Many of the questions we received at our recent God and science forum don’t have much to do with science so they aren’t on the docket to be answered. Although this next question fits the “non-science” criteria, I thought it deserved some attention anyway because it can be seen as remotely scientific in nature.
How should Christians regard things such as the Mayan calendar? What are your thoughts on the 2012 theory?
To be honest, although this theory based largely on the Mayan calendar has many scientific elements to it, this is more a question about religion than science. Because the final cycle of the Mesoamerican long count calendar ends in December of the year 2012, and because of some strange things set to happen in our solar system around the same time, many believe that the year 2012 will either bring the end of the world, or will do the opposite, and bring some massive level of advancement to the human race.
The reality is this. Most of the thoughts brought forth in the various 2012 theories are more metaphysical than scientific – having their roots in the New Age movement, and scientists are downplaying the events causing change in the solar system of that year as fairly normal and harmless occurrences (normal except for the extreme rarity in which they occur, every 225 million years or so). If you’re looking for extensive info on this theory and all it entails simply Google “2012”. But as far as how we as Christians should regard this theory, I say not at all.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
Close encounters of the third kind!
Is life possible on other planets, if so would God have created this as well?
Yes it’s possible. Is it likely, I’m not sure? I think I’m much more open to the idea of little green men than most Christians are, but the universe is 98 billion light years across. Since God is about his glory, then I just don’t see any reason to rule out the possibility that he has other intelligent life forms on other planets in the distant universe worshiping him. The reality is its speculation. The Bible doesn’t address the possibility in any fashion, so there isn’t much point in putting energy into it from a theological perspective. From a scientific perspective I agree with the spending of money to search for other life as this serves as a way for us to understand God’s universe better.
There is an interesting hypocrisy I find in many Christians regarding this issue. When it comes to our own testimony about God we say things like “always tell your testimony”, or “no one can deny what God has done in your life”, or “your testimony is your great witnessing tool”, so that we build up testimony about a God no one can see as a valid argument to others as to why we believe in him. Then when we hear people give testimony of alien encounters we think they are crazy, superstitious, or making it up. What’s the difference? Our testimonies often sound just as crazy to people who don’t believe as those people preaching about aliens sound to us. Now I certainly believe that there are a ton of other reasons to believe in God than a person’s testimony, but when we close ourselves off to possibilities that God has not closed off himself, I think there is something contradictory about that.
Yes it’s possible. Is it likely, I’m not sure? I think I’m much more open to the idea of little green men than most Christians are, but the universe is 98 billion light years across. Since God is about his glory, then I just don’t see any reason to rule out the possibility that he has other intelligent life forms on other planets in the distant universe worshiping him. The reality is its speculation. The Bible doesn’t address the possibility in any fashion, so there isn’t much point in putting energy into it from a theological perspective. From a scientific perspective I agree with the spending of money to search for other life as this serves as a way for us to understand God’s universe better.
There is an interesting hypocrisy I find in many Christians regarding this issue. When it comes to our own testimony about God we say things like “always tell your testimony”, or “no one can deny what God has done in your life”, or “your testimony is your great witnessing tool”, so that we build up testimony about a God no one can see as a valid argument to others as to why we believe in him. Then when we hear people give testimony of alien encounters we think they are crazy, superstitious, or making it up. What’s the difference? Our testimonies often sound just as crazy to people who don’t believe as those people preaching about aliens sound to us. Now I certainly believe that there are a ton of other reasons to believe in God than a person’s testimony, but when we close ourselves off to possibilities that God has not closed off himself, I think there is something contradictory about that.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Rapid Fire!
Today I’m going to answer a few of the questions from the God and science forum on one blog because there were many questions that require very short answers.
Q. Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?
A. This is impossible to know and I’m not sure that the answer matters much. If they had them then God created them that way, but obviously they would not have received them in the way that the rest of us did.
Q. Are you saying that Jesus evolved from an amoeba?
A. No, in fact at the forum we said the opposite. We all made it clear that we do not believe in large scale evolution which would teach that all living things had a common ancestor evolved from a single cell organism. We all believe in smaller scale evolution which includes mutations within kinds, and that natural selection and speciation are common occurrences. We all believe however that humans are a unique creation by God as are “kinds” of animals.
Q. Is the behemoth in Job actually a dinosaur?
A. I don’t think we can know the answer to this question because the Bible isn’t clear about exactly what the behemoth was. But it is clear that dinosaurs existed and that they were really cool.
Q. How does the Bible explain the ice age?
A. It doesn’t. This is one of many occurrences that happened on earth that does not get discussed in the Bible. The Bible is not a history book looking to catalogue all that has ever happened, it’s a story about God redeeming his people. The ice age doesn’t fit the criteria for what God was trying to accomplish in Scripture.
Q. What about shape shifters?
A. I have no idea.
Q. Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?
A. This is impossible to know and I’m not sure that the answer matters much. If they had them then God created them that way, but obviously they would not have received them in the way that the rest of us did.
Q. Are you saying that Jesus evolved from an amoeba?
A. No, in fact at the forum we said the opposite. We all made it clear that we do not believe in large scale evolution which would teach that all living things had a common ancestor evolved from a single cell organism. We all believe in smaller scale evolution which includes mutations within kinds, and that natural selection and speciation are common occurrences. We all believe however that humans are a unique creation by God as are “kinds” of animals.
Q. Is the behemoth in Job actually a dinosaur?
A. I don’t think we can know the answer to this question because the Bible isn’t clear about exactly what the behemoth was. But it is clear that dinosaurs existed and that they were really cool.
Q. How does the Bible explain the ice age?
A. It doesn’t. This is one of many occurrences that happened on earth that does not get discussed in the Bible. The Bible is not a history book looking to catalogue all that has ever happened, it’s a story about God redeeming his people. The ice age doesn’t fit the criteria for what God was trying to accomplish in Scripture.
Q. What about shape shifters?
A. I have no idea.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
God and science answers begin!
Well everyone, last Sunday was fun for me. I love talking theology and science at the same time. I hope it was informative. We received about four times as many questions as could be answered in one night, so Jordan and I are going to try and tackle these questions on our blogs over the coming weeks. Please keep checking back until your question is answered.
Here is the link to Jordan’s blog – www.faithfulreason.wordpress.com.
My first question is this – After Cain is sent away, who is his wife if only Adam, Eve, and Abel existed?
First of all – JOIN A SMALL GROUP! Sorry for the shameless plug, but this topic was addressed in every small group last week and I love to see people in small groups, so please get in one so you can get answers to questions like this. But I will still give the short answer here.
Adam, Eve, and Abel were not the only people on earth. The Bible discusses these few people, but the Bible rarely gives the entire story surrounding many issues because this is not the Bible’s purpose. It is widely believed that Adam and Eve had had many children, grandchildren, and maybe even great grandchildren by the time Cain killed Abel and was sent into exile. Cain most certainly married one of his sisters, which sounds bad now but would not have been an issue in his time. The reason – because genetic defect is why marriage of close relatives today is so vile. In Cain’s day their genetics were still too pure to be an issue. Now lets get this strait, God himself bans incest in the Scripture. But the vile nature of incest was a later development that Cain did not have to worry about, and God did not ban it until later. To populate the earth, sibling marriage was necessary.
Here is the link to Jordan’s blog – www.faithfulreason.wordpress.com.
My first question is this – After Cain is sent away, who is his wife if only Adam, Eve, and Abel existed?
First of all – JOIN A SMALL GROUP! Sorry for the shameless plug, but this topic was addressed in every small group last week and I love to see people in small groups, so please get in one so you can get answers to questions like this. But I will still give the short answer here.
Adam, Eve, and Abel were not the only people on earth. The Bible discusses these few people, but the Bible rarely gives the entire story surrounding many issues because this is not the Bible’s purpose. It is widely believed that Adam and Eve had had many children, grandchildren, and maybe even great grandchildren by the time Cain killed Abel and was sent into exile. Cain most certainly married one of his sisters, which sounds bad now but would not have been an issue in his time. The reason – because genetic defect is why marriage of close relatives today is so vile. In Cain’s day their genetics were still too pure to be an issue. Now lets get this strait, God himself bans incest in the Scripture. But the vile nature of incest was a later development that Cain did not have to worry about, and God did not ban it until later. To populate the earth, sibling marriage was necessary.
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