The Midnight Hour

A lot of (most?) Christians believe the world is less than 10,000 years old. Yet, they don’t really know why they believe it. If they DO know why they believe it, they cite the lineage of Noah and co. and come up with some number greater than 6000 and less than 10,000. Ok, that’s fine.

But that same set of Christians will then go on to discount scientists without knowing the science of why they believe in a Young Earth. Sure many Young Earther’s will site that they don’t need science to believe in a Young Earth. But how does that make them qualified to discount an Old Earth point of view?

Christians should not be afraid of science. Science will ultimately lead to a revelation of truth - which will lead to revelations about all that which is created.

This anti-science stance by Christians is divisive and creates a mass public that is apathetic not only towards Jesus Christ, but other religious groups. The agnostic/atheist loves to pick on this group of Christians. Frankly, I believe they deserve it.

I also think there is something fundamentally illogical about accepting things that science has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt (gravity is 9.8 m/s^2, Bernoulli’s Principle, the relationship between electricity and magnetism) while totally ignoring, disregarding, or discounting theories that the same scientific method says is quite probable. You can’t really deny that an apple falls to earth, because that’s the work of a 17th century physicist, and you see it everyday, and you’re comfortable with it. Now take those very same scientific principles, apply some work by 20th and 21st century physicists, and you get The Big Bang Theory, Superstring Theory, an expanding universe (or a slowing of time), Supernovas, Quasars, and a lot of other things that the everyday world doesn’t shove down our throats as things that “must be real” because we don’t see them everyday. Many Christians deny the science behind these ideas because they blindly assume that science is the enemy of faith. Of all people you would think that Christians wouldn’t need to be able to see and touch something to know that it is true (or at least acknowledge it’s possible).

I once decided to stop debating a particular friend (who I respect very much but happen to disagree with) on this issue when I presented the point “How do you know that God didn’t speak creation into being through [the mechanics of the Big Bang Theory]?”

His reply was, in essence, “I see what you’re saying, but I just don’t think it happened that way.”

I don’t think anyone has any great insight into what it actually looked like when God spoke creation into being, but this particular Christian was quite certain that it didn’t look the way science thinks it might have, because the science of our origin is his sworn enemy that can do no good. Faced with a scientific explanation that is completely reconcilable, by his own admission, with his take on Biblical creation, he still “just doesn’t think it happened that way.” What is one to make of that?

Science has been wrong before, and I’m certain there are some existing theories that are flatly wrong. However, when the Bible says “God played the 5th hole of the golf course.” and science says “we’re pretty sure he used a 5-iron and it took him 4 strokes”…why can’t they both be right? If science is wrong then please tell me what club he did use and how many strokes he did take, because if your answer is “I don’t know” then you have no information to offer, you only seek information to reject.

I think many people who put their blinders down, may feel as though, religion has already answered all the questions of the Universe. Science can only muddy up the waters.

It isn’t just those with bumper stickers though. Polls show the majority of Americans don’t believe in Darwin’s theory of Evolution.

I love the way you expressed this! I think that those that don’t educate themselves about science don’t have much faith in God.

I have seen many creationist say that evolution “defies the law of thermodynamics.” But ask them which law and they don’t have a clue what the laws of thermodynamics are. They read that somewhere and so it must be true.

Peggy, thanks for your input.

The principles of Thermodynamics that those people cite (unfortunately, without knowing what they’re citing) constitute, in my opinion, strong evidence for the existence of God.

I expect they are most often referring to the 2nd law, which according to wikipedia states that “In an isolated system, a process can occur only if it increases the total entropy of the system.”

Entropy is a weird topic, but I like to think of it as “disorder.” I often state the law as “all closed systems tend towards disorder over time” What I mean is that if you have a pile of mud isolated from any contact with other matter, and you walk away for 10000 years, when you return the pile of mud will not have built itself into Picasso’s Starry Night. It may be different than the original pile of mud, but it will not be more orderly than the original pile of mud. It will be more homogeneous and disorderly.

The creation of the universe and especially life on earth, in my opinion, require that the universe is not a closed system, but that there is an outside, intelligent force acting upon it.

My .02

First of and most importantly, entropy is about energy dispersal not disorder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy#Energy_dispersal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics#Complex_systems
http://www.rsc.org/pdf/uchemed/papers/2002/p2_carson.pdf

Second using “Starry Night” here is really intellectually dishonest. No atoms or molecules form chemical bonds resembling a painting by Picasso. They do however form natural and spontaneous ordered structures. The salt in the mud may crystallize. The silica may form quartz. The water may crystallize as well. And that is just all I can think of right now. Each of these examples you’d come out with a far more ordered pile of mud than you started out with.

Jason, your comment got caught in the spam filter because of all the links. I didn’t find it until today, and it is now restored.

“Disorder” isn’t the perfect word, but it’s pretty good for the context I’m using it.

Entropy is about differences in potential energy. Sure, the positive ions in the mud bond to the negative ions in the mud. Does that make things more orderly? Yeah, from a certain perspective. The central idea is that there is a finite amount of potential energy dispersed in the system and it will finally come to equilibrium… unless work is performed on the system by an external source. At some point the system comes to equilibrium and stops changing.

I think it’s much more likely that the primordial soup had external work performed on it (a Creator) rather than assuming that equilibrium was most easily achieved (because natural systems take the path of least resistance) through the development of life as we know it.

C’mon, what’s more likely given a closed system: an ocean of amino acids remains an ocean of amino acids, or the amino acids develop into proteins, into amoebas, into fish, into mammals, into men, who build the internet, and discuss creation on the internet.

Is the system really still chasing equilibrium?

I simply claim there was work performed on the system by an external source. All things considered, my claim is much more likely. Proving the development of life could have happened without external work would be quite a burden.

The system is an infinite “closed system”. Very much different than a closed system as we know on earth. Those religious people who deny science are, for the most part, fundimentalists. They believe in the unerring word of god in their religious text. Any scientific discovery that varies from these texts challenges their faith and thy must deny it. Their belief that these texts are “the word of god” limits their ability to accept the universe as it is. Constrast that to the Buddhist who does not pretend to be able to know or understant the infinite.

You are sorta correct here Jeff, but you’re missing one key point Jeff. The Sun. The Earth is not an “isolated system” or closed system, as the definition of entropy would require.

The primordial mud without the Sun will eventually come to a state of equilibrium or a maximum state of entropy. With the Sun, however, it never will.

Jeff, Eric, Jason, anyone interested in the conflicts between Science and Faith, I recommend a book called “The Language of God”, by geneticist Francis Collins (director of the National Human Genome Research Institute).

I am only part of the way through it myself, but it has been particularly helpful in my own struggles trying to get Faith and Science to coexist in my beliefs. The more I learn from this way of thought, the less I find the two contradicting eachother.