I am reading an excellent book "Learning to Dance" by Michael Mayne. No, not slow,slow, quick quick, slow! Mayne is a highly respected Anglican Vicar and Dean of Westminster. He encourages us to see God's hand in everything.
In writing about the Cosmos, he quotes the cosmologist, Paul Davies, and says:
"It is hard to resist the impression of something.....possessing an overview of the entire coismos at the instant of its creation, and manipulatoing all the causally disconnected parts to go bang with almost the same vigour at the same time, and yet not so exactly co-ordinated as to preclude the small-scale, slight irregularities that eventually formed the galaxies and us"
Elsewhere he says Paul Davies writes:
"I belong to a group of scientists who do not subscribe to a conventional religion but nevertheless deny that the universe is a purposeless accident..... There must be a deeper level of explanation. Whether one wishes to call that deeper level 'God' is a matter of tase and definition"
Mayne then goes on
Such remarkable fine tuning speaks of more than a mindless accident: it speaks of a Creator; and moreover, one whose delicate workmanship becomes the more apparent the more astronomers, biochemists, molecular biologists and geneticists unveil the timescale n which that Creator works. All this to produce a human baby, let alone a Mozart. Looking up at the heavens, looking back in time, and then turning to look within, it takes a poet to pinpoint the mystery of which science can only speak a part:
For today let's pause
At my first groping after the First Cause,
Which led me to acknolwedge (groping still)
That if what once was called primeval slime
(In current jargon, pre-biotic soup)
Evolved in course of aeons to a group
Playing Beethoven, it needed more than time
And chance, it needed a creative will
To foster that emergence, and express
Amoeba as A Minor.
(Martyn Skinner, from Old Rectory)
Having read that, and the rest of his book, I simply cannot understand why YEC's should be so picky, and loud, over when and how the universe, and in particular our very minor planet, was created. All this insistence on genealogies, 6 days, the universe just looking old (or physics twisted to adapt) seems to be trying to put God in a tiny little box labelled "Creation as I see it" giving a sense of assurance that maybe we are not intended to have, and to get all the answers that I do not believe we are intended to find. God is mystery. How or why he created such a vast, ever-expanding universe is totally beyond me.
Did you know that there are 1600 galaxies in the universe for every person on the earth??? That is how vast it all is. Why then nit-pick every translated word of that wonderful, poetic and lyrical work - the first 11 chapters of Genesis - and shout so loudly that the only true God is in a little tiny box labelled YEC??
Can't you YEC's lift your eyes and stop worrying over inessentials?
Like I said, exasperation is not too strong a word!!
In writing about the Cosmos, he quotes the cosmologist, Paul Davies, and says:
"It is hard to resist the impression of something.....possessing an overview of the entire coismos at the instant of its creation, and manipulatoing all the causally disconnected parts to go bang with almost the same vigour at the same time, and yet not so exactly co-ordinated as to preclude the small-scale, slight irregularities that eventually formed the galaxies and us"
Elsewhere he says Paul Davies writes:
"I belong to a group of scientists who do not subscribe to a conventional religion but nevertheless deny that the universe is a purposeless accident..... There must be a deeper level of explanation. Whether one wishes to call that deeper level 'God' is a matter of tase and definition"
Mayne then goes on
Such remarkable fine tuning speaks of more than a mindless accident: it speaks of a Creator; and moreover, one whose delicate workmanship becomes the more apparent the more astronomers, biochemists, molecular biologists and geneticists unveil the timescale n which that Creator works. All this to produce a human baby, let alone a Mozart. Looking up at the heavens, looking back in time, and then turning to look within, it takes a poet to pinpoint the mystery of which science can only speak a part:
For today let's pause
At my first groping after the First Cause,
Which led me to acknolwedge (groping still)
That if what once was called primeval slime
(In current jargon, pre-biotic soup)
Evolved in course of aeons to a group
Playing Beethoven, it needed more than time
And chance, it needed a creative will
To foster that emergence, and express
Amoeba as A Minor.
(Martyn Skinner, from Old Rectory)
Having read that, and the rest of his book, I simply cannot understand why YEC's should be so picky, and loud, over when and how the universe, and in particular our very minor planet, was created. All this insistence on genealogies, 6 days, the universe just looking old (or physics twisted to adapt) seems to be trying to put God in a tiny little box labelled "Creation as I see it" giving a sense of assurance that maybe we are not intended to have, and to get all the answers that I do not believe we are intended to find. God is mystery. How or why he created such a vast, ever-expanding universe is totally beyond me.
Did you know that there are 1600 galaxies in the universe for every person on the earth??? That is how vast it all is. Why then nit-pick every translated word of that wonderful, poetic and lyrical work - the first 11 chapters of Genesis - and shout so loudly that the only true God is in a little tiny box labelled YEC??
Can't you YEC's lift your eyes and stop worrying over inessentials?
Like I said, exasperation is not too strong a word!!
