Care to Worship at the Science Temple?

It weird but I think, Is not the topic of" big bang stated in the bible" untrue because if God is all powerful so why not have him create the universe and every single detail in just 6 literal days? And I remember clearly that this seven day cycle being work on 6 days and rest on the seventh proven to be established as a week so that wee base our time schedule like that. And that God did not need to use an explosion to create earth and since then he could make light from any star hit earth without the waiting of the light to travel all the way to earth because of distance and the speed of light being accounted for just because he is all powerful.~ Breath, yes I'm sloppy at typing but please hear me out and try to understand me.

Care to Worship at the Science Temple? Reply: No Thank you.
Rom 1: 22-23 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Reply to Stephen Gray above:
Isa 40:22b He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

This is very clear about the subject: the Bible describes the expanding universe. We live on the surface of a 4D universe (the Surface of the tent). This is not easy to picture, and may be part of the problem of understanding the word picture. "Spreads" is an active verb, not just the past, but a continuing spreading. We live on the surface of earth is a fair, but not perfect comparison, just as the galaxies are on the surface of the expanding universe (spreading tent). Hope this helps, if not read one of Hugh Ross's books on the subject.

ryansupak,

"In other words: just because there is strong circumstantial evidence of “some” Creation Agent doesn’t automatically imply that we have any way of knowing about the nature of that Creation Agent."

As RTB has pointed out, the fact that matter, energy, space and time all had a beginning means that the Agent is transcendent and powerful. The fact that there are over 400 characteristics of the universe and earth that must be fine-tuned in order for humans to live on this one planet, suggests a loving and personal Agent. The fact that we can make one to one comparisons between machines inside of cells and machines humans design and see how they work together, etc. means that the Agent is intelligent. In fact as Dr. Rana shows in his book "The Cells Design," these machines are far better than what we can make.

In case you did not know, at the top right section of RTB's main page is a link to their weekly webcast (Creation Update). Every Tuesday from 1-3 Central Time you can listen to the scholars discuss science/faith issues. In the last hour you can call toll-free and ask questions. Just click the "microphone" and then click the "listen live" link. When you get to the OnePlace page check the date next to Hugh's picture to make sure you have not gotten there too early. Otherwise you might wind up listening to the last week's program.

Now you also asked the question, "From the skeptic’s perspective, what’s wrong with simply “not-knowing” until God comes down on a cloud, and makes an appearance on Jon Stewart and sets the record straight?"

From a believer's perspective, the Bible says that that will be too late. He will be returning for judgment, not to have a sitdown.

Ryan,

Nothing wrong with God making an appearance on Jon Stewart (or maybe Colbert Report's "This Week in God").

Question is,

Would YOU Love HIM if He did that?

What is the guarantee? And if You didn't, then wouldn't that make God look weak? Would you want to worship a weak God?

Stephen Gray,
I hope you are still here. I have not been in here for a while. The "vault" of Is. 40:22 is not the heavens that were being stretched. This is the atmosphere (called firmament and heaven in Gen. 1:8). The fact that it is called a vault only has to do with its appearance from earth. This can be shown in the early church fathers who called the firmament and/or heavens a dome, hemisphere and/or vault, but went on to explain that its actual shape was a globe (Novatian, Eusebius, Arnobius, Cyril, Gregory of Nyssa, Basil and Hyppolytus). All lived within the first 400 years of church history.

The heavens being stretched are the universe. This can be shown in the fact that God is said to be above the atmosphere in 40:22 and that the writer is drawing attention to the starry heavens in verse 26. The writer seems to be using Ps. 147:4 "He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them." Is. 40:26 ""The One who leads forth their hosts by number, He calls them all by name..."

There are three meanings for heavens in scripture: the atmosphere (Gen. 1:8), the universe (Gen. 1:1), and God's dwelling place. The heavens referred to in the stretching verses is the universe. The verbs for stretch are used in two different forms in these verses; a completed form and an active form. The completed form (meaning the action is finished) can be found in five of the verses. The rest (seven) use the active form (meaning an ongoing action). In fact in Is. 40:22 it uses both.

So the Bible does say that the universe is expanding.

ryan,

We can't search for evidence of the Creation Agent 'out there'. He created everything including us.

So we should first start looking for Him within us.

"...that the Bible contains no equations (duh!) and says nothing explicit or clear about science...."

I would like to respond to this quote taken from Stephen Gray's second post and encourage Stephen to explore the history and philosophy of science. He would quickly discover for himself why such a claim is misguided.

Here is the gist of what he would find. The metaphysical presupposition that a valid explanation in science IS a mathematical reduction in the form of an equation was held by the Pythagoreans of ancient Greece. However, they would probably not have gone so far as to say that the equation (actually a geometrical relationship at that time) represented reality (was necessarily real). They just considered it a valid tool to correlate phenomena. This is opposed to Aristotle's view that a valid scientific explanation must account for 4 specific types of causes not just a mathematical relationship. It was not until Kepler that a mathematical equation could be shown not only as an explanatory tool, but was also metaphysically so. That is, what was really happening in nature. Galileo built on this view by presupposing that the universe was really just matter-in-motion and that this motion could be reduced to an equation. From there Descartes, Boyle, and Newton developed the idea further. Stephen's claim reflects this philosophy. The problem, of course, is that when the Bible was written people had a different metaphysic of what counted as a valid explanation (if they had a "science" metaphysic at all). That is why one would not expect to find the Bible using equations to explain aspects of nature. However, to claim that the Bible makes no explicit claims about the reality of nature shows ignorance of the history and philosophy of science.

Lets look at Genesis 1 and its claim that God caused the waters to be drawn into one place in order for dry land to appear. That would imply that the land is also in one place. So is this a scientific claim? Its not an equation, but it is saying that Nature was one way and then became a different way. That is testable. A testable claim about something in nature is what I would call a scientific claim.

I am not a scientist so I have to rely upon scientists when it comes to discussions involving science.

There are unquestionably a number of scientists, such as those associated with Reasons to Believe, who respect the scientific method, make the same observations, but draw different conclusions based on what they observe the facts to be. They are not disputing natural law, in fact, it may be their understanding of natural law is what drives them to the conclusions they come to. Their conclusions are that naturalism simply cannot explain what they are observing.

The argument of those scientists who come to different conclusions seems to be that you cannot draw a supernatural conclusion by observing natural phenomena.

I would like to know why that is? How does someone make that argument without assuming there must be a natural cause? How is that any more logical than assuming, based on observed evidence and knowledge of science and natural law, that a natural cause does not seem likely, that life could not have created itself?

It just seems to me that those who are assuming there must be a natural cause are closing their minds to an alternative possibility while claiming they are the open-minded ones. How do they logically come to a conclusion they are the open-minded ones while those who disagree are the closed-minded ones blinded by their faith?

Stephen,

Science is based on global presuppositions such as the one you mention "...the universe is governed by fixed laws...". These presuppositions cannot be proven or disproven. If you define faith as believing in something without proof, then science is based on faith.

Now you have also noted that observations can tell us that the universe operates according to fixed laws. "...that is an observation, not faith. If the universe started behaving differently, scientists would recognize that fact...". I agree with you. What you are basically arguing is that there is a checking mechanism in science that allows a person to update their ideas if they need to be changed. That checking mechanism is the logical process of induction. Observations are made, then a theory or model is inferred to explain the observations. However, all inferences are based on limited knowledge and carry a certain level of risk that they are wrong. Through the checking process you noted, that risk may go down, but it is impossible to remove it. A scientist has to tentatively trust that their inference is correct until new data suggests otherwise. Trusting in something you believe to be true based on evidence is a form of faith called "pistis" faith. This is the Greek word used by the apostle Paul when he described the kind of faith Christians are to have.

Either way you look at it, science has faith.

Your claim "It is stretching the word 'faith' beyond all usefulness to say that scientists have faith that the universe is governed by fixed laws," simply cannot be justified.

Taylor,

Thanks for the definition of "science worship" and the citation. I would, however, caution you in assuming that this is the definition that Keats had in mind. Have you visited his site or read his definition?

It is stretching the word "faith" beyond all usefulness to say that scientists have faith that the universe is governed by fixed laws. That is an observation, not faith. If the universe started behaving differently, scientists would recognize that fact before believers. Also scientists, most of them, need no faith that God does not exist to continue their work. If God decided to reveal himself by doing an undeniable, obvious miracle, scientists would accommodate that miracle, or try to, in their theories. I, as a scientist, worship nothing, but have immense respect for the universe and its comprehensible behavior, but that is provisional, like all of science. When you use as your only authority the objective, external world, there is no appeal to authority or an ancient, obsolete book written by ignorant people.

Science worship is "faith that the universe is governed by dependable, immutable, absolute, universal, mathematical laws of an unspecified origin." (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinion/24davies.html?_r=2&oref=slogin...) It is faith that random events created rational minds capable of understanding the random events that led to said minds. In many cases it is faith that God does not exist. Then, based on this faith, it is worship at the throne of human reason by exegeting the natural world through the scientific method and holding to the conclusions found with the same religious fervor that the theocentric religions are accused of.