Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
3 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,818 Year: 3,075/9,624 Month: 920/1,588 Week: 103/223 Day: 1/13 Hour: 0/1


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Reasons To Believe
mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 16 of 72 (112016)
06-01-2004 9:37 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by Hangdawg13
05-31-2004 11:35 PM


Information that goes against the grain of current dogma and points out things evolutionists will never admit excites me as well.
Well, to be honest, I think evolutionists here would basically agree about the Big Bang being correct. Basically that's all I'm trying to do. My faith doesn't "stand" on whether the bible suggests the Theory or not, I am just pleased to see that there is a good possibility of the bible mentioning something similar to it.
From a biblical perspective I'm not entirely sure we can speculate totally accurately on the nature of the universe
Fair enough. As previously stated, it's not a science book. But that doesn't mean we can't have a gander and wonder.
As for bible codes - I'm not really interested in them. I think it might be chance that we get words popping up. IOW, when you dig for gold, don't confuse copper for gold. I think I'll just stick to the normal type of biblical reading. And the "sevens". Well, I do believe in bible prophecy, didn't Daniel mention something about sevens? and the Messiah? These numbers won't mean much to me though, unless I could figure it all out for myself.
plus the fact that the doctrines found in the Bible fit life I know that Christ is Lord and the Bible is the inspired Word of God.
I am glad you are convinced.
But to be honest, I believed in Christ before knowing anything about all this stuff, and I will without it. Maybe the title to this topic is mis-leading. "Reasons to believe" is only the name of the TV program. I myself, don't really need reconciliation, but it nevertheless amuses me when I go digging for gold and occasionally find some gold dust.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Hangdawg13, posted 05-31-2004 11:35 PM Hangdawg13 has not replied

  
Dr Jack
Member
Posts: 3514
From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch
Joined: 07-14-2003
Member Rating: 8.7


Message 17 of 72 (112017)
06-01-2004 9:42 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by mike the wiz
05-31-2004 1:19 PM


Would atheists agree with this? What do you make of the "fine-tuned" stance?
I think it's meaningless to discuss whether the universe is fine-tuned or not until we gather an understanding of why the constants are as they are, or whether they could be any different. The whole concept strikes me as no different from earlier "we don't understand it - look! God!" attempts.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by mike the wiz, posted 05-31-2004 1:19 PM mike the wiz has not replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 18 of 72 (112025)
06-01-2004 10:21 AM
Reply to: Message 15 by mike the wiz
06-01-2004 9:15 AM


Mike.
This thread is about reasons to believe and I think this particular site is a great example of the difference between the way that people approach belief.
I would like to try to use it to show some, for me, very important differences.
Religion is about a belief in GOD and in your relationship with God, Man and the world around us all. There is plenty information in the Bible to guide someone when it comes to matters of Faith and Morals. But sites like this are doing the same thing that Ron Wyatt does or AIG does. That is, they are trying to make reality fit the Bible.
The problem with that is to do so you either have to twist the Bible to fit the observations, or you have to twist the observations to fit the Bible. Neither works and both are dishonest.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by mike the wiz, posted 06-01-2004 9:15 AM mike the wiz has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 19 by mike the wiz, posted 06-01-2004 10:36 AM jar has replied

  
mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 19 of 72 (112029)
06-01-2004 10:36 AM
Reply to: Message 18 by jar
06-01-2004 10:21 AM


Sorry but maybe you didn't hear me. You can check the credentials of Hugh Ross. Certainly there is no reason to suggest he has anything to do with AIG or Wyatt. Here, he is showing that the bible mentions things about the universe, which are essentially - true. Now, if these things are mentioned. And he has shown how there is no "twisting" with the numerous passages stated, then it possibly shows that people of ancient times who were uneducated scientifically, were connected to the spirit of God, and indeed the bible is inspired. We are not trying to "fit reality" to the bible. But even if we were, that's a major difference from trying to deny reality from looking at the bible (AIG). Hugh and his team are simply stating a simple truth - that the bible contains truths about the world around us that men couldn't have possibly known at that time in history.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by jar, posted 06-01-2004 10:21 AM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 20 by Percy, posted 06-01-2004 11:27 AM mike the wiz has replied
 Message 22 by jar, posted 06-01-2004 12:01 PM mike the wiz has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22393
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 20 of 72 (112039)
06-01-2004 11:27 AM
Reply to: Message 19 by mike the wiz
06-01-2004 10:36 AM


mike the wiz writes:
Hugh and his team are simply stating a simple truth - that the bible contains truths about the world around us that men couldn't have possibly known at that time in history.
If the Bible really contains scientific knowledge written down long before scientists discovered it, then Biblical scholars of a thousand or two years ago would have long ago told us about the Big Bang and the expanding universe. The fact that they didn't means the information isn't really in there. Hugh Ross and company are simply casting modern scientific interpretations on ambiguous passages that have already been interpreted in many other different ways.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by mike the wiz, posted 06-01-2004 10:36 AM mike the wiz has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by mike the wiz, posted 06-01-2004 11:52 AM Percy has replied

  
mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 21 of 72 (112047)
06-01-2004 11:52 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by Percy
06-01-2004 11:27 AM


Beginning in 1925 Abb Georges Lematre, who was both an astrophysicist and a Jesuit priest, was the first scientist to promote a big bang creation event.
Surely we didn't have the knowledge, telescopes etc. thousands of years ago?
Biblical scholars wouldn't have known what to make of it, but scientists with educations and knowledge - would. Naturally we would only make sense of the "Stretching" when we are able to.
This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 06-01-2004 10:58 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by Percy, posted 06-01-2004 11:27 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by Percy, posted 06-01-2004 1:01 PM mike the wiz has not replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 22 of 72 (112048)
06-01-2004 12:01 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by mike the wiz
06-01-2004 10:36 AM


Mike
I am not questioning their credentials, only their motive and purpose.
There is no reason that I can see to think that those who took the old oral traditions and compiled them into a written document were speaking of anything beyond simple alegory. They saw the heavens as a canopy stretched over the people, much as you would stretch a canvass tent.
That's it. No more.
When people try to twist the Bible to fit modern observation, IMHO they are missing the whole point and purpose of the Bible. It is not a science text or even a very reliable history text. It was never meant to fill either purpose beyond the level needed as a moral guideline.
This is where IMHO, so many people fail when looking at the Bible. When you try to either twist the text to fit modern observations, or twist modern observation to fit the text, you MUST distort one or the other.
That is where so many people actually end up driving off potential believers. Regardless of which tack you take, you must invoke a willing suspension of belief to accept either the postion of these people (that GOD created an expanding universe to provide for sin) or the literalists (that there was a universal flood and somehow Noah was able to round up the critters from Australia). When we try to twist and manipulate either reality or the Bible so that they mesh and end up in a one-to-one correspondence, then those thinking people that might buy into the idea of GOD or Christianity say, "Too weird. I cannot believe if I have to believe such nonsense,"
There is another possible position.
As we gain more and more observations, we find that there really are a set of basic rules that seem to govern everything. We have not found those basic rules yet but daily we are discovering more of them. And, as we delve deeper into the search for those basic rules, what we are finding is more wonderful, and simpler, and elegant as we peal away each layer.
I don't try to make the Bible mesh with reality, or reality mesh with the Bible. That is unneeded and counter productive. Instead, I take the Bible as a book written for the pepople of its day, with all of its warts. I realize that many parts were exagerated, written to tell history from a given point of view and for an audience that expected that same point of view. I understand that the science in it was based on the observations at the time and do not expect it to match modern science any more than I expect the astronomy of Ptolemy to match astronomy after the invention of the telescope or that the theories of the age of the sun developed by Lord Kelvin wouold hold true after the discovery of Nuclear Energy.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by mike the wiz, posted 06-01-2004 10:36 AM mike the wiz has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by mike the wiz, posted 06-01-2004 12:22 PM jar has replied

  
mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 23 of 72 (112055)
06-01-2004 12:22 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by jar
06-01-2004 12:01 PM


Hugh Ross's motive was a personal journey. I support him because I watched a program about this, and he told us how he needed to satisfy himself intellectually if he was to believe in God, because he had found that the other religious books he had read, fell short of truth. So - all this "their motives are..." and "nutcases", it unacceptable. Here we simply have a differing in opinions. Now, many things in the bible can be mis-interpreted, and if you want to think of the "stretching of the heavens" to mean nothing much then that's fair enough, that's your opinion. Just because the bible may have exaggerations or mistakes, doesn't mean that we should dismiss the possibilities. I for one agree that this "stretching" could well have meant in the universal context. Even if they did mean it similar to a tent, why the "stretching" - just look how it's wrote in your own Job quote.
Job writes:
Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; and sealeth up the stars.
8: Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea.
In this passage, we see that the tent isn't mentioned. Yet the "spreading" is still mentioned? Why can't it mean what it obviously means?
As we gain more and more observations, we find that there really are a set of basic rules that seem to govern everything. We have not found those basic rules yet but daily we are discovering more of them.
And all we're saying is that God - creator, has made these rules, and that God is the one who spread the heavens. It's not like we are going against the proper science? Why does this bother you so?
(that GOD created an expanding universe to provide for sin)
That's not what we are saying. He was only explaining the nature of physics and how it might have been a precursor to sin. You took that as what I was representing. I am only talking about the universe, not sin.
There is no reason that I can see to think that those who took the old oral traditions and compiled them into a written document were speaking of anything beyond simple alegory.
As far as I know, the Torah was oral.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by jar, posted 06-01-2004 12:01 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 24 by jar, posted 06-01-2004 12:41 PM mike the wiz has not replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 24 of 72 (112060)
06-01-2004 12:41 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by mike the wiz
06-01-2004 12:22 PM


Mike, you are free to make whatever assumptions you wish, but I certainly read Job 9 quite differently than you.
1: Then Job answered and said,
2: I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God?
3: If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand.
4: He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who hath hardened himself against him, and hath prospered?
5: Which removeth the mountains, and they know not: which overturneth them in his anger.
6: Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble.
7: Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; and sealeth up the stars.
8: Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea.
9: Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south.
10: Which doeth great things past finding out; yea, and wonders without number.
If you can read the whole verse and find support in there for an expanding universe as we understand it today, well, then fine.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by mike the wiz, posted 06-01-2004 12:22 PM mike the wiz has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22393
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 25 of 72 (112068)
06-01-2004 1:01 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by mike the wiz
06-01-2004 11:52 AM


I see Jar has already covered this very well, but I'll add my two cents anyway.
mike the wiz writes:
Beginning in 1925 Abb Georges Lematre, who was both an astrophysicist and a Jesuit priest, was the first scientist to promote a big bang creation event.
Lematre's scientific ideas did not come from the Bible. His proposals for an expanding universe stemmed from his interpretation of scientific data, specifically the red shift.
Biblical scholars wouldn't have known what to make of it, but scientists with educations and knowledge - would.
Except that they didn't. Scientists were not led to the discovery of the expanding universe and the Big Bang by passages from the Bible, but from scientific observations and analysis. It is only post facto apologetics reinterpreting old passages that makes a connection between science and the Bible, and a tenuous one at best in this case.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by mike the wiz, posted 06-01-2004 11:52 AM mike the wiz has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 26 by jar, posted 06-01-2004 1:57 PM Percy has not replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 26 of 72 (112081)
06-01-2004 1:57 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by Percy
06-01-2004 1:01 PM


Very important obsevation Percy.
Wish I had made it.
I can see it expanded, quite clearly, to the work of Mendel. Here, there is a clear case of someone making a breakthrough that was then simply set aside for theological reasons for decades. It would be every bit as reasonable to go back and find some Biblical passage that might show the authors of the Bible understood genetics and totally overlook that the important part of Mendels discoveries was not the genetics, but the insight that there was a symmetry to something we now call genes and that he used a clear test to demonstrate that insight, an experiment that could be repeated by anyone.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by Percy, posted 06-01-2004 1:01 PM Percy has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 27 by Unseul, posted 06-01-2004 2:02 PM jar has not replied

  
Unseul
Inactive Member


Message 27 of 72 (112082)
06-01-2004 2:02 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by jar
06-01-2004 1:57 PM


Re: Very important obsevation Percy.
Reckon a good example of someone finding something long before it was found again as such by modern scientists, was the working of the heart, including all the vortexes etc. Was watching a tv program on Da Vinchi, showed you all his sketches which were anything but ambiguous, damn guy had worked it all out 400 years before some of the top researchers managed to gettit again not too long ago.
Unseul

Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life....
Do unto others before they do unto you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by jar, posted 06-01-2004 1:57 PM jar has not replied

  
mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 28 of 72 (112104)
06-01-2004 3:28 PM


Tis confusion. Give God the glory - he made the Big Bang happen. Who are we, but the discoverers of truth billions of years later. Need God give us a summary? Or shall he choose to give us all we need? As you guys say, the bible isn't a science book, cos God doesn't have to explain the ins and outs to us. He obviously knew that we would one day increase our knowledge. "Knowledge shall increase, people shall run to and fro" (similar words)
Nevertheless, there is significant claims here. Not only is the "spreading" and "stretching" consistent between books, but there are many examples given. The stars are "multiplied", and each has it's own glory. It even says how stars are different. Are you considering these things, while typing foolish and boisterous babble.

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by Percy, posted 06-01-2004 4:47 PM mike the wiz has replied
 Message 30 by phoenix, posted 06-01-2004 5:31 PM mike the wiz has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22393
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 29 of 72 (112133)
06-01-2004 4:47 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by mike the wiz
06-01-2004 3:28 PM


mike the wiz writes:
Nevertheless, there is significant claims here.
You mean, "There *are* significant claims here," () and no, there are not.
Not only is the "spreading" and "stretching" consistent between books,...
The spreading and stretching out of the heavens is used in the same way as the spreading and stretching out of a bedsheet or picnic blanket. When you're done, a bedsheet or blanket does not continue to spread and stretch out, it just sits there. The Bible's authors believed they were living in a static universe created by God, not an expanding universe. The stars were regarded as static and timeless. These passages refer to the Biblical authors' view of the initial creation, not to current conditions. You're casting new and unintended interpretations upon these passages.
...but there are many examples given. The stars are "multiplied", and each has it's own glory. It even says how stars are different.
These are significant claims? The first isn't even accurate, as stars do not multiply, i.e., reproduce. The second is apparent to anyone looking at the night sky.
The Biblical passages you mention show no awareness of modern cosmological views. The ideas of Hugh Ross and Reasons to Believe are a manifestation of man's creative ability of reinterpretion and invention, and it is not unique to them. The study of the history of apologetics reveals that all Biblical passages have been provided a multitude of interpretations that change with the passage of time and changing fashion, and with the inclinations of the apologist. It isn't possible or even desireable to pick one apologetic out of the bunch and declare it correct. Apologetics are like a form of poetry - they can often be beautiful and moving. But they're not science.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by mike the wiz, posted 06-01-2004 3:28 PM mike the wiz has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by mike the wiz, posted 06-01-2004 6:30 PM Percy has replied

  
phoenix
Inactive Member


Message 30 of 72 (112160)
06-01-2004 5:31 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by mike the wiz
06-01-2004 3:28 PM


Mike,
You are very willing to give god the glory, as you stated it, for the big bang. Well, that is an opinion based on faith. Although I personally support any kind of religious faith, it seems far from prudent to ask others to accept any fact, and much less a bold statement such as that your god is responsible for something as great as the creation of the universe.
I am very much a newbie in this realm, and my intention is not to be negative. You asked if god should give us a summary. Well, I feel that the world we live in, or the universe if you will is that summary. Were I of the Christian faith I hope that I would be able to find the answers I need in the world around me. The bible is not a science book, nor should it be treated as such.
As for the big bang. Even if science could prove the cause, the date, the specific chemical reactions that caused the BB, there will always be individuals who will have differences of opinion on the reason for the big bang. Was it god or chance?
I guess what I dont understand is how any of us could presume to know the answer to that. Science has yet to prove the cause and faith....well. The defenition of faith is the belief in a theory or idea with no scientific proof. As someone who lives without faith I do not know what to think.

La verdad os har libre

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by mike the wiz, posted 06-01-2004 3:28 PM mike the wiz has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 32 by mike the wiz, posted 06-01-2004 6:53 PM phoenix has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024