Is Our World Really as Plain as it Seems?

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RDK
I agree except while the universe testifies to a creator, I don't think it alone tells us enough about his nature to be sure that he is virtuous. I think we have to look elsewhere to see that.

 

[RDKirk]

RDK
I agree except while the universe testifies to a creator, I don't think it alone tells us enough about his nature to be sure that he is virtuous. I think we have to look elsewhere to see that.

When Paul spoke on Mars' Hill, he referenced those Greeks who worshiped the "Unknown God."

That was actually a specific doctrine among some Greeks (one that Paul was apparently knowledgeable about, since he quoted one of them) from about 350BC.

These were Greek philosophers whose examinations of the perfectly predictable regularity of celestial events led them to conclude that the Graeco-Roman pantheism must be wrong. They reasoned that with the heavens so predictable, the universe must have been created by a single god who absolutely controls its motions without any effective interference by any other beings. Moreover, because they considered consistency to be a virtue, the movement of the heavens showed a consistency that evidenced perfect virtue.

However, once having developed a doctrine that there must be a god who created everything and controlled everything, and that he is a god of perfect virtue, they also concluded that perfect virtue could not be intimately known or touched by imperfection (imperfect man). Thus, such a god must always be unknowable to man.

So, yes, what you're saying is the point that Paul is making to the Athenians who followed the Unknown God doctrine: That god is God. Creation testifies to His existence and His basic virtue, but creation cannot testify to His plans and intentions for men, nor can creation bring man into contact with Him. That is Paul's testimony to the Athenians: Let me tell you Who you are worshiping and the things you could not know until He personally revealed it to us.

 

[Greg Merrill]

It always seems very strange to me that humans are such a creative species and imagine all kinds of things that can never happen. Science seems to be right about just about everything we can see with our natural eyes. It really makes me wonder. Is our world really so cut and dry or does God just hide things from us? Or is Science right?

"The secret things are of the Lord our God." Dt 29:29
"And now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do." Ge 6:11.
Scientists (rather than science) are right on a lot, have often been proved wrong, and if they are not Christians, go by the training to leave God totally out of their thinking when it comes to science. Therefore they can't help but be wrong in a lot of things. Be assured that there are scientists (though they are in the minority) in every field of science that profess faith in Jesus Christ and the trustworthiness of the Bible. Check out "Institute of Creation Research."

 

[ChristianFromKazakhstan]

It always seems very strange to me that humans are such a creative species and imagine all kinds of things that can never happen. Science seems to be right about just about everything we can see with our natural eyes. It really makes me wonder. Is our world really so cut and dry or does God just hide things from us? Or is Science right?

Both religion and science have it wrong, because reality is beyond full comprehension of a human being. The only truth there is - Jesus.

 

[1stcenturylady]

"The secret things are of the Lord our God." Dt 29:29
"And now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do." Ge 6:11.
Scientists (rather than science) are right on a lot, have often been proved wrong, and if they are not Christians, go by the training to leave God totally out of their thinking when it comes to science. Therefore they can't help but be wrong in a lot of things. Be assured that there are scientists (though they are in the minority) in every field of science that profess faith in Jesus Christ and the trustworthiness of the Bible. Check out "Institute of Creation Research."

(Greg, did you read my post to you on the Lord's Supper post? You haven't responded.)

 

[NothingIsImpossible]

Think of it differently. Let assume many scientists have an IQ around 150. Thats really smart right? Genius level. So they are good at coming up with things. Nowe compare that to God who lets say has an IQ of 1,000,000,000,000,000. He created everything. He was able to do so because he designed the laws that sort of keep everything together. Even our brains our so complex that science doesn't fully understand them yet.

So while we hear alot about science, God created it all and then some. Scientists are just talking about what He already did. Though they aren't always right of course. Evolution. Big bang....etc.

 

[GirdYourLoins]

I see science as mans trying to understand Gods creation, and they get it wrong most of the time. We used to "know" that the earth was flat. They used to "know" that the universe was created by the big bang (if you dont already know the basis of the theory is that everything is moving out from a central point. My bible says God flung the stars into space. Sounds like a central point to me). They have had to change their theories on that as the universe was still expanding but according to what they "know" it should be slowing down or even reversing that by now. The latest "discovery" of dark matter is basically a theory to make what they thought before fit what they can now see with advances in science. They dont "know" a lot of things they say they do but just make up theories to make what they can see fit what they want it to fit.

And if you think it is plain you need to ask God to open your eyes. I see beauty in all of creation. The creatures of land, water and the air, plants of all sorts, different landscapes, the planets and universe. And do you think the similarities of how atoms are formed with a nucleus and electrons around it and of solar systems with stars and planets around it is just coincidence or the hand of the same creator? When I became a Christian my eyes were opened to the beauty of creation. I even found colours more vivid and I am not alone in this. I always remember a friend of mine telling me that ehen he had similar someone dismissed it as he had just got "artists eye". I and he know its God opening your eyes.

 

[paul becke]

It always seems very strange to me that humans are such a creative species and imagine all kinds of things that can never happen. Science seems to be right about just about everything we can see with our natural eyes. It really makes me wonder. Is our world really so cut and dry or does God just hide things from us? Or is Science right?

Angeleyes, I don't think you can have given much thought to human affairs. This quote tickles me to bits, as Aldous here reminds me a bit of myself as a young child, and his book on comparative religion was pivotal in my returning to the Christian faith.

'As a child, Aldous (Huxley), his brother, Julian, tells us, sat quietly a good deal of the time "contemplating the strangeness of things.''

What's more, quantum mechanics/physics shows us, at the microcosmic level, that the world of classical mechanistic (clockwork-type) physics is nothing like the fundamental realities of matter and its components.

 

[paul becke]

Think of it differently. Let assume many scientists have an IQ around 150. Thats really smart right? Genius level. So they are good at coming up with things. Nowe compare that to God who lets say has an IQ of 1,000,000,000,000,000. He created everything. He was able to do so because he designed the laws that sort of keep everything together. Even our brains our so complex that science doesn't fully understand them yet.

So while we hear alot about science, God created it all and then some. Scientists are just talking about what He already did. Though they aren't always right of course. Evolution. Big bang....etc.

'Even our brains our so complex that science doesn't fully understand them yet.'

Science has scarcely begun to understand the brain yet. Still less, life and thought, which latter was supposed to rely on the brain.

Now it turns out that there is at least one person with only a small vestige of a brain, functioning quite adequately, in fact, working as a clerk(UK) in an office. And certainly others with little more physical brain functioning adequately, without significant handicap.

It's also worth bearing in mind that a very high IQ does not make a genius. I read that Mr Bean has an IQ of 180. Read this :

This 11-year-old girl just beat Einstein on an IQ test

 

[paul becke]

Scientism, the risible notion that science can explain everything is evidently favoured by atheist materialists/naturalists, but while I believe it was destroyed by the discovery of fundamental paradoxes, absolutely repugnant to reason, Einstein destroyed it publicly.

It strikes me that he was able to do this, precisely because he showed up the folly of materialism by explaining his theories in clear but paradoxical terms, to newspaper readers. And people knew that life and the universe were full of the profoundest, indeed, imponderable, mysteries. It was 'one in the eye' for the atheist establishment.

 

[Open Heart]

It always seems very strange to me that humans are such a creative species and imagine all kinds of things that can never happen. Science seems to be right about just about everything we can see with our natural eyes. It really makes me wonder. Is our world really so cut and dry or does God just hide things from us? Or is Science right?

I don't think that science takes the wonder out of things. No matter how much I studied pregnancy and birth, it was still a miracle to hold that baby and to think that this little one came out of me.

 

[Angeleyes7715]

QUOTE="Angeleyes7715, post: 71166610, member: 383059"]It always seems very strange to me that humans are such a creative species and imagine all kinds of things that can never happen. Science seems to be right about just about everything we can see with our natural eyes. It really makes me wonder. Is our world really so cut and dry or does God just hide things from us? Or is Science right?[/QUOTE
Science is usually wrong, to start with, and after starting.
God hides many things from men.
Nothing is as it seems.

Like what? Gravity is real. I'm Christian btw so no one has to prove anything to me but it just seems like science is always right. Medicine works and science gave us medicine. Science predicts things and they happen the way science says.

 

[Angeleyes7715]

Angeleyes, I don't think you can have given much thought to human affairs. This quote tickles me to bits, as Aldous here reminds me a bit of myself as a young child, and his book on comparative religion was pivotal in my returning to the Christian faith.

'As a child, Aldous (Huxley), his brother, Julian, tells us, sat quietly a good deal of the time "contemplating the strangeness of things.''

What's more, quantum mechanics/physics shows us, at the microcosmic level, that the world of classical mechanistic (clockwork-type) physics is nothing like the fundamental realities of matter and its components.

I took biophysical chemistry (a few years back lol) and was forced to study introductory quantum mechanics. All the rules of traditional physics weren't completely thrown out they just had to modify things a bit if I remember correctly.

 

[Angeleyes7715]

I see science as mans trying to understand Gods creation, and they get it wrong most of the time. We used to "know" that the earth was flat. They used to "know" that the universe was created by the big bang (if you dont already know the basis of the theory is that everything is moving out from a central point. My bible says God flung the stars into space. Sounds like a central point to me). They have had to change their theories on that as the universe was still expanding but according to what they "know" it should be slowing down or even reversing that by now. The latest "discovery" of dark matter is basically a theory to make what they thought before fit what they can now see with advances in science. They dont "know" a lot of things they say they do but just make up theories to make what they can see fit what they want it to fit.

And if you think it is plain you need to ask God to open your eyes. I see beauty in all of creation. The creatures of land, water and the air, plants of all sorts, different landscapes, the planets and universe. And do you think the similarities of how atoms are formed with a nucleus and electrons around it and of solar systems with stars and planets around it is just coincidence or the hand of the same creator? When I became a Christian my eyes were opened to the beauty of creation. I even found colours more vivid and I am not alone in this. I always remember a friend of mine telling me that ehen he had similar someone dismissed it as he had just got "artists eye". I and he know its God opening your eyes.

I mean it's beautiful but plain. The impossible doesn't happen in this world. Things are pretty limited. Humans don't fly. We can't travel through dimensions, there are no such things as fairies or unicorns, basically anything fantasy or out of the ordinary doesn't happen in our world so it is pretty plain. I just wonder where we get all of these imaginations from and where we get all the creativity to make movies and art and stuff when our world is absent of fantasy type things.

 

[RDKirk]

I mean it's beautiful but plain. The impossible doesn't happen in this world. Things are pretty limited. Humans don't fly. We can't travel through dimensions, there are no such things as fairies or unicorns, basically anything fantasy or out of the ordinary doesn't happen in our world so it is pretty plain. I just wonder where we get all of these imaginations from and where we get all the creativity to make movies and art and stuff when our world is absent of fantasy type things.

Any universe would be absent of "fantasy type" things. That's what "fantasy" is. How is a narwhal not just as fantastic as a unicorn?

 

[Angeleyes7715]

I mean if u want me to be perfectly honest I would say that the creativity we get is demonic. The movies, games, books, if it's not Jesus, it's more than likely demonic...

God says (paraphrasing) put away every imagination that exhaults itself above God.

And alot of our creativity and what not is not Godly at all.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Like what?

I was going to answer "motive", but you did better : > > >

I mean if u want me to be perfectly honest I would say that the creativity we get is demonic.

God says (paraphrasing) put away every imagination that exhaults itself above God.

And alot of our creativity and what not is not Godly at all.

 

[Greg Merrill]

(Greg, did you read my post to you on the Lord's Supper post? You haven't responded.)

I think I read it, but I think it required more time to respond to than I had wanted to give at the time. Pro 15:28.

 

[-57]

It always seems very strange to me that humans are such a creative species and imagine all kinds of things that can never happen. Science seems to be right about just about everything we can see with our natural eyes. It really makes me wonder. Is our world really so cut and dry or does God just hide things from us? Or is Science right?

Science is right when it is interpreted correctly.

 

[-57]

I mean if u want me to be perfectly honest I would say that the creativity we get is demonic. The movies, games, books, if it's not Jesus, it's more than likely demonic...

God says (paraphrasing) put away every imagination that exhaults itself above God.

And alot of our creativity and what not is not Godly at all.

Interesting thought. Probably true.