h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Rather than verifying, as initially posited, that a single, omnipotent entity had fashioned a perfect universe in one sweep, then stuck around as a kind of maintenance engineer to fix any problems or issues that may arise due to technical imperfections in the original design, Pootle and Frick discovered that the universe was in fact created and managed by “a committee comprised of more than one, possibly very, very many entities with frequently divergent and incompatible goals”."

http://www.avantnews.com/modules/news/article.php?%20storyid=252

You know, it is so exceedingly absurd to even imagine that there is design in the structure of the universe. And yet these absurdists keep stacking U.S. school boards, wasting U.S. courts' time, and using up huge stacks of Turkish paper in the making of absurdist coffee table books. I honestly don't understand the attraction these faith things hold for anyone past adolescence.

:
>>I would agree that God and evolution are not incompatible.

That disappointingly lily-livered of you! While, theoretically, one might postulate a creator that sets up the universe in such a way that ordinary physics eventually delivers human beings capable of worshiping a deity...that's, surely, far from what M1/2's Christianity says? This 'god-as-the-prime-mover-of-evolution' is a post-Darwin reinvention.

Anhaga



I do see your point...forgive me for misunderstanding what you were saying...

I think I agree with you that 'the various God hypotheses etc etc don't work'. For me, the whole thing is a 'mystery'. To try to explain that God is sovereignly directing a random process sounds ridiculous. So why do I still believe?! I suppose that the answer is that I came to believe without needing to understand 'how?' When I needed God I found him! (Lucky old me) I try to put forward suggestions here as to how it 'might' be possible for there to be a Creator. None of them is immune to being ridiculed but personally, I delight in the mystery of it all...! I love reading stories of how God came through for someone at the last moment, when they refused, against all odds, to abandon their confidence in God. Its something I know a little about, and am on an exciting journey to discover more.

Sorry...Gif might call this 'changing the goalposts because you can't answer the question!' But I hope I've at least got across to you where I'm coming from. Not having a scientific mind seems to be an advantage for me!!

Must go!

Mikey2

Gif



Yeah, i start to have a problem with sentences like that! When you start trying to explain the unexplainable, you start to sound stupid...basically. Surely the way that God has brought creation about is beyond such hypothesising as to exactly how he did it. The universe is totally awesome, whether you believe in a Creator or not, I'm sure you agree!

If you had an encounter with God...say...through some amazing experience...healing or something similar...you may well be immediately transported beyond the need to understand exactly how this God created the universe...into a whole new way of looking at life...and learning to understand this God who appears to be active in our world in a personal and mysterious way!! I suppose what I'm trying to say is that...exploring such intellectually stimulating issues as the means by which God created the universe become eclipsed in the mind of the believer by the life-transforming fact that THERE IS A GOD!!!

But lets get back to the question of how 'big bang/evolution' and 'a Creator' can possibly both be true!

If there was just a vacuum, the big bang may have been a big flash.
The bible says: "God said, 'Let there be light, and there was light.'

Jesus said that 'man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the Father's mouth.' Christian people often pray daily for their material needs to be met. They do not expect to see a huge divine hand shoving pie and chips through the window...they still have to buy the stuff from Tesc#s or Asd#! They still have to earn the money to buy the merchandise but it is not, therefore, unreasonable to still say grace before a meal. Indeed it may be more necessary...in order to remind themselves that ultimately, God is the Provider of all good gifts. What I'm trying to point out here is that, understanding the mechanics of how a.bread provision works...or b. evolution works...does not logically lead to the conclusion that a. the prayer was followed by merely a coincidence or b. that the miracle/mystery of existence has been fully understood and disproved the existence of God.
I've heard wonderful testimonies of faithful believers praying for daily needs to be met and, simultaneously, another believer has felt prompted (by a spiritual/inner voice) to send to the needy believer a gift which, unbeknown to the second believer, was exactly what the first believer had been praying that God would provide. Another example of God answering but, in a way that can be easily dismissed by an individual intent on maintaining an 'unbelieving' stance!

With regard to evolution, it is not a problem to me to suppose that God took 'quite a while' to create us. Peter tells us in 2Peter3:8 that 'with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day' (Forgive the cherry-picking, Gif) Since we arrived, we, as a race, have made comparatively swift work of almost ruining everything.(How very reminiscent of the first few chapters of the bible!) Quite soon into the bible (Genesis 31), we see how evolution/selection was clearly understood even then by Jacob.

I've pointed out on another thread how the journey from the innocence of childhood to the moral responsibility of adulthood definitely happens but is almost impossible to pinpoint exactly when! In a similar way, the human race has 'come of age', we have become morally responsible...'knowing the difference between good and evil'(see Genesis 2:17). 'Recent' discoveries in evolutionary science have shed doubt on the traditional view of the exact time when that 'coming of age' took place but, we must agree that it has happened. To those of us who are painfully aware of how far short we fall morally, the life, words, works, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ present both challenge and hope. 'Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.' John 1:17. 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick, I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' Luke 5:31,32.

Its half past midnight and I'm playing piano at a Carol service in the morning...I think I'll sign off here.

Love from Mikey2

'I've heard wonderful testimonies of faithful believers praying . . .'

I've heard wonderful testimonies of another sort of faithful believer about being floated out their bedroom windows into flying saucers the pilots of which have an odd fascination with human genitalia.

Who was talking about Just So stories a while ago?

Today I was handed this juvenile tract http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0005/0005_01.asp by a stranger on the street. It was published by this nasty, intolerant outfit: http://www.chick.com/default.asp Apparently the people handing them out are with this outfit: http://www.thechurchofgod.cc/ This, from the Church of God webpage, is a little disturbing: 'By having this name we state that we feel one with all the blood-washed.' The blood-washed?

I'll certainly not be going to their Christmas Eve service. No blood washing for me, thanks.

Upon first encountering a Chick tract, I deemed it a somewhat lame joke...

Similar to when channel-hopping many years ago, I chanced upon one Ernest Angely leaping about in front of the camera. For a few minutes I thought it was some comedy show ala Robin Williams or Monty Python

~~~~

>>

Yeah, i start to have a problem with sentences like that! When you start trying to explain the unexplainable, you start to sound stupid...basically. Surely the way that God has brought creation about is beyond such hypothesising as to exactly how he did it. The universe is totally awesome, whether you believe in a Creator or not, I'm sure you agree!<<

Mikey2, I think you are missing the point here.

The problem is not about 'hypothesising as to exactly how he did it', but the inherent contradiction in the sentence.

Something is either undirected, or directed. It cannot be both or neither. The God question hardly enters into it at this stage.

"The universe is totally awesome, whether you believe in a Creator or not, I'm sure you agree!"

The universe is neither awesome nor not awesome. It simply is. However we subjectively view the universe has, again, little to do with making absurd, self-contradictory statements.

We are an intimate part of the universe, and each moment of our apparent existence is a wonder. Is that not amazing? But what has this to do with the notion of God?

>>But lets get back to the question of how 'big bang/evolution' and 'a Creator' can possibly both be true!
If there was just a vacuum, the big bang may have been a big flash.
The bible says: "God said, 'Let there be light, and there was light.'<<

I am neither a physicist, nor an evolutionary biologist, but afaik, cosmology != evolution by natural selection.

In other words, theories regarding the orgin of the universe have nothing to do with the theory of evolution by natural selection.
They are, as I understand it, and as I believe has been indicated on this thread ad nauseum, entirely different and distinct disciplines.
Please stop conflating the two.

Regarding cosmology, no one knows much about conditions pertaining 'prior' to the 'big bang', or singularity. Speculating that it may have been a vacuum is similar to asking about what colours exist north of the North Pole. It almost certainly was not a vacuum, in the sense that we understand a vacuum -- the absence of matter/energy, but not 'nothing at all'

Since we do not yet know what the conditions were prior to the hypothetical big bang, we cannot say anything existed or did not exist, including time itself, and it is frivolous to suggest it may have involved a big flash, because that implies there was something to, well, flash, as well as a medium in which the flash occurred.

There is some significant research suggesting a cyclical universe, with a big 'bounce' instead of a 'bang', which, if true, renders the Bhagavad Gita much more relevant than the Bible

btw, are you seriously comparing the superstitious notion of prayer/divine intervention with the science of evolution by natural selection? Truely, my jaw droppeth!

As has been mentioned here again and again and again, evolution by natural selection does not attempt to 'disprove the existence of God', but it does render such an entity superfluous.

Bibble quotes --> pffft!

And that chick site has this cartoon obviously showing how wonderful thier god is...kill something for me to atone your sins...what was that commandment?...um, thou shalt not kill? Yup, that's the one...unless your god tells you to and it's open season.

http://www.chick.com/tractimages6595/0005/0005_08.gif

One of the 'tracts' that YOU can buy for ONLY 15ecnts per copy...bulk discount applies.

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0099/0099_01.asp

I love the 'fact' that the story goes on about Satan doing evil things in the here and now but, as seems to be usual in these tracts, shows Jesus being nailed to a cross and him coming alive again 3days later and...defeating Satan once and for all...see,s like Jesus didn't fo the job properly.

All sad, cheap, school-children style scare mongering...wonder if it really does work.

If you want some stuff to hand back to them look no further than Normal Bob Smith.

http://www.normalbobsmith.com/free/flyers/

Still hammering on about god and evolution...

If we re-define god as something which sets off the unguided evolutionary process but which is not involved in the micro-management of that process - then this god-thingy surely no longer has a role in our day-to-day lives.

Is this non-interventionist thingy *really* what the religious understand by 'god'?

Closing in on 14,000 posts!

Yay us!

First

one

to

14,000

votes

wins!

And it's Darwin coming round the corner with God disappearing in a puff of logic....

And Darwin WINS!!!!!!