There is a discussion that I mostly try to stay out of, but seems to keep finding me. Maybe it is because of my combination of theological and scientific training.
Just how old is the universe? Those of the scientific persuasion say 4.5 billion years, give or take a billion. Those of the religious persuasion say 6,000 years, give or take a hundred.
I can defanatly say, without a doubt, that I have no damn idea.
That being said, the religious camp looks silly in this situation. 6,000 years was the end of the last ice age and the birth of human civilization for certain, so for all practical human history purposes, that was our beginning, but the universe??
When I ask about the dinosaurs, I get some kind of nonsensical response like how they were put in the earth by Satan to trick us into thinking the universe is old. OK, and once we are tricked then what? Is this plan is related to the underpants gnome plan of profiting off the theft of children's underwear.
Or sometimes I get the even stranger tale that dinosaurs were around when humans were, up until about 1,500 BC. OK, then how come the Egyptians and Babylonians and all didn't paint and carve statues etc. about dinosaurs? They made images of everything else!
4.5 Billion years? I don't know. It sounds good enough to me, at least until a better idea comes along. But I wonder why it is a problem to religion? Is your faith so weak that you cant handle the idea of God being able to live for 4.5 billion years? Are you so self centered that you demand that God follow your rules of physics? Are you pissed off that the Bible isn't a physical science and natural history text?I would personally find the ideas that physics presents to be an amazing addition to conceptions of God.
If Steven Hawking is right. Time does not exist apart from the physical mass of the universe, meaning that God created it all "right now" on God time. So I guess you could say that the universe just started from God's standpoint. Interestingly, Augustine said the same thing in his "City of God."
I think that this leads into another point that I will write about soon: The nature of fundamentalism. I am not just talking religious fundamentalism either. I have seen fundamentalism come in many shapes and sizes. But that is for another post.
Remember, I'm out there lurkin, and I'm just gettin stronger!
6 comments:
Tred on those stairs where no man has gone before, dare ya! :) As for me, 4.5 sounds ok, as in "older than dirt".
Get stronger!!!
I don't think my faith is weak. There is a huge difference between 4.5 billion years and 6,000. I don't know anyone who thinks the earth is only 6000 years old, but I think it is closer to the 6000 than the 4.5 billion.
mmmm doesn't the bible say something about not getting into these kinds of discussions?
but I think at least how it was explained to me.....1 day to God is like a thousand years years to us....okay now you do the math.
second.... I am a firm beleaver that God created dinosaurs too.
I also think that they were destroyed in the flood...which is before the Egyptians and Babylonians no? I also think that there is no such thing as exact science .
well there is my opinion.
T. I think that you nailed it on many levels. For one thing, what is a day? it is the time that it takes for the earth to go around on its axis once. Meaning, time is a measurement of a body of mass moving at a certain speed. As the theory of relativity tells us, time passes differently for different masses moving at different speeds. It has been proven using cesium watches shot into space etc.
What then does time mean to God, who (probably?) has no mass and moves at whatever speed God so chooses? Not a thing! 4.5 billion years? A zillion years? It is all the same to God, who can stop things moving all together and therefore, stop time. When did God make the universe? If HE "moves fast enough", HE can do it tomorrow, and 4.5 billion years will go by to get us to today!
HEY!! WERE YOU OR WERE YOU NOT KIDDING ABOUT YOU AND THE DOG AND MEXICO? :)
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