Simple Bible Answers - A web site to further understand the Word of God.
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Simple Bible Answers - A web site to further understand the Word of God.
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Are Christians hopelessly at odds with the world of science?
Q. Are Christians and modern science incompatible? Q. Why doesn’t modern science support the Bible?
Most early cultures didn’t understand how the world worked. Pagan man attributed natural events to “gods”. The creation wasn’t created, the creation was the god. Gods for water, stars, air, animals, and the whole of earth was either divided into parts that were gods, or at least controlled by individual gods. A small group did know the truth, that "One God" created it all, and all was under his domain. On the first time out man started to lose this perspective. Many gods started to replace the one God, man had debased himself to the point God had to “wash” the plate clean with a flood, and start over. The second time around has been a struggle for man also. Some cultures did go to many gods like the first group did, with the hindus leading the pack. They have so many gods that they themselves can’t list them all. But one god has emerged more then any other over the years to challenge the True God, his name is “man”. Man has promoted himself to the level (in his mind) of God. One of his religions is science, and his temples are the universities and labs throughout the world. Does that mean science is bad? Not at all, science is good; science is great, when used as a tool for man to understand what God has created. Christians have been conditioned to oppose science, and, there by, have lost a God given tool, to learn from, to explore, to help his follow man with. It wasn’t always this way, in fact if it wasn’t for God we wouldn’t have modern science at all. Like I said with pagan man there was no need for science. If there’s a flood… it’s the water god, lava flow… need to feed the volcano god (young women seemed his taste), rain, wind, death, birth, sex (lots of gods for that, man has his priorities), war, health, whatever concerned man, there was a god to rule it. Science wasn’t needed. But along comes the Jews with their one God, and after the visit of their Messiah, Christians were added, and a new truth (not really new, just rediscovered for some) was seen. One Creator, one creation, and the idea that this creation was for the benefit of man, and man was for the benefit of this one God. The Bible set down an order of how things were created, it showed this One God was a God of logic, thought, laws, and order. This God told man to be stewards of the earth. Man started to look for an order in nature, that a God such as this would be sure to incorporate. If there’s a designer, then surely man must be able to see a design. And he has. The first of the great fathers, of modern science, was Sir Isaac Newton. If you ever get a chance, study his works and his writings. It wasn’t an apple that motivated his life long quest of knowledge, it was a desire to understand God’s creation and to explain it. Newton wrote more on God then he did on science. It’s a pattern that followed with science for decades. Knowledge was a gift from God, and one couldn’t have it without having God. The greatest universities also were the seminars. Almost all your Ivy League schools started with the understanding that knowledge had to be coupled with God for any of it to make sense. If it wasn’t for God, and the church, man would still be throwing girls into lava flows and praying to thunder gods. Did the early church/universities get it wrong sometimes…yes. But it most often happened when they looked at the world with mans eyes, not with Gods eyes. Did they teach that the world was flat, sure did. The Bible says that the world is (using the Hebrew definition of the word) a sphere, round and 3 dimensional. Did some teach that it was supported by something, some did, yet God tells us it was hung in the sky by nothing. The Bible never said the earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around it. That was man and his puffed up belief he is the center of everything, and man still is self-centered. This is where perspective comes into place. How we look at science determines whether it works or not. There are two ways to look at science, with the eyes of the Bible, or with the eyes of man. In modern terms we call these filters. Everyone uses them. All people build these filters using how they’re raised, schooling and past experience. What we have learned, and gone though, is what filters our thinking, and there by, our beliefs. God and his Word need to be the first filter we use in our thinking. Modern man is taught to either put this filter last, or to discard it completely. When this happens things just don’t fit. These filters are like lens in a pair of glasses. With the lens of the Bible all of nature comes into clear focus. Things make sense, the world has order, and everything fits perfectly. The lens of "man" are like looking at a fun house mirror, though a kaleidoscope. One can see truths, but they are disjointed, and what can be seen most often then not, is distorted. Our schools, TV, movies, news sources, and culture as a whole, have become our “optometrist”. This is known as our “world view”. Does it make a difference, yet bet. I’ll show you how just looking at something as simple as basic math can be affected by looking at it from a “wrong perspective”. Three men walk into a motel. They wish to rent a room and share the cost. The man at the desk tells them the room is ten bucks a piece, or 30 dollars for the night. The three men pony up 10 each and head off to the room. The manager comes over and tells the desk man if they are sharing the room they get a discount, and it’s only 25 dollars for the three. So the desk man gives the bell hop five dollars from the register to return to the men. But on the way the bell hop thinks “how am I going to divide the 5 dollars evenly between the three”? So what he does is he pockets 2 dollars, and gives each man back a buck a piece. Now each man has paid 9 dollars for the room, 3 X 9 = 27. The desk bell hop kept two dollars, 27 + 2 = 29. Where did the other dollar go? This is what happens when we look at God, His Word, and His creation with the perspective of man. It doesn’t add up. Man plays with numbers, mixes theories, and hides the truth to best support his predetermined outcome. Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure. If we look at it right then 25 for the room, plus the 3 returned to the men, added with the 2 from the bell boy still make 30. How has the world done this? By Christians letting them establish the ground rules. The person who can frame the debate will most often win the debate. They get Christians fighting over how, and where, the dollar got lost, and lose sight that the worlds perspective, and their “basic math” is wrong in the first place. If Christians continue to use the worlds lens, we will always be trying to find that missing dollar. We need to take back the home ground, let them prove their findings by Gods truth and everything will always add up. Science is a great tool for man when viewed though the lens of Gods Word. There is never a contradiction between science, and the Bible, if God is our “optometrist”. But if we view God (and His creation) with the lens that man gives us, we will always be a dollar short.
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Last modified: 12/15/07For a FREE downloadable KJV Bible click here. Opinions or questions: Mail@SimpleBibleAnswers.com
Re:22:18: For I testify unto every man
that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto
these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
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