Aw, come on, you guys. My ‘religion’ is not passive. It is ‘active’, even ‘proactive’. You’ve made the mistake of pouring all ‘religion’ into the same soup pot.

Speakup on October 14, 2007 at 4:31 PM

Yes, I think of the Dark ages, after the fall of Rome, as Human’s society’s devolvement. I also think of the era in the USA after FDR as our devolvement into socialism. But devolement tends to lead to extinction. So those studies while interesting tend to lead to dead ends. I also think that scientists have evolution wrong. I do not think it is slow small changes over long periods that cause massive evolution but fast massive change over short time periods that cause the majority of evolution. Like a comet impact that wipes out large amounts of lifeforms and the coresponding rise of other lifeforms to fill the gap. Is God’s hand in those? It would point to that if it is short sudden changes as opposed to long drawn out changes IMO

Hmm….That certainly explains Rosie, Moore, and Jimmy.

Lancer on October 14, 2007 at 9:14 PM

Read and take notice of the writings of our founders then leaders a hundred years ago then fifty years ago and the writings of our leaders now and then tell me if we haven’t devolved.

Plus not everything Evolves, some do Devolve.

Hmm….That certainly explains Rosie, Moore, and Jimmy.

unseen on October 14, 2007 at 4:05 PM

Whats the speed limit for change?

That’s one of the things that makes nature so interesting.

Plus not everything Evolves, some do Devolve.

Yes. but is this also not evolution? Wether man-made, god inspired, or natural it is a form of evolution. This evolution has enabled man to be masters/stewards of the world in which we live. But this evolution is very quick in geologic time. A blink of the eye. This defies the evolution theory to some degree of slow change over many,many generations due to natural selection. This is evolution on steriods. What is the cause of this explosion in evolutionary ability that enables us to change other lifeforms. And if we can change otherlife forms to become something else is it really so hard some/something changed/created us to become who we are. A species able to withstand the deep sea, the highest mountain, the coldest glacier, the hottest desert, and the blackest space?

Another thing. what is wrong with New York at 70 degrees in the Winter? Lot better than shoveling snow.

unseen on October 14, 2007 at 3:18 PM

Here in central Cal. the fall and beginning of winter is as exactly normal as could possibly be.

But the experiments that have confirmed Relativity’s effect on Time clearly show that it is an objective entity, however difficult it is for us to understand.

Lancer

Oh I know, after some of the blind faith comments on earlier comments in this thread I really wanted to see some critical thinking.

Perhaps if I jostle enough brains some might even begin to become annoyed at the self imposed set of blinders they much too willing accept.

In order to fully appreciate anything including religion a wide view of understanding is important.

IMHO, in order for faith in any form to be true and lasting that faith has to withstand the test of an open mind.

Speakup on October 14, 2007 at 2:54 PM

Well in some environments they do but not all environments.

Pointing at a time period one one hundred thousandth of that interval and claiming six billion people must go back to living in mud huts is far beyond irresponsible.

Couldn’t agree more on this one. We will adapt to any change in climate in the long term and possibly the short term as well. I never understood how the same people that believe in evolution as a natural event set in stone could also think they could somehow stop the process. It defies logic.

Now, now, Al Gore and Friends aren’t suggesting that everyone should go back to living in mud huts….just that everyone turn our economies and personal decisions over to them “for our own good.” Isn’t watermelon environmentalism great?

As far as the time issue, if we were only going off of mundane experience and quantum physics, then I would say that it is a definite possibility. But the experiments that have confirmed Relativity’s effect on Time clearly show that it is an objective entity, however difficult it is for us to understand.

Side note: Have you never wondered why Human beings are the only species on Earth that can live and survive in almost any and all environments? No matter what temperture, no matter what saline content of the surrounding water, no matter what elevation,etc. No other creature can do this. Why is that? The Bible tells us why but what does science tell us on this? If we evolved like other creatures then we should be contained to a narrow climatic zone or geographic area. We are not. We are unshackled to live and thrive in any climate and any geographic area. Why is this? It defies all known rules of evolution

Well there are other life forms much better at surviving than us such as cockroaches and extremeophile bacteria.
However you want to square evolution with creation, that species came and went and that their forms change with time is supported with hard evidence.

the glacial maximums scare the hell out of the man-made global warming theorists.

Global warming theorists that blame humans are no different that the Spotted Owl extinction theorists…their liars.

Our environment is cyclical and another glacial maximum will eventually come and a glacial minimum has to occur somewhere in the intervening approximately twenty two thousand years (not that this is that event).
Pointing at a time period one one hundred thousandth of that interval and claiming six billion people must go back to living in mud huts is far beyond irresponsible.

I’m sorry but your knowledge of what does or does not occur outside of our universe is rather startling, especially since we have a difficult enough time explaining the inside.

The conditions necessary for time to exist don’t necessarily include the conditions inside this universe.

If time exists at all transcendence must be relative and therefore cannot be associated with a container or an event such as a big bang or God for that matter.

In other universes (which I believe exist), how would time operate differently?

Is time a thing or a mental construct?

Imagine if time only exists as individual perception, created from a string of events we recognize as one after another.

Speakup on October 14, 2007 at 1:06 PM

According to relativity, there is no universal sequence of before and after because the sequence depends on the frame of reference of the observer. For a given observer there is a before and after, but another observer could observe a different sequence for the same events if they are moving fast enough. That is not to say the differences are idiosyncratic, because they are predictable according to physical laws that have been verified to very high precision.

My opinion is that Gen 2:1 and 4 mean that the history of the world has already been completed, and the rest of the Bible is just a more detailed explanation of what happened from our point of view, and the explanation in Genesis 1 is a sequence that pertains to God. That difference is not the same as relativity, since relativity is part of our existence inside the universe, and God transcends the universe.

I just helped you find some plausibility for God and you didn’t even realize it.

If your thinking I’m reverting to magical thinking then your even further from reality.

Also I am far from trying to negate God.

Speakup on October 14, 2007 at 1:06 PM

Could be. the glacial maximums scare the hell out of the man-made global warming theorists. Because it shows beyond a doubt that what is happening is natural and not man made. Be that as it may. Who are we to say that glaciers where not needed for us to become the humans we are today?

Side note: Have you never wondered why Human beings are the only species on Earth that can live and survive in almost any and all environments? No matter what temperture, no matter what saline content of the surrounding water, no matter what elevation,etc. No other creature can do this. Why is that? The Bible tells us why but what does science tell us on this? If we evolved like other creatures then we should be contained to a narrow climatic zone or geographic area. We are not. We are unshackled to live and thrive in any climate and any geographic area. Why is this? It defies all known rules of evolution.

Imagining if time is just a perception doesn’t make it so. And even if it is just a perception (which I don’t buy), I don’t see how that negates God. It almost sounds as if you’re getting rid of Time so you can drop cause-and-effect thinking and revert to “magical thinking” in order to avoid the issue.

I think you are on the money there. It has long seemed to me that the Genesis creation account was not intended to be taken in the scientific literal sense that we are so used to using today. That does not make it untrue at all. We are so used to thinking the way we do that we don’t realize how recently our way of thinking developed.
Also, I try to look at the question from a Theocentric view instead of the usual Anthropocentric one. If God had explained the entire Creation process to a chosen prophet in the ancient world (remember this would have included such things as Relativity, Quantum Physics, Black Holes, Supernovae, etc.), one of three things would have happened: The poor prophet would have gone stark raving mad; he would have been thought stark raving mad by his people; or his people would have used the knowledge to build themselves an antimatter reactor without (since they didn’t earn the knowledge the hard way)the necessary safety protocols and promptly blown themselves to smithereens.
I believe that the Creator intends His Creatures to study and learn about His Creation ourselves. He gave us the Bible because without it we have no more chance of understanding Him directly than an amoeba has of ever understanding us.

So the question is this. 2,000 years ago no one know what a billion was. No one knew what Dna was, the word computer was not invented, the laws of physics were not decoded etc. So going from this line of thinking how could God explain the creation in terms that the people of that age could understand? I think He explained it as we would explain things to a 3 year old today.

Would you say this same progression occurred during the 22 thousand years between the preceding glacial maximums?

Time doesn’t exist outside the universe, and God is outside the universe. Without time, there is no before, so we can’t even imagine what the origin of God is.

pedestrian on October 14, 2007 at 1:02 AM

Imagine if time only exists as individual perception, created from a string of events we recognize as one after another.

After we’ve shed the notion of beginning or ending, next year is just an event that hasn’t happened yet, eternity doesn’t need to be gaged and anything including God doesn’t need an explanation to exist.

Maybe they haven’t gotten them yet. Maybe they have been misled. Maybe they have been shown these truths and have failed to except them. Who knows. Maybe God put these truths in terms that their societies could understand at the time they were needed to understand.

As a student of geology and I person that has studied evolution it is amzaing how much evolution and Creation combine on its main points. There is no difference except the time frame and the cause. None. The sequence of events described in the Bible are the same sequence of events described in the Theory of evolution. It is more amazing that people more than 2,000 years ago with no scientific knowledge (compared with present day) were able to state this progression of events and world formation and be 100% right. It has taken scientists 2,000 years of back breaking research, testing, and millions of research papers to come to the same answer that the Jews and Christians came to more than 2,000 years ago.

Is it not possible that the Bible was written using different words and concepts so that the societies of that time could understand the fundamental truths?

Still having a problem understanding your main point. What about the Indians, or Chinese, whose populations are more than half the earth. How did they get the “fundamental” truths?

Genesis was written before Jesus. However that changes nothing. The average person 2,000 years ago had no concept of a billion YEARS. No one could fathom something being that old. Today many people still have trouble understanding big numbers and grasping the depth of what those numbers mean. In fact the term “million” was not invented in Europe until the 13th century according to The History of Mathematics Volume II by D. E. Smith and not universally adapted by Europe until the sixteenth century.

Still the basic point of the above question is this. Human knowledge and intelligence has come a long way in the last 100 years let alone the last 2,000 years. Is it not possible that the Bible was written using different words and concepts so that the societies of that time could understand the fundamental truths? Think about it. Your class books in college are different than those from grade school , because you have grown and learned more. But the basic truths you learned in grade school (adding, subtracting etc) are still true no matter what type of calculus you are doing today.

No one 2,000 years ago would understand the concept of a billion years

Wrong. Many ancient civilizations had symbols for billion. Geomety, calculus et.al. were developed long before Jesus.

I really don’t understand what you mean.

So the question is this. 2,000 years ago no one know what a billion was. No one knew what Dna was, the word computer was not invented, the laws of physics were not decoded etc. So going from this line of thinking how could God explain the creation in terms that the people of that age could understand? I think He explained it as we would explain things to a 3 year old today.

For example when my son asked why the Sky was blue when he was 3 I did not sit him down and explain the refraction properties of oxogen or the chemical make up of the atmosphere, or how light traved in different wavelengths. I told him because that’s the way the light skipped of the air. Both are true but one he could understand at the time and one would be meaningless.

I think the Bible does the same thing. No one 2,000 years ago would understand the concept of a billion years. But they could understand the concept of days, months, years. No one understood the concept of DNa but they could understand the concept of birth/death of renewal and of failure. No one would understand the concept of mass extiction but they could grasp the “time of the monsters”

Anyone else think this could explain the confusion between science and religion?