The Missing Link

The thing that often annoys me is that when people rant and rant and rant about "Science vs. Religion", they only look at one religion, usually Christianity. As a Muslim, it gets frustrating to constantly be thrown into the same group, when Islam doesn't go against any Scientific facts. Some theories, but absolutely no facts.

There isn't a reason to teach Darwinism. Just leave it alone. It's not that great at all. It does not say anything, and causes problems. I don't really like Darwin.

Interesting topic. I like the visual aids you offer. I also agree with Critter, it would be interesting to look at different kinds of faith and where they stand on the issue. Great job!

This is very interesting. I'm under the belief that science reinforces my belief of a creator (God, maybe...). If only people would actually study darwin would they realize that he was an extremely religous being and in fact sat on the idea of evolution for about 20 yrs. before finally releasing his work in fear of opponent scientists taking credibility for his work.

I have to agree with redryan. Darwin himself started studying religion after he had read in the bible that if you haven't given your life to Christ, you would surely die and go to hell. He did this after his father died and couldn't deal with that. So, of course, he was bound and determined to say it was untrue. On his death bed, Darwin actually said that everything he said during his years were untrue about the bible and religion. He said that he couldn't figure it out, but there had to be a higher being in charge of the earth due to its complexity.
I love to hear all of your opinions. I personally think, whether there is a God or not, I would rather live for Christ now, here on earth, rather than not. I wouldn't want to deal with the consequences in the afterlife...God Bless all!

Just as a slight side note, the Biblical God seems to give up pretty easy. What exactly would be the point of Hell? Why would God just give up on someone and write them off as unredeemable even by Him? Seems odd to hear God actually say, dude, I give up on this guy! Looks like I lost another one! Nope. Doesnt sound like something a true all knowing deity would really say. And, okay, so lets take a major leap of faith and take for granted the outrageous concept that God just gives up on the people He has created and decides to just stop trying after 100 years or less (seems like an infinite and immortal God wouldnt judge someone totally worthless after only giving that creature a few decades of life!) But lets accept such a weird premise and ask the next question, what would the point be of Hell? Since this soul is apparently unredeemable by God and essentially useless (it wont go back to earth and it wont go to Heaven) then what exactly would be the point of keeping this soul alive and then torturing it for eternity in Hell? Does God get pleasure out of torture? The inescapable conclusion is that, yes, He does because what other purpose is possibly served by torturing someone for eternity? God (at least the God invented in the Bible) never says you can ever LEAVE Hell if you learn your lesson. He just says you suffer forever with no hope of ever getting out. So what would be the point of that? Even the GitMo detainees we torture are at least tortured for a purpose. God just seems to be doing it because He is vengeful and that doesnt sound like a very enlightened deity. If the goal was to simply make this person a better person then surely an ALL KNOWING deity would come up with a better set of tools then torture. If I can teach a dog to sit, stay and roll over surely an all knowing and all power deity would be able to "teach" someone to live in the manner He wants without resorting to using a cattle prod and a baseball bat. Seems like more proof the Bible (and its unique characterization of God) was invented by very human people. Surely a true all knowing God wouldnt have such a base human psychology (enjoying the torture of others) nor would such a Being need to resort to violence of any kind in order to ?train? His creations to live as He wishes them too. Just one more reason to not have religion in the classroom.

Hello there!

Wow! Thank you for the email back. I used to think these thoughts myself back in the day. But I have come to know God in an intimate way since then and know that above all else, He loves us and begs us for our salvation. However, because He gave us free will, we have to decide to come to Him freely. He can't force us to love Him. He can't force us to serve Him. He gives us chance after chance after chance to come in contact with the truth of who He really is. We have to accept it or reject it.

What I have learned in my own life is that God is a very merciful God, a faithful God, a trusting God and gives us many chances to come unto Him and lay our burdens down. Being human, however, and strong-willed, we try to live life in our own devices and by what we think is good for us instead of listening to that still small voice and surrendering all to Him. I know this to be especially true in my own life. Sure, I have given certain aspects of my life up to God and He has blessed me for it (my finances, my daughter, etc) in abundance. But, there are other parts that I can't seem to surrender (like smoking). God doesn't hate me because I smoke. In fact, I believe that He pursues me even more. He wants me to be blessed, but before He can, I have to surrender this aspect of my life. The fact that I don't want to right now is what holds me from blessings and favor.

The bible is a love story. It is all about how God pursues His people. How He tries to speak truth into their lives. How He tries to change our lives for the better. Even those who loved Him once, persecuted Him. He was a non-comformist. He yelled with righteous anger. He isn't a weak God, even when He was here on earth. He has a ferocious, jealous love for His children. We just have to willingly give our love back.

The bible is very clear that if we accept our salvation, we will get into heaven. We will be seated at the right hand of the Father. The Father cannot come into contact with sin. Therefore, our eternal punishment is being separated from Him. Hell, in other words.

I think our time here on earth is a long lesson in education. He promises us that in Heaven, there will be no more pain or suffering, but I do believe we have to go through that here in order to be more "Christ-like". We will never be perfect, because we constantly sin. But, our response to the things that happen this side of Heaven, will eventually mark our spot in Heaven. Make sense?

Thanks again for emailing!

Just a brief thought on the free will argument. My dog has free will, and yet he abides by my plan for his life. When I trained the dog not to poop in the house, I did not subjugate his free will in anyway nor did I compromise his uniqueness and personality. If God existed AND desired us to behave in a manner consist with His wishes He could train us as easily as we train animals AND He could easily do us in a manner that would not violate free will or compromise our individual personalities. I am not saying there is no God, but rather I am pointing out that logically if God truly wanted you (or any of us) to conduct ourselves in a specific manner He could easily do so without violating our free will. It seems inconsistent (and to my viewpoint a little paradoxical) that God could truly ?want? something but was incapable of achieving it. If He wants us to be unique and have free will and act in a certain manner consistent with what He deems appropriate, then logically I see no reason why He couldn?t achieve that. The very definition of God dictates that such a Being is incapable of failure or mistakes; therefore it is impossible that God could ?fail? to achieve His goals for each of us. And that means there would be no need for Hell because, well, God cant fail so therefore there would be no one to put into Hell. Just out of curiosity do you believe that God really could fail to achieve His goals for each of us?

That's a really good question, Crob!

I think that we, as humans, have in fact made it impossible to succeed in areas of our lives. He tries and tries and tries to work around the free will. But, with free will, He can't (because He promised) and won't just take it away. He doesn't want a robot serving Him. He can try to train us...if we listen, which is key, by the way. How many of us listen to Him. Most times we think we can't hear Him anyway.

I like your analogy with training your dog. We are dog's in training, essentially. Our life here on earth is our "doggie obedience school". We choose to do good or bad. He doesn't force us either way. But, I do believe and know that He talks to us. He tells us and convicts us. He loves us and cries with us. With your dog, you probably trained with treats. God trains with blessings. This life is HARD and we need those times of joy and solace to keep us on track.

So, no, God is capable of all things. Yes, He will not take our free will because He already gave it to us as a gift.

P.S. Can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Dogs are wayyyyy more teachable than we are...and more obedient, too. =)

Well, I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. As I said, I don?t see why God couldnt achieve His goal without violating free will. Telemarketers simply talk to people on the phone and convince them to buy products. They are able to do this without magic and certainly without violating anyones free will. The God you seem to be describing seems to have less influence than a telemarketer! God interacts with people and yet fails to make a convincing argument? If you were describing any supernatural being besides an all knowing one, that could be plausible. Being all knowing creates some real logical conundrums. God would know the outcome of every action He takes. Lets say someone is about to jump of a building and commit suicide. God doesn?t want that person to do that (obviously) so He takes action. But the God you are describing is capable of interacting (taking some kind of action) and failing. This is being written off not as Gods failure but a problem of free will. But that implies God is limited, that He cant achieve His objectives. The problem with being an all knowing Creature is that He knows what the outcome of any action He takes before He takes it. So you end up in a weird theological gray area wherein God doesn?t make mistakes, routinely interacts with humanity, and yet seems to constantly fail to achieve His goals. On the surface you can see how that really doesn?t make any sense. Trying to use the free will argument (in my mind anyway) falls short because surely God can achieve His goals without violating free will. Again, if a human telemarketer can sell Omaha Steaks over the phone surely an all knowing God could surely make a convincing argument for following His prescription for living without resorting to mind control or violating free will. Surely an all knowing God could make an argument that would be reasonable to all of us. And He could do it right now if He wished.

Great vid and a worthwhile endeavor! I'm a bit surprised and dismayed that this topic just never seems to fade away and die like it should. I'm also amazed by the attitude of the fundamentalists of all faiths who take a literal approach to their books of faith. I attribut this to either a) monumental stupidity, or b) tremendous audacity to claim to understand how God works in our universe.

Science and religion are mutually exclusive realms of thought. They just don't have anything to say about each other. Despite this, I'm intrigued by the closing thought about finding common ground in environmentalism. By the way, this is the theme of one of E.O. Wilson's latest book The Creation. A great read for all who are interested in this topic!

Hey Crob!

Sorry, I missed your last response. Good thinking with the telemarketer. =)

The difference between God and a telemarketer is that we can't see God. And with most people, seeing is believing. I know 100% positively that God exists and that He speaks to us today. He speaks to me constantly (many times convicting me of sin). Not because I am extraordinary, but because I yearn to hear His voice once I have heard it once. I have seen the miraculous. I have seen Him work in my life. But, I didn't see it until I believed. I had to believe with faith. Faith isn't believing by sight. It is an unconditional belief that He exists. He is not an imaginary friend. He is real. Very real.

People can sway us in many different directions. Whether telemarketers, friends, peers, parents, enemies. We choose to believe what people say, whether right or wrong. God is a choice. I had the hardest time believing that God existed throughout my life. I didn't believe that I was worthy enough to have the Creator love me as I was. A sinner. But, somehow, God pursued me and I started to see. I was enjoyed and delighted in. I began to see how He has worked and is continuing to work in my life. We are blind to it (scales on our eyes) until we allow ourselves to 'neutralize' our thoughts and listen...

Kel

Nice piece. Compelling topic.

it is not only the subject of evolution that is contentios to the church but the fact that people can't or don't follow doggma without sitting down and thinking about what they will follow. It has been so since the crusifiction of Jesus. The church has been wanting to control education of the masses since the dark ages. In my own small opinion god gave us a brain to use. If he did not intend for us to obsearve and report on the way things happen or are observed then he would not have given us intelligence and he would have made us deaf and blind

I'm very simply with redryan I guess. But I agree with critter too that faith isn't prerequisite to science per se, although I can't stand his attitude. If all critter wants is to teach 2 plus 2 equals 4, go for it; but it's still *my* business how I believe that 2 and 2 got there to even make four in the first place. I hate that institutionalized "teachers" fail to recognize that some of the greatest scientists kept deep faith knowing science didn't explain everything. and it didn't lead them to such animosity to people of faith. I won't jam my religion down your throat critter, as I know it's true faith isn't necessary to understand science; but educators knowing that should stop degrading people of faith as somehow inept in the field of science, as if science inherently excludes people of faith. The propogation of that myth is the only beef I have...

I never had any problem with evolution, historically or on a religion bases because I know all things gets created first them it evolutes then it goes to the cycle again, creation, birth, evolution, death. So what is the problem? I did not came from a monkey, a bird or a fish! forget about that, it just never going to fly because otherwise we would have humans in a time cycle transitioning, "evolutes" from the monkey to humans and that never happened and will never happen. If it is true that I came from a monkey, where the monkey come from then?

Just my common sense approach, but you hear this staunch argument that Intelligent Design is supposedly not science, implying that evolution somehow is. I think despite such "common" acceptance, evolution requires MORE faith to believe in when you look at it on it's own "merits" without someone telling you it has to be true. And when you look at creation for what it is, I doubt sting rays knew enough even of Ohm's law, to "evolve" the ability to store and release the kind of overwhelming electrical charges that they do. I doubt venomous creatures knew enough chemistry to "evolve" the vicious toxins they carefully dispense with minimal risk by themselves. (I think to develop toxins they do just myself with Intelligence and a lab, it would probably take YEARS of repeated singular efforts lol) But by evolution were expected to believe these little creatures somehow had chance and "miracles" on their side to develop what we with higher intelligence probably couldn't imagine or even do on our own without evident pre-existent examples to follow. So many things that man designs, he goes back to nature to model for lack of imagination. Man has little or no potential other than for what he sees already exists.

Yes on much smaller scales things change all the time but we don't see those changes so readily and in such specificity as we do in such incredible creatures like the platipus (evolutionists I'm sure would have a hard time giving us the "lineage" of this one...a mammal that lays eggs!) or the chameleon (whose tongue flicks out at like four or five G's...more than enough to black out a fighter pilot)... These things make me think that especially without some higher intelligence, even by time and chance alone, such specificity would be virtually impossible!

Even if I had millions of years, I seriously doubt throwing a deck of cards into mid air and expecting nearly every card to fall into place so that when it's all done I have three-story house with windows that actually open, and can withstand even a faint wind, would be absolutely ludicrous....yet that's the nasty little thing evolutionists smugly want us to sweep under the rug, apparently and simply for lack of a "better" theory.

And I contend if a few examples of evolution do exists, who's to say they couldn't also be the function of a creative Higher Being who does whatever he wants?

Can evolution "prove" anything? Not really. So why is it so considered to be science when it's sincerely at best just another theory???? because we have smug insolent completely self-absorbed bass turdz in education who REALLY like to think they're smarter than everyone else and would really hate to relinquish the self-appointed "right" to tell everyone else what to think.

That's my "theory"