Science may explain the way the world works as a practical matter, but it does not explain two important aspects of life, values and morality.
That is not the issue. That is a red herring.
The question is, “Is GOD Love or not?” If so, GOD is Relational and not Absolute, no matter what some theologians say.
I’m and archaeologist and amateur geologist. I deal with evidence. I have not seen evidence for the claims of Christianity.
I’ve been chided before for my certainty. I just don’t see any evidence for a supernatural creator. It makes no sense to me.
I think it does actually. I think morality and values are the same thing, but no matter. Both are human constructs that aid in ordering our society. Without them there would be more chaos than there already is, but they are a gift from a god.
I like the suggestion that quantum mechanics might be hinting that the fundamental reality of the universe is information. An omniscient God fits the bill pretty well.
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Information is Relational. Love is Relational. Even Power is Relational. Any way you look at is GOD, the Trinity, is Relational.
What claims would those be?
2 + 2 = 4 is Relational? Between a pair of 2s, I suppose.
I must assume that you are familiar with the Big Bang Theory, which states that before the origin of the universe there was no time or space, so the universe came into existence out of pure nothing.
I wasn’t there, but that is what science says. It does not prove that GOD created the universe, but honestly I cannot think of a better solution to how did this happen. Can you?
We can see that the universe is a collection of atoms and molecules, it is Many, but is it One? Does it have Unity that gives it purpose and meaning? If life has no purpose and meaning, then it is useless.
This is the why we have philosophy and theology. They are human constructs, but that does not mean that they are arbitrary, just as science is a human construct. Still, it is not arbitrary. 2 + 2 will always equal 4 no matter what we think.
Theology, philosophy, and science each gave a role to play in helping us live this life, and we need all the help we can get.
The Big Bang theory makes no claims about what the universe came from. The theory only states that the universe started out as a very compacted region of spacetime with a very high density of energy which then expanded quickly.
For some of us, “I don’t know” is preferrable. If we don’t have any evidence to go on there is no need to pick any solution.
I will happily agree that we need more than science. We are wonderful mix of objective thought, subjective thought, emotion, and faith, just to name a few of our attributes. Science can only ever satisfy the objective side so we need those other things to round out the human experience.
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Hi Mervin. I’m thinking of conception without intercourse, rising from the dead, snakes that talk, the flood.
Hi Roger. I think the Big Bang theory is the best explanation so far, but like you pointed out, the something from nothing concept is hard to fathom. So maybe it’s wrong. But suggesting a god created the universe is simply without evidence; that’s what matters to me.
I don’t believe that “science is a human construct”. How can that be? Like you said, “2 + 2 will always equal 4 no matter what we think.” isn’t that equation the same as science in the broad sense? Gravity would still exist even if humans never came on the scene.
Perhaps there is evidence that you cannot see? Or are unprepared to consider?
Have you never looked at the way the world is and thought “Surely this could not be made by chance?”
And, of course, that is besides any religious experiences that may or may not be avialable to us. The trouble is Christianity, like most religions, starts from faith rather than empirical evidence.
Richard
That’s understandable. A whole lot of Christians share in much of that same skepticism - and had all the various and asundry “magic tricks” been the only foundation put forward, one wonders if there would be anything left of “faith” worth salvaging.
The flood, as pictured in the context of ancient Near Eastern writings rather than modern creation science writings, is a devastating regional flood. Devastating regional floods do happen, and are often well-remembered. There is geologic evidence of many such events happening; the challenge is identifying which specific event is the one alluded to in the biblical text.
Conception without intercourse is specifically identified as an exception to the normal working of things in the Bible. The fact that rising from the dead is contrary to the norm is not explicitly stated but clearly implied. So the fact that it is an exception to the normal working of things is not, in itself, a good argument against its being true. What evidence would there be for such events besides a historical record? Certainly, one must investigate the reliability of such records. There are myriad spurious claims of miracles. But it is circular reasoning to reject such claims as impossible because they are miraculous and then claim this proves that the miraculous does not happen.
Exactly what is going on with the talking serpent is much less clear. Ancient extra-biblical Jewish traditions picture this as not an ordinary snake. The point is about temptation and evil, not herpetology, leaving appreciable uncertainty in interpretation of what was going on physically. The talking donkey, on the other hand, is more clearly an example of a claimed miraculous intervention contrary to the norm.
In fact, the use of miracles in the Bible is quite restricted. Jesus would not give a sign when it was demanded, and two of the three temptations were to use miracles. When a miracle happens, the miracle itself is restricted to achieving the essential; ordinary effort still is prominent. Thus, walking on water is not humanly possible, but hiking across the waves would not be an easy shortcut compared to walking around the lake in the normal manner. Thousands are fed with a few loaves and fish, and the leftovers carefully saved. The borrowed axe head floats and has to be picked up and fastened back on better. Miraculous conception of Jesus is affirmed in the Bible, but the virgin birth as promoted in Roman Catholicism is not - there is no evidence that the birth process was unusual in any way. Likewise, contrary to the fantasies of Gnostic and other writers, the lack of particular records about Jesus’s childhood most likely reflects that there was nothing extraordinary to record.
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Luke 1 (Bible Gateway NIV)
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called[b] the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”
That is what the virgin birth is based on. take it or leave it.
Richard
Clarification of terminology is needed. Luke 1:34-37 is one of many passages that clearly teach the virgin conception of Jesus. Although “virgin birth” is commonly used to refer to “born of a virgin”, “virgin birth” is also used in a technical sense to claim that the birth process for Jesus was different than normal. The latter claim is a part of many of the ideas that venerate Mary, but it is not supported from the Bible.
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What is expected for an evolutionary origin of feathers? First, we need to define what we mean by feathers. Feathery antennae and gills and leaves and various other things exist, but let’s focus on the hollow-shafted, branching, skin covering structures found on birds and some dinosaurs. In biological evolution, features originate through mutations and other genetic changes and are inherited by the descendants. Occasional hybridization or lateral transfer of DNA can transmit something outside the normal line of descent, but for eukaryotes such events are usually hybridization between close relatives and so do not generally produce anything drastically different from ordinary inheritance. Probably the commonest exception comes from viral DNA getting mixed into the genome. This contrasts with the much wider range of options available to an external designer, who could take parts from totally different sources or make a completely new approach (e.g., not using DNA).
For feathers to have originated through the process of biological evolution, we should expect to see the following:
The directions for making them are in DNA, similar to genes for anything else. They are most likely to have genetic relationships to the genes for making scales. Although DNA can mix and match in all sorts of ways, and a small mutation can lead to quite different functionality of a gene, the fact that scales are already produced at the surface of the skin and used for covering makes them a likely starting place for evolving a different sort of skin cover. (Note that the scales of archosaurs such as crocodiles, dinosaurs, and birds are rather different in detail from those of lepidosaurs such as snakes and lizards – their ancestral lineages split from each other at least by early in the Permian. But they are much closer to each other than either is to the reptile-grade synapsid ancestors of mammals.) In contrast, an external designer could build a totally different code for feathers than for other features. It’s probably more convenient to have the same code working throughout a particular genome, but feathered animals could be created with a different genetic code from non-feathered creatures, for example. Also, the DNA instructions for making feathers should, evolutionarily, be similar across the kinds of animals that have them. It would be possible for a designer to create multiple different versions of the directions to build a feather – there are myriad ways to build a gene that gives basically the same results.
The first feather-type structures, if we can find their fossils, will be relatively simple, with some later forms increased in complexity. In contrast, an intervention-style designer could have an idea for a complex structure and put it in fully formed. (Of course, a designer can have an idea and then elaborate it further, but there is no need for ideas to develop more gradually.) Essentially, this is the principle behind the arguments for specified or irreducible complexity. Truly irreducible complexity would indeed be a problem to explain as having evolutionary origins; the problem is that the purported examples of irreducible complexity are reducible.
Feathers will appear in a particular group of genetically related organisms and not be found randomly across other organisms. Although, as noted above, there are things with more or less feathery form, they do not have matching detailed structural and genetic similarities. Having some sort of repeatedly branched structure sticking out from an organism is a useful feature for varied functions, and quite plausibly could evolve multiple times in various ways. But when we narrowly define feathers to have specific details of structure, then we distinguish them from merely vague convergence. Intervention-style design, in contrast, could put true feathers on whatever creature it wanted. Just as car manufacturers can use an air-conditioning system developed for one model along with brakes developed for another model and headlights developed for another, a designer could make hippogriffs or plumed toads or feathered brachiopods (https://www.priweb.org/blog-post/feathered-brachiopod - note the date of posting).
A designer could, of course, use an evolutionary pattern. None of these tell us anything about whether such a designer is involved, despite many such claims from both atheistic and anti-evolutionary sources. But consistently seeing features of organisms follow these patterns strongly suggests that biological evolution is a good description of the normal process for creating new kinds of organism.
Feathers indeed are built using directions in DNA, with similar genes across those birds where it has been studied. In turn, those genes include ones with more distant similarities to the directions for making scales. We do have a wide range of dinosaurs (and pterosaurs) with skin structures that merely look hairy, rather than having the further branching that distinguishes feathers from hair. They may be proto-feathers, but they don’t fit the specific definition proposed above. Some theropod dinosaurs, and many birds, have some rather simple branching feathers. More complex feathers have barbules on the branches that allow them to interlock, providing a sturdier structure, more effectively coating the body for warmth and protection against water and dirt. Substantial feathers also provide increased surface area, which creates drag and thus slows falling, which is quite useful if you are jumping or gliding from branch to branch. The critical feather innovation for flight is to shape the feathers into airfoils.
Thus, feathers fit with the expectations for an evolutionary origin. They fit the nested hierarchy pattern – things with feathers are all a certain subset of the archosaurs, and have many other anatomical and genetic similarities. Many of these similarities have nothing to do with ability to fly; for example, birds are more similar to each other in the DNA coding for basic cell functions than they are to other organisms, even though a bird would function perfectly well with mitochondrial DNA resembling that of mammals, for example. There is a sequence that provides for stepwise evolution of feathers. Not all details of the process of evolving feathers are known; probably not all can be discovered by humans. But there is nothing about them which says that they could not be created through an evolutionary process.
Again, claims about evolution, including those found in textbooks and professors, often do have philosophical and theological claims mixed in that are not truly based on the science. But that does not show that the science itself is at fault.
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Why would he? WHy would he not just start from what He already had?
I repeat. Why would He?
That is a very bold statement to make.I do not think that you can justify it. Perhaps you have looked at ever single complex system and broken them down?
Why? That is not random. That is very specific.
Not if a specific type of creature is being created. The feather then becomes the keystone. It is versatile and solves many problems that blubber, or hair or just skin would pose. The bird is based around the feather.
For adaption and development, yes. But the original creation?
You are now reaching
Why would it? WHat would make a creature just jump? And then find that it could glide!
Yes. Quite a trick that. Especially as there needs to be secondary movements to make the flight possible. There is a great deal of difference betweena fixed wing and bird flight. But time can do anything!
But it does show a good imagination!
You should try and publish this.
I am sorry, but your attemt at logical reconstruction of evolutionary building feathers fails at almost every level from Science to Philosophy.
There is not enough actual examples of feathers outside birds to back up your model.
And the structure of a feather with its hollow frame and barbed fronds is just too conveneint for flight.
Richard