For those of you who weren't at youth group, the message was about God the Father. To quote, "He is the uncreated Creator and the Sustainer of all that exists." A couple of things that were said got me to thinking (dangerous! :-))
First of all, I think it is interesting how we always seem to segregate God, ie God the Father is the Creator, while we see the Spirit hovering over the waters, and John 1 says "All things were made through [Christ] and without Him nothing was made that was made." And too, salvation, which we associate with Christ, was and is also a work of the Father and Spirit... you get the idea :-).
Second, Mr. Connolly said that modern science believes that matter always existed. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe their belief is more along the lines of matter spontaneously came into existance from random quantum fluctuations in the original vacuum. However, it is true that this belief does not make much sense. Intuitively we know something must have always existed. So much for checking our brains at the door of the church-how about at the door of the lab instead? :-)
Third, it really really bothers me when people equate the Big Bang Theory and Evolution. Although, yes, in its current form the big bang theory and Evolution seem to work together quite handily, the key word there is "seem." Really the big bang, as far as I know about it, seems to be evidence for creation. Think about it for a moment. First, we have nothing. Then, all of a sudden, the universe spontaneously comes to existance and explodes into something like its current form. How about Gen. 1:1?* I wrote a paper once on this subject; I called it Bumper Sticker Big Bang after a (guess what?) bumper sticker I saw once: God spoke and BANG! it happened. :-)
Here's a quote from the American Atheist magazine that was on the outline for the message:
"Christianity has fought, still fights and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, for evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus' earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of God. Take away the meaning of his death. If Jesus was not the redeemer who died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing."
*Here is my personal possible interpretation of Gen. 1:1-3... (which we'll get more into if we debate the age of the earth... by the way, I've heard a couple of opinions, but nobody has said whether they'll debate or not-will you? If not, will you read the debate? I really want to know :-)).
v. 1: "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". The Big Bang, in other words :-). God creates matter/energy, perhaps even just the elemental particles (whatever they turn out to be :-))-then again, maybe in really basic forms, such as water (see next verse). Notice He must also create all the physical laws, and the entire basic makeup of the universe-something we rarely think about :-)
v. 2: "and the earth was formless and void and darkness covered the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the waters"
v 3: "and God said 'let there be light' and there was light"-maybe all energy, though matter and energy are pretty connected-who knows? :-) Then, in my humble opinion :-), God spent the rest of the time organizing the matter and energy He just created.
I don't know-maybe? This is just how I think of it :-).
5 comments:
Hmmm...interesting thoughts...getting me thinking. ^_^
a) I do think that it is interesting; sometimes it bothers me a little. Why do Christians "segregate" God? My guess is that it makes things easier. We have trouble understanding the Trinity, so we "classify" them(much like stereotypes); and in our minds we separate the persons of the Trinity by their "main jobs" and attribute them to one or the other, though all three took part. Does that make sense?
b) Technically, with the big bang theory, scientists believe that matter has always existed in the temporal state we are in now. To explain(and bear with me, it can get a little confusing): at the point of singularity, a.k.a. the big bang, matter was so tightly packed that all the matter of the universe was at a single point(thus the singularity). Once the point exploded(and it had to; because at a point the total energy of the matter will outweigh the force of gravity holding it together), time "began"(and this is kinda complex; from what I gather it means that now time was measurable). However, anything before the point of singularity was impossible to measure, because all calculations break down at that point. So as far as scientists are concerned, matter always existed in the temporal state we are in now.
But that is not to say that I disagree with what you said. ^_^ And spontaneous generation is definitely amusing(and silly).
c) Agreed(about the evolution/big bang point and the rest of it). ^_^ Even if what I described above was true, something would still have to be holding all that matter together until the point where the universe was made; otherwise, there would be no big bang, as the matter would have no reason to stay so tightly packed that it explodes with the force told of in the big bang theory.
*: I said that I would debate(at least I am pretty sure I did)! ^_^ And I'll read it too, assuming that other people will be debating as well. ^_^
This is an interesting interpretation, and it actually makes quite a bit of sense. ^_^ I have always been careful not to interpret Bible verses too deeply (and this is on of the reasons I have less strong opinions in the area that you wish to debate--there is little firm evidence and quite a bit of speculation), due to the risk of believing misinterpretations, but at the same time I enjoy reading a variety of interpretations, and seeing what people come up with. ^_^ But thank you for sharing your interpretation.
By the way, because I do not have strong opinions does not mean I will not debate, in fact it just means that I will pay even more attention to the debate--as we are not just going over things that we know much on, but we are also going into new territory. Oh, I am looking forward to this. ^_^
v 3: As a brief note for amusement, energy has no matter, though matter has energy. To explain: think, if you will, of a gamma particle. It is pure energy; no mass, no particles composing it. There is no substance of matter in energy. However, consider, if you will, a rock. A rock has a lot of /potential/ energy, and if someone shoves it down a hill, that potential energy is on a perfect ebb-and-flow conversion with kinetic energy. So energy has no matter, but matter has energy. Or at least that is as far as I understand it. Amusing, huh?
--Josiah C.
a) That's my hypothesis too :-)
b) spontaneous generation has to do with life, does it not?
Oh, so my original thought (that in v1 God created matter, and in v3 energy) is possible still... I guess I got confused - too many postulates and possibilities rolling around in my brain :-).
b) Well, spontaneous generation has to do with the creation of matter from nothing. There is a part of that which refers to life from nothing, but the simple definition(which nobody really thinks about) is that if anything appeared out of nothing, it has spontaneously generated. ^_^
--Josiah C.
Josiah,
You said in point c) of your first comment that "Even if what I described above was true, something would still have to be holding all that matter together until the point where the universe was made; otherwise, there would be no big bang, as the matter would have no reason to stay so tightly packed that it explodes with the force told of in the big bang theory."
Actually there would still be a Big Bang. For whatever reason I have been thinking about black holes for the past few days. If you think about them, according to the second law of thermodynamics (if I remember correctly,) since all things go from orderly to disorderly eventually, in a scenario where there is no god to intervene but matter has always existed, black holes or something like them would end up swallowing the whole universe. After this happened the pressure would be so great that all matter would be moved together to the point where there are no gaps between the atoms, if the pressure reached this point shouldn't the whole thing reach critical mass and explode like an atomic bomb? This would allow for basically an infinite number of resets and second tries for those who back the evolution idea, since every 100 billion years or so the universe would implode and then explode again.
Jesse:
By the way--thanks for commenting; 'tis nice to have another person to debate. Speaking of which, the debate is on the link at the top that says "forum"; I will be joining the debate shortly and would love it if you could to. ^_^
Anyway:
Sorry, I was kinda vague. Here is a brief counter, as the full detail is rather lengthy...
A couple issues with your black hole theory:
1) Stephen Hawking(whom I love quoting from, apparently ^_^) did a lecture on black holes. He mentioned that as black holes continuously absorbed entropy via extreme gravity, the only way to have them not violate the second law was for them to expand(and this part goes with your theory). However, they are not continuously expanding, in fact, in the equations, black holes should get smaller and smaller until they do not exist(over many millions of years, of course). Why? The answer is complex, but basically(and I mean /really/ basically ^_^) black holes actually emit enormous amounts of radiation, countering the increase of entropy inside the black hole, thus causing the black hole to not expand, but rather become smaller..
2) Also, if the black holes absorbed all matter in the universe: in the process of such, the universe would experience a massive decrease of entropy, clearly violating the second law.
3) Other problems: black holes are singularities--just like the big bang. But you don't hear of black holes reaching critical mass and exploding. Why? Because the gravitic and nuclear forces far outweigh the possibility of the atoms repelling each other--speaking of which, it is a singularity; there really are no atoms to repel each other, so to speak--as there is no distance between them, they are practically fused.
4) But let us say that all the matter in the universe was being gathered together. Both the gravitic and nuclear forces, plus the forces of kinetic energy and magnetism would be approaching infinity(because the energy and repelling magnetism would wish to be separate, and gravity and nuclear forces would be pulling everything together). Either a) energy/magnetism/whatever else "hit" infinity first and outweigh the other forces, in which case the matter would separate before it came together. b) They both equal out, and all matter remains in stasis, because the forces acting upon them are equal. Or c) Gravitic and other forces "hit" infinity first, and all matter becomes a singularity. Any way, matter cannot become a singularity and then explode, because for it to do so, one force must outweigh the other, and if that happened then either it never would have become a singularity, or it would have remained one.
So technically, the black hole theory won't work. It is kinda late and I am tired, so I may have missed or forgotten something, but I invite debate--being challenged is so much fun. ^_^
--Josiah C.
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