Science and Religion, Creation and Evolution, Natural and Super Natural

It is an extremely popular past-time, for people on both sides of the divide, to argue in circles about these topics. In 99% of the time, the topic is approached incorrectly.

The question can never be, is the Bible right, or is science right? Because the Bible and science have two completely different goals. The Bible's goal is to teach us about a Supernatural God, science's goal is to teach us about the Natural world. To put it as a catch phrase - The Bible teaches *who* created, science tells us *how* he created.

Science, and by extension evolution, can not teach us anything about God, other than his awesome majesty, and how spectacular creation is. But because its subject matter is the natural world, it can never tell us anything about God, who by definition is supernatural.

On the other hand, The Bible explains to us who and what God is, to the extent that we can understand him. He is the Creator, outside creation, but intimately involved in Creation. The Bible was never intended as a history book, or as a scientific book. Yes, it contains information about history, but history is told from a very specific, Jewish point of view. The Old Testament is the fireside legends and stories of a people becoming a nation, and the way that they are guided by God.  

Specifically in Genesis, and specifically early on in the Genesis with the creation stories, these stories are told to contrast the Jewish God with the Babylonian Gods, and their creation myths. In many cultures, the sun and the moon are revered as gods with power to harm or do good to people, depending on their mood. Not so in the Jewish faith - these were some of the first things created by the REAL God. Psalm 121 assures us that the sun and the moon "will not strike us" and the reason is they have no power of their own as the other people believed - they were mere creations of God.

Also, the Leviathan, the big sea monster, did not burst open and bring forth the world, but was created by God, and put in his place in the sea. Elsewhere in the Bible, Psalm 104:26, it says of the sea: "There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it."

It is also important to bear in mind that there are two creation stories in Genesis. The first starts at chapter one, verse one and ends at chapter two, verse three. The second story starts in the next verse: "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens."

In this story, it clearly says that the plants and animals were created AFTER Adam was created. When God saw that in the animals there was no companion, no equal for Adam, God proceeded to fashion an equal, a helper for Adam.  For a very good article contrasting the two stories, please read this post.

The creation stories contain an awful lot of information, e.g. the word "create" is only used three times, several times the earth/creation did not do what God instructed it to do, and finally it is very interesting to see that none of the three create statements involve life. God simply said "Let the earth, let the waters...." 

To summarise, the creation stories were developed to inform Israel, and the tribes around them, who God is.

One of the ways that we were created in the image of God, is that we have a reason, an intellect, which he wants us to use in the world to "rule over the earth". Out of this "feature" we have, philosophy was born. In the very first days of scientific enquiry, there was no distinction between natural and supernatural (or religious) philosophy. However, as the knowledge and study fields increased in size, the two study fields drifted apart. Which is a pity, because these two endeavours complete each other beautifully, they never compete. If there seems to be a discrepancy, it is always due to a problem in our understanding.  

As I said above, the Bible is not a science book, and fortunately we do not go to it for scientific information, otherwise we would not have an internet, penicillin, antibiotics, cars and all our other modern conveniences which we appreciate so much. It makes absolutely no sense on the particular topic of creation to then turn around and say "We need to interpret the Bible literally".

But just as wrong as it is for believers (Christians, Jews and Muslims use the same creation stories) to say that we need to use the Bible to determine the universe's age, so wrong is it for scientists to use their study field to make pronunciations about God, such as the fact that he does not exist, because he is not observed. By his very Supernatural nature, the natural tools of science are of course not going to detect him.

So how do scientists date things? In many different ways, which differs based on the length of time that needs to be measured. These different ways could include tree-rings, geological records, space observation and carbon dating. Where it is possible, these are cross-referenced to ensure that the measurements are in the ball park. Obviously, for time spans millions and billions of years ago we do not have tree rings, and knowledge about floods in the geological period. However because radio active dating works on the time scales where we can corroborate timings, we can extrapolate their findings further and further back.

Yes, there are people that claim their carbon testing gave nonsensical answers, but their claims have been debunked. It is a complicated scientific procedure requiring great care and those guys simply did not have the skills, nor the ability to clean the apparatus properly before each use.

Allow me some spectacular examples of where the two disciplines complete each other:
Structural colour - This is the mechanism that produces shiny peacock feathers, butterfly wings, and even some fruit. In this case the phenomenon has evolved over and over in different species.
Human Biome - 99% of the cells in the human body are not "human" cells. We are actually a walking, breathing biome. We have specialised bacteria aiding our digestion in our stomachs. The digestion probably start in our mouths, where we have many different species of bacteria, developed to specifically live on a particular side of the tooth. (Most of) our cells are replaced in a very short term, ranging from 24 hours in the mouth 3 years in bones. I believe white cells last as short as 12 hours.
Fine tuning of initial "constants" - There are a number of constants, that if they were only slightly different, the universe as we know it would not exist.

Closing my mind to science, means I cannot see and appreciate any of the above, and the other amazing things in the creation. Closing my mind to God, means that I close of the Image in which I was created, cuts me of from a higher purpose to which to use this knowledge to glorify God's name.   
    

How much is enough?

How much is enough? Enough time. Enough house, enough car. Above all, how much is enough money? Please don't glibly say, good question, and read further. Think about it. How much is enough food....? Clothes? STUFF??!! Maybe even take a pencil and paper, and make some notes. 

Because, we are going to come back to this answer.

Now the next question is - how did you decide how much is enough? 

Somewhere in the back of your mind we have goals, sometimes not even articulated. Maybe usually not articulated? These sub-conscious goals have an enormously strong influence on your life, especially if you have no other explicit conscious goals.

How much television and internet streaming do you watch? With all the beautiful people, with their beautiful houses, cars and jewelry? And the accompanying advertisements that promise you many different ways to happiness..... 

What is the influence of your friends and family? How are their lifestyles subconsciously influencing your own lifestyle?

Your colleagues and competition at work and business - are they pushing you for more and more hours, higher and higher profits? How often do you bend your morals, and say "But it's the way business is done..."

Do you have an influence that says - slow down, it is ok, smell the roses?

Add all the hours that the above-mentioned people and activities occupy in your life, and compare that with say - how much time you spend with God? 

What is God's expectations of us? None of the usual things we care about - a good salary, financial independence, a good retirement plan. His budget says "Give us this day our daily bread".

Do you really believe that? I know that I struggle with, constantly checking how much have I saved, when can I retire, will I ever be able to retire...?
But there are millions and billions of people surviving on less than we do, and probably happier than many of us.
Do we have a focus on our neighbours, and how we can help them? Or do we think, once I am settled, THEN I can help others. THEN it will be time to do charity?

 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Let us take care in how much we desire, and what we desire it for. Please join me as we go back to our original assumptions above, and revisit them. Do I really need the lifestyle I have? Where can I start making little changes to get of the treadmill....?

July Long weekend in Hakone (Part 2)

The Hakone Open air museum is a huge outdoors art exhibition in the Hakone Area. It also has an indoor hall dedicated to Picasso, mostly his drawings.
At the bottom of the blog is a link to larger versions of the photos, some of them really should be enlarged to enjoy them. 

Theses two statues are right at the entrance to the museum, and both very dramatic in their own way.

The sculpture of the head below has hair of living plants. It was interesting to see the little spiders nesting and crawling around.

And being Japan, of course there needs to be a Koi pond. They really are all over the place, and the fish can get very large.

What this is, I don't have the faintest idea, but it looked interesting....

The kids had good fun with this one: The little pathway dead-ends against a wall, where it has been painted to look as if it goes further. Really well done.                                                                                                                                                         Speaking of kids, the next three photos are of a kids specific attraction. The kids can chatter and climb (once they're inside!!) to their heart's content, or swing on the balls.

I don't know what the meaning of this sculpture is, but it was definitely captivating, and something completely different from each angle that you looked at.

Oh, and a little something to remind us of home.... This was a massive statue, equally massively proportioned.

As I mentioned, that kept us busy for the whole day, so if you are visiting Hakone, do not think that you will get away with a quick visit to the open air museum - It doesn't work that way.

Photos from Hakone trip