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Lesson Study #6 - The Bible and SCIENCE
#88647
05/05/07 09:37 PM
05/05/07 09:37 PM
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It's time to begin another week's study, this time Lesson Study #6 under the title, The Bible and Science, the material of which can be accessed here: http://www.ssnet.org/qrtrly/eng/07b/less06.htmlLet the discussion begin.
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Here is the link to this week's Sabbath School Lesson Study and Discussion Material: Click Here
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Re: Lesson Study #6 - The Bible and SCIENCE
[Re: Daryl]
#88648
05/05/07 09:45 PM
05/05/07 09:45 PM
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From the Sabbath afternoon section:
Memory Text: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline" (Proverbs 1:7, NIV). Key Thought: Though often viewed as in opposition to the Bible, science can help strengthen our faith in the Word of God. The following quote shows that in the earliest years of the scientific revolution (the seventeenth century), science was viewed as a way to understand God: In the earliest years of the scientific revolution (the seventeenth century), science was viewed as a way to understand God. All the early giants (Descartes, Kepler, Galileo, Copernicus, Newton) believed their work was revealing the handiwork of the Creator. Kepler, talking about his achievements, wrote: "I am stealing the golden vessels of the Egyptians to build a tabernacle to my God from them. . . . I cast the die, and I write the book. Whether it is to be read by the people of the present or of the future makes no difference: let it await its reader for a hundred years, if God himself has stood ready for six thousand years for one to study him." Over time, however, science started moving away from the idea of God, choosing instead to work in a purely materialistic, atheistic paradigm. This, of course, led to the struggle between faith and science that we often hear about today.
Though we certainly acknowledge the challenges that science can present, this week we'll focus on places where science has, indeed, given us reasons for our trust in the Bible.
It goes to show how far scientists have fallen, though I am happy to say that we still have Christian scientists who have discovered things that proves the trustworthiness of the Bible.
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Re: Lesson Study #6 - The Bible and SCIENCE
[Re: Daryl]
#88663
05/06/07 06:28 PM
05/06/07 06:28 PM
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I was happy to read the interesting information in Sunday's section: For many years, much of science worked on the presupposition that all existence, including human life, was the result of pure chance. We are just a big accident, nothing more.
Now, though, science seems to be moving in another direction. In fact, a new phrase has been coined: "anthropic coincidences," from the Greek word anthropos, meaning "man." Science reveals that many factors in the universe are so finely tuned that even the slightest variation would create an environment unfit for human existence. It's almost as though the universe was created with the existence of humanity in mind!
What are some of these "anthropic coincidences"?
For starters, if the rate of expansion after the creation of the universe had been smaller by one part in a hundred million, the universe would have collapsed in on itself. On the other hand, had it been greater by one part in a hundred million, the universe would have expanded too rapidly for stars or planets to form.
Also, one of the known basic forces in nature is called the strong nuclear force. Had it been slightly weaker, there would have been only hydrogen in the universe; had it been slightly stronger, there would have been only helium. In either environment, humanity as we know it could never have been formed.
There are many other examples, enough to get even someone like the famed Stephen Hawking (hardly a biblical creationist) to admit: "The odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the Big Bang are enormous. . . . I think there are clearly religious implications."—Quoted in Ian Barbour, When Science Meets Religion (New York: Harper Collins, 2000), p. 58.
If this is what science is now saying, then I can't see how anybody can still call themselves an aetheist.
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Re: Lesson Study #6 - The Bible and SCIENCE
[Re: Daryl]
#88667
05/07/07 12:57 PM
05/07/07 12:57 PM
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Today I read Monday's section on astronomy. It is estimated that there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy alone. Astronomers have estimated that there are about 1022 (that is, 10 thousand billion billion) stars in the universe. If one could count even as many as 10 different numbers per second, it would take at least 100 million billion years to count up to 1022.
Can you imagine all that happening by accident? I can't, as it is obvious that it couldn't and didn't happen by accident to the degree that there is even life on this planet that is warmed just right by our closest star, our sun.
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Re: Lesson Study #6 - The Bible and SCIENCE
[Re: Daryl]
#88693
05/08/07 02:30 PM
05/08/07 02:30 PM
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Psalm 139:14 I will praise You; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are marvelous and my soul knows it very well. Fearfully and Wonderfully Made is the title of Tuesday's section. Though possibly a bit overstated, the following quote tells us something about the complexity of the human brain. "There are trillions of neurons in a human brain; the number of possible ways of connecting them is greater than the number of atoms in the universe."—Ian Barbour, When Science Meets Religion (New York: Harper Collins, 2000), p. 62.
When I read stuff like this, it takes more faith to believe in the Big Bang Theory than it does in a literal creation by our Creator God. I also found the following quote from Tuesday's section interesting: .....recently one vocal opponent of intelligent design (and the implications of a Creator behind it) argued that the universe is a thing that simply appears to be designed even though, of course, it isn't. In other words, it just looks that way.
Again, it takes more faith to believe in a mere chance creation of human life, etc. than it does in the existence of a Greater Power, namely Jehovah God, who created human life, etc. But, then again, there are people like Francis Crick who do not want to admit that we have been created. Meanwhile Francis Crick, probably the most famous biologist of the twentieth century and a vehement atheist, concluded that life was too complicated to have arisen in the supposed billions of years between the cooling off of the earth and the rapid emergence of life forms. Crick speculated, therefore, that life must have started somewhere else and was then brought here, perhaps by space aliens who wanted to see the earth (see again 1 Cor. 3:19 and Ps. 14:1
Then there's the quote involving Charles Darwin and Michael Behe: Another exciting development came from the work of biochemist Michael Behe. Charles Darwin partially based his theory of evolution on the idea that changes came over time to species through a series of small, successive modifications. If, Darwin said, any complex organ could be shown not to have gone through these steps, his theory would break down.
Behe, not a biblical creationist, showed various aspects of the human body—the cilia, the eye, and blood clotting—that could not have arisen according to the basic evolutionary schema. According to Behe, they couldn't have arisen over time because, in order for the organ to function at all, all the pieces already had to be in place at once. If one part, or even one step, wasn't there from the beginning, the organ or process could not exist at all. His evidence presents a strong challenge to the evolutionary model of creation. The question, therefore, remains: If these things didn't come by chance, through the evolutionary processes, then how did they arise (John 1:1-4, Acts 17:28)?
With the technology and discoveries of today, I wonder what Charles Darwin would say now, if he were alive today?
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Re: Lesson Study #6 - The Bible and SCIENCE
[Re: Daryl]
#88709
05/08/07 09:41 PM
05/08/07 09:41 PM
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SDA Active Member 2023
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In the earliest years of the scientific revolution (the seventeenth century), science was viewed as a way to understand God. It goes to show how far scientists have fallen... Many of the great scientists believed in God. Whether they were godly or not is quite another story. But they were not atheists.
By God's grace, Arnold
There is no excuse for any one in taking the position that there is no more truth to be revealed, and that all our expositions of Scripture are without an error. The fact that certain doctrines have been held as truth for many years by our people, is not a proof that our ideas are infallible. Age will not make error into truth, and truth can afford to be fair. No true doctrine will lose anything by close investigation. RH 12/20/1892
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Re: Lesson Study #6 - The Bible and SCIENCE
[Re: Daryl]
#88714
05/08/07 10:16 PM
05/08/07 10:16 PM
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I was happy to read the interesting information in Sunday's section: What are some of these "anthropic coincidences"? If this is what science is now saying, then I can't see how anybody can still call themselves an aetheist. Actually, anthropic coincidences are not nearly enough to convince the atheist. The logical response is: If one of these coincidences did not exist, then we would not be around to marvel at the coincidence; but it so happened that it did, and we are. But for the true scientist, coincidence is not a good answer. The challenge now is to explain why these things are the way they are. Various theories abound, but the hardened atheist will always exclude supernatural explanations.
By God's grace, Arnold
There is no excuse for any one in taking the position that there is no more truth to be revealed, and that all our expositions of Scripture are without an error. The fact that certain doctrines have been held as truth for many years by our people, is not a proof that our ideas are infallible. Age will not make error into truth, and truth can afford to be fair. No true doctrine will lose anything by close investigation. RH 12/20/1892
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Re: Lesson Study #6 - The Bible and SCIENCE
[Re: crater]
#88715
05/08/07 10:20 PM
05/08/07 10:20 PM
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It was recently explained to my by someone who isn't a creationist, that if I understood what they were saying was that basically every thing is made from hydrogen. Stars use hydrogen as fuel, and the products of these stellar processes are heavier elements (helium, oxygen, iron...). The theory is that the earliest stars produced these heavy elements, spread them out through nova and supernova explosions, and they eventually coalesced into planets revolving around a new star. So, the carbon in our cells, and the oxygen we breath originated in stars long dead. That's the theory anyway.
By God's grace, Arnold
There is no excuse for any one in taking the position that there is no more truth to be revealed, and that all our expositions of Scripture are without an error. The fact that certain doctrines have been held as truth for many years by our people, is not a proof that our ideas are infallible. Age will not make error into truth, and truth can afford to be fair. No true doctrine will lose anything by close investigation. RH 12/20/1892
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