Introduction and thank you

Faith & Science Conversation
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Hello

First, I extend my gratitude to you all for this forum and web site: BioLogos. I am believer in Christ, and a programmer of software much like this forum we are typing. However, I actually became a believer the Summer after my first year as a biology undergrad. I came home and started telling my longtime friend all the cool things I was learning about evolution. When he objected with “But Matt --that’s not true! The Bible says…” I was confounded. What did the Bible have to do with biology? At the time, I did not know there was a creation/evolution debate. He kept going back to the Bible, which made no sense to me, and I was so confused! Eventually, I heard the Gospel message from a Ray Comfort video my friend showed me called “Hell’s Best Kept Secret” and I received Christ and became a believer.

I was a Creationist for a short time after that. Then, when I got frustrated with the issue, I set it aside. I reasoned that the thief on the cross went to Heaven regardless of what he thought about origins. Whether we believe we’re descended from monkeys or crafted out of corn and mud like they Mayans doesn’t make us good or bad people.

Six years ago my dad died. Then my childhood companion/pet cat of 17 years died. I had never grieved rightly and after some counseling a big old hole opened up in my soul and I’ve been struggling since. Questions about death, purpose, and cause. Things like:

  • Why would God put so much energy into blazars, yet not the miniscule(by comparison) energy that would be required to speak audibly to each of His children in their pain?
  • What would other scientific believers(SBs) think of the seeming miracles that I have experienced in my life?
  • If other SBs believe in miracles but not ID, how can they believe in one form of Providence but rule out the other?
  • I thought ID also included theistic evolution – why do so many seem to equate in with creationism?
  • What do other SBs think of OEC —and if it really even matters?
  • Do other Christians who also believe in evolution give much thought to the division between repeatable scientific phenomenon --the question of things that can happen --and what I think is called “natural history” --the more historical pursuit of saying “X, Y, and Z can happen – but what one actually happened at a given place and time”
  • A persistent, unanswered question relating to dogs, microevolution, and the fossil record
  • Why does God seem to love round things so much? From atomic orbits to cells to planets to galaxies?
  • What’s the point in having billions of years of death and evolution, only to send Christ after that?
  • What do biologist-Christians think about end times prophecies?

These are just some of the questions I’ve pondered and struggled with —mostly alone. You don’t have to answer them here. I include them to show a little of my interest. I hope to talk about them more in different topics.

Anyway, I am thankful for this place’s existence. I hope to have many fruitful discussions with other believers in the future.

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Welcome, Matthew. I hope you find lots of encouragement, comaraderie, and food for thought here. :slight_smile:

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Thank you!

I am very excited to get talking with you guys.

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Pick one of your more pressing questions and start a thread. Lots of them involve issues other people have spent a considerable amount of time thinking about too.

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I think that’s the best question: eyeballs, soap bubbles, tree rings, nipples, dung balls created by the beetles, wave dispersal…

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I’ve given much thought to those things—and I consider the alleged “division” between “repeatable scientific phenomena” and “natural history” an artificial one. ALL scientific observations involve the past, whether a nanosecond ago in the laboratory or 8 minutes ago in the sun or many years ago when I look at the stars.

Also, a great many Christian ministries (mostly Young Earth Creationist) obfuscate the meaning of “repeat-ability” in science. It is the fact that we can REPEAT THE OBSERVATIONS that matters, not that we can repeat the history of the earth or solar system in a lab. After all, is it solid science to say that Pluto take many many years to orbit the sun? After all, (1) nobody has ever observed Pluto do even one entire orbit of the sun, and (2) nobody has built a solar system in a lab.

Those types of artificial divisions, such as “observable science” or “empirical science” versus “historical science”, are usually promoted by people who are science ignorant. It is NOT true that the geologic column and what it tells us about the history of the earth is any less based on teh scientific method than the Germ Theory of Disease.

And, yes, it grieves me that many Christians have convinced the general public that such nonsense is somehow rooted in the teachings of Jesus Christ and identifies who is a good Christian.

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