(November 17, 2012 at 9:17 am)whateverist Wrote: Daniel, you interest me. So you do assume life is 3 billion or so years old on this planet. Are you saying you would have no problem accepting that life self starts? If so, I wonder how you reconcile that with any form of Christian faith.If life doesn't self-start then I don't understand why God would choose to create living microbes instead of creating full-bodied creatures immediately. Living microbes really aren't special enough to warrant such special attention, and for the last 40,000-60,000 years until just recently humans have been unable to even appreciate that they exist.
Quote:Do you credit your version of the Christian God with creating the universe as we find it? Could you still make sense of God as you conceptualize it/Him if He is not the creator? Could the universe as we find it also self start? Could God as you understand it/Him also have to work within the universe as He finds it?The universe is not able to self-start. It breaks every seriously established model of physics as we have it and emerges into a purely academic theoretical level of, well, silliness to imagine such a scenario as where the universe can create its own set of laws from nothing at all. God created the universe for us - and if he has other people living in other systems, then also for them. It's entirely possible that he created our moon for us as well, and put it where it is intentionally (after all, its size and position is just perfect).
With that said, the Big Bang theory still has many merits, but it isn't the definitive truth as to the origin of the universe.
Quote:Please, do say more. Also, I wonder if you would count yourself as an agnostic? That is, I wonder if you embrace your belief without the illusion of certainty. [I don't ask because I'm eager to go on the attack. I know there are intelligent ways to embrace 'faith' and I'm beginning to think you may have found one.]I most certainly am not agnostic. As I mentioned in another thread we have a serious astrophysicist at our Church who has had about 15 of his students go on to become science advisors to world leaders, and he won the Prime Minister's award for Science this year.
I wouldn't expect him to force his view of dark-matter to a sceptic like me (even though I am a layman and not an astrophysicist; and he just won the aforementioned award for his work regarding dark matter). I have no idea what his opinion on evolution is, it's entirely logical that if I asked he could say something like "I'm an astrophysicist, I don't care to know about how evolution works, that's for biologists to worry about". In the same way a biologist would possibly say to me "I'm a biologist, dark matter is not my concern, I don't care whether the universe is 10% dark matter, 90% dark matter or 200% dark matter". People who aren't interested in physics, and people who aren't interested in science at all, don't care to know about evolution one way or the other, or for that matter most other scientific theories (except for anthropogenic global warming since it's politicised).
By the way, just so we're perfectly clear, none of the above helps people who are struggling, or does anything whatsoever to fix the problems in our secular states. While science can help us appreciate some of the ways in which problems in society arise, it is the study of history and of politics that gives a greater understanding. I can't speak for all Christians, but what I do know is that here in Australia the Anglican Church does more for those in need in terms of providing finical support and relief, food and clothing, for those in our communities (yes, communities not just churches) then any other NPO or church denomination in Australia including the Roman Catholic Church. For instance, at this time of year, there are Anglican-run Christmas programs that allow struggling parents in our community to come and receive gifts for their children for free. Just like a regular "op shop" it is for everyone.
We also have cross-charity support too, one of the people in our church has been with a particular "secular" NPO for 15+ years. Even in so-called non-religious NPO's a greater proportion of their workers and/or volunteers are Christian as opposed to secular. With that said, I also firmly believe that in establishing Christian NPO's that nobody should be forced to adhere to the faith in order to support and work for the NPO - it works both ways IMHO.
