Is God a Scientist?

As a person who was brought up with religion and taught that to believe in God is to have faith in god which does not require an understanding and in fact considers any attempt to understand God as blasphemy, I now find it difficult to come to terms with the somewhat sitting on the fence position I know have as an adult. (Don’t worry I will hopefully get to the point).Unfortunately my position is not based on evidence but is merely an attempt to comprehend what science believes is the evolution of man and what was taught to me as a child being basically man (Adam) was created in the likeness of God and had a whole lot of kids and so forth.My opinion and as I say be it ignorant and most likely misinformed (hence why I post this, so that I may be more informed, hopefully by more intelligent people than myself) is this;The bible as I see it is by the most part written by men as a way to communicate the knowledge past to them by God (through Jesus). This message was not exclusive as the prophet Mohammad (which I know almost nothing about) past the same message to Muslims and I am sure this happened to most cultures around the world. This information was written and understood by disciples in the best way they could at the time.Take the simplest part Man was created in the likeness of God. At that time man looked in the mirror and there you go God must look like me. So Christians argue we cannot consider the fact of evolution as we cannot except that God looked like a monkey. Simplified I know but I cannot pretend to be the slightest bit intelligent.As I see it evolution of man started as a single cell organism why can’t this be how God created us, we are his children therefore why cant these single cells be from him. At the time the bible was written they wouldn’t have a clue about micro organisms and so forth so why shouldn’t we expect them to write in a way that they may understand it.The creation of woman was to take part of Adam (seems like God was doing some Genetic engineering of his own) and create Eve. My sitting on the fence point of view is that Adam was a single cell evolving into a multi cell organism, be it evolution or God that split that cell creating the female counterpart I couldn’t say. But once again I don’t think Mark, Luke or John could really explain that to the people.As I said these are my opinions and could be considered a way to cope with current scientific and historical information as I am sure the creators of the bible did when they came across information that they did not understand. They called them miracles, today we call it science, who knows what they will call it another 1000 years.Basically could it be that we are a science experiments to God, created and watched over, prophets could be considered Gods lab technicians. If so then we really could be created in Gods likeness as that seems pretty similar to what we do now.Finally and just a last stupid question, but could Dinosaurs be considered Gods lab rats, testing the environment before he chose to release a portion of his own DNA upon this world.Please correct me, then there would at least be once less ignorant and misinformed person roaming the interent.Edited by lostcause, : No reason given.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.************************************
I like your inquisitive nature! Welcome to EvC, lostcause. I don't often promote topics so quickly for new members because I like them to get a feel for what the forum is all about. Something about your topic impressed me, however..(except your spelling! ) and so Im gonna get the ball rolling. One thing, though. Can you edit your title? I think that this topic deserves a better title.So now I shall discuss this with you in my non-admin altar ego role.Edited by AdminPhat, : message to author added

I'd like to respond to some of your thoughts.I'm an atheist, so to me the most reasonable conclusion is that God doesn't exist, and therefore I'm resistant to attempts to try to "meld" the scientific conclusion of evolution with God stuff.But there's really no reason you can't do it, if you find that fruitful. Since basically anything can be made up about God and held to be true - he's a Cosmic Scientist, he intervenes in human affairs in undetectable ways, etc - the only avenue you open yourself to criticism is your understanding of the facts of evolution. So far you don't seem to have any huge misunderstandings, but I invite you to ask questions about the science if you want to know more.Nobody can really tell you you're wrong about what you think God is like, except for the complete lack of evidence that God even exists. But I'd like to respond to a few of your thoughts, if I may: I guess I would point out that there are deep qualitative differences between the world's religions. Jews do believe something different than Christians, Buddhists do believe something different than Hindus and Muslims, etc. So I think that the idea that God somehow told them all the same message is a somewhat dubious idea unless you have a very clear idea of what that "universal" message is in the first place. I mean, those religions don't even agree on how many gods even exist. I think you do the ancient peoples a disservice. While they were certainly ignorant of the great scientific discoveries we all take for granted now, that ignorance wasn't the result of diminished mental capacity - just a coincidence of time.Certainly ancient peoples had very sophisticated understandings of things that were complex like science; for instance the Old Testament describes a system of laws, punishment, and justice that is very complicated and sophisticated. Medieval theologians described an entire ecology of angelic and demonic beings, a vast hierarchy of heaven and hell every bit as complicated as, perhaps, modern physics.So I simply don't think it's the case that ancient people were too dumb to know about microorganisms, for instance. They didn't know about them because they hadn't been discovered yet. Had they been revealed by divine knowledge, a system of God-taught science classes, who's to say that they wouldn't have caught on? They were certainly able to deal with a lot of other complex things.I think the Bible, like all religious texts, simply reveals the best efforts of humans to deal with the world around them and the big questions of life - all on their own. I don't think it was a divine effort to communicate scientific information to poor benighted savages who were too backwards to understand it - because I think they would have understood it. They certainly understood plenty else. Why would God have DNA? Moreover - dinosaurs lived in a vastly different environment than we inhabit today.

Hi Lost,Those on the religious side of the creation/evolution controversy do not believe the same things that you believe. Clearly you don't hold Genesis to be a literally true account of creation, so since you don't believe the world is 6000 years old and that there was a great flood 4500 years ago, the degree to which your religious views could conflict with scientific views is, by comparison, minor.Your own view of the origin of life, that God created the first cell which then evolved into the rest of life, including man, conflicts with science to a degree dependent upon how you hold them. If you believe this on faith, then there's really no conflict with science.On the other hand, if you believe that's the way it really happened and that we should seek evidence for God's creation of the first cell, then this would be viewed as a conflicted approach. The intent to seek evidence is a necessary part of science, but the assumption of God when there is no scientific evidence for a natural phenomenon called "God" is unscientific in the extreme. In other words, you'd be lauded for seeking evidence and condemned for making unscientific assumptions.But if you believe that scientific evidence already supports the view that God created the first cell, this would probably raise some eyebrows, and in most scientific circles it would be believed that you're letting your religious faith influence your judgement. Professor Michael Behe of Lehigh University (who brags, "First get tenure before going public with your creationist beliefs"), who believes that there is evidence for God in microbiological processes, is the foremost example of an eyebrow raising academic of the creationist variety.--Percy

In my opinion, you want to get feedback from other people and you do not quite know how to approach the issue. Judging from the title, I'm guessing that the issue is the time honored question of whether religion and science can comfortably co-exist. Many Christians were told what to believe yet were never taught how to think. God gave us a brain not so that we could simply shut up and believe everything we were taught. Its not blasphemous to question God or to question ourselves and what we believe. So in other words, you believe that the origin of the message came from God and not from humans attempting to form a religion....right? What do you believe that the essential message of the Bible is? (in a nutshell) More likely, since there were no mirrors, we saw our reflection in the still waters of a lake! Again, this gets back to the question of whether these early authors were inspired to write what they wrote or whether they originated the stories out of their own imaginations. Sure you can! We all can pretend to be intelligent! At least we have evolved to the point where we can ask questions and look beyond our next meal and our next mate. Are you saying that God had cells? If so, would a Creator need to create using part of Himself to do so? Could he not simply speak the reality of matter into existence? Im guessing that we may still call science science and miracles miracles. Why would an all-knowing Creator need to do any experiments if He already foreknew the conclusion?Some people believe that God does not know the choices that we make since we have not made them yet. This is known as Open Theism. By the way, there is no such thing as a stupid question. There are only stupid answers! Who do you think I am? God??

welcome to the fray lostcause. As a deist, my faith cannot conflict with science, because science is just the way to understand how.A friend of mine (creationist) looks at it as we were created according to the image in the mind of god: his image with a different perspective. In this way he sees god having imagined all of existence from start to finish, and somewhere in there are humans (as well as other species, possibly other life). Not knowing the actual original words and their meanings I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this idea, but find it interesting. One thing I have always had trouble with is that if we are in the exact image of god how come we are not god-like ourselves? Not even Adam had any supernatural powers as far as I can see. That would explain taking out the rib to make females .... but it is an interesting perspective. I take it you don't have any trouble with time scales and the first evidence of life on earth being from over 3.5 billion years ago. Then there have been several testing experiments -- the dinosaurs benefited from a mass extinction of previous dominant life forms just the way mammals did 65 million years ago.But be that as it may, it looks like you are looking for a wider perspective, and have gotten a good start on the journey: enjoy the path.

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Thanks AdminPhat for giving my topic a chance to evolve (pun intended). To be honest I am not sure where to begin.If anyone has any suggestions to an amendment to my title that would be much appreciated, I was leaning toward test-tube religion or something similar, let me know what title would attract attention and be obviously relevant to the discussion.

I was thinking of one like: Can Science and Religion Co-Exist? but I don't know if that was the intended focus of your topic or not. I did think that Faith/Belief was the direction that you wanted to go.
I am guessing that you have a lot of deep seated religious beliefs and Dogma. But I noticed that you seem open to any scientific explanations that could somehow comfortably exist with your evolving concept of faith.Percy, the EvC Forum founder and owner of this site, has done a couple of excellent posts that describe what science is. Here is one of his better ones.As far as our religious views go, we have a wide spectrum.By discussing your beliefs and theories with us, you can formulate more clearly to yourself what it is that you choose to believe.

The truth is that any religious debate is endless as crashfrog wrote ”basically anything can be made up about God and held to be true’ as religion is based on faith and not fact. Which means my belief can twist the word of God to suit my own theories as it does for all those who wish to justify there own actions through religion.But that is not my intention; I believe that Phat summed it up nicely with the question of whether religion and science can comfortably co-exist. This to me is something that already occurs, scientists and those that believe in God(s) agree to disagree. The real contention is not between science and religion but between religion and religion. Therefore my aim is not to discuss co-existence but to go further and suggest that the only difference between religion and science is the time in which they became a way of life and the ability of those to comprehend the discoveries of that time.This is not too say the Mark, Luke and Johns of that time were not intelligent enough to comprehend the science of evolution (as crashfrog suggested I implied) but that to spread the message that we came from somewhere and that our existence is not to simply eat, sleep and multiply they found it necessary to communicate such messages in a way the masses of the time could understand. It wasn’t really that long ago when Science itself was condemned as being magic and evil could you imagine how a message of evolution, genetics etc would have been received.Therefore I believe both science and religion have a chance to understand and interpret the writings of the past, and instead of saying that what they suggest is impossible but rather an interpretation of the science that they had at the time.As mentioned before the creation of Eve by taking part of one person to create another, back then could only be applied to the donation of organs (if that) with a miracle thrown in, if you were told this now you would almost immediately assume genetic engineering, the immaculate conception of Mary can only be a miracle of the time yet we now have many immaculate conceptions through fertility research. This is not to say that the people of the times were stupid as they were the building blocks to what we know now but that knowledge took time to develop.However I don’t believe these ideas came from nowhere and that although on the surface the many religions have their differences I believe that a message was given to these cultures and that the cultures adapted this to be more palatable and applicable. Unfortunately I cannot give you the universal message, but from religion we see a sense of morals and a beginning for all.Could it be Phat that it is the bible and equivalent texts themselves that gave the masses and not just the philosophers a way to ponder their existence and intelligence, although religion capped this leaving us to ponder our sins and questioning or own thoughts for although Phat suggested that to question God is not blasphemy, I however was lead to believe to question God is to question something that is beyond our intelligence thereby lifting yourself to a position of equality with God thereby blasphemy. Although I believe Phat is quite correct God gave us the ability to think, so to punish our questions is not an act of God but a mechanism of the politically minded heads of church to control the masses.As a final note in my long winded rant, I find it somewhat amusing that an atheist scoffed at the idea of God having DNA, as this is what I am suggesting we are his children or a least great-great etc children. RAZD asked why we are not God-like ourselves if were an exact image, what makes God God, he creates, destroys, controls. We control, we destroy and if it wasn’t for genetic laws then we would create almost anything we desire. Why is it only humans that have this control is it not because we have a little something special in us.And back to our favourite final question of Dinosaurs living in a vastly different environment, also in a very distant time with a World that itself evolves and changes. Like the seasons Dinosaurs experienced the winter of our planet extinction through the ice age. Noah and his ark experienced spring, the warming and eventual flood of the earth (also a time of birth). Could it be that were coming into a nice hot summer with global warming and possibly another flood (better get those arks ready).

lostcause,I think the answer to your question "why not both" is best answered by looking at the method we arrive at conclusions with. The scientific method is really a high-falutin' rationale that we use every day of our lives. Accept on faith that there is someone at the door at any given time & you wil be wrong most of the time. If the doorbell rings then you can infer that someone rang it & go & open it. Clearly the reasoned logical evidence based inference is the way to go.So, why not both? The evidence does not support both, so go with the one it does. Anything else is sheer fantasy.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

As I understand there is sufficient evidence showing the evolution of man, I do not argue this but there must be a beginning and I guess I believe that beginning is the concoction of God.The bible is merely a record of what the people of that time understood and could communicate effectively. They didn’t have the door bell so they had to go with what they knew and that was to have faith that there is a person at the door. We now have the door bell but that is only a tool to say that there is someone on the other side not who that someone is.If man can look over mice in a maze without their knowledge then why can't God observe man without our knowledge? Not saying that he is all seeing but maybe his telescope is longer that ours (or from his point of view microscope)Edited by lostcause, : No reason given.Edited by lostcause, : No reason given.Edited by lostcause, : Just an after thought

lostcause, But if there is no evidence of god then it's irrelevant. Why not the universe is snot from the galactic goat? Or the Flying Spaghetti monster? Or any other of the potentially millions of evidentially vacuous explanations?If we don't know the answer, the correct thing to do is say we don't know the answer & continue looking for evidence that will lead us to the truth, & not grab at just one of the aforementioned millions of evidentially vacuous explanations & declare it to be the Absolute Truth. This is ad hoc reasoning & not evidence. I could say with equal veracity "why couldn't the Galactic Goat sneeze out the universe? It really adds nothing to the debate.If people maintain that god exists then the onus is on them to provide evidence. Ad hoc "what if" explanations & scenarios are a distraction.MarkEdited by mark24, : No reason given.Edited by mark24, : No reason given.

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Sometimes when you open the door there is someone there even though they don't ring the doorbell. If you only wait for the doorbell you will not see them. That is why agnostic is the logical position. Some people make choices to believe beyond where the facts and evidence lead -- as long as they do not deny the evidence of what is real, what's the issue? I choose to believe that life exists elsewhere in the universe in spite of a lack of evidence for it. That belief makes me interested in looking for the evidence. If people maintain that god does not exist then the onus is on them to provide the evidence. Arguments of ignorance and incredulity are a distraction.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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Why must there be a beginning?The issue of "Beginning" is something that really is a problem for religion and one where honest theists can only exist by being somewhat dishonest and using an escape clause; "There must be beginnings except in one instance, and that instance is GOD who existed forever and will exist forever."There are many people, Christians even, who do believe in GOD, the Creator of all that is, seen and unseen.Those people look on what we learn from science as simply showing us the HOW of How God Did It.But in all honesty, we need to say that our belief in GOD is simply that, a belief. We have to admit that we are making an exception to the rule of Beginnings to allow for an entity, GOD, that has no beginning.The dichotomy can be seen in much of the symbology of differing religions, in Christianity the conflict between the Alpha-Omega and the Circle as one example.The key point is we must always remember that using the argument "there must be a beginning" as some indication that "there must be a God" fails as it then implies that God too must have a beginning.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I do not wish to turn this thread into yet another atheist vs. agnostic topic (shame on you for rather gratuitously bringing it up) - there are plenty of threads for that. I merely wish to make note of the fact (for the edification of the topic originator) that the above statements, derived as they are from a sort of naive cartesianism ("we cannot 'know' anything with 100% certainty"), are not unchallenged.