Summations Only

To my dear creationist brothers and sisters,First of all, I need to throw this out there so there's no misunderstanding. I am an atheist. There are many branches of atheism. There's the militant atheism and there's those in more of a gray area. I exist somewhere between the agnostic and atheist. I don't rule out the possibility of an ultimate being responsible for everything.Last night, I turned on the tv right before I slept. I stumbled onto an episode of The Universe. This episode was on galaxies.Basically speaking, our solar system is part of a normal size galaxy called the Milky Way. The Milky Way is part of a cluster of galaxies, including Andromeda. And this cluster is part of a super-cluster of galaxies.Everywhere the Hubble points at, there are billions of galaxies. They guess-timate that there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and there are about 100 billion galaxies in the visible universe.In other words, the universe is humongous. Who knows what kinds of wonders that are out there. We've barely scratched the surface.During the show, I thought to myself. If there was a God, and he created this really really really really big universe with all these wonders that are out there waiting for us to explore, why would you rather believe that His word only exist in a book? Why not embrace in a God that is bigger and more powerful than anything we can ever understand, you know, like the God that created this really really really really really big universe?The more I think about it, the more logic tells me that creationists should be on the forefront of scientific discoveries. God created the entire universe with all the principles and everything else that keeps it in place. We, as His children, should be out there finding out more of His creation instead of stifling scientific discoveries wherever possible.If there is a God, His true bible exists in nature, not an ancient book that was written by people thousands of years ago. Edited by yenmor, : No reason given.

Hi Yenmor,You've sort of gone in two different directions. One is a science question (God of the gaps, which would place this thread in Is It Science?), the other is a Bible question (why take the Bible's word over nature's, which would place this thread in The Bible: Accuracy and Inerrancy).Could you edit you're opening post a bit so it's more clear where this belongs?

Done.

Hi Yenmor,Sorry, I'm still not clear on which direction you want to go. I'm going to put this is The Bible: Accuracy and Inerrancy, hope that's okay.

Thread copied here from the Question for creationists: Why would you rather believe in a small God? thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

Did you see this? Message 829

As a creationist, I don't consider guess-timates involving thousands, or millions of light years as a science that is to be readily accepted and unquestioned. Science is supposed to be testable, repeatable, observable, falsifiable. I think it gets a little vague when we claim to analyze something (glimmers of light) that took thousands or millions of years to reach us.As an agnostic/atheist, are you never the slightest bit skeptical of secular guess-timates involving deep space? I believe that's all we're ever going to be able to do. If you disagree, what methods do you believe are right around the corner to take a closer look at things that are thousands of light years away? I believe that book contains all I need to know concerning how to live my life to please God, how to relate to others, to manage finances, to decide how to vote concerning what I believe is best for the society that I live in, etc. That's what creationists actually do. (I bolded your words that should tell you why they can do it without science.) Not at all, because science restricts itself to naturalistic rearrangement processes only. Those who control it don't even allow the exploration of the possibility of an intelligent designer. The human mind can't comprehend creation and destruction. Science tries to fit all of reality into rearrangement processes. Christianity is much more than that. The scientific community claims that it can't address anything to do with Christianity. (other than their belief that it’s wrong) What could a Christian possibly learn about God from godless science? Much of what passes for science today is actually atheism - a public establishment of it. That's the only thing (U.S.) creationists are attempting to stifle. Not necessarily in a religious interest, but in a constitutional interest. I think it's disingenuous for someone who is interested in the exploration of nature, to claim that others can use nature to reinforce their belief in God, while you use nature to reinforce your belief that there probably isn't a God. If I'm wrong, make your case.

Well, the Bible portrays a God who created a universe which doesn't exist. In order to believe in the Bible, they have to believe in that God; in order to believe in that God, they have to believe in that universe. It's not clear why they have to believe in the Bible, but it's obviously very important to them.

To be fair, there actually are many creationists who believe in a grand God. It's just that we usually don't call them "creationists". We normally only use that term for the crazy ones.

And yet statements about the universe based on looking at the universe are somewhat more likely to be reliable than statements based on ignoring it. By performing animal sacrifice? By hating your entire family? By complete fiscal imprudence? Do you do any of this stuff? OK, at least tell me you don't eat bacon. It's mighty good of you to stick up for the Constitution. I particularly admire your relentless struggle to have the words IN GOD WE DON'T TRUST removed from our currency. The Constitution is sacrosanct, not least the clause forbidding Congress to establish irreligion ...... oh, wait, it seems we don't live in Opposite World.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Good thing none of that is true or else there would be a problem. Whew! The "guesstimate" yenmor spoke of was the number of stars in our galaxy, not the hodgepodge of wrongness you purported. The study of light and it's speed is very well documented and contains no guess work.Nice try, though. As a christian, what does your god say about misrepresentation of others and lying? Based on creationists writing, I'd say he/she/it is all for it and commands it. Creationists the world over have been emplored to provide a way to study the supernatural. You've all failed. Science studies what it CAN study and that is nature. That is a lie. As a matter of fact, the whole paragraph surrounding that is wrong and a lie. Oh, look, another lie.

I recently gave Bolder-Dash a 1 week suspension for stupid behavior. Thus I'm currently being extra sensitive about any of the evolution side also being jerks. You are the first example I've encountered, of such undesirable behavior.Be nice.Don't reply to this message at this topic. If anyone feels the must reply, track down that special topic for such things.Adminnemooseus

But that is the one we embrace, the one who made all of it. Absurd there should be a question about that.What does His having communicated to us in writing have to do with how big He is? He communicates through Nature too, but being fallen we can't be sure we're reading Nature accurately. That's why He kindly gave us a written testimony. In which, by the way, He informs us that Nature shows His character too. But you don't see Him there, do you? That's because you're fallen. We need the writings to help us see the reality of things.

Forgive my lack of humbleness. I have a BS in physics, BS in computer science, and a masters in structural engineering. I worked in research in astrophysics during my time in school. In other words, I've done some of the math behind these numbers. I actually understand what's involved for them to have come up with these numbers. For now, none. Does this mean we shouldn't try? Then could you cite a few scientific or technological advancements that are due directly to attributing the processes to a God actively participating in the process? I've spent a great deal of time reading and studying past achievements. What I've found is that attributing the limits of our knowledge to an all powerful magical being gets us no-where. Had Newton attributed gravity to God's magic, calculus would never have been invented. That's just one example.Again, can you name us a few scientific or technological progress that were directly resulted from attributing some natural processes to God's magic?

Creationist don't believe in a tiny deity by choice. They follow an interpretation of the Bible that says that modern science produces lies. Their universe was created a few thousand years ago. If light from distant objects appears to suggest something else, then the 'something else' and not the Bible is wrong.As silly as that seems, it is not as silly as the premise of this thread.