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.