I actually like ["Life Of Brian"] better than the "Holy Grail". I know, I know, that's heretical...

I'd agree with you on that preference; in fact, I'd suggest that only religious people, or at least people with a religious background, will get some of the jokes in Life Of Brian. My favourite bit, for instance, is the bit where Cleese, as a Pharisee, mishears the Sermon On The Mount and starts building a whole theological edifice on his mishearing: "Well, obviously that's just a metaphor, and when He says 'Blessed are the cheesemakers' he's actually talking about all employees of the dairy industry." It's a much funnier version of Scorsese's point in The Last Temptation Of Christ about the gulf that can exist between what actually happened, and how history is written (a known bug in Christianity, which was FITNR when Allah dictated the Koran Himself).

Oh, and I'd always thought the loaves and fishes thing was a sociological story about Christ persuading people to share what they had with one another, not a stage-magic story about Christ pulling 5,000 fishes out of a top hat.

Peter

A final answer to anything important generally does sound like a cop-out

An interesting quote:

"Creation and evolution, between them, exhaust the possibile explanations for the origin of living things. Organisms either appeared on the earth fully developed or they did not. If they did not, they must have developed from pre-existing species by some process of modification. If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must have been created by some omnipotent intelligence." - D.J. Futuyma

It's a much funnier version of Scorsese's point in The Last Temptation Of Christ about the gulf that can exist between what actually happened, and how history is written

While I agree that this is a particularly funny moment and the point is well made about how we can go wrong with interpretation, I won't go so far as to call this "a known bug in Christianity". I'd say it's a tendency of human nature of which we should be aware.

Oh, and I'd always thought the loaves and fishes thing was a sociological story about Christ persuading people to share what they had with one another, not a stage-magic story about Christ pulling 5,000 fishes out of a top hat.

I was actually taught this growing up, but that doesn't appear to me to be supported in the text. Actually the text doesn't say how it happens, and it really isn't that important. That Jesus performed miracles is supported in the New Testament throughout so my example could easily be applied to another scenerio.

BTW, the point of this whole discussion was to get a new beta, so why are you joining in?

Ok, I don't know who D.J. Futuyma is or what his angle was, but the quote makes one critical error:

Creation and evolution, between them, exhaust the possible explanations for the origin of living things.

The theory of evolution does not, nor does it attempt to, explain the origin of living things; only how our current complexity was achieved. Evolution presupposes that there are living things to start with, and how those got there is the big question.

As the joke goes:
Man: God, we've figured out how to create life.
God: Oh really? Show me.
Man: Well it's simple really. First I'll need some dirt . . .
God: Now wait a minute. Get your own dirt!

Douglas J. Futuyma is an evolutionist and author. His quote comes from Science on Trial, his anti-creationist book published in 1983.

It was just interesting to note an evolutionist conclude that special creation is clearly the only alternative to evolution.

Hunh, there you go. I was suspecting he was a creationist so I'm glad I asked!