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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/25/creationist-trial-bible-genesis-evolution
I don’t know about you but I am tired of people like this getting into the popular media. It just makes all those people who believe in God look like complete idiots. I mean he is actually claiming that things are ‘devolving’, rather than evolving in the universe. Who makes up this shit!? The evidence for evolution is freaking everywhere! /rant
There are some things on which we just cannot come to any conclusive decisions on. Creation v evolution is one of those things. The existence or otherwise of God is another one that is closely related. I have virtually no academic qualifications and consider myself to be an uneducated agnostic theist – I have no doubt that God exists but I do have many questions about the details. For more than 10 years now I have been in touch with hundreds of people on the web who have been drawn away from churches that they may have attended for many years. I find it very frustrating listening to some of the things that evangelical Christians and others are saying. But on the other hand I see the questioning that is going on and I find that exciting.
A little more food for thought:
I have been in touch with many former Christians who now describe themselves as atheists, some of whom reject religion of any kind, but who accept that there may be a spiritual aspect of life that they are not aware of. There have always been people who do not believe in God. Writers like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennet are very vociferous in their attack on theism (belief in God), insisting that you cannot prove beyond any doubt that God exists. But they often ask some very valid questions that the Christian religion doesn’t seem to have good answers for. The reality is surely that we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God. If God exists he/she/it originates from a place beyond the physical universe, and if this is true it is surely impossible for the evidence to exist within our human understanding. This has led me to think that a belief in God is something that lies outside the realms of intellect, logic and reason. To me the belief in sola scriptura and the inerrancy of the Bible makes no sense. Religion I would suggest, is all about what we think we know about God, while faith is about the personal relationship we think we have with God.A few months ago I watched a BBC TV series on ‘The History of the World’. The story of how Homo Sapiens moved out of Africa around 65,000 years ago (based on current understanding of DNA) and gradually spread to India, Asia and Australia, finally crossing the land bridge between Asia and America some 15,000 years ago was very interesting. The suggestion was that one branch turned NW into Europe about 45,000 years ago where the Neanderthal had been living for perhaps 250,000 years. They may have co-existed for between 5,000 and 10,000 years before they became extinct about 30,000 years ago (there are links in the DNA from which these theories are being developed).
These thoughts are obviously open to serious questioning but what really struck me was how civilization as we know it has only been around for some 10,500 years. I started programming computers in 1967 (when I was already 30). I was using a significant main frame computer with just 4K of memory in a room that needed its own air conditioning. I worked on a prototype word processor in 1969 using paper tape. I subsequently worked in a major computer centre that was open 363 days a year, 24 hours a day. There were two computers – one with 256K of memory and the other with 512K. During the day it was staffed by 9 operators and at night by 3.
That’s just some of the changes I have personally seen in 40 years. The speed of change is increasing. We have seen the rise and fall of many empires – life does not stand still. Whether we like it or not more and more people are thinking for themselves. The majority of older people will never venture outside their own comfort zones.
I’ve had an unusual journey – many of those reading this will see more changes than I will.
Maybe I can encourage others to think for themselves by sharing some of the questions that I have been considering (in anything but an academic way) over the years.
I hear you Shift. Sigh.
I’ve seen these wagers before. The requirements of “proof” are always so ridiculous that no one can prove anything. Hell even gravity is a theory and changes slightly as our understanding improves. None the less even though we cannot “prove” the theory of gravity is 100% accurate…we can quite safely conclude that if you stand on earth and drop a rock from your hand 100 times (precluding some intervening force) it will fall to the ground 100 times. We do not need to understand the physics of it to observe it.
Now this joker comes along and declares that science does not contradict the “literal” interpretation of the book of Genesis. That’s LITERAL…as in creation occurred a mere 6000 +or- years ago in a LITERAL span of 6 – 24 hour days. We do not have to have the details of the evolutionary process completely figured out to observe that this is utter nonsense.
I know exactly what you mean, the thoughts you have are the kind of thoughts that began to surface with the Enlightenment, that God, if he exists, exists outside of our realm of understanding and thus we cannot even begin to attempt to comprehend such an entity, nevermind try and prove/disprove God. I resonate with to a large degree, especially when I see standard church theology telling us that the Bible is the Word of God, and thus contains all the accounts of God we will ever need. Its basically like compacting God down into a tiny, tiny box, this all-powerful, majestic creator of the universe. And thus the Bible, not God or Jesus, becomes the idol of Christians, because they cling to it with dear life, believing it to be the only tangible information they have on God. The more you think into it, the more ludicrous their perception is and the more paradoxical their teachings are. They talk about this amazing, brilliant, all-knowing, all-powerful, infinite God, and they talk about him from the confines of a book written by people…
I will say though, that I believe God can be rationalized, we do have the brain power to apply logic to his existence, what God definitely lies beyond is science. And it is this what really irritates Atheists the most since they tend to like to quantify everything within the realms of science, everything has to be observed and proven thus to be valid, but it is fruitless to apply an aspect of God to such restrictions if God, by very definition, exists beyond our universe and plain of existence if you want, when science focuses on the analysis of the things WITHIN our universe. It makes the entire debate pointless and circular to an extent, because neither party can satisfy the other, Christians certainly cannot provide the solid proof for God’s existence that will satisfy the skeptic, and the skeptic can’t even begin to provide the scientific proof that he does not exist. All one can do is apply logic to it, see what we do know about the universe and how that can help to support or de-frame the idea of God, and unfortunately, because of that, there can never be agreement. People believe different things at the end of the day.
Its frankly unbelievable that this guy can try and claim scientific basis for the literal interpretation of the Bible, honestly some these Christians are just living on another planet half the time.
@Shift suggests that God can be rationalised. I have always had a special interest in natural history, and I have no recollection of ever doubting the existence of God. I think I can say that I rejected the biblical account of creation at least 60 years ago. Interesting, I once attended an introduction to the Old Testament by an Anglican theologian who ignored the myth and symbolism of the first 11 chapters of Genesis. It’s only in recent years that I’ve realised that this is not uncommon in the Anglican church. As a Brit I was interested to hear N T Wright comment on the very significant differences between us over the subject of fundamental beliefs.
With hindsight I can see that my beliefs over the years were based on head knowledge until about 7 years ago. Since then there has been a developing heart awareness. Even at the age of 13 I walked away from Sunday School rejecting the teaching I received about the trinity. When I read ‘The Shack’ 57 years later one of my first reactions was,”why has it taken 57 years for someone to give me a picture of the trinity that begins to make sense”.
My head knowledge was perhaps the way in which I had rationalised the presence of God. This heart awareness that I refer to is something quite different. I can only explain it as a difference between belief and trust (a distinction that many Christians would be unable to define). It was in 2006 that I saw the suggestion that faith is a catalyst that brings about a fusion between man and God – an intimate encounter – a treasure that needs to be experienced. I am suggesting that it is this position that willnever be arrived at by use of reason and logic. This is perhaps why I have far more empathy with atheists than I do with those Christians who think they have all the answers.
I know I’m only scratching the surface here – anyone interested in going deeper?
Sorry for the late reply, busy times! I do know what you mean by heart awareness, its almost like you just ‘know’ God exists and is there working with you. To be honest, I’ve had that feeling most of my life, and I never came from a Christian background nor had any real Christian influence in school, it was just there for some reason. That position indeed will never be reached from an application of logic and reason, but I still think God can be rationalised by an observation of the universe and via philosophy. We can also look to history for more concrete foundations for discussion. And well I perhaps have more empathy for Agnostics because their position is very much based on the uncertain, and really, if everybody were to suddenly adopt a humble stance, that is really the position everybody should be in… For anyone to claim they have all the answers is just nievity at its greatest height. We need more places like this, where there is a respect for people’s different view points (mostly).
And I would very much like to go deeper
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