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â—� Rev 14:6-7 . . And I saw another angel flying through the sky, carrying the everlasting gospel to preach to the people who dwell on the earth-- to every nation, tribe, language, and people. Fear God! he shouted. Give glory to Him! For the time has come when He will sit as judge. Worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all the springs of water!
Although most Christians readily agree that the cosmos is the result of intelligent design; they're divided over the very first two verses of Genesis which read like this:
1. In the beginning God created the Heaven and the earth. 2. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."
Some sincerely believe the second verse indicates that the cosmos pre-existed its current form. In other words: a great cataclysm wrecked the Earth so that God had to reconstruct it. Thus; we today live on a renovated Earth. This posit is the so-called Gap Theory; which is explained pretty well on Wikipedia.
Others, just as sincere, believe that the six days of creation shouldn't be taken as 24-hour events; rather, as epochs of indeterminate length. This posit is based upon Genesis 2:4, which reads like this:
"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven."
The Hebrew word for "day" in that verse is yowm (yome) which is the very same word for each of the six days of God's creation labors. Since yowm in Gen 2:4 refers to a period of time obviously much longer than 24 hours; it justifies suggesting that each of the six Days of creation were longer than 24 hours too. In other words: yowm is ambiguous and not all that easy to interpret sometimes.
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The Cosmos
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Re: The Cosmos
Post #11[font=Verdana].
When people reach what is commonly called the age of reasoning; some of their very first questions are: Why am I here? Where did I come from? What is the meaning of life, and is there a purpose for mine?
I think it's very normal (or at least very common) for people to seek a justification for their existence; and without it, they can only conclude that the human experience is futile; which can be roughly defined as serving no useful purpose; for example:
Nobel Prize winner, author of several best-selling books, and recipient of at least a dozen honorary degrees, physicist Steven Weinberg (who views religion as an enemy of science), in his book "The First Three Minutes" wrote: The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless. But if there is no solace in the fruits of our research, there is at least some consolation in the research itself . . . the effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of a farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.
What a dismal appraisal. In Mr. Weinberg's opinion, the human experience scarce escapes the categories of farce and tragedy; its quest for knowledge seems the only thing that gives humanity any justification to exist at all. The universe? It's just a meaningless void decorated with fascinating objects --a carnival side show of cosmic curiosities, so to speak.
Wouldn't it be sad if we only lived and died like insects and fungi? I mean, what would be the point of it all? They say a mind is a terrible thing to waste. What real advantage is it to have something so useful as a human mind if it's only going to die and stop working after many years of learning and experience? And what real advantage is it for the mind of the present to make the world a better place for the next generation of minds if the mind of the present doesn't live to see it? That's really no more significant an existence than that of the individuals in a bee hive or a termite colony.
I think people find comfort in perceiving themselves part of a grand scheme instead of walking across the stage of their all-too-brief life as an insignificant speck in a pointless cosmos. Belief that there's someone somewhere above themselves gives people's existence meaning and purpose which, in my opinion, is at least one of the reasons why supreme beings are so popular.
Galileo felt that science and religion are allies rather than enemies-- two different languages telling the same story; a story of symmetry and balance: heaven and hell, positive and negative, weak and strong, right and left, up and down, night and day, hot and cold, God and Satan. Science and religion are not at odds; no, in reality, science is just simply too young to understand.
Dr. Robert Jastow, founder of the Goddard Institute for space studies at NASA, in his book "God And The Astronomers" says: Strange developments are going on in astronomy. One of these is the discovery that the universe had a beginning. And that means there has to be a Beginner. The scientist has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak, and as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
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When people reach what is commonly called the age of reasoning; some of their very first questions are: Why am I here? Where did I come from? What is the meaning of life, and is there a purpose for mine?
I think it's very normal (or at least very common) for people to seek a justification for their existence; and without it, they can only conclude that the human experience is futile; which can be roughly defined as serving no useful purpose; for example:
Nobel Prize winner, author of several best-selling books, and recipient of at least a dozen honorary degrees, physicist Steven Weinberg (who views religion as an enemy of science), in his book "The First Three Minutes" wrote: The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless. But if there is no solace in the fruits of our research, there is at least some consolation in the research itself . . . the effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of a farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.
What a dismal appraisal. In Mr. Weinberg's opinion, the human experience scarce escapes the categories of farce and tragedy; its quest for knowledge seems the only thing that gives humanity any justification to exist at all. The universe? It's just a meaningless void decorated with fascinating objects --a carnival side show of cosmic curiosities, so to speak.
Wouldn't it be sad if we only lived and died like insects and fungi? I mean, what would be the point of it all? They say a mind is a terrible thing to waste. What real advantage is it to have something so useful as a human mind if it's only going to die and stop working after many years of learning and experience? And what real advantage is it for the mind of the present to make the world a better place for the next generation of minds if the mind of the present doesn't live to see it? That's really no more significant an existence than that of the individuals in a bee hive or a termite colony.
I think people find comfort in perceiving themselves part of a grand scheme instead of walking across the stage of their all-too-brief life as an insignificant speck in a pointless cosmos. Belief that there's someone somewhere above themselves gives people's existence meaning and purpose which, in my opinion, is at least one of the reasons why supreme beings are so popular.
Galileo felt that science and religion are allies rather than enemies-- two different languages telling the same story; a story of symmetry and balance: heaven and hell, positive and negative, weak and strong, right and left, up and down, night and day, hot and cold, God and Satan. Science and religion are not at odds; no, in reality, science is just simply too young to understand.
Dr. Robert Jastow, founder of the Goddard Institute for space studies at NASA, in his book "God And The Astronomers" says: Strange developments are going on in astronomy. One of these is the discovery that the universe had a beginning. And that means there has to be a Beginner. The scientist has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak, and as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
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