I've never been one for this Science vs. God thing.
I much prefer the science is the" how?", and God is the "why?"
Stephen Hawking's book, his first one, (that I also haven't yet finished!), "A Brief History of Time" has a foreword written by Carl Sagan, which implies that Stephen's work and the predictions that arise thus, leave little for a God to do.
As I grow ever weary of organised religions, I find that they have no place in either my values, morals and ethical system. Perhaps it's better to say that my ethical system seems to flourish without a God. However, I do dismiss the cliched "religions are the cause of all wars". I find people are much more of a help to global disintegration than religions.
Why is it that whenever you read the Bible, or the Koran, they do start off with the idea of a perfect world, God and then we enter the picture, and from thereon in, it all goes pear-shaped?
We can all point to things in the Bible that appear to justify our values, or, even our bigotry.
Anti-homosexuality, and transgenderedness, is dealt with in Deuteronomy 22:5
I much prefer the science is the" how?", and God is the "why?"
Stephen Hawking's book, his first one, (that I also haven't yet finished!), "A Brief History of Time" has a foreword written by Carl Sagan, which implies that Stephen's work and the predictions that arise thus, leave little for a God to do.
As I grow ever weary of organised religions, I find that they have no place in either my values, morals and ethical system. Perhaps it's better to say that my ethical system seems to flourish without a God. However, I do dismiss the cliched "religions are the cause of all wars". I find people are much more of a help to global disintegration than religions.
Why is it that whenever you read the Bible, or the Koran, they do start off with the idea of a perfect world, God and then we enter the picture, and from thereon in, it all goes pear-shaped?
We can all point to things in the Bible that appear to justify our values, or, even our bigotry.
Anti-homosexuality, and transgenderedness, is dealt with in Deuteronomy 22:5
"The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man,
neither shall a man put on a woman's garment:
for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God."
And yet, we're told as Christians, we do not follow the Old Testament? Even if we were required to follow this tract, "abomination " is pretty strong stuff from a God that loves us like a father. If parents loved us as conditionally as this, they would be viewed as pretty lame parents.
When parents find their son or daughter is gay, or they find that their son or daughter needs to change from their born gender, they try to overcome their shock, they usually fend off attacks from people with negative views about their child and in the end, hopefully, they arrive at a place where they can find the love in their hearts again.
It really does seem that God, thus described, really does believe that there is little for a creator to do. Perhaps what is meant by this, is that God would not be involved in our day to day lives. He would love us from a distance, the way a mother or father would, when their child is away at university? Like a parent, God will have done the work earlier. It is up to us kids to use what our parents taught us. More about us being wise, loving, peaceable and stable in an unstable world?
Parenting still goes on. But the work you did early, still counts for most of how the kids turn out. You can't make hasty revisions when they are 14. It's too late.
It is a fact that the Earth is 4.3 billion years old, (there is astounding forensic evidence to suggest that it is indeed that old), and not 6,000 years old, after all. We came about, through a bewildering chain of events where whole species were wiped off the face of the Earth. Had this not happened, it is likely, we would be astoundingly a different species ourselves. If we were to exist at all?
The Solar System, according to our best knowledge at the moment, perhaps evolved the way it did partly because there was a succession of planetary collisions. Hundreds of different planets, radically different in size, existed in the early dawn of our Solar System. We Earthlings nearly did not get here, but even more amazingly, also the very planet Earth itself nearly didn't get here!
The planet Uranus orbits the Sun lying on its back. This was almost certainly due to another planet, (possibly an Earth-sized planet), smashing into Uranus and causing its North pole to point slightly downwards while slightly tipping up its South pole.
The evolution of the universe, from where time, space and matter began, would appear to be not the territory of a Creator after all. Perhaps, a Creator's job was completed just the moment the universe exploded into being? And not governed, after all, where Brian likes to dress as Brianna; or where Gary hasn't got Diana as his lover, but Steve instead?
Perhaps that's why a Creator has little to do? It was already done before?
