I wanted to ask if any others are more fascinated by our true origins: the stars? I find it far more fascinating than any tale told in a book of faith that Hydrogen, the most simple and abundant element in the entire universe, comes together under the force of gravity and forms a star, and through the power of fusion creates the most basic elements that make up the Earth and everything we see around us. Then those elements are brought to us when the star goes supernova and in that brief but violent moment, all the rest of the elements like gold and silver are created, which is why they are so rare.
We are all stardust, the children of an ancient star or possibly many ancient stars. It's awe inspiring when I think about it. Next time you're outside looking at the night sky remember that you are a part of them, the next time you are wearing jewelry think about the fact that it was created by the violent death of a star.
Fun stuff.
Are you sure?
Absolutely. Physics is awesome.
Physics only says it's possible, not that that's how it happened.
Further, physics doesn't explain how life started.
So, I'm not sure how you can be so sure that it's what DID happen.
That's what biology and archaeology are for, the point of the thread was how all the elements necessary for life to even begin got here. Perhaps you are unsure because it goes against your faith. I have no such reservations, when 4 separate fields of science can confirm what I believe (to include astronomy).
Unfortunately, they can't.
Historical science is a science of assumptions. If you assume there was no Creator, then there must be some natural way we arrived. If there was a natural way we arrived, then stars must be made by such and such process, and the earth was made from such and such process, because planets and stars formed NOW are formed from those processes.
Even with that, you assume that matter always has been. Because it's here now, and now it cannot be created or destroyed (by humans mind you) you assume that it always has been that way, and has always been here. But your assumptions may be wrong.
When you get back to it, you have to ask, how did matter get here? The answer is, something more powerful than humans created it, breaking the laws of physics because they don't apply to this Creator. In fact, this Creator made the laws of physics.
Now, once you realize that the Creator can break, and indeed, must have broken the laws of physics, the creation of the entire universe and the Earth and all the creatures on it in 6 days is a lot more plausible, especially when you consider that Adam and Eve were not created as a sperm meets an egg - they were created as full grown, adult humans. The animals were full grown, adult animals. So the creation of a universe, and a planet, that APPEARS to have a history is perfectly in line with the character of this Creator.
Now, granted, I have to make assumptions to get to my position as well. That is more to show that the assumptions get you to conclusions, not verifiable, repeatable experiments, as observational scientists have. Assumptions applied to observational science is not really scientific anymore.
For starters, I don't believe matter has always been, the big bang THEORY (just pointing out I understand it is but a theory) pretty much states the universe started out as a single point of pure energy, which is very understandable. E=mc^2 is the one equation everyone should be familiar with and descrbes how matter and energy can be converted to each other. Interesting to note if you think about how much energy must have been contained in a singularity to generate the kind of numbers that describe m & c, its easy to see why it would have been a big bang.
So I think the universe began as pure energy. Secondly, archaeology and astronomy pretty much debunk a few things right off the bat. If God created everything at the same time why were dinosaurs quite clearly here long before mankind showed up? Why, when we know the speed of light can we see stars and galaxies that are literally billions of light-years away in the night sky? Are you going to tell me that God created all that we see in 6 days and planted dinosaur bones in the ground to test our faith, and that he created all the heavens and made sure the light could reach us immediately?
No, I doubt that. In fact, I doubt the credibility of the Bible almost entirely, but that does not mean there cannot be a creator. At the end of the day, if it turns out the universe began with a bang, there is still the question of what got the ball rolling, since before then there would have been no space and time. Quantum Physics also leaves the door open for a creator, there is some interesting stuff happening down at the subatomic level. But to say that quite clearly the Earth and the Universe is roughly 7,000 years old and that everything we see was created at the exact same time is just silly to me.
EDIT: I understand where you are coming from, and I believe it applies more directly to theories, but it's quite undeniable at this point in our scientific progress that stars are in fact the manufacturers of all the elements, that's all they do. Our sun at this very moment is churning out something like 600 million tons of helium per second. If it were a bigger star it would create even more massive amounts of Helium, Carbon, Oxygen, every element up to Iron. That's also a fascinating fact, Iron is a starkiller, once a star starts manufacturing iron it has seconds to live.
EDIT2: saw an error in billions of years old, should have been light-years away. Also its 600 million tons, not billions. My bad, I missed lunch.
I don't know the science of stars nearly as well as you, I'm sure, so I'll take your word for it.
As for God creating light sources and then not having them end up being a source of light as they're too far away... well, that makes less sense than creating them and the light they would have produced, so I figure God did whatever God thought needed to be done so that we would perceive the stars.
Regardless, where do you get the information that dinosaurs were here long before humans? That's another historical science where assumptions are going to give you answers, and changing the assumptions will give you a different answer. A lot of the evidence of an old earth can also be explained by a world-wide flood, changing climate afterwards, etc. But the assumption is that if you find it in this layer, it's x years old, and in this layer below, it's millions of years older, and never mind that tree that sticks up through three layers over there...
That particular argument has made its rounds, but plate techtonics, earthquakes, and to a much lesser extent floods, are responsible for minor inconsistencies in the geological layers of the Earth. However, the overwhelming majority of fossils found have clearly been here long before the first fossils of humans arrived in the geological layer. Furthermore, while creation scientists have tried to disprove radiological dating as grossly inaccurate and therefor entirely unreliable. The simple fact is, the older an object that is being dated is, the less accurate the dating becomes, but the inaccuracies of say (and this is just a guess as I don't have actual numbers in front of me, but its not far off from what I remember), a billion year old object will only be off by +/- 50 million years or so. So even if the number is off by the furthest extreme, the Earth is still older by hundreds of millions of years.
I'd like to take a moment and point out if you put the wrong size tires on your car so as your speed increases the spedometer is progressively inaccurate, when a police officer pulls you over for doing 70, you are not going to look him in the face and tell him that the spedometer is somewhat inaccurate, therefore you could only have been doing 10 miles per hour. That's pretty much what they're arguing.
What I meant by the light sources is, we know for a fact that we are looking at starlight that is coming from an object that is billions of light-years away. So it should have taken billions of years for the light from that star to reach our planet, and I'm saying it seems very silly if God made this world and made stars billions of light-years away and automatically made the starlight already be here. Why not just make them closer? What is the point of putting man on Earth, some tiny insignificant spec of sand in the vastness of the universe, and creating the same unimaginably vast universe as some kind of spectacle for our eyes?
Based on your laws of physics, it could be quite possible that to place them closer to us would completely upset the balance that keeps the planets/stars/galaxies on course. It doesn't matter though. What matters is that he's not the kind of God who wouldn't put the light coming already, and he's also not the kind of God who would just put the light there and not bother with a source for it. What God's purpose is for doing so is unclear - I wouldn't be surprised if he put it there just to make a pretty night sky for us to enjoy. I would also not be surprised if there are other planets out there with life. It wasn't really relevant to the Earth creation story, so I wouldn't expect to find the answer in the Bible.
Regardless, the radiological dating methods are more inaccurate, again, based on the assumption that are made about the subjects... how much of a particular isotope it started with, etc. will affect the readings far more than anything else. The fact that less-than-100-year-old rocks were dated by those radiological processes to be millions of years old is proof that the methods are not accurate. If they can't peg a rock from 100 years ago, why should we assume they can get it right about a rock supposedly billions of years old?
I suppose we're getting off topic.
I will let you have the last word but I think the point has been made as well as it can - historical science is only as accurate as the assumptions that go into it, and one set makes the assumption that the Bible is true, and the other assumes that the earth is billions of years old. I'm not arguing that the one or the other is proven scientifically, only that you really can't prove in an observable, repeatable way, either creation in 6 days or the Big Bang theory, because it's in an unobservable past.
Also, thank you for the discussion!
Well personally I have been enjoying our talk, even if it isn't talking about the original post. At least it's vaguely relevant to the topic.
I'd be interested in a source for the misdated 100 year old rock, after my post I went to find the actual error rate, and several refined methods, one in particular, Uranium-lead radiological dating, can have dating error rates as low as 2 million years in a 2.5 billion years. That's substantially better than I remembered reading, other modern techniques ranged from 20 million in 2.5 billion to 50 million in 3 billion, which is more in-line from what I remember. Beside the point, even if what you say is true, it's obvious many, many more datings were made with far better accuracy and that is why it is widely accepted by a wide variety of fields in science.
I'm not really sure how to continue because I really don't want to continue questioning your beliefs but I'm not sure how to get you to talk about mine without us disagreeing civilly. My intentions were to get like-minded people to babble about the wonders and awesomeness of a naturally occuring universe. Apparently these people are non-existent on these forums or are scared to speak up for fear of starting a war between the likes of us both.
Let us both agree on something if you are truly done participating in this thread: That the possibility of a creator is very real but that there is also a possibility that his methods of creation are somewhat different than what was reported. I don't believe science should really disprove anything, merely explain exactly how things work. They don't want to hear that you simply drove to the store, they want to know all the processes that got you there, from turning the key of the ignition to the rotating engine mechanically applying rotational force to a surface that moved you to the store. With that in mind, you might take a moment to watch a 10 minute brief history of the universe as science sees it. Even if you don't agree with it, I think you might find the ending beautiful.
EDIT: Thank you as well. I felt we were very civil and I've enjoyed it.
You want like minded?
I can do that.
The universe has many wonders, and they are all wonderful. It amazes me often that the same atoms over here are one thing and over there are a completely different thing. That cells come together to form whole beings. That the sun is an element-making machine!
The sort of people who would agree with you are also around, I'm sure.. I know not everyone around here agrees with me, at least.
I'll see about getting that source for you. In general, it came from Answers in Genesis.
It's... difficult, to say the least, to not get overly passionate in defending a point of view on the internet, and it too often does come to personal attacks. I'm not against continuing, but, as you said, it's getting harder and harder to not devolve into CAPSLOCKVILLE.
Unfortunately, I cannot watch YouTube videos. They're blocked or... inappropriate... on all computers I have regular access to.
I'll take your word for it being beautiful.
I don't know what method God used to create the Universe, only that the Creation account in Genesis is the truth as far as it does describe what happened, and the timeline given is also accurate.
The Old Testament was a Jewish book. Why is it so important to non-Jews? Why would the Jews share it with the non-Jews who were not God's special people? When one actually looks at all the events that had to come together to even get the Bible into non-Jewish hands as a book worth reading, it speaks more volumes about who was in control than anything else. Only in a world where God is actually real could the Bible have come to be as huge a thing as it is now. Without God, it would still be a Jewish book, and nobody would have paid much attention to it, and the New Testament would never have come together.
The kind of God who can put his hand into that can certainly also put his hand in to the translation process and keep it the way he wanted it. He also would not mislead us as to how the world was created. The problem with saying that, perhaps it was created over billions of years, discredits the entirety of the Bible to me. If it is untrue in the first few pages, why should I take what it says later literally? If I don't believe it when it says it took 6 days to create the earth, then why would I believe that in three days Jesus was raised from the dead, literally? And that is the danger that swaying slightly in one area does to the entirety of the gospel.
If Jesus wasn't raised from the dead, we have no more hope as Christians.
All that was to explain why it is so important, from a Biblical worldview, that we don't start taking the assumptions of scientist as facts over eyewitness testimony from the only person who was there at creation - God himself.
Granting, of course, that a non-belief in God or even of the Bible will make all that seem ridiculous to you.
I've often said that if things in the bible could be taken in metaphors then it would be easier to believe, but fundamentalist that insist that it took 6 days and that's that, without even considering what 6 days means to a God, especially one who is esentially timeless, make it very hard to accept from my view.
From what little I know of it, Constantine of the Roman Empire is responsible for the largest single conversion of people to Christianity ever. Personally, I feel his motives for doing so are not pure, as I feel the motives for the crusades that followed in later times. Regardless of the validity of Christianity, I am more inclined to believe those in power at the time saw it as the key to controlling entire populations of people. Without modern technology to track, investigate and apprehend those who disobey our civil laws,empires of those times would have seen this as a masterful tool to keep the mob in check without a massive police force. Those are my thoughts on how Christianity spread throughout the world. It is also worth noting it has been said that Constantine also changed large portions of the text in the Bible to make the religion more acceptable to the paganist Roman people at that time. Most notably the birth of Christ has been moved to December 25th to cover the pagan holiday of Saturnalia.
Knowing that, one might wonder what else was changed, because two things come to mind: 'History is written by the victors' and 'he who controls the past controls the future'. These men were not fools and surely understood the power represented by this book, I see no reason why they wouldn't have changed it to suit their needs. It's entirely possible the real story is not what's being told now.
The Bible is silent on the birth day of Christ. Although I must admit that the timing of the holidays Christians celebrate definitely were taken from the pagan world. Easter... Christmas... both covering previous festivals to make it more attractive.
What I don't understand, though, is how a book that frees people would control them? The gospel message is quite clear, and it does NOT say, "You can only go to heaven if you're a good little boy/girl." Even more, how did it get to Constantine? And beyond that, why does the book have any power to begin with?
You're right about motives though. A lot of people who didn't really believe picked up and used the Bible and Christianity for their own purposes. Some may have repented, others may not have. I don't know. I'd like to think that they all repented... became true believers... but I doubt that.
I don't think anyone can look at people killing other people in order to try and convert them as a person who is right with God.
If we say God is timeless (which he is, of course) he could do it in 6 days. The reasoning being that men needed to rest on the seventh day, so God set the example, finishing in 6 and resting (because he was finished, not tired) on the 7th. The fun thing about God is that when he wants to teach through a metaphor, he just makes the metaphor happen. He's God. He can pull that off. He gave the Jewish people an entire law with animal sacrifices for the express purpose of looking forward to the cross of Jesus Christ. The connections are there. Is the old Jewish law real, or is it just a metaphor? They actually did it! So God actually did it, too, for our instruction later.
The book has very real power simply in the notion that there is an all-knowing and all-powerful God that is watching each and every person 24-7. The fact that when bad things happen to good people its just God testing their faith, or the Lord working in mysterious ways, versus resounding reaffirmations that God exists when bad things happen to bad people is a testament to how well the book was written, from that standpoint no one can attack it on a logical level. No matter what happens, its all God's plan. So lets put that thought in as many people as we can, and miraculously people begin to behave somewhat. The old testament surely used the hardline approach of fire and brimstone for sinners. The new testament takes a rather unique angle, by accepting Jesus Christ into our hearts we can forgive all sins...kind of a slippery slope there, but I imagine they didn't mean one could carry out murders and then ask Jesus for forgiveness to get a guarantee ticket to heaven. Either way, it is a very powerful tool for controlling most of the population that believe it.
I don't know how Constantine came about accepting Christianity, but generally speaking at those times Christians and Jews alike were persecuted by the Roman Empire so no doubt the book has come across his hands at one time or another.
It is amazing how much understanding you can have and then miss the point.
It's not about forgiving just minor sins - it's everything. Missing the mark to ANY degree is such an affront to God that the little disparity between people is negligible. Without the sacrifice, there would be no forgiveness. Since there is the sacrifice, there is forgiveness. If I murder someone in cold blood, can there be forgiveness? Absolutely. Should I do so? No!
Given this there actually are no good people for bad things to happen to...
Bad things happening come from two major sources. One is demons. The other is humans. These are the beings separated from God but endowed with free will. Demons are more limited - they have to ask permission to act. Since humans don't have to ask permission to royally screw each other, they are probably the source of most bad things happening.
God is a God of redemption. He allows bad things to happen, but unfailingly takes those and turns them around into good things. That's why people are always saying to look for the good in the bad... because there is good, or will be good soon enough. Because God exists and He puts the good back into even the most horrible situations. It sounds really trite when you put it this way, but when you're living it, it's just another thing about God to be adored.
Everything is a part of God's plan... that's like saying that bad weather is part of a ship's plan. God doesn't necessarily make the bad thing happen, but He plans how to redeem the situations created by the bad things. He's so good at it, in fact, that often when bad things happen, better things than could be imagined beforehand end up happening shortly after DUE TO the bad thing.
Glad I got that cleared up.
As for whether that's the way things happened... shrug. Could be. Maybe there's nothing to this God thing. My own life nonwithstanding, of course.
That's a very excellent point, Jy.
It's still quite a curiosity to me how one of such great power could create the vastness that we see and yet be compelled to pay attention to our tiny piece of the universe and concern one in the affairs of its inhabitants. Even more curious that the battle between heaven and hell will one day take place on Earth's soil. I tend to think about the word pride when I think that this place is that important to two omnipotent forces of this vast universe.
Also bbiab, shopping.
Have fun shopping!
God is so big that he does care, infintesimally more than we can even imagine, about His creation and particularly human beings. That's not pride. It's what God said about us. He's numbered the hairs on our head. He knitted us in our Mom's womb. Etc. He cares about us.
Why? I don't know.
But I do know that he's powerful enough that he CAN take an individual interest in each one of us.
The battle between heaven and hell... yes, that will happen. But will it be the only battle, or just a smaller part of a major campaign across the universe? I don't know. I might never find out. It doesn't matter to my salvation now and I either will know or not have to care when I die.
Honestly I would pay good money to see an epic battle fought throughout the Universe. A real life Sins of a Solar Empire event. Of course, you may have no clue what I'm on about as I wandered over to joeuser from their forums.
Call me crazy, but if the rapture were to happen, I'd like to remain behind and see what happens. For one, seeing would be believing, but despite all the phenomenal discoveries that have been cropping up in the past 100 years and especially as of late, witnessing the end times would be the most interesting of times. The Chinese consider that a curse, I disagree with them. To be alive in the most historical moment ever, even if it were mankinds darkest hour, it would in some strange way be a blessing to me.
Reminds me, I should probably read Tribulation Force when I'm bored, I bet that's a good read.
Speculative fiction is fun to read. I recommend the Left Behind series. I wouldn't read it again though. The first time was fun.
Just remember that if you want the best view of what is going to happen, Revelations is the way to go. And, some Christians believe that all that stuff already happened anyway. But now we're in religion.
I am acquainted with GalCiv more than Sins, but I do know OF Sins, and got so far as to play the demo. I determined that I'd rather play Company of Heroes for RTS and GalCiv2 for TBS, rather than a sort of cross between the genres. Great idea, appreciate what it brings to the table, but not for me!
Shortly after the rapture, 1/4 of the population is going to die. Then, after that, 1/3 of the remaining population is going to die. We're talking about carnage on a level completely unknown to man. It is not going to be exciting in a good way. It's going to be, basically, hell on earth. It's going to suck. I recommend getting right with God now and never mind that. See, the most important event in history... already happened. And the most important event in your life is going to be when you chose to accept that event and the gift it gave, or when you last chose not to.
Now I'm proselytizing.
As promised!
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v4/n4/assumptions
Thanks for the link. While an interesting read, I always take that kind of source with a grain of salt. See, I went to a private christian school from 2nd grade to 5th grade and we had a creation science class and they've tried to teach us, among other things, that mankind was here before dinosaurs because they found a fossil underneath a dinosaur one, and that we have irrefutable proof that adam and eve existed because they discovered the bodies without belly buttons. Even at that age I had my doubts and today its just infuriating to me that one would need to go to that extent to prove what one believes to the mind of a child.
The very nature of volcanoes should tell you why its possible for a rock 350,000 years to be regurgitated from the ground, and why the same type of rock could show up in two layers from different eruptions from the same volcano. That's partially why merely observing where objects lie in the geological layer is not a guarantee of what era it came from. Thankfully, these are the exception and not the norm. As far as contamination goes, I'm sure that's where some of the sampling error comes from along with the estimation of the half life of whatever isotopes they are measuring.
Now for the constant of decay, there was a very interesting episode of Through The Wormhole, where scientist recently discovered that solar flares and as a fact our position relative to the sun do have an effect on radioactive decay. While this is an amazing discovery that should have massive implications in modern day technology (think along the lines of proper radioactive cancer treatments depending on what time of year it is), but I don't believe its enough to change the date with any significance that would get you closer to a young Earth, especially if you assume only a 7,000 year run time. If I can fid a youtube link I'll let you look at it, but personally you should be watching it on Science channel anyway, its a very philosophical and thought provoking show that represents all viewpoints equally and fairly. Plus, its got Morgan Freeman....its on right now, tongihts episode is can re resurrect the dead...and should we (ethically)?
Sorry I missed your post because stardust is where it all started. There are imponderables that we will most assuredly never get an answer for, just the facts of life. If you are prone to theological answers then your search is over because god is there to fill in the gaps. But if you are normal and curious, inquisitive and reasonably educated, well there is a whole universe out there to explore. Just the things made real in the last hundred years are astounding and there is no reason anymore for us to look backwards for guidance when there is so much to look forward to. I never desired to live forever, but I would like to stick around long enough to learn just a few more things … and maybe a few more. Your video in post 12 was great and self-explanatory to my way of thinking.
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