(Suppose, for the sake of argument.) God created the heavens and the earth … the sun, the moon, the stars, the skies, the land, the seas … the plants, the animals … and mankind. All in the space of six days! (By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.)
How did he do it?
To some it may seem presumptuous even to ask how God went about the business of creation. But mankind is a curious creature. His inquiring mind wants to know. Humans (some of them) thirst for knowledge for knowledge’s sake. That’s why we have philosophy and science and why, today (thank God), we live in a technologically advanced age. The gains in scientific knowledge made since the Enlightenment are nothing short of stupendous.
And now we know.
We now know, for example, that the several references in the Old Testament to God “stretching out the heavens” refer to the metric expansion of space which is a key feature of Big Bang cosmology. We now know that the Universe had its origin in a moment of creation some 13.75 billion years ago.
Let it be said, however, that cosmology is a better example of human ignorance than human knowledge. We’re still in the dark about so many of the fundamentals. Dark matter and dark energy are aptly named. But in other branches of science we know a great deal more. We know so much, in fact, that we can, and do, “play God”. To illustrate this point, here is a recent news headline.
In First, Software Emulates Lifespan of Entire Organism
We’ve mapped the human genome. We’ve mapped the genome of Mycoplasma genitalium and run software simulations of the entire organism. We’ve even constructed artificial life (assuming, of course, that a virus can truly be called a living thing), building it from scratch in a laboratory, one RNA molecule at a time. And this is only the prelude to what is to come.
We know how animals (albeit, very small ones) are made. We know how they work. We can simulate them. We can even build them ourselves.
Where am I heading with this? Actually, this post is for my co-blogger, Tim. God made animals, but he also made the human mind. I anticipate that one day we will find out how the human mind is made. We’ll run a simulation of a human mind on the powerful computers of the not-too-distant future.
The time is short.
Do you Richard mistake my rejection of so many of today’s ‘Scientific Norms’ in favour of maintaining faith in the scriptures, as an indication of disrespect for the pursuit of knowledge?
Do you think that I have been ‘Conditioned’ by ignorant Mystics so as to harbor a perverse satisfaction from the ‘mysterious’?
I hope not.
What you are witnessing is my skepticism at what passes for ‘Scientific fact’ these days.
Indeed almost anything and everything is boxed up and sold to the gullible under the Neo-Religious garb of ‘science’.
I am heeding St Pauls warning to “Beware science falsely so called”.
Yes I am staunchly defining what ought to be accepted as a valid scientific fact, and what is mere conjecture… what at best may be describes as opinionated and blatantly atheistic theory.
I have absolutely no qualms with the pursuit of scientific knowledge.
As an Engineer I make my living from application of Real Scientific knowledge!
I argue there is no conflict between True religion and True science.
I argue That Protestant Christianity, and Theism in general may claim to have had amongst its ranks Most of the Greatest Minds… Men of Science and reason.
In a Recent blogpost called ‘Superstition?’ … I say this about Scientific investigation…
“…Dont be duped by the modern propaganda that Science has always been in conflict with Revealed religion!
To the contrary I argue thus: By all means continue the quest for knowledge, yet has not the scriptures proven true enough in what can and has already been weighed and measured… so that we ought to consider it trustworthy in those things which are currently beyond our scope of verification?
I believe this to be both a rational approach, and a wise one. It is the very Basis of science…*Faith!*
Faith that The Universe is intelligible because it was created orderly via Divine reason.”
http://blog.eternalvigilance.me/2012/06/superstition/
Thus I am all in favour of the persuit of Scientific Knowledge as a Noble endevour.
Yet I warn The Christian to be vigilant against Pseudo science and Bad interpretations of the facts which appear to render the scriptures to be in Error.
That is always a Fail.
In your blog post you make the mistake of assuming ‘the evidence’ ‘proves’ the Universe is 13 billion years old. I can understand the reasoning… baced upon Big Bang cosmology and the Idea that the Universe started from a single point and expanded out to its current size…of 13 billion light year units.
And I am happy to entertain the rationale of all of this… It does not contravene or cause me any trouble in respect to my faith in the trustworthiness of the Bible as Gods revelation to man.
Yet I must warn you that I know that all this is merely speculation… not scientific fact.
I know it is dependent upon many assumptions. Eg that the speed of light has remained constant.
I also know… and have strong reason to believe that The universe did not begin from a single point 13 billion years ago, but that God created the universe with much more ‘intervention’ than merely generating the initial explosion and leaving the universe to ‘Evolve’.
I know there is no scientific evidence to contravene my assertion.
Ie that God had much more to do with the formation of the universe, and in particular our Galaxy, solar system, and Home planet.
I know that Glorious though Big bang cosmology may appear… and how much excitement it generates amongst the scientific community… *at their own cleverness… of the theory*
Yet still it could be absolutely wrong!
And I suspect that it is!
Ie I suspect they are misinterpreting ‘the Data’… and are yet again guilty imposing their own wild superstition of ‘naturalism’ … ‘evolution’.
I am not saying that the idea of the Big bang and evolution of the universe contradicts the Bible.
I am saying that it is still mere conjecture… and a ‘story’… a very biased story which has every chance of being wrong… and not a scientific fact.
That is my position… and I say I may claim a scientific rigor underpins my skeptical position.
Ie I am correctly identifying / distingishing what is a scientific fact, from what is not.
Anthony Flew vaidates my asertion that the scientific case for God has become stronger in the light of the latest descoveries in biology, and says this is the primary reason he abandoned Atheism.
And this is in direct confict with what Dawkins preaches… and what is commonly believed about Naturalism… Ie the popular delusion is that the philosphy of Naturalism has been getting stronger and stronger via scientific progress and squeezing God out of existance… re that atheist scoff… ‘The God of the Gaps’. Yet the very opposite is true and it is the atheist position and naturalism which are today in peril, not creationism. Only Blind Atheist fanaticism refuses to abandon the philosophy.
http://blog.eternalvigilance.me/2012/07/honest-ex-atheist-anthony-flew-fan-of-st-paul-and-christ/
And in respect to ‘the evolution’ of our planet out of ‘space rubble’, the whole theory is peppered with problems eg How did all the water get here?… They ‘suggest’ from Comets.
Yet this demonstrates just how tenuous the entire Big bang cosmology is… there are far more questions/ mysteries than actual facts, and so it goes to show how wrong it is to believe the Big bang idea is anything other than conjecture, and how nieve it is to call it scientific fact.