From: markwc@barney.esl.com (Mark Christiansen)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Logic and God (was: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
Date: 4 Sep 92 09:04:58 GMT
Followup-To: sci.skeptic
Organization: ESL Inc., Sunnyvale, CA


In article <BtzK3H.50n@well.sf.ca.us>
keithd@well.sf.ca.us (Keith Doyle) writes:

>If science uncovers some evidence that contradicts some religious claim,
>is that considered "hostility toward religion"?  What should the scientist
>then do to protect religious rights (right not meaning "-of-center" here.)?:

>1. Cover up the evidence, and pretend it never happened.
>2. Invent a contorted explanation attempting to reconcile the new
>   evidence with the conflicting claims.
>3. Simply release the information, for other scientists to examine,
>   including an estimation as to its significance.
>4. Some other option I haven't thought of? (give examples, please)

How about this:

4.  God is a scientist who understand the laws of creation which could
that you must start with a big bang to create a universe and that life
is created through an evolutionary process that may happen in a one in
a whatever billion chance or which may happen through very carefully
controlled experiments (as some scientists are showing).  So God goes
through this process to bring humans bodies into existence and then
places the human spirit in control of this body at the appropriate
time (6000 years ago, for example) and we continue our developement we
started as a spirit with this body.  Any new discoveries that human
scientists make in their understanding of life are of this process
that God went through and any conflicts with religious understanding
can be attributed to human missunderstanding of what was written.

I don't really see how the existence of God and the theory of natural
selection contradict each other.  I do see how the existence of God
and the theory of evolution contradict each other unless God just
waited for that one in a whatever billion chance and found it here on
Earth.  In any case, I believe that God exists and did create this
universe through some very scientific process as a place for us to
learn.  I believe that scientific learning is important as well as
learning about God and why we are here.

From what I can tell, scientific research is largely done without much
thought about God.  It is simply a formulation of theories based on
observations and the demonstration of the validity of those theories.
Many previous theories have been wrong (Earth at the center of the
Universe, Earth is flat, etc.) and with more observations, these
theories have been adjusted (Earth revolves around the Sun which is
somewhere in the Universe, Earth seems flat locally but is actually
round, etc.).  The scientific theories seem to be marching right along
towards more accurate theories and models of the Universe.  Religious
groups have historically hung onto older theories with much resistance
to new theories.  In my opinion, this has happened because very little
information was revealed to prophets and all that was revealed was in
terms that the prophets could understand.  The revelations were not
more specific and scientifically accurate probably because the
scientific accuracy is not important to our salvation.  Christ was
very clear when he said that the key issues for life on Earth is love
of God and love of fellow man (Matt 22:37-40).  Exactly how the Earth
was created is not, but the fact that God did create the universe is
(otherwise, why tell us?).

So I say, continue researching.  I enjoy knowing more about this
universe and the great Scientist that created it.
-- 
   Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without
losing your temper or your self-confidence.
   -- Robert Frost
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic