I’ve been accused of “not understanding” nuclear (atomic, radiation emitting elements) technology.
I disagree.
I’ve been accused of “not understanding” that nulear (atomic, radiation emitting elements) are evidence of God.
I disagree.
I’ve been told that radioactive elements are “being Created every day,” and that therefore these elements do not have lifespans.
I disagree.
I’ve been told that the Bible, God’s actual words, mean nothing.
Most people these days don’t believe in God, they believe only in precious, worthless money. $$$
This is my response:
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What We Teach Our Children
Twenty-odd years ago when attending university I watched my sophomore Western Civ Professor, a man I respected and admired, loosely gibe a fellow classmate for including Biblical references in her mid-term paper, contrasting more favorably received excerpts from Friedrich Nietzsche and Immanuel Kant. The topic was origin of life, and I’ll never forget the nervous, shaken look that came into the girl’s eyes, the sudden jolt of uncertainty; what felt like a conscious, introspective lack of credible evidence or logic in favor of divine creation, and in praise of God, which I was feeling at the same moment right along with her. All these years later that first faith-quaking experience has stayed with me.
So what do we teach our children, university level on down? The question begs of not just who we are individually, our cultural proclivities or religious preferences, but truly represents the cumulative apex of civilization as a whole, throughout all ages. Mankind’s greatest triumphs, most harrowing losses; amazing inventions, inspirations, revelations, and most importantly our dreams for, and expectations of, the future. A precious heritage of truth, knowledge, and salvation, carefully compiled and assembled to inform the next generation, for all succeeding. Everyone wants the best for their kids, and what we teach them reflects our collective version of the ideal; our perfect world. Yet today, within the strictures of modern education, subjects like science and mathematics are so intensively divergent from spiritual or theological study as to seem virtual opposites. The push-button conveniences of modern technology can make an inner, personal relationship with God seem more distant and remote than ever before, perhaps even moot, as though prayer and devotion has little or no practical value.
To voice evangelical opinions at, say, a Ph.D. conference would bring subdued laughter (just like my Western Civ professor) and probably entail some degree of professional ostracism, ridicule, and exclusion in an all too real, financial sense. Virgin childbirth, walking on water, resurrection from death;the miracles of Christianity are not merely regarded as scientific impossibilities — these miracles symbolize the very pillars of obsolete folklore and irrational fanaticism science has, by definition, sought to refute and deny. A priori versus a posteriori, believe what you see before you, as per science, or believe what you can’t see behind you, as in religion, but don’t believe in both. Evangelical science seems an oxymoron.
In our schools debate hinges on the teaching of evolution versus the Bible, or what’s come to be termed “intelligent design,” yet science and theology are not bitter rivals, and one does not have to be wrong for the other to be right. Just because the Bible contains no fossil record does not discredit or disparage it’s historical significance in any way, a product of a different æon. Conversely, just because evolution makes no allowance for the irreducible complexity of certain cells and organs, most notably the eye, does not change or influence several millennia of archeological data confirming the metamorphosis we call evolution. Human nature is inherently inquisitive, constantly, almost involuntarily contemplating the how’s and why’s of our physical world, the eventuality of death, and the existence of God in turn. The prevailing fad of evolution is loosely based on Charles Darwin’s “Origin of Species,” a detailed study of certain displaced species of birds and reptiles found exclusively on the Galapagos islands displaying remarkably different anatomic features than indigenous, continental birds and reptiles of like species. To say the respective doctrines of evolution and intelligent design disagree is mild understatement; most proponents of evolution would rather commit ritual hara-kiri than accept even the slightest sliver of evidence supporting divine creation, whereas many ordained ministers blush noticeably any time the words evolution and truth mention in the same sentence.
Yet what’s so unorthodox about a lost bird finding tasty seeds in some novel, predominating plant and, over many generations, the bird’s beaks morphing, elongating — evolving — to better access the seeds? This is all Darwin proposed: adaptation circumvents extinction. A drying riverbed where aquatic life forms either adapt to breathe air and move on land or perish very quickly in extinction.
Seems pretty simple, nor should there be anything eccentric or implausible about the notion that an intelligent and loving God created bird, plant, Charles Darwin, ocean, sky, and what-all else in the bargain. One theory does not negate another simply by default, and new insights into the role of evolution within the miracle of Creation do not change the initial miracle.
Parts cannot be greater than the whole.
Following the current mentality of many intellectuals, largely dictated by grandiose, macro-misinterpretations of evolutionary theory, life began as some kind of fortuitous coincidence, an infinity of pre-existing matter somehow coming together and “Big Banging” into celestial orbs of cooling primordial ooze, out of which our ancestors gradually crawled. Now, the best real, physical evidence we have supporting divine Creation is found in radioactive elements, since radioactive emission is by no means constant or perpetual. Radioactivity negates a supposed pre-eternity of matter because all radioactive elements have half-lives, that is, the amount of time required for that specific element to give off exactly one half of it’s radioactive energy. The half-life of uranium 235, for instance, is seven-hundred and four million years, whereby we can deduce that in fourteen-hundred and eight million years (two half-lives) uranium 235 will cease to exist entirely, having decayed into lead. Keep in mind that if something,anything, wasn’t made, formed, initiated, created, whatever, then it always existed, and radioactive elements can not have always existed.
To one way of thinking, these rocks will gradually go extinct…
Although scientists measure the latent radioactivity of carbon as the most accurate, state-of-the-art way of dating organic material, I have yet to encounter any rigid scientific theory of life incorporating a radioactive timeframe, or adequately addressing the empirical questions this phenomenon poses. Fitting perhaps that the best evidence we have supporting the existence of God is also a source of incredible, unlimited energy — never mind the ghastly doomsday weapons capable of ending all life on this planet.
The most basic, primitive logic is founded on sequence and origin, one before two, two before three, et cetera. The equation two plus three equals five hinges on the computation of one before two, in the same relation to three, yet the number one is unseen in the equation, and goes uncalculated. One is inferred, given, and taken for granted.
In a sense, trying to systematically observe the world around us, conduct experiments, record data; in other words, to practice advanced science as we know it today with all the benefits of modern technology, amounts to using the equation two plus three equals five to prove that the number one does not exist. No origin, no sequence, we have two plus three equaling five just fine without the number one, thank you.
Number one does not exist in this equation.
As if a plant could sprout flowers before roots…
Should we believe that we “evolved” from single cell organisms but that mineral deposits somehow did not?
Do radioactive elements “evolve” into lead, then?
The timeless question of chicken or egg first ignores the dictate of sequence and origin in much the same way, treats time as if it was not a factor, as if a chicken could somehow mysteriously appear without first hatching from an egg. It doesn’t matter what laid the egg , (or how close it came to resembling an actual chicken). The structure of an egg is nearly identical to the basic structure of a cell, and therefore theoretically possible for an egg to reproduce itself, having divided from another egg — but we cannot ignore sequence, origin, and a requisite passage of time.
From a purely argumentative stance, some people look at human suffering in the world; at murder, disease, war, genocide, and all the other crimes and sins; concluding therefore God cannot possibly exist because He “wouldn’t allow” these things to happen; from a purely rational viewpoint the problem indeed seems both relevant and impossible to refute. But we must remember that just as there is a God in heaven, there is a devil here on earth, and this is his realm.
The trials and tribulations of this world are what prepare and temper us for the next, where the devil no longer holds court; our suffering now defines, even identifies us later, when this world is no more.
I’m not a kid anymore, and in the twenty-odd years since college I’ve become more certain about life, and about God. I’m not sure if I could convert my old Western Civ professor or get him going to church every Sunday, he certainly was a contentious old bird, but I like to think the conclusions we can derive through the existence of radioactive matter might enrich my old classmate’s faith a little, God bless her wherever she may be.
barrettstites 