DO WE BELIEVE GOD'S WORD OR SO-CALLED SCIENCE?

[heavenforbid]

Bible tells us in Genesis 1 that God created the Earth in six days. According to the Bible that would make the Earth around 10,000 years old.
Now science tells us that the world is 4.5 billions years old and the universe is 14 billion years old.

So what we have here is a disagreement between science and the Bible. Which will you choose?
Personally I believe that the Bible as Paul stated, is the inspired/God breathed scripture. It's not meant to be a science book or a Geology book but it is true whenever its States but its states.

So the Dilemma that many Christians face is whether or not they will accept the Bible as fact in how the world was created or they will accept science as fact in how old the world and universe is.

What better place to start to explore this issue then at the beginning in Genesis chapter 1.

http://chalcedon.edu/faith-for-all-of-life/six-day-literal-creation-essential-to-the-faith/the-meaning-of-day-in-genesis-1-2/

So after reading the info in the above-noted link, who do you think is right or is speaking the truth?

Does God through His written word speak the truth or does the geophysicist through scientific theory speak the truth?

I'm going with the bible here, since science is man made. Man made things are wrong from beginning to end, and only Gods word can be trusted.

 

[waterlilyoflife]

You are rejecting wisdom. Science was created by God.. In the bgeining, the earth was formless and void. It seems like there was a vast, soupy, marshy mess of dirt and water mixed together and God woke up and decided to create something out of it. It says God created the heavens and earth, so God created the soupy mess first, then he decied to make something useful and decent, something beautiful and good out of it. I am wondering if there could have been heaven, and then Lucifer rebelled, there was the war, God cast down the rebellious angels who followed Lucifer, they went into the center of the formless void, when God created earth, he put the fallen angels in the center of it, where there is heat, lava, liquid fire and caves. The center of the earth is fire, lava, liquid stone. The previous world had been destroyed, then God had to create it again, it could have been that during this re-creation it took only six days, but it could have been six thousand years, or six million years, the Bible says that a day is like a thousand years to God.


Then there is Noah and the great flood. The flood destroyed to earth, but after it dried, there would have been a bunch of dead bodies. What happened to the dead bodies? Did God put them down underneath the earth? Or perhaps in the oceans around the continents? May be the very deep dark abyss at the bottom of the ocean? maybe the sharks and other deep sea predators ate the bodies.


About science...some science is the study of nature. God created nature, and wants us to study it becasue then we learn about God's creation and about God. God wants us to have knowledge and wisdom. he does not want us to be dummies. For one thing, God helps scientists and doctors to discover new medicine, that will save the lives of children and adults, in the past there was very little scientific knowledge about medicine that could save lives. Now doctors have discovered all sorts of wonder drugs.Science can save lives and clean up the earth. It can make our lives cleaner and healthier. We can stop pollution, save trees in the forest, clean up air and water, create cars run on less fuel.

 

[bbyrd009]

ya, i don't think it's that hard to accept that we just tend to take Scripture literally, when It often speaks figuratively. And through a translation, to boot; it is possibly more likely that the earth "became void," with other Scripture taken into account, even though we read "was void." Etc.

 

[epostle1]

"no real disagreement can exist between the theologian and the scientist provided each keeps within his own limits. . . . If nevertheless there is a disagreement . . . it should be remembered that the sacred writers, or more truly ‘the Spirit of God who spoke through them, did not wish to teach men such truths (as the inner structure of visible objects) which do not help anyone to salvation’; and that, for this reason, rather than trying to provide a scientific exposition of nature, they sometimes describe and treat these matters either in a somewhat figurative language or as the common manner of speech those times required, and indeed still requires nowadays in everyday life, even amongst most learned people"

"Methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things the of the faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are"

The truth of science cannot contradict the truth of faith.

 

[bbyrd009]

i agree, but science runs on theories, and vested interests can subvert science for just that reason, so "truth" in science is often actually a chimera. It is the difference in "Camel cigarettes are good for you" and "More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette." So, science ends up being suspected, when it is the scientist that should be questioned. How can you get truth from someone who must acknowledge to knowing of less than 5% of what they know must exist, according to their own calculations? Of course a scientist will readily admit this, that science does not run on truth, or facts, but theories are only too easily presented as facts in order to serve an agenda. Iow a scientist will admit that, until you pay him enough. But a similar thing goes on with religion, of course; possibly to a greater (and more important) extent.

 

[Mungo]

Of course a scientist will readily admit this, that science does not run on truth, or facts, but theories .....

True and sometimes people forget that. Also theories are only based on the best available knowledge at the time.

I once had a very old "science" book (I wish I had kept it). One theory it had was on the age of sun (and therefore of the earth) based on the idea that the sun must be made of coal, since that was the hottest burning fuel that was known at the time, and I think the estimated size of the sun. Seems crazy now but it was probably considered reasonable at the time.

 

[epostle1]

There are three different kinds of "sciences." The difference between them is the degree of abstraction that is involved. The mind might just focus on the physical by experimental observation. This science is called physics or natural science (this is what the modern mind knows as "science"). He can also move toward a higher degree of abstraction dealing with quantity and number which can be distinguished apart from the material things. This is called mathematics. The highest abstraction is when the mind deals with being or reality itself as being. This is called metaphysics.

What the modern mind needs to remember is this: all three sciences are different and one method of science cannot be the method of another. This has been the error of both the modern and the ancients. As Dr. Kreeft said, "the ancients used a philosophical method to do science and the moderns use a scientific method to do philosophy." One cannot say that since relativity is true in physics, morality and truth are relative. Physics is also mathematical. Does this mean we need a mathematical morality? If relativity is true in physics, does this mean that mathematics ought to be relative?

A new science does not necessitate a new religion or a new philosophy. To mix them is committing what the scholastics call the fallacy of uniform method of science. As Fulton Sheen said,

"Here we call it the 'Fallacy of the Uniform Method of Science' -- the fallacy of taking one science as the norm, and making it the measure, the guide, the interpreter, and the inspiration of every other science." (Philosophy of Religion, 185)

Physics should be treated as physics, mathematics as mathematics, and especially, metaphysics as metaphysics. One should not use a scientific or mathematical method to do metaphysics and vice versa. As Etienne Gilson said,
"Theology, logic, physics, biology, psychology, sociology, economics, are fully competent to solve their own problems by their own methods....no particular science is competent to either solve metaphysical problems, or to judge their metaphysical solutions." (The Unity of Philosophical Experience, page 249)

At the same time, we should not limit all knowledge to science. First, because it cannot be scientifically proven that everything should be scientifically proven or limited to science. It is self-contradictory. Second, because there are many things which are true but cannot be proven scientifically such as mathematics, love, aesthetics, morality, and the laws of logic.

To be faithful in science does not mean one ought to be an empiricist. A religious person ought not to look down upon science and a scientist ought not to look down upon a religion. Both persons need to look up and thank God for making a beautiful universe; so beautiful that it makes them wonder about that universe, especially their place and purpose in it.
Science and Religion by A.L.