Scientifically Minded Christians

[Christian-Catholic]

I am going to look at your link. Thank you. And it is comforting to know a biology professor can have faith

MCA, evolution may or may not be true, but there are a few things to look at here and those 2 things are can Chance and Chemicals alone account for the complex specified information in DNA and what are the odds of Life arising by blind chance and chemical reactions.

Ill give you a video for the first question that is extremely easy to understand.

Pay particular attention to minutes 4 through 8 .

Dr. Stephen Meyer: Chemistry/RNA World/crystal formation can't explain genetic information - YouTube

As far as life arising from chance and chemical interaction there are a few good articles that will help.
TBR.cc: The chances of life arising randomly...


You should also do some research into veridical near death experiences which have compelling evidence for an afterlife.
One of the top cardiologist out of denmark Doctor Pim van lommel was an atheist materialist before he started to do research on a specific near death experience called veridical near death experience.

In this video interview Lommel explains what Made him leave his materialistic views in favor of a spiritual worldview (granted he isnt a Christian but he is a spiritualist that now believes in an after life). He left materialism on the basis of the evidence that he found from his research into this field.

Present! - Pim van Lommel (part one) Consciousness Beyond Life - YouTube

Present! - Pim van Lommel (part two) Consciousness Beyond Life - YouTube

 

[Christian-Catholic]

Your response was quite comforting and alleviates my anxiety on the topic. I have heard of old earth Christians, but for me it is very hard to imagine us being evolved while there being a God or Christianity being true. Like who was the first person with a soul? Why did God wait so long to send Jesus? Evolution to me just really complicates things. Another topic other than evolution is the cosmos argument. I understand the idea that something cannot come from nothing, but to me the universe is so grand and we are just a speck in the universe. It just seems so godless to me. Like this whole evolution thing makes sense when you realize that we are just a dot in our universe. They say there's like 1 in a trillion chance of a planet being capable of sustaining life, but if you think about it, there is enough in the universe to meet that odd. These are my reasonings and I feel like I should not keep them and should let them go to y'all. Thoughts like these ache me daily

Hello Again my friend. This could help eleviate your aches
Its called the first cause argument, and its taken from parts of Thomas aquinas 5 ways and aristotle's prime mover argument. Its very simple and logical and explains why philosophically and logically God must exist.

http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/first-cause.htm

Like many here have said Whether God created through evolution or design its not that big of a deal , what matters is that he was behind it all.

Hope this helps

 

[juvenissun]

Some of you may have heard my story but in a nutshell I lost my faith in college mostly due to a biology course I took. I have developed a very scientific/naturalistic perspective of the universe and our origins. As a former Christian, I am conflicted with being this way. To the point that I cannot listen/read/converse with scientific teachings because, well, it makes sense to me. And as I have stated in a couple other threads, I don't want to be an atheist. I've read lots of apologetic material, the Bible, a few priests/pastors, and this way of mind I have remains. I am wanting to know of any scientifically minded Christians out there who have found God. How did you balance the two. In other words, how does it work out for you? What are your thoughts? How do you cope?

Many advanced scientists are faithful Christians. They know EVERYTHING about science that you know, yet their faith is very strong.

Science is a study like math. It has levels and stages. Be patient and hold on your faith even you question it seriously when you started to learn science. God's word WILL make more and more sense as you studied more and more sciences.

 

[lesliedellow]

Your response was quite comforting and alleviates my anxiety on the topic. I have heard of old earth Christians, but for me it is very hard to imagine us being evolved while there being a God or Christianity being true. Like who was the first person with a soul?

The only answer to that is that homo sapiens became homo divinus when God decided that they did. The soul is an idea Christianity borrowed from Greek philosophy. The Hebrews were slightly more earthy. As is well known, Paul talked about the resurrection of a glorified body; not about a disembodied soul floating around somewhere.

They say there's like 1 in a trillion chance of a planet being capable of sustaining life, but if you think about it, there is enough in the universe to meet that odd.

I too hear that from evangelicals who don't really understand the cosmological argument - one which revolves around the fundamental constants of nature. There are some truly fabulous improbabilities out there. To take one example, if gravity had been one part in ten to the power of fifteen stronger, the universe would have collapsed back in on itself within a few million years. On the other hand, if gravity had been weaker by a similarly tiny amount, the stars would never have formed, and we would today be living in a universe full of nothing except hydrogen and helium. As somebody put it, you cannot have any very interesting chemistry with just those two elements.

There is really only one get out for atheists, and that is to postulate a near infinite number of unobserved, and unobservable universes. Then, of course, it can be supposed that we live in a universe which just happened to strike it lucky in a cosmic lottery.

 

[juvenissun]

Your response was quite comforting and alleviates my anxiety on the topic. I have heard of old earth Christians, but for me it is very hard to imagine us being evolved while there being a God or Christianity being true. Like who was the first person with a soul? Why did God wait so long to send Jesus? Evolution to me just really complicates things. Another topic other than evolution is the cosmos argument. I understand the idea that something cannot come from nothing, but to me the universe is so grand and we are just a speck in the universe. It just seems so godless to me. Like this whole evolution thing makes sense when you realize that we are just a dot in our universe. They say there's like 1 in a trillion chance of a planet being capable of sustaining life, but if you think about it, there is enough in the universe to meet that odd. These are my reasonings and I feel like I should not keep them and should let them go to y'all. Thoughts like these ache me daily

There are theistic evolutionist. I don't like them, but they are trying to reconcile evolution with their faith. You may want to look into what their ideas are.

Many many questions about the Cosmos has no answer. We do not understand our solar system. Furthermore, we do not even know the planet we live on, the earth. What we know is way way not enough to overthrown what the Bible describes. You need to learn more science to know what we do not know.

So, hold on your faith, while you learn more sciences.

 

[juvenissun]

I've read some of your comments in your other threads too. You give me some hope. You think a little differently than most of the Christians I've spoken to. I might have to pm



And yes I grew up very conservatively. The stories of the bible were taught as literal, the world was 6k yrs old, evolution did not take place.

The world is NOT 6K years. Nowhere in the Bible says that. This is a VERY important understanding.

 

[hedrick]

I too hear that from evangelicals who don't really understand the cosmological argument - one which is one which revolves around the fundamental constants of nature. There are some truly fabulous improbabilities out there. To take one example, if gravity had been one part in ten to the power of fifteen stronger, the universe would have collapsed back in on itself within a few million years. On the other hand, if gravity had been weaker by a similarly tiny amount, the stars would never have formed, and we would today be living in a universe full of nothing except hydrogen and helium. As somebody put it, you cannot have any very interesting chemistry with just those two elements.

There is really only one get out for atheists, and that is to postulate a near infinite number of unobserved, and unobservable universes. Then, of course, it can be supposed that we live in a universe which just happened to strike it lucky in a cosmic lottery.

You're referring to what is called the fine tuning argument. I agree that it's interesting. My concern with it is that it's basically another version of the God of the Gaps. That is, it says "look at this odd thing. We can't explain it. So God must have done it." Historically, these have turned out to be bad arguments, because in the end we've come up with scientific explanations.

At this point scientists have excellent models of the development of the universe back to a very small fraction of a second after 0. But there are problems with understanding the very beginning, and no good understanding of where the big bang came from. But this does not mean that there will never be such an understanding.

It is certainly possible that there's an infinite number of universes. That sounds weird, but weirder things have turned out to be true. It's possible that there's some other reason why the constants have to be what they are. I'd wait a few centuries before deciding that there's no possible explanation other than divine intervention.

I would much rather reason from what we do understand than what we don't. I believe that in Scripture and in the experience of Christians, we see God's activity. I'd center faith around that.

 

[lesliedellow]

You might be interested in some of these videos. The Faraday Institute is affiliated to the University of Cambridge, so its scientific credentials are impeccable:

Video & Audio: "Faraday Institute"

 

[lesliedellow]

It is certainly possible that there's an infinite number of universes. That sounds weird, but weirder things have turned out to be true.

Maybe, but I do not think it is any coincidence that the fine tuning argument and interest in a multiverse appeared at roughly the same time. And something which was invented for apologetic, rather than scientific, reasons has, I would think, a slimmer chance of being true.

Nor do I think it is any coincidence that the multiverse hypothesis is put forward by people like Leonard Susskind, rather than people like Christopher Isham.

 

[Rhizobium]

. . .but to me the universe is so grand and we are just a speck in the universe. It just seems so godless to me.

When you get your first real glance at the universe it seems barren and massive. And so you may find yourself asking, "If God exists, why would it create a universe like this? Isn't it wasteful to have all these stars and planets with nothing living on them?"

I think there are a few problems with this line of thought. One of them is that those stars out there are required for life. They act as fusion reactors that form carbon from other elements, and carbon is necessary for every form of life we've ever encountered. 20% of our mass is carbon, even though it only makes up 0.03% of our planet's crust. So while all the stars out there don't seem to be up to much, a lot of them were foundational for our existence.

You also have the possibility that there's other life in the universe, which is part of the plan. Or that all that extra space is growing room. It's also possible that a more localized universe would require so many more physical laws to sustain its existence that it would be incomprehensible to humans. And God, as most people understand it, is infinitely powerful. Would you really expect an infinite being to create the universe in the same way that finite beings like you and me would have?

 

[MCA]

I'm trying so hard to reconcile evolution and God and I just can't. Where did man begin and where did he end. Itll bs like imagine you are homo erectus or whatever and your baby is the first homo sapien. That would be so sad not to be able to have a soul like your child. Imagine all the families etc and the time it took to divide the two. Souled and unsouled dwelling amongst each other. I feel God and the bible only work with a creation account. And if the earth is old evolution is true and if evolution is true I fear there is no God. I've been brought back to this forum because my anxiety has increased to the point that at times I can hardly function at work. I wish I were dumb enough to accept atheism but I know my life is not worth living without God. I seek evidence but its as though the best I can get out of it is hmm that makes sense or wowthere really was a solomons temple. I can't tell my family cause they just start crying, so I'm stuck all day with this terrible pain. Please pray for me

 

[lesliedellow]

I'm trying so hard to reconcile evolution and God and I just can't. Where did man begin and where did he end. Itll bs like imagine you are homo erectus or whatever and your baby is the first homo sapien. That would be so sad not to be able to have a soul like your child. Imagine all the families etc and the time it took to divide the two. Souled and unsouled dwelling amongst each other. I feel God and the bible only work with a creation account.

We just don't know at what point God considered homo-sapiens to have become homo-divinus. It is not a question which biology, or any other science, can answer.

And if the earth is old evolution is true and if evolution is true I fear there is no God. I've been brought back to this forum because my anxiety has increased to the point that at times I can hardly function at work. I wish I were dumb enough to accept atheism but I know my life is not worth living without God.

In your days as a creationist, wasn't your belief in the literal truth of Genesis a matter of faith? Just because that act of faith was misplaced, that does not mean that faith in God is. Instead of basing your faith on the pseudo-science of creationism you need to find something else to found it on. For example, if the New Testament writers were lying through their teeth, what possible motive could they have had? "It was all to control the masses," is a typical answer to be expected from atheists, but exactly what masses would they have been? Christians were an intermittently persecuted minority - not a tool of the Romans.

I can't tell my family cause they just start crying, so I'm stuck all day with this terrible pain. Please pray for me.

I will.

 

[Christian-Catholic]

I'm trying so hard to reconcile evolution and God and I just can't. Where did man begin and where did he end. Itll bs like imagine you are homo erectus or whatever and your baby is the first homo sapien. That would be so sad not to be able to have a soul like your child. Imagine all the families etc and the time it took to divide the two. Souled and unsouled dwelling amongst each other. I feel God and the bible only work with a creation account. And if the earth is old evolution is true and if evolution is true I fear there is no God. I've been brought back to this forum because my anxiety has increased to the point that at times I can hardly function at work. I wish I were dumb enough to accept atheism but I know my life is not worth living without God. I seek evidence but its as though the best I can get out of it is hmm that makes sense or wowthere really was a solomons temple. I can't tell my family cause they just start crying, so I'm stuck all day with this terrible pain. Please pray for me

Ok MCA, lets focus first on the age of the earth and universe. genesis says in ENGLISH that God created the world in 6 days right? Now if you only needed to know the bible in english that would be a problem, but If you look past the english into the original hebrew that genesis was written in, you would see that the word used for DAYS in genesis is YOM.

Yom can mean literal day or time period. Someone reading genesis in english would never have known this, but now you know that the old age of the earth and universe dont conflict with the bible.

Remember also that the bible can fit with an evolutionary account as well. Francis collins who maped out the human genome is an evolutionist and also is a Christian. I was an evolutionist for 42 years and I also believe in God Even though now im an old earth Creationist. Old earth creationism fits hand in glove with science and vice versa.

If you really want to focus on the important parts here you should look into the odds of life happening by blind chance and chemical interactions.
Here is a good article on this that should help you understand how the odds are virtually zero on this happening.

Not According to Hoyle

CreationEvolutionDesign: Re: Fred Hoyle about the 747, the tornado and the junkyard

Now as far as how Life was done intelligently, Theistic Evolutionists believe that God front loaded the information of evolution into the first cell which eventually lead to us.

here are some excellent old earth creationist sites that will help ease your stress my friend. In actuality old earth creationism fits even better with genesis and teh bible then new earth creationism.

Hugh Ross is an astrophysicist who is also an old earth creationist.
Reasons To Believe : About : Who We Are : Hugh Ross

This is another old earth creationist site
Creation Science - Old Earth Ministries

Again, this is why I stress to people that knowing genesis in english isnt enough, you have to know what the original hebrew words of the bible mean.

Also, Another reason why I know that YOM can mean literal day or time period is that in lebanese (the culture my parents are from) the word YOM is still used today and it still can mean literal day or time period..

Once you start to read through these old earth creationist sites you will have no problem with the bible or science

Then your stress will go away and u can also have some new things to teach to your parents, who im sure will be thrilled to hear it from you.

Here is a great article that talks about the word YOM and what it means in hebrew.

Word Study Yom

 

[A New Dawn]

Admin Hat

Thread moved to Christian Advice. Please remember all posts need to respond to the OP.

 

[Billy Bayou]

The creation took six literal days, there was no "evolution" of anything. God spoke, it appeared. IF you don't believe that your god is powerful enough to do this. Powerful enough to hold heaven and hell, place the stars and the sun and moon in their place, balance all of the forces of Physics, care about the little sparrow and love you... Then what is your god.

My God is the one and only. Speaking the universe to existence and managing all of time... is as easy for him as it is for me to scratch my nose.

 

[lesliedellow]

IF you don't believe that your god is powerful enough to do this. Powerful enough to hold heaven and hell, place the stars and the sun and moon in their place, balance all of the forces of Physics, care about the little sparrow and love you... Then what is your god.

It is not a question of whether God could bring everything into existence with a snap of his fingers, but of whether he actually did so, and all the available scientific evidence suggests that he didn't.

 

[seeingeyes]

I'm trying so hard to reconcile evolution and God and I just can't. Where did man begin and where did he end. Itll bs like imagine you are homo erectus or whatever and your baby is the first homo sapien. That would be so sad not to be able to have a soul like your child. Imagine all the families etc and the time it took to divide the two. Souled and unsouled dwelling amongst each other. I feel God and the bible only work with a creation account. And if the earth is old evolution is true and if evolution is true I fear there is no God. I've been brought back to this forum because my anxiety has increased to the point that at times I can hardly function at work. I wish I were dumb enough to accept atheism but I know my life is not worth living without God. I seek evidence but its as though the best I can get out of it is hmm that makes sense or wowthere really was a solomons temple. I can't tell my family cause they just start crying, so I'm stuck all day with this terrible pain. Please pray for me

My friend, all of your questions have one thing in common. Jesus is nowhere to be seen. If your faith was in a certain view of the creation of the world rather than Christ, then you never had faith in him to begin with. (That's not a condemnation, by the way. I believe that many, many Christians put the cart before the horse, and don't realize it until they have somewhere to go, myself included.)

Read through the Gospels, and see if you can figure out what Jesus considered the top priority. How did he read the Scriptures? What did he have to say about who God is?

Also, see if you can find a strong Christian brother to lean on. People who burst into tears at the slightest hint of controversy are useless in a crisis. Find someone who can listen to you and answer your questions and be your strength while you are weak. I believe you said earlier that you found comfort in some of the brothers in this thread. Start with them. They can hold you up, and help lead you where you need to go.

God bless

 

[Girder of Loins]

Science and faith should not conflict with one another. You need to take the evidences on hand from both sides and compare and contrast. Don't take a modernist view of "science is supreme", and don't try to conform yourself into some "Christian" bubble. Be smart, but be sincere. If you have a problem with either side, look for a solution. There is always an answer, even if it is,"We'll never know."

 

[Christian-Catholic]

Science and faith should not conflict with one another. You need to take the evidences on hand from both sides and compare and contrast. Don't take a modernist view of "science is supreme", and don't try to conform yourself into some "Christian" bubble. Be smart, but be sincere. If you have a problem with either side, look for a solution. There is always an answer, even if it is,"We'll never know."

Beautiful answer and the correct one

 

[theophilus40]

How did you balance the two.

There is no conflict between Christianity and science. There is an appearance of conflict because there are many scientific theories, such as evolution, that are believed to be true when in fact they haven't actually be proved and there is scientific evidence that contradicts them. Here are some good sites where you can find out about some of this evidence.

Answers in Genesis - Creation, Evolution, Christian Apologetics

Science Against Evolution Official Home Page

Evolutionary Truth by Piltdown Superman

Yom can mean literal day or time period. Someone reading genesis in english would never have known this, but now you know that the old age of the earth and universe dont conflict with the bible.

The word "day" can also mean an indefinite period of time and is used that way in the creation account.

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
(Genesis 2:4 ESV)
​

To determine what a word means you need to examine the context in which it is used. This is true both in English and in Hebrew.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
(Genesis 1:3-5 ESV)
​

This day had a period of light and a period of darkness. Like the other five days it consisted of an evening and a morning. The only definition of either day or yom which fits is the time in which the earth turned on its axis one time.