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Author Topic:   Question for creationists: Why would you rather believe in a small God?
marc9000
Member
Posts: 1492
From: Ky U.S.
Joined: 12-25-2009


Message 7 of 301 (702679)
07-10-2013 7:15 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by yenmor
07-08-2013 12:38 PM


To my dear creationist brothers and sisters,
First of all, I need to throw this out there so there's no misunderstanding. I am an atheist. There are many branches of atheism. There's the militant atheism and there's those in more of a gray area. I exist somewhere between the agnostic and atheist. I don't rule out the possibility of an ultimate being responsible for everything.
Last night, I turned on the tv right before I slept. I stumbled onto an episode of The Universe. This episode was on galaxies.
Basically speaking, our solar system is part of a normal size galaxy called the Milky Way. The Milky Way is part of a cluster of galaxies, including Andromeda. And this cluster is part of a super-cluster of galaxies.
Everywhere the Hubble points at, there are billions of galaxies. They guess-timate that there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and there are about 100 billion galaxies in the visible universe.
As a creationist, I don't consider guess-timates involving thousands, or millions of light years as a science that is to be readily accepted and unquestioned. Science is supposed to be testable, repeatable, observable, falsifiable. I think it gets a little vague when we claim to analyze something (glimmers of light) that took thousands or millions of years to reach us.
As an agnostic/atheist, are you never the slightest bit skeptical of secular guess-timates involving deep space?
In other words, the universe is humongous. Who knows what kinds of wonders that are out there. We've barely scratched the surface.
I believe that's all we're ever going to be able to do. If you disagree, what methods do you believe are right around the corner to take a closer look at things that are thousands of light years away?
During the show, I thought to myself. If there was a God, and he created this really really really really big universe with all these wonders that are out there waiting for us to explore, why would you rather believe that His word only exist in a book?
I believe that book contains all I need to know concerning how to live my life to please God, how to relate to others, to manage finances, to decide how to vote concerning what I believe is best for the society that I live in, etc.
Why not embrace in a God that is bigger and more powerful than anything we can ever understand, you know, like the God that created this really really really really really big universe?
That's what creationists actually do. (I bolded your words that should tell you why they can do it without science.)
The more I think about it, the more logic tells me that creationists should be on the forefront of scientific discoveries.
Not at all, because science restricts itself to naturalistic rearrangement processes only. Those who control it don't even allow the exploration of the possibility of an intelligent designer. The human mind can't comprehend creation and destruction. Science tries to fit all of reality into rearrangement processes. Christianity is much more than that. The scientific community claims that it can't address anything to do with Christianity. (other than their belief that it’s wrong) What could a Christian possibly learn about God from godless science?
God created the entire universe with all the principles and everything else that keeps it in place. We, as His children, should be out there finding out more of His creation instead of stifling scientific discoveries wherever possible.
Much of what passes for science today is actually atheism - a public establishment of it. That's the only thing (U.S.) creationists are attempting to stifle. Not necessarily in a religious interest, but in a constitutional interest.
If there is a God, His true bible exists in nature, not an ancient book that was written by people thousands of years ago.
I think it's disingenuous for someone who is interested in the exploration of nature, to claim that others can use nature to reinforce their belief in God, while you use nature to reinforce your belief that there probably isn't a God. If I'm wrong, make your case.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by yenmor, posted 07-08-2013 12:38 PM yenmor has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 10 by Dr Adequate, posted 07-10-2013 7:56 PM marc9000 has not replied
 Message 11 by hooah212002, posted 07-10-2013 8:32 PM marc9000 has not replied
 Message 14 by yenmor, posted 07-10-2013 11:35 PM marc9000 has replied

  
marc9000
Member
Posts: 1492
From: Ky U.S.
Joined: 12-25-2009


Message 18 of 301 (702847)
07-11-2013 7:39 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by yenmor
07-10-2013 11:35 PM


Forgive my lack of humbleness. I have a BS in physics, BS in computer science, and a masters in structural engineering. I worked in research in astrophysics during my time in school. In other words, I've done some of the math behind these numbers. I actually understand what's involved for them to have come up with these numbers.
You're forgiven, education can be a valuable tool. I only have a high school diploma, and it's 40 years old at that. But I'd bet you and I aren't too far apart when it comes to an ability (or lack of it) to quickly comprehend how far a light-year actually is. 186,000 miles per second, times 31,536,000 seconds in a year. Almost 57 trillion miles? Doesn't really tell us much. Have you ever been encouraged to do some kind of exercise, mathematical or otherwise, to try to put into some kind of useful perspective how far one light-year is? I haven't - no encouragement at all from any of my high school teachers or science books. But I thought of one anyway, a few years ago. Here's how it went;
8000 miles (the diameter of the earth) multiplied by 23 gets close to the 186,000 figure. So it would take light one second to get from one end to the other of a string of 23 earths lined up side by side, touching each other. If we scale down the size of the earth, it will proportionately slow the speed of light into something more comprehensible. If we make the earth the size of a grain of sand, then we have light moving at about one inch per second. (23 grains of sand lined up is about one inch long) So how far will something moving at one inch per second travel in one year? Just going by memory, not doing all the calculations again, I remember it being about the distance from New York City to Atlanta, Georgia. So if the earth was a grain of sand in New York City, (with it's microscopic Hubble telescope orbiting it about......1/64th of an inch away) one light year away would be Atlanta. We're told that the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is about 4 light years away. That would put it about 500 miles beyond the coast of California in the Pacific ocean, from that grain-of-sand earth, in New York City.
During your higher educational processes, were you ever encouraged to do a mathematical exercise like this, to get some comprehension of great distances? Did your TV show touch on it at all? If not, then maybe society needs some uneducated people, to look at things in ways that the educated don't think of or don't care about, because of a narrow worldview. A worldview that may not necessarily fit everyone in a diverse society.
I've little doubt that the distances and details that science has provided concerning astronomy are largely true. But it's an imperfect human endeavor, and any time long distances are involved in just about any undertaking by humans, chances for error greatly multiply, whether it's in the building of a long bridge, a long pool table shot, or looking into outer space.
marc9000 writes:
I believe that's all we're ever going to be able to do. If you disagree, what methods do you believe are right around the corner to take a closer look at things that are thousands of light years away?
For now, none. Does this mean we shouldn't try?
It depends on the cost and who's paying for it, resources are always limited. If the scientific community would like to do something useful, I'd like to see (as only one example) someone come up with a way to get at the BASE of forest fires and get them put out before firemen are killed and millions in property are burned up. Is squirting water at the tops of flames, and watching 90% of it turn to steam the best we can do?
marc9000 writes:
Not at all, because science restricts itself to naturalistic rearrangement processes only. Those who control it don't even allow the exploration of the possibility of an intelligent designer. The human mind can't comprehend creation and destruction. Science tries to fit all of reality into rearrangement processes. Christianity is much more than that. The scientific community claims that it can't address anything to do with Christianity. (other than their belief that it’s wrong) What could a Christian possibly learn about God from godless science?
Then could you cite a few scientific or technological advancements that are due directly to attributing the processes to a God actively participating in the process?
No, I can't. Therefore I can't see the study of scientific advancements concerning astronomy to be of any use to anyone who seeks to know more about God.
I've spent a great deal of time reading and studying past achievements. What I've found is that attributing the limits of our knowledge to an all powerful magical being gets us no-where.
Concerning many (but not all) branches of science, that's probably true. But science isn't the only source of knowledge concerning human existence and behavior. Applying only science to all of reality often gets us nowhere as well.
Had Newton attributed gravity to God's magic, calculus would never have been invented. That's just one example.
And quite possibly, since the atheists who control science attribute the origins of life to the magic of abiogenesis, we're not going to be able to scientifically discover anything new about God.
Again, can you name us a few scientific or technological progress that were directly resulted from attributing some natural processes to God's magic?
No. Therefore it would do creationists little good to search for God in science, the way science is practiced today. So from this one creationist at least, the main question in your opening post is answered.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by yenmor, posted 07-10-2013 11:35 PM yenmor has not replied

  
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