It may not be their fault because of a lack of scientific education, scientific experience, or ability. They should try to understand some of the new material shared by demonstrated scientists, although many of the experts in the field of cosmology are repeating what others have said – without critical re-examination.

The scientific knowledge of today is the result of correcting many of the widely held beliefs of past generations.

Many of our current beliefs will be replaced by better understanding in future generations. In the meantime some people will have fun rejecting evolving knowledge. Remember, in the scientific method, valid observations take priority over theories – that can be generated without limit.

Except defining His terms seems to be part of the debate.

>By saying that many religions believe in the bible I’m not saying that to prove the bible true but to show that we all look at the same evidence or words and come to different conclusions so by that its not irrelevant.

I see that I misunderstood your point.

Your religious views may be convincing and satisfying to you, but they are not shared by everyone. Your belief that we come from Heaven and will return there is not entirely consistent within Christianty. Many denominations preach our soul originates during our birth, rather than coming from Heaven to begin with, where we had a prior existence in God’s presence.

Your explanation for our suffering here is unsatisfactory. The God of the Bible is alternatingly present and active, and then missing and silent. His responses to prayers (and lack thereof) and treatment of his followers and non-followers is problematic for someone described as “all Good”. The “God works in mysterious ways” explanation is the epitome of a lack of an explanation – it’s the defense of “we’re not fit to judge”. Hogwash. We’re given a moral sense by our creator so that we can judge. If our moral sense is inadequate to understand the issues, then it is unfair to judge us and punish us for the failing of our moral sense.

The Day-Age explanation for creationism is also unsatisfying. Why should descriptions written by humans for humans use a timescale of the divine creator? And why should God have the concept of “Day” himself, anyway? What does it signify for him? Days on Earth are tied to the light/dark cycle and are mostly meaningful for us because of biological necessity for periodic rest. Also, if one day for God is 1000 years for us, that explains god’s failure to answer prayers in a timely manner. By the time he hears them, processes them, and decides an answer, the deadline for response as typically passed. The real answer is that Genesis is metaphoric poetry, meant to convey a message about humanity’s place in the world and our significance to our creator. There’s no sense in trying to expect a truthful scientific account out of metaphoric poetry.

>I also read an article in scientific american that we are “hard wired” to believe in God.

I haven’t read that particular article, but there is much debate on the topic of what that even means, much less the implications for it. Religious believers wish to take the fact that our brain creates religious experiences to mean that we were created to have those experiences. Non-believers explain that by having structures that create those experiences, it proves that the experiences aren’t “real” but constructs of brain performance. The goal is then to explain how that activity would arise if it weren’t driven by reality. The evolutionary perspective is that the trait offered some survival advantage to our ancestors and was thus selected for through genetics. That survival advantage need not have been through being true, but by offering some intangible value to the individual and community. Needless to say this is a topic for heated contention.

>There are how many different religions that believe in the same words in the bible?

Irrelevant. The commonality of the Hebrew Bible as a religious source book does not prove it’s truth. Rather, it is an artificial construct arrived at through the curious and twisted path of cultural heritage and social interaction across communities. Political entities and social power structures have much to do with the spread of monotheism. The commonality speaks to the historical path of development of the religious structures, not the underlying truth of any particular text. Christianity is derived from Judaism by the simple expediency that Jesus was a Jew. The religion grew out of Jewish monotheism, adapted to reach a wider (Gentile) audience and provide a new relevancy to different lifestyles and traditions, but to draw upon themes and elements of the Jewish tradition to justify and add legitimacy to the claims. Islam is a separate offshoot from Judaism that took a more orthodox approach and then tailored it to reach a different community – Arabs. Islam was then influenced by the other Eastern traditions that it supplanted. Western religious diversity is largely rooted to the Bible throuh the same influences of historical baggage of branching from a common source. Even Mormonism is an offshoot primarily by drawing upon the themes and legitimacy of the existing socially predominant religion to “justify” the new tradition. Interpretations of the meaning and value of the content is debated and contested across the various groups that draw upon the same scripture – witness the existence and diversity of all the various denominations.

Heck, some rather unorthodox and incompatible religious views are linked by their proponents to Christianity (and thus the Bible) through a convoluted line of reasoning that ultimately is based upon common heritage and social continuity rather than any logic or relationship between the belief structures. Anything vaguely monotheism is lumped in as “Christianity” by adherants – including some Deistic and Agnostic believers, as well as generic New Age “spirituality”. Witness Thomas Jefferson’s acceptance and following of the “teachings of Jesus” while advocating the non-divinity of Jesus and the impossibility of the miracle stories. Yet he was a self-described Christian – though on his own terms.

Rad, engineers work with available tools, to develop something this is good enough to do the desired job.
Evolution works because that which fails to get the job done, ie. reproduction of DNA, is eliminated from the gene pool by death. If the organism lasts long enough to reproduce, that’s good enough and so we see inefficiencies retained because they don’t produce a ( before reproduction ) failure.
Is God then, just an engineer?
For me to worship someone they’re going to have to be a WHOLE lot smarter than me and I don’t mean just Steven Hawking or Jerry Garcia smarter. I mean wow, gee whiz , outta sight smarter,,,and more compassionate, loving, patient, immortal,,,etc, as well as being beyond this reality,,,oh, wait, if they’re BEYOND this reality, that should also mean they can’t interfere here, so, tell me again, why should I worship something that can’t even be here???

As I recall, the bible says something about ” ,,,as above, so below.: Doesn’t that imply we’re supposed to create in this reality, the “excellance” we suppose exists in heaven,ie, cure all disease, poverty and mortality? Which is exactly what we as scientists are trying to do,,,improve the human condition.

Peace and Love to all who disagree. By such means we make progress.

Gary 7