In the December issue of Discover Magazine, a purely secular magazine with no particular affinity for Christianity, noted science writer Tim Folger writes about a painfully inconveneint truth that has emerged as a consensus in scientific circles... He writes:
“Everything bears witness to this extraordinary fact about the universe; its basic properties are unannily suited for life. Tweak the laws of physics in just about any way and life would not exist. If the protons in atoms were just 2 tenths of one percent heavier, atoms could not exist. A slightly stronger gravitational pull and stars and our sun would burn up too quickly for life. The sun is just exactly the right distance from the earth to support life. A little closer or farther away and all life would burn up or freeze.
In fact there are a lot of really, really strange coincidences and all of these coincidences are such that they make life possible.
But, Physicists don’t like coincidences. They like even less the notion that life is somehow central to the universe, and yet recent discoveries are forcing them to confront that very idea. Life, it seems, is not an incidental component of the universe, burped up out of a random chemical brew on a lonely planet to endure for a few fleeting ticks of the cosmic clock. In some strange sense, it appears that we are not adapted to the universe; but the universe is adapted to us.
Call it a fluke, a mystery, or a miracle. Or you can call it the biggest problem of physics.”
How could everything in the universe be so precisely fine tuned to support human life on this small planet?
I tell you how. There is a God who created this universe for us.
Not only did he make it to support life, but he filled it with wonders and beauty much of which is still undiscovered and beyond our wildest imagination.
Sunrises and starry nights, flowers and seashores, mountains, lakes and streams. From the farthest nebula that our telescopes can scan to the elegance of the DNA strand. God did it all.
And God did it for us - a gift that we could enjoy and carefully pass along to the next generation.
Almost exactly 500 hundred years ago, a scientist by the name of Copernicus put forth the theory that the earth was not the center of the Universe, and all these years we know he was right. Now, we also know that while the earth may not be the center of our solar system, it seems that human life is at the center of the universe.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Science and Religion
The ongoing battle between "faith and science" is absurd. Don't you figrure that all truth is God's truth and, as such, science and Christianity are completely compatible. Science can and does answer questions that the Bible does not address. On the other hand, The Bible seeks to answer questions that science can never solve. Questions of love, beauty, and morality can not be quantified or tested in a lab. These matters are outside the scope of science's capacity. Faith, Hope and Forgiveness can't be reduced to an equation or verified by measurement or analysis.
Much of the debate and heat surrounding the creation/evolution discussion is generated by people who are trying to push science or Scripture beyond what either are capable of addressing. When science or Christian faith are in conflict either the scientist or the theologian have misinterpreted their respective "texts."
I think evangelical Christianity has often sought to force bad science of the world in Jesus' name when the science should have driven us back to make sure that we have been properly interpreting God's Word.
I think some intellectuals are guilty of trying to use scientific tests to disprove the existence of God and when they do so, they usually become poor philosophers and do science no favor.
Ross Douthat blogging for Atlantic Monthly this month lays out a rock solid case for the validity of religious dialogue and the foolishness of trying to establish "science" as the only possible path to truth. Science does provide us some truth, but there are limits to its capacity. Not all "truth' can be tested in a lab. The fact that a thing can't be tested doesn't make such truths any less truthful.
http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/02/science_and_beliefs.php
Much of the debate and heat surrounding the creation/evolution discussion is generated by people who are trying to push science or Scripture beyond what either are capable of addressing. When science or Christian faith are in conflict either the scientist or the theologian have misinterpreted their respective "texts."
I think evangelical Christianity has often sought to force bad science of the world in Jesus' name when the science should have driven us back to make sure that we have been properly interpreting God's Word.
I think some intellectuals are guilty of trying to use scientific tests to disprove the existence of God and when they do so, they usually become poor philosophers and do science no favor.
Ross Douthat blogging for Atlantic Monthly this month lays out a rock solid case for the validity of religious dialogue and the foolishness of trying to establish "science" as the only possible path to truth. Science does provide us some truth, but there are limits to its capacity. Not all "truth' can be tested in a lab. The fact that a thing can't be tested doesn't make such truths any less truthful.
http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/02/science_and_beliefs.php
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