A thread for Alice!

[Allinall]

Alice, I think things will make more sense after you trust God. Faith is always the guiding factor, then the evidence really starts falling in place. You can't expect to make everything add up before you have faith, because there is a devil who wants to confuse you. He's trying to mess you up because you're interested. If you keep trying to figure it out yourself, you will only get more confused. Faith is the answer.

Let faith guide you, and keep seeking and knocking. You will find.

"From the mouths of babes..."    No offense Bro.  It's good to hear truth from youth.  

Alice,

Dude got me thinking.  Here's a passage for you to consider, that might help with the things you're struggling with.  Consider what He says about what you're struggling with:

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,   "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
   and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

1 Corinthians 1:18-29

The very things you're clinging to don't make sense with God...because He never intended them to.    Just like God ain't it?  If you're going to believe...you've just got to believe Him.  

Still prayin'...

[felix102]

We were going into Faith vs. Reason. There are some things about science that you must know and will find surprising. I am going to quote Doctor Raymond E. Davis, Phd in chemistry, University of Texas at Austin.

"I do not know if atoms or the atomic theory really exists! All I know is that it works. As far as we know, it is the only thing that can explain the phenomenon of the interaction of matter."

Let me also quote one of the most brilliant physicists, Albert Einstein.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."


First, why would Dr. Davis say that? And second, why would Einstein say that?

The answer is: Science is built upon faith. All scientific theories must be taken on faith. The theory of evolution, atomic theory, etc. Science can never ever prove anything. I said before that the real job of a scientist is to disprove as much as they can so they get closer and closer to the truth.
For example, The Law of Conservation of Matter states that matter cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only change forms. This is true. But later in 1940, with the dawn of the nuclear age, scientists found that matter can be transformed into energy, thus defying The Law of Conservation of Matter. (Energy = Mass x c^2) Does this say that The Law of Conservation of Matter is wrong??? No. What that did was it refined The Law of Conservation of Matter. Now it is stated as: Matter can be neither created nor destroyed, by any physical or chemical means, but it can only change forms. This makes the Law of Conservation of Matter even more accurate. You see, science cannot make absolute truths. It just gets closer and closer to truth. So in science...you can never prove something, you can only disprove it. In the future, you may see more theories being developed, and more thoeries being refined. This is what Dr. Davis was talking about. I've talked to many people who didnt have much interest in science and almost 100% of them believed that science was absolute truth...that it was absolutely right. This is how it is proposed to many people and this is how they perceive them. Because of this...people will think that science is "more true" and reasonable. That's wrong. School standards need to be better.   I know that's a fact because I went to school and the teachers never taught that. To many children and teens, it is being taught as if science IS the absolute truth. That with it, there is no reason for faith. bad

Now look at Einstein's comment. What that is basically saying is, our imagination is more important than knowledge. You see, Science did not come from facts at all! It first came from ideas that were generated in the minds of people. This is imagination. Imagination precedes knowledge! Dalton proposed the ideas of atoms. They did not have microscopes during those days but people liked it because it can explain things. ALL theories and the scientists who developed those theories have founded those theories by imagination first.


Science is a man-made thing that we use as tools on earth to explain natural phenomenon. Even math is the same thing. There is no truth to that either! It is also a tool the man uses. In essence, science makes the concepts math proves and describes those concepts. Science and math hangs on the imagination of the people who creatd it. When we believe in those things we put our faith in it and we continue to put our faith in it because it works. But noticed we FIRST had to put faith in it before we can believe it. THEN WE FIND THAT IT WORKS.

Faith in God is the same thing. In fact, faith in any religion is the same thing. But you see, what makes scientists successful is that they have a desire to seek the truth and nothing but the truth. In the same way, you must have the desire to seek the truth and nothing but the truth and I promise that you will find the truth.

I will get into the Theory of Evolution too. There are some good topics that have been posted here pertaining to how knowledge is based on faith. "From God's inexistence it follows God existence" and "Lo Debar, atheist's paradox" I will email them to you and some of Hovind's stuff too if I can find them.

The christians here can also provide you with some scripture from Job and other scripture. I would like some of the christians here to point out verses (Job especially) that pertain to this. I know there are some good points in there.

[alice]

Felix

I do understand that science makes no claims to absolute truth.
In fact that is why I admire the scientific approach. It is much better to say "I don't know, but I'm working on finding out" than to say "This is the answer" , if in fact you don't know.

As to the truth of scientific claims and theories, I think it's important to be exact about things.

For example, if a scientist talks about the atomic theory of matter, they are not describing something which is factually true. Rather they are describing an explanatory framework that describes and explains what they observe. I agree that it is an error to mistake this for absolute truth.

But if a scientist measures the temperature of a liquid for example and finds it to be 83.086 degrees C, then that is a statement of FACT. It is not just a scientific theory that light travels as 186,000 Miles per second. It is a measured fact. As certain as the fact that it is sunny where I am right now.

So according to my understanding, scientists gather FACTS about the world around us and then come up with explanations that fit with all the facts. Some of those explanations predict other facts will be found and if they are, then that lends weight to those explanations.

I studied philosophy at college and we did some formal logic on our course, but I'm a little rusty so forgive me if I'm not too clear! As I understand it, mathematical statements are true by DEFINITION. So for example the truth of the statement "One plus one equals two" can't be doubted because the statement is merely defining "2" as "1" "plus" "1". It would seem to me that the basic axioms of logic have to be beyond question as their truth is contained in their definitions.

So to come back to the issue of making sense of the Bible and religious faith:

People say to me, don't use your mind, use your heart. But this doesn't really help me. All conscious processes (thinking, loving, worshipping, doubting, having faith etc etc) rely on the mind. The heart is merely an organ to pump blood around the body(and keep the brain working).

Think about it. You can remove someone's arms and legs, internal organs (including the heart) and keep them alive with the aid of machines. As long as they have their brain, all the above actions (loving, thinking etc) are still possible.

A contradiction is still a contradiction whether one thinks about it or not and that is what I'm struggling with.

Incidentally, it would seem to me that most Christian beliefs are based on having thought about concepts reasonably and come to conclusions.

For example, the idea that if you allow Christ into your life and repent, then you will be forgiven and allowed into Heaven is a statement of logic. ie If you do X, then Y will happen. That is thinking about things just as much as any scientific or rational enquiry. If we are to abandon thinking in favour of just "feeling" then surely anything goes?

On that basis we would be free to "just believe" in all manner of crazy things and the decision to restrict those beliefs to what is in the Bible would bring us right back to having to think again.

So I guess that what I'm saying is that I really wish that someone could show me how to reconcille the Bible with what we really SEE around us. For example, we know for a FACT that many stars are billions of light years away from us. This is a measured fact NOT a theory. Therefore the fact that the light has managed to reach us after a journey of billions of years means that the universe must be at least that old, but the Bible suggests a much younger universe than that. There is a contradiction then between what we actually SEE around us and what the Bible says and it is issues such as this that stop me from being able to just believe.

It would be like me saying "Just believe" that the Earth is flat. You would not be CAPABLE of doing that. It isn't even a choice that would be available to you.

Sorry to have ranted on, but I just can't stop thinking about all this.


Love and peace

Alice

[Allinall]

A contradiction is still a contradiction whether one thinks about it or not and that is what I'm struggling with.

Incidentally, it would seem to me that most Christian beliefs are based on having thought about concepts reasonably and come to conclusions.

What contradictions?  Science disagreeing with the bible? I posted this to Slippery Slope in the Bible Is God's Word thread over in Apologetics.  Hopefully this will shed a little light on this matter...logically anyways.  

Quote:
Allinall, since you readily believe in God and all that goes along with it then you would agree that he gave man the most powerful brain of any creature. The power to question, the power to reflect, the power to ponder, do you really believe he wants you to simply accept, with no thought what could possibly be merely the writings of other men in an age when the earth was still flat and the sun revolved around it?
 
 

There is a great difference neighbor, in questioning God, and understanding Him.  He has given us a powerful brain, not to question whether He is, but to see Him as He has clearly shown Himself to be.  I've said it before, and will say it again, one need only look at the stars to see that there is a God.  One need only to look in himself to know that there is a God.  Yet we question this?  Why?  

Because in all of our wisdom and knowledge, we've developed science.  We've accomplished sooooo much in that area that we've become proud and certain that our knowledge defies the existence of God.  Tell me neighbor, if I take my computer apart, learn the usage of each component, begin to understand how the necessary power factors in, gain insight as to the workings of the each peripheral to the betterment of the whole...will that enable me to code the necessary software to make the thing actually perform?  Will it make me as wise and knowledgable as the designer?  No.  My point not being that I'd never be able to gain such knowledge.  My point, rather, is that my limited knowledge of the greater whole doesn't make me the expert, master, or the greater mind.  That, in a sense, is all science does.  It moves into a previously designed universe, takes it apart, learns how it works, sees the workings of each part in relation to the others...and learns that science has barely scratched the surface.  Then, has the audacity to claim that it knows enough to know that the Designer, not only is wrong, but never existed to begin with.  And the scientist is not a proud individual worshipping himself rather than God?

Quote:
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Romans 1:21-23
 
 

Boy!  Those foolish early men!  How could the Egyptians ever have come up with bird, jackal, and dog gods?  How could they believe and worship animals, or kings?  How foolish.  And we have come so far.  Why, we've determined that, through science, there is no God.  We've determined that, through philosophy, religion is a crutch to the weak.  We've determined that, through our own vain and deceitful hearts, we are all we need in life...

Quote:
What has been is what will be,
  and what has been done is what will be done,
  and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
  "See, this is new"?
It has been already
  in the ages before us.
There is no remembrance of former things,
  nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
  among those who come after.

Ecclesiastes 1:9-11
 
 

I don't mean this to sound harsh as it may my friend.  I mean it to sound as absurd as we make it to be.  Science takes faith.  We know more than we knew, but not enough to claim the whole.  We change previous thoughts when we learn something new.  Dude!  If I had a nickel for everytime I've learned that medical science has just learned that what I'm eating is going to kill me one year, and two years down the line figure out that not eating enough of it is going to kill me...I'd die a very sad, but nonetheless filthy rich man!  

Science is great.  But it is not the absolute.  Man knows this, so what does he do?  He removes the absolute.  We live in a society of men who believe truth to be relative.  Tell that to a man living a hundred years ago and he'd have thought you were nuts.  Tell a man today what I've just said and he'd claim the man prior to be ignorant.  Because we have "...come so far."  

It comes down to faith neighbor.  Who, and what are you going to believe?  Science, which has barely scratched the surface of what's out there...or the One Who put it out there?  

See?  We do use our minds!  No ill favored comments at this point please.    But seriously, do you see the audacity of the situation?  What man has already claimed as "fact" can be, and often is disputed.  What may not now be disputed may later be so when another bit of the picture is better understood.  

You said that the scientist will continually question their understanding, and label as fact only that which has been observed as factual (slightly paraphrased there...).  Yet I've known many scientist, and debated with them, who pass off as fact that which has never been observed.  Only the evidence that they have, and that only under prejudicial interpretation.

My friend, I do not say this so as to argue science.  I'm no scientist.  Again.  No ill favored comments. I say this to point out the futility of man's reason when it seeks to exclude God.  I showed SS and you now, the verses where God Himself addresses the very thing I'm talking about.  Can that be mere chance?  Can that be man's way of working through this?  Can anything about the gospel message of Jesus Christ be figured by a man?  It makes no sense to man's thinking!  So Who is showing Themself as real here?

You said:

So I guess that what I'm saying is that I really wish that someone could show me how to reconcille the Bible with what we really SEE around us. For example, we know for a FACT that many stars are billions of light years away from us. This is a measured fact NOT a theory. Therefore the fact that the light has managed to reach us after a journey of billions of years means that the universe must be at least that old, but the Bible suggests a much younger universe than that. There is a contradiction then between what we actually SEE around us and what the Bible says and it is issues such as this that stop me from being able to just believe.

I say that you aren't reconciling the bible with what you see around you.  You are trying to reconcile it with what the world tells you you see around you.  Science says it takes these lights billions of years to get to earth.  Who made up the "Fact" of the light year?  Was it tested and observed?  If so, who tested it for the past billion years, watched it from its point of origin, and noted it's length?  I know.  I'm being a bit silly, but really.  What's been observed and factored in as an irrevocable fact are the tests, and experiments that conclude the speed of light and such like.  Great.  There's absolutely no way that God could let that light shine through by any other means is there?  There is when you figure the purpose of those lights:

The heavens declare the glory of God,
   and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Psalm 19:1

We know this verse.  May even be able to quote it.  But do we consider it?  The stars aren't there for us to figure out how long it does, or does not take that light to make it within our eyesight.  They're there for us to see the glory of God.  They're there for a testament to His Being.  They're there to show us Him.  That, we can only do if we "reconcile the Bible with what we SEE around us."  Not, if we attempt to reconcile it with others tell us those things mean.

You have two opposing beings interpreting what you see.  One, is Truth.  One has given His Word for you to know Him.  One has given His Son for you to know Him.  The other has used the same lie, over and over again, to trip people up in what they chose to believe:

God said..."And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

Genesis 2:16-17

Satan said..."But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

Genesis 3:4-5

I'm not asking you to believe in Adam and Eve.  I'm only asking you to see the lie.  God says one thing.  Satan says another.  It's your choice which one you're going to believe.  

Still prayin'...

[felix102]

Hey alice. There is still more to it I was going to explain.

There seems to be a missed point. To respond to what you are saying...

I agree that it is an error to mistake this for absolute truth.

But if a scientist measures the temperature of a liquid for example and finds it to be 83.086 degrees C, then that is a statement of FACT. It is not just a scientific theory that light travels as 186,000 Miles per second.

Yes that is true. I was not saying different. Science is based on facts in which we develop theories to explain those facts. Mathematics and instruments used in measuring are all man-made. The inch was arbitrarly chosen to be a unit length of measurement. The story was that it was chosen from a king's hand, i think. The same with math. 1 + 1 = 2 because we have chosen that to be a definition. 360 degrees was chosen to be the number of degrees in a circle because 360 is a easily factorable number. What I was trying to present from the previous post was...Science is based on man's word and experiences; what they have observed(fact) and concluded based on those observations(fact). This sets a parallel to the bible in the regards that the bible is also based on man's word of God and experiences with God.

This is the most important concept I am conveying:

A faith to first believe in either of these is required if you want to know whether it is the truth for you.

So if in science you follow up with an experiment from a scientist long ago and you find out that whatever happened occur just as the scientist hypothesized, then you will believe it. Likewise, if you read the bible and practice what it says and you find out that whatever happened occured just as the person described it, then you will believe it.

Found it. This was something I was going to show you:

The Paradox of Nothing
« on: June 18, 2004, 12:44:59 AM »    

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CONQUEST OF LO DEBAR
(The paradox of nothing)


In Hebrew the name Lo Debar means nothing.  It is a place name whose image conjures up a desolate condition enveloped in a sense of hopelessness and its conquest is a meaningless pursuit.  What we are going to examine is the paradox of those who mistakenly pursue the belief in nothing.  While thinking they are truly wise, they are, on the other hand, grasping at less than a void, naively attributing to “nothing” the very virtues of God. For if nothing is God then God is nothing.

Perhaps the most enigmatic belief in this world is that of pure atheism.  In its most fundamental capacity it is the belief that God does not exists and nothing or no one, certainly not God, is credited with creating all things.  Requisite to that premise is the conviction that everything that does exist is simply the byproduct of random chance, somehow evolving over eons of time from nothing.  For this, atheists hold the distinction of being the most ardent defenders and many even worshippers of probably the most faith-based religion the world ever imagined.  Evolution!  

To the atheists God is just perhaps the figment of our imagination and he is no more than the result of and even bygone remnant of the evolution of our intellect.  But atheistic faith must go much farther than worshipping at the shrine of evolution and human achievement.  Evolution, even if it were possible to accept as the means by which the universe is ordered, fails miserably to offer an explanation for the existence of the universe itself.  The progression of matter and energy from one form to another is insufficient to explain how it all came to be in the first place, even if the universe was once or at numerous times collapsed to a point as small as what the “big bang” theory postulates.  Atheists, even those who do not profess to believe in evolution, are simply without options to describe how the ordering principles of life began.  Even so, without God, they have little choice except to believe that the universe and all it contains was created by and from “nothing”.  “Nothing” it seems plays the prominent role in atheism, for it must be either creator or dreamer.  For them “nothing” is maker of law, ruler of worlds and unknowable god of the entire universe.  Yet, self-defined as logical pragmatists, atheists are faced with a long list of impossible paradoxes.  While the existence of God is no easy concept, at the very least, He can be logically demonstrated to be the uncaused first cause for everything, and beyond that there is only faith that He is who He says He is.  Atheism on the other hand must desperately grasp with all of its intellect and logic to the belief that “nothing” is as great or greater than God in its creative capacity to order worlds seemingly without end into being.  To the atheist, the child of nothingness, random chance, is the singer of songs and the director of music orchestrating the beautiful tapestry of life ever progressing in synergistic fashion.  It is the blind impartial organizer and architect for the countless particles of nature, each progressing in harmony to build ever more intricate systems of life, acting both at the same time in defiance of and in accordance with the profoundly faultless laws of nature, which “nothing” created. This in and of itself is a paradox of overwhelming contradictions that proves intelligent design requires an intelligent designer.  Yet chance never created anything and chance cannot even spell "The Theory of Evolution" if given a chance to draw random letters every second for all the time that ever was and ever will be.

From the vantage point of those who believe in God it is that we see an inexplicable blindness to the truth of God’s existence.  Notwithstanding this, those who are blind to this truth are often heralded by the world as the most intelligent and logical.  Those who hold to a belief in God are frequently ridiculed as the most simple-minded and foolish.  But it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that there is a God and creator of it all.  The only alternative, even if you accept nothing beyond aliens bringing us here or that the world rest on the back of a giant turtle, is to believe in something that is paradoxically impossible.  Therefore, it is not those who believe in God who rely on faith the most, but it is those who do not believe in God that must have a greater faith in the magical power and mystical properties of Lo Debar.  Nothing!

Something cannot come from nothing, but what an Atheist is forced to believe is that something can come from nothing and indeed nothing by conquest of nothing created everything.  That takes more faith than anything.  That, my friend, is the great paradox of nothing.  

If God can thus be logically proven to be, then would it not be wise but to try and find out more about him and who he is?  For in the end there will be no excuse for anyone, because we are all witnesses to God’s eternal power and his invisible qualities as evidenced by creation.  

Psalms 14:1-3, “The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."

[ollie]

Alice,

I did NOT delete the thread, and I wish that I had copies of it, but I don't. There were many beautiful posts in that thread from sweet Christians trying to help you. Many of them obviously involved a lot of time and effort from people who love you and want to share the GOOD NEWS OF THE GOSPEL WITH YOU.

I'm praying that some folks have copies of their posts and can repost them here. I don't have copies of my own posts in that thread. I know that you probably don't like me very much, specificially because I enforced the forum rules on the theory of evolution. However, I still love you and want to share Jesus with you. I can start over with my posts attempting to do that if you wish.

There is LOVE in Jesus,
Tom

I'm a little slow, I kept searching and couldn't find the thread, how in the world did it just diappear?
I know some will roll there eyes but I wonder, does the devil have computer knowledge?

musicllover

The devil has administration over many web sites. Some even claim to be of Christ. Watch out for that phony "angel of light".

ollie

[Yoyostick]

Thanks for the compliment, Allinall.  

Anyway, Alice, reading all of these posts and replies has further reinforced a belief of mine (and many others, I'm sure). That is: if you can't "just believe" you will live a very sad and confused life. You'll even have to throw out a lot of scientifc "facts". Because even if you believe these, you still have faith that they won't be disproven in the future. So, if you take this to it's logical extreme, then mostly everything in your life you would have to throw out. You have faith that you're not killing yourself by eating vegetables. Scientists will tell you that you're not, but what do they know? Their ideas have been disproven time and again. You have faith that they're right.

This brings me to another point. Alice, it's extremely easy to have faith in what fallible scientists say, yet for some reason you have a hard time having faith in an infallible God. Why? Probably because the fallible scientists have "disproven" God. But did you ever think that maybe the infallible God has disproven the scientists? You constantly mention believing in a flat earth. But remember, it was the scientists who believed in a flat earth. God never did. Could it be that in 100 years the entire idea of evolution, the old age of the earth, etc. will be regarded with the same spite that the flat-earth theory is now? Also remember that the Ptolemic theory was widely embraced throughout the scientific world. It was even more dominating than evolution is now, because even the church believed it! And yet, now the scientists will tell you that it's flat out wrong. It seems to me that the scientists who you would believe so much as to say that they have disproven an infallible God, have a pretty crummy track record!

You live your life day-by-day with huge amounts of faith. Believing God and his Word shouldn't be too large a step to take.

Hope this helps.  

[alice]

I agree that men are fallible and make mistakes as well as draw incorrect conclusions about things.

I really dont have blind faith in scientists and what they think.

But I think that its important to draw the distinction between scientific ideas, hypotheses and theories, and scientific facts.

The theories are subject to being proved wrong or updated later (such as flat earth etc) but a scientific FACT such as the speed of light or boiling point of water can never be proved wrong. It is a solid measured fact that requires no faith to believe as anyone can measure these things for themselves and get the same results.

In the same way that it is foolish and a little arrogant for any scientist to claim that a particular theory or idea is certainly TRUE it is equally foolish and unreasonable for anyone to say that it requires faith to believe things which have been consistently measured or observed(such as the distance to the sun, the speed of light or the strength of gravity on  earth. The fact is that ten thousand different people could all measure these things and they would all get the same result(in fact they have).

Similarly, some things wil ALWAYS ALWAYS be true, such as the ratio between a circle's circumference and diameter or pythagoras's theorum. If these kinds of things were considered to be untrue, the word true would cease to have any meaning.

I certainly don't think that science has (or ever could) disproved God. Anyone who thinks that is a little ignorant I think.

But I can't seem to get away from the fact that things we know for sure about the universe are not always in agreement with what the Bible says. If the Bible requires me to believe that it is raining, and I look outside and there isn't a cloud in the sky, which belief is right, rainy or dry?

Love and Peace

Alice

[Allinall]

I'm going to step out here a bit and suggest something.  I'm sure I, and others will still feel free to help answer your questions, but I was wondering.  Do you want to believe Alice?

If you do, then ask Him.  He says that if we seek for Him, we will find Him.  If you really want to know Him, not what you felt you knew before, or think you understand now, but know Him...then ask.  Ask Him to help your disbelief.  Ask Him to help make sense where we aren't.  If you want to know Him, He will.  

Still prayin'...

 

[alice]

I have spent the last few days really thinking about all that has been said here.

I don't know if I'm actually CAPABLE of doing what is required.

I would have to kid myself about so much stuff, that I would not feel honest. Am I the only one here that has experienced this?

Alice

[Chesed]

I certainly don't think that science has (or ever could) disproved God. Anyone who thinks that is a little ignorant I think.

But I can't seem to get away from the fact that things we know for sure about the universe are not always in agreement with what the Bible says.

Hi Alice -

I went to a secular college and I studied cultural anthropology and archaeology. I wanted to share with you what my anthropology teacher said about understanding science. He said, "Anyone who says, 'there is scientific proof...' doesn't understand science. Science was never meant to prove anyting, it is only meant to explain things. Math and Logic are for proving things." This same teacher also taught us that science came out of religion. This made many students in my class uncomfortable, and so my teacher said, "How do you think man got the idea to look up in the sky and explain where the stars came from?"

The other thing I wanted to point out to you is that the Genesis account is not meant to be a scientific textbook. God is not revealing or trying to prove to us that He created the earth or how He created the earth; instead He is revealing to us about Himself.

I wanted to share with you an excerpt out of "The River from Eden" by Aryeh Kaplan because I couldn't put it better myself:

Why did God create the world? God created the world as an act of pure altruism, in order to do good. He created a world, and placed man upon it, in order that man be the recipient of this good.

What is this good that God desired to give man? God's intention would not be satisfied with giving anything less than the ultimate good.

But what is the greatest possible good God can give to man? The answer is that the greatest possible good is God Himself. Therefore, the good that God destined for man was the ability to resemble Him and draw close to Him.

Alice, I don't mean to sound corny, but God created you to give you this ultimate good, Himself. I'm not telling you not to question things, questions are good; seeking is good. Ask God to reveal Himself to you and answer your questions and I believe He will He has done so for me many times.

Blessings on you,
Chesed

[Chesed]

For example, we know for a FACT that many stars are billions of light years away from us. This is a measured fact NOT a theory. Therefore the fact that the light has managed to reach us after a journey of billions of years means that the universe must be at least that old, but the Bible suggests a much younger universe than that.

I also wanted to comment about this. According to the Genesis account, we don't know much about what happened before the first day of creation. Genesis says the earth was formless and void. We don't know how long this formless and void matter had been there. Until God created the earth, sun and moon to determine a 24 hour period, we don't know how much time had past. Here's the account:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

3 Then God said, "(Let there) Be light"; and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good;  and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

So the materials that make up the earth as we know it weren't created at the time of the Genesis 1 account. They were already there for who knows how long.

Hope this helps answer your question. Aside from the Creation account, what other problems do you think the Bible has with science?

[Reba]

Scofield's gap theory stinks. Watering down the word of God to make it appear acceptable to science makes the whole of scritpure watered down.... O how i hate dispensationalsim

[Chesed]

Reba -

All that I am saying is the same thing that scripture plainly says: that the earth was already there, formless and void. The Bible doesn't tell us anything before that. How else can one read Gen. 1:2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

Do you have a different understanding? If so please share it with me.

I believe the Genesis account took six 24 hour periods. I don't believe in a long first day. God spent the first 3 days forming the earth and 3 days filling it.

I don't see how I am watering down the word, I'm just trying to understand what it plainly says.

[Yoyostick]

Is everybody still here?? I'd really hate to see this topic drop off the face of the Earth.