God Squad: God and the Big Bang

[cereta]

I believe in God and the Big Bang. Is there any problem with that? -- From T

A: No problem, T. The Bible teaches that the first act of creation by God is God creating light. Light is energy and light and energy are what was released by the Big Bang that exploded (and is still exploding) at the beginning of the universe.

The paleontologist Stephen J. Gould thought that religion and science are not in conflict because they are about different things. Science is about how the universe works. Religion is about what the universe means. Science and Religion are what he called NOMAs (nonoverlapping magisteria). They are two realms of human thought that do not cross over the same intellectual and spiritual territory. I agree.

We are way beyond the time when people read the Bible as a science text book, and also hopefully way beyond the time when people think that scientists can do an experiment to discover the meaning of life.

Comments

[cereta]

I think I like this answer.

[minoanmiss]

.... not bad answer, with a side of "why is the country I live in so persistently Neo-medieval that we have to ask", but I'm grumpy.

So, "God Squad"?

[cereta]

I am dubious of his assertion that we are beyond a time when people use the Bible as a science textbook, but I'm reading that as a sort of intentionally disingenuous, "Gosh, people don't really believe that, do they?"

[moem]

If you don't see it as a problem, then it's not a problem.

[tielan]

The biblical creation story was developed in contrast to the creation stories of the middle east at the time.

These usually went along the lines of "warring gods made a mess of the universe and people are the accidental result of that; and people are individually insignificant to the gods, but we can serve them and maybe they'll spare us".

To contrast, the biblical creation story is about a God who purposefully and intently creates order out of chaos, who develops things in an organised manner (light and dark, earth and heavens, sun and moon, fish and birds, animals, and human beings), and who creates people as both the pinnacle of his creation and as reflective entities to his glory ('in our image').

And everyone I know, from the ministers in any of the churches I attended as a kid, to respected Christian leaders, to my senior year Chemistry teacher (who so far as I know was an agnostic), all said "It's a why story - intended to give meaning. It's not a how story - intended to give methodology."

So yeah, Stephen J Gould, non-overlapping magisteria.

[cereta]

That is more or less what I was taught in high school and college (both Catholic), and what I hope I've managed to convey to the small fanperson, when she was still at the unfortunate stage when she was being taught more literally. Why Catholic schools do that, I really have no idea.

[xenacryst]

If I had been in a church that thought that way, I might still be there rather than mostly ignoring religious thought these days. I'd actually say that most of my religious experience has been as a what story - "this is what happened." But then a lot of that was really focusing on the very mundane "gosh, where are the Israelites today on their journey?" question, and not on the why of it. And Genesis was largely ignored until I took it upon myself to read it in about five different languages as more of a comparative linguistics exercise (I have a collection of Bibles; they're cool). Well, I mean, people would periodically read verses of Genesis at us, but then not talk about meaning.

[jadelennox]

My dad (Orthodox Jew) always said "my God is not so small that he can't create the earth in six days and simultaneously have a multi-billion year process of earth formation and evolution. If you can understand God he isn't God." Or something like that.