Science and God

Dan Drake wrote:


> As you could predict, I'm much less impressed than you are; otoh, I know
> much less of the Bible's version of things. I'd be interested to hear
> more.
>
Nothing profound, I would never ascribe an actual event by event
timeline to creation and would not expect someone to be objectively
impressed by the account in scripture. But, it seems to me modern
cosmology and particle physics are nearer to the poetic resonance of
scripture than to the tight bundle of certainty it held to a short
while back.

> I'll give voice right now to the cynical view of all those ancient
> writings that turn out to predict modern science.

Truly, and you could as well have a cynical view of rather recent
science's ability to predict modern science.


Greek philosophers
> talked of atoms; others, apparently more of them, talked of matter being
> continuous. Greek philosophers talked of the Earth moving around the Sun;
> others, definitely more of them, insisted that the Earth was fixed at the
> center of things. And so on. If you think hard enough about things, you
> will come up with pretty much all the possibilities, and each of them will
> find an advocate somewhere, and one of those advocates will turn out to
> have been right when really good evidence becomes available.
>

Additionally you can interpret an expression that may have had nothing
to do with what you are applying it to in such a way that it has
current meaning. I know that.

> (The above is oversimplified and ignores the value of thinking about
> things that are far from fully understood. I said I was giving the cynical
> side.)

And I was approaching it from the other side. If you know God and keep
your eyes open, you can see his handiwork all over the place, you get a
"ah, that makes sense, that fits" feeling with all sorts of new things
you learn. You can almost physically feel His hand on your shoulder
pointing out new wonders.

Daryl
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

Dan Drake wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Jun 2006 13:15:19 UTC, "AJA" <ahnemann RemoveThis @optonline.net> wrote:
>
>
It's hard to ponder big questions
> coolly, and wind up making what sounds like concessions, when you're under
> constant attack, much of it irrational;

Do you really think this is a problem? Do you believe scientists
(especially biologists) honestly feel threatened by such irrational
attacks? You should, for a moment look on the other side, I know from
personal experience, that religion is ridiculed in the classrooms. I
haven't conducted a study to determine how often, but it happens. Are
you surprised that people, who possibly lack the tools to defend their
faith, are angry?



Intention or
> purpose is one of Aristotle's classes of cause; but it is not on the
> agenda in science. Thus science is unable to answer many questions that
> matter to many people, as it refuses even to ask them. Different people
> are bothered to different extents by this.

And some of the questions science asks it has no business asking. :-O

Science is a way of looking at things, a way of gathering information,
a branch (and only a branch) of epistemology. It does, though logically
not permitted to, then turn and try to examine metaphysical axioms that
it assumes in order to work. It amounts to a sort of philosophical
division by zero


>
> > Why do all organisms have a 'use'?

>
> 'Use' is a hard concept to nail down, and has been duly mocked by Voltaire
> and (I presume) Dawkins; that doesn't necessarily make it wrong, just very
> tricky. The general fitting-together of organisms, to which I'd reduce (*)
> most ideas of usefulness, was cleverly explained in 1859; and biologists,
> when wearing their biologist-hats (**), find that Darwin's explanation
> only gets stronger with time and additional information.

Here I agree with you, though there may be some purpose for the
existance of an organism it would appear that way if they simply
existed. The proposal then lacks deniability unless one could imagine
what an organism would be like that didn't have a use.


Meanwhile, many scientists and
> sympathizers are scandalized by the idea of a powerful Deity precisely
> because if there were one, we would never be sure he wouldn't cross up our
> experiments arbitrarily;

Doesn't quantum theory do that anyway Perhaps God is playing with
our heads, or perhaps, having spirits, we are helping create the
universe as we go.


Daryl


Daryl
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

AJA wrote:

> I've said this before here, but again, I see nothing in science which would
> preclude belief in God. I'm not a strict Biblical literalist, but believe
> that Scripture is inspired by God. But that science and faith inform each
> other. (Say it's all in Plato- or Aristotle)
> A couple of points, which btw some of my scientist acquaintances agree with.
> Science is the observation (ours) of the workings of a remarkable creation.
> It is difficult to maintain that the existing highly complicated conditions
> allowing for our existence has no purpose.
> If science intends to postulate a purpose for the cosmos and the existence
> of life in that cosmos, and sentience/consciousness, then science has to
> think out of the box somehow.
> There is that pesky beginning point. Why begin at all, and all those other
> questions about the beginning. Why can we observe it at all?
> Why do all organisms have a 'use'?
> 'Faith' is an important part of the scientific process.
> Faith that can't consider science and science that negates/ignores faith is
> half baked. Science is not mere experimentation as the observation part
> requires a thought process with elements closely akin to faith.
> Matthew's Aristotle sig quote is accurate.

How do you reconcile the Creation timeline (several thousand years) with the
timeline established by geologists and paleontologists (4.5 billion years)?
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

I'm so appreciating what you are all writing on this subject. My leading is
essentially in line with what Daryl writes below.
<darylgene.DeleteThis@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1151094041.926935.285380@b68g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> And I was approaching it from the other side. If you know God and keep
> your eyes open, you can see his handiwork all over the place, you get a
> "ah, that makes sense, that fits" feeling with all sorts of new things
> you learn. You can almost physically feel His hand on your shoulder
> pointing out new wonders.

I wrote earlier:
> Science is the observation (ours) of the workings of a remarkable
> creation.
> It is difficult to maintain that the existing highly complicated
> conditions
> allowing for our existence has no purpose.
Dan wrote:
For some, quite difficult; for some, not. Really, I can speak for people
who have never been much bothered by the question. It is, of course, just
the sort of question that experiments and mathematical proofs can't
address. I.e., it's outside of what science looks at. [Insert parable
about looking for your keys where the light is good.]
Me:
> If science intends to postulate a purpose for the cosmos and the existence
> of life in that cosmos, and sentience/consciousness, then science has to
> think out of the box somehow.
Dan:
It's so far out of the box that it isn't science. You know, of course,
that I don't mean "it isn't valid" when I say that.

Yes, I do know that. OK. First off, it's difficult for me to understand
people who are as involved in the workings of the cosmos as scientists are
not to be concerned, or doing some hard thinking, about the purpose of it
all. To the extent of how it all fits, at least.
Is purpose, then, pure philosophy? I wonder. It does seems that the
demarkation between science an philosophy is blurry at best. Scientists are
asking on a practical experiental level at least, why does such and such act
like that, which is close to thinking about purpose. (I've been looking at
NASA photos of galaxies, reading new speculations on their site, etc.) I
guess I continue to dream about there being a unified theory. But maybe
that is just God. ))

More anon.
Blessings,
Ann
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

Tim Bruening wrote:

>
> How do you reconcile the Creation timeline (several thousand years) with the
> timeline established by geologists and paleontologists (4.5 billion years)?


The timeline that literalists have created really have nothing to do
with God's time, and scripture says so for those willing to look. There
is the "day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day"
thing, and "before Abraham was I AM" . God does not say "I was the
Alpha and will be the Omega" obviously this dimension applys
differently.

Daryl
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

In article <vhIsdqY67dTD-pn2-DRyRkffsGtdK@localhost>,
"Dan Drake" <dd RemoveThis @dandrake.com> wrote:

> Oh, and I also like Matthew's sig line,

Thank you.

> which I presume he chose partly
> because Aristotle is so famous for supposedly not liking mathematics.

That wasn't a major consideration, but it is true that a similar
sentiment expressed by, say, Plato would be less striking. His
subsequent discussion of the point includes a statement that became one
of the major ingredients of Aquinas's aesthetic theory: "The chief forms
of the beautiful are order, symmetry and definiteness" (Metaphysics Mu
3).

> From
> another Matthew:
>
> Many things are not seen in their true nature and as they really are,
> unless they are seen as beautiful. Behavior is not intelligible, does
> not account for itself to the mind, and show the reason for its
> existing, unless it is beautiful.
> --Matthew Arnold

And this is an interesting counterpoint to the _other_ major ingredient
of that same theory: the beautiful is that with which a true
acquaintance ('apprehensio ipsa') gives pleasure. Thus Arnold says you
won't know the true nature unless you see beauty, Aquinas that you can't
(reliably) detect beauty until you know the true nature.

Best wishes,
Matthew

--
Those who assert that the mathematical sciences have nothing to say
about the good or the beautiful are mistaken. -- Aristotle
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

<darylgene.DeleteThis@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1151164855.405249.121990@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com...
>
> Tim Bruening wrote:
>
>>
>> How do you reconcile the Creation timeline (several thousand years) with
>> the
>> timeline established by geologists and paleontologists (4.5 billion
>> years)?
>
>
> The timeline that literalists have created really have nothing to do
> with God's time, and scripture says so for those willing to look. There
> is the "day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day"
> thing, and "before Abraham was I AM" . God does not say "I was the
> Alpha and will be the Omega" obviously this dimension applys
> differently.
>
> Daryl

Typical religious 'creationist'!

Religion is things hoped for but not yet seen or proven. Science is things
seen and proven but not necessarily hoped for.



The objective evidence is that no gods created man but quite the opposite;
that man created imaginary gods! (thousands of them!)
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

"James" <bireda.TakeThisOut@allvantage.com> wrote in message
news:8v25c2hdjqro40bckderl5psasj5vvug6e@4ax.com...
>> Tim Bruening <tsbrueni.TakeThisOut@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us>
>>Re: Science and God
>>
>>How do you reconcile the Creation timeline (several thousand years) with
>>the
>>timeline established by geologists and paleontologists (4.5 billion
>>years)?
>
> Hello,
>
> How do you define the "Creation timeline"? Do you mean how old the
> earth and universe is?
>
>
> Sincerely, James


Hi James,
I assume you're asking your question of Bruening, right?
Blessings,
Ann
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

James wrote:

> > Tim Bruening <tsbrueni.TakeThisOut@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us>
> >Re: Science and God
>
> >
> >
> >AJA wrote:
> >
> >> I've said this before here, but again, I see nothing in science which would
> >> preclude belief in God. I'm not a strict Biblical literalist, but believe
> >> that Scripture is inspired by God. But that science and faith inform each
> >> other. (Say it's all in Plato- or Aristotle)
> >> A couple of points, which btw some of my scientist acquaintances agree with.
> >> Science is the observation (ours) of the workings of a remarkable creation.
> >> It is difficult to maintain that the existing highly complicated conditions
> >> allowing for our existence has no purpose.
> >> If science intends to postulate a purpose for the cosmos and the existence
> >> of life in that cosmos, and sentience/consciousness, then science has to
> >> think out of the box somehow.
> >> There is that pesky beginning point. Why begin at all, and all those other
> >> questions about the beginning. Why can we observe it at all?
> >> Why do all organisms have a 'use'?
> >> 'Faith' is an important part of the scientific process.
> >> Faith that can't consider science and science that negates/ignores faith is
> >> half baked. Science is not mere experimentation as the observation part
> >> requires a thought process with elements closely akin to faith.
> >> Matthew's Aristotle sig quote is accurate.
> >
> >How do you reconcile the Creation timeline (several thousand years) with the
> >timeline established by geologists and paleontologists (4.5 billion years)?
>
> Hello,
>
> How do you define the "Creation timeline"? Do you mean how old the
> earth and universe is?

Yes.
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

In article <449D1A11.CAEECCDE.TakeThisOut@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us>,
Tim Bruening <tsbrueni.TakeThisOut@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>How do you reconcile the Creation timeline (several thousand years) with the
>timeline established by geologists and paleontologists (4.5 billion years)?

Not all, by any means, of those who belive in a Divine Creation,
believe it happened only a few thousand years ago.

Just the other day, I saw a program with Hugh Ross (on Trinity
Broadcasting Network, of all things) talking about life having
existed on Earth for 3.8 billion years.

(I removed mn.humor from the crosspost... mn.humor? Huh??!?)

--
Tagon: "Where's your sense of adventure?" | Mike Van Pelt
Kevyn: "It died under mysterious circumstances. | mvp at calweb.com
My sense of self-preservation found the body, | KE6BVH
but assures me it has an airtight alibi." (schlockmercenary.com)
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

"Christopher J. Henrich" <chenrich DeleteThis @monmouth.com> wrote in message
news:260720061355068577%chenrich@monmouth.com...
> In article <nwxxg.4196$Qn6.536@fe09.lga>, AJA <ahnemann DeleteThis @optonline.net>
> wrote:
>>>
> For me, it was a breath of fresh air just to learn, or be reminded,
> that there is an ongoing discussion of the relation between science and
> religion, by intelligent people sympathetic to both sides. I recommend
> the books of Paul Davies, Michael Ruse, and John Polkinghorne.

Yes. Polkinghorne was a revelation to me. What a force.
This quote that came yesterday in alt.quotations is interesting, I think:

All explorers on the frontiers of nature ultimately must confront the
futility of banishing faith from science. From physics and neural
science to psychology and sociology, from mathematics to economics,
every scientific belief combines faith and facts in an inextricable
weave. Climbing the epistemic hierarchy, all pursuers of truth
necessarily reach a point where they cannot prove their most crucial
assumptions.
--George Gilder, "Evolution and Me", _National Review_, July 17, 2006

I came to see that the computer offers an insuperable obstacle to
Darwinian materialism. In a computer, as information theory shows, the
content is manifestly independent of its material substrate. No
possible knowledge of the computer's materials can yield any
information whatsoever about the actual content of its computations.
In the usual hierarchy of causation, they reflect the software or
"source code" used to program the device; and, like the design of the
computer itself, the software is contrived by human intelligence.
The failure of purely physical theories to describe or explain
information reflects Shannon's concept of entropy and his measure of
"news." Information is defined by its _independence_ from physical
determination: If it is determined, it is predictable and thus by
definition not information. Yet Darwinian science seemed to be
reducing all nature to material causes.
As I pondered this materialist superstition, it became increasingly
clear to me that in all the sciences I studied, information comes
first, and regulates the flesh and the world, not the other way around.
[...]
Salient in virtually every technical field--from quantum theory and
molecular biology to computer science and economics--is an increasing
concern with the _word_. It passes by many names: logos, logic, bits,
bytes, mathematics, software, knowledge, syntax, semantics, code,
plan, program, design, algorithm, as well as the ubiquitous
"information." In every case, the information is independent of its
physical embodiment or carrier.
Biologists commonly blur the information into the synecdoche of DNA, a
material molecule, and imply that life is biochemistry rather than
information processing. But even here, the deoxyribonucleic acid the
bears the word is not itself the word. Like a sheet of paper or a
computer memory chip, DNA bears messages but its chemistry is
irrelevant to its content. The alphabet's nucleotide "bases" form
"words" without help from their bonds with the helical sugar-phosphate
backbone that frames them. The genetic words are no more dictated by
the chemistry of their frame than the words in Scrabble are determined
by the chemistry of their wooden racks or by the force of gravity that
holds them.
--George Gilder, "Evolution and Me", _National Review_, July 17, 2006
[_italics_ as printed, my ellipses]

I think that's it is simply popular today to deny faith- or dismiss it as
delusional somehow. And then there is the fact that many scientists just
don't think about faith vs. science per se.

Blessings,
Ann
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <449D1A11.CAEECCDE.RemoveThis@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us>,
> Tim Bruening <tsbrueni.RemoveThis@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> >How do you reconcile the Creation timeline (several thousand years) with the
> >timeline established by geologists and paleontologists (4.5 billion years)?
>
> Not all, by any means, of those who belive in a Divine Creation,
> believe it happened only a few thousand years ago.
>
> Just the other day, I saw a program with Hugh Ross (on Trinity
> Broadcasting Network, of all things) talking about life having
> existed on Earth for 3.8 billion years.
>
> (I removed mn.humor from the crosspost... mn.humor? Huh??!?)
>
> --
> Tagon: "Where's your sense of adventure?" | Mike Van Pelt
> Kevyn: "It died under mysterious circumstances. | mvp at calweb.com
> My sense of self-preservation found the body, | KE6BVH
> but assures me it has an airtight alibi." (schlockmercenary.com)


Then how do we understand what is meant LITERALLY asnd what not?
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

"SS13" <sagron DeleteThis @freenet.de> wrote in message
news:1154129746.997029.257440@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
>
> Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>> In article <449D1A11.CAEECCDE DeleteThis @pop.dcn.davis.ca.us>,
>> Tim Bruening <tsbrueni DeleteThis @pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>> >How do you reconcile the Creation timeline (several thousand years) with
>> >the
>> >timeline established by geologists and paleontologists (4.5 billion
>> >years)?
>>
>> Not all, by any means, of those who belive in a Divine Creation,
>> believe it happened only a few thousand years ago.
>>
>> Just the other day, I saw a program with Hugh Ross (on Trinity
>> Broadcasting Network, of all things) talking about life having
>> existed on Earth for 3.8 billion years.
>
>
> Then how do we understand what is meant LITERALLY asnd what not?

CSL had some elucidating thoughts on this question. As to the Old Testament
Lewis says that it is of the same sort of material as of all literature, but
taken in the service of God's word. _Reflections on the Psalms_. He says
that due to his (vast) experience with literary criticism, however, the
Gospels have the ring of literal truth. _God in the Dock_, _Christian
Relections_, _Surprised by Joy_.
More directly to our question about Creation Lewis writes that the Genesis
account of Creation is told in the form of a folk tale, but relays the idea
of Creation in the rigorous sense of the word. The rigorous sense was that
God created the world and all that is in it, and populated it with mankind
and beast, and saw that it was good.

For the details of what you are asking above, as to what is meant literally
and what not, ultimately one has to look to the traditions of the Church
(meaning the wide Christian Church) for direction. Without that tradition,
those who count themselves as within the faith, Christians, can go off the
rails on either side For instance, some 'Literalists' drink poison and
handle poisonous snakes to prove their faith and some 'revisionists' deny
Jesus is Lord. But in my experience Scripture, Tradition, Experience,
Reason are necessary for discernment. (Very Methodist, that.)

Blessings,
Ann
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God