How can you have beliefs that don’t correspond to intelligence? That’s something that’s beyond my intellectual grasp. The NPR website has a piece (LinkHere) on this. And of course many of you are familiar with Ben Stein’s movie (LinkHere) Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. I’ve watched it in the hope to gain a balanced perspective. And I must admit he makes some persuasive arguments. And there is LOT’s of stuff out there rebutting and supporting his view.
I believe in God. And while I can understand the agnostic perspective I’ve never really been able to grasp the logic behind the atheist perspective. By definition God would or at least could be undetectable to us. So how can you emphatically say he/she/? does not exist.
Here’s a Stevie theory. God made a big batch of mud. Or something analogous to mud. And he used this same batch to make chimpanzees, hyena’s, elephants and people. I really don’t believe this is exactly how God created the world. My belief is that this is just a broad analogy.
Few non-scientists/biologists etc. could distinguish a plant cell from an animal cell under a microscope. Something like 99% of the DNA in a chimp is the same as human DNA. Huge amounts of physical evidence, bones, fossils etc. provide irrefutable evidence of man’s progression from one form to another.
An uncle of mine has a masters in biology and was teaching in a rural area. He used to give the analogy of throwing all the parts of a tractor up in the air and expecting them to come down assembled. I do believe God had a hand in creation. Kind of like throwing a rock down a hill. Starting a process. Initiating a program. Maybe throwing the tractor parts in the air.
The Big Bang was the rock that kicked off the process. And science is coming up with new theories even as I pound my keyboard about how the Big Bang created everything. But science is completely baffled and has no real explanation or understanding for what existed before the Big Bang, what brought together the building block(‘s?) that the Big Bang used and what initiated the actual Bang. And science might even coin a new name describing this theory. Maybe this was initiated by God’s hand? I think so.
I saw one analogy on UTube that used a banana as an example. The argument can be made that the banana’s shape and edibility is an example of God’s direct intervention. It fits nicely in a human (or chimp) hand. It’s delicious and nutritious. But the truth of the matter is quite the opposite. The banana has been hybridized by man a great deal, possibly more than any other plant. It has been modified so much for our purposes that there is now a blight attacking banana plants which threatens the very survival of this plant. And science is having a difficult time resolving this problem because examples of the original banana, non-hand fitting, non-modified by humans, no longer exist. And that unmodified version could hold a key to combating the fungus currently attacking this wonderful fruit.
Even the theory of gravity is being questioned. Evolution deniers point to gravity as something that can be directly seen and experienced, and thus a refutation of the argument that by it’s directly observable nature it is an exception to the other generally accepted hypotheses of science, such as evolution which creationists refute. Equations that scientists develop to predict and define gravity's affects work in some scenarios and not in others. It's been recently postulated that gravity is the ultimate extension of thermodynamics. Gravity is the least understood arena of science.
Fundamentalists seem to argue that intellect and/or reasoning cannot co-exist with a belief in God, or more specifically Christianity. That befuddles and frustrates me. And kind of insults me. I’m sure that most fundamentalists use cell phones, believe men have been to the moon, probably ride on airplanes, use computers and drive in cars. Maybe the Amish are the only exception to this. So why do they think that picking and choosing between the various discoveries (sciences? theories?) is justifiable based on dogmatic religious beliefs? I think I’m arguing that creationists should all become Amish.
1st(NPR) http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129528196&sc=nl&cc=es-20100912
2nd(BenStein) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expelled:_No_Intelligence_Allowed
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