God

  • God is awesome

    All of us have things that we are known for... our skills, our specialties...

    God is known for many things... especially including the way He transforms lives for good.

    Here's another great example of this -
    http://www.worldmag.com/2013/10/a_legacy_of_life_and_forgiveness

  • dialog with a scientist friend, part 1

    Sue: I wish I could believe in God and all, but as a scientist I can't.   I see how your beliefs makes you Christians really happy and peaceful because you think that God is taking care of you, but as a scientist I have to be honest and follow only whatever I can measure and see.

    Tim: So what parts of the Bible in particular do you think you can't believe, as a scientist?

    Sue: Well, the whole idea of believing in an invisible God up there somewhere, that you can't see or hear or touch or measure... I can't do that.  And miracles... you know, the Bible talks about Jesus walking on water and raising people from the dead, and even raising himself from the dead... As a scientist, I can't believe that stuff.  It goes against everything we know from modern medicine and science.

    Tim: Actually, I completely agree with you that we should follow wherever the evidence leads.  The Bible doesn't ask us to believe anything blindly without evidence.  I think the evidence is actually much stronger that the God of the Bible exists, than that He doesn't.

    Sue: Well, that's fine for you, Tim.  Those beliefs just don't work for me.

    Tim: Have you ever actually read the Bible?

    Sue: Only little bits of it... I'd like to read the whole thing, one of these days... but I haven't yet gotten around to it... I'm so busy with all my lab experiments and writing of grants and papers, etc.

    Tim: I think there are several areas in which it's actually MORE scientifically-reasonable to believe in the God of the Bible than to disbelieve in Him.

    Sue: Like what?

    Tim: First, let's ask about how we might "know" about different types of things.  If I want to know about an atom, or a rock, or a chunk of metal, I can take it into a lab and do all kinds of experiments on it.  I can heat it up, and cool it down, and react it with various types of chemicals, and find out all about its physical properties.  Right?

    Sue: Sure.

    Tim: A piece of metal generally always behaves the same way, every time I do an experiment on it.  It is inanimate... it does 'whatever I tell it to do'.  I have full control over finding out whatever information I want to know about it.  By contrast, a living cell is a little different. If I want to find out about how a particular type of cell works, I have to be more gentle... I have to give it just the right culture media, and temperature, and gasses, and then I can carefully probe around with a microscope and introduce various micro-concentrations of chemicals into its environment to try to get it to act a certain manner in repeatable ways.  But if the cell dies, I can no longer answer the question of how that living cell works... I could then only ask about its constituent molecules.  Right?

    Sue: True.

    Tim: How about another step up.  If I want to find out "all about a particular person", like yourself, laboratory methods are no longer the approach to take!  Instead, I must try to get to know you through observing how you act in different circumstances, or asking you questions and listening to how you answer.  If I want to find out your favorite foods, for example, the fastest and most accurate way would be to simply ask you.  But notice that it is now possible that you could withold information from me.  If you don't want to answer my question, you could keep silent, or you could give me a false answer.  In the case of the rock, it has no choice about whether to be known by me.  But in the case of a person, I must humbly ask, and the person may or may not reveal information about herself or himself, and it may or may not be accurate.  But I can also observe how the person acts, and get some information that way.

    Sue: Sure.  But what does all this have to do with the existence of God?

    Tim: The God of the Bible, if He exists, is much "higher" and more complicated than you or I, just like we are more complicated than rocks.  In the case of God, since He is a spirit and is generally invisible, there is no possible way for you or I to get to know Him, UNLESS He chooses to make Himself known to us.   We cannot put God into a test-tube and perform experiments on Him to see what He is like.  We can't sit him down in a chair across from us and ask him questions to find out what He is like.  We can't even see Him!  The only way we could get to know about God is if He somehow made Himself visible, or left some kind of message for us to read, or something like that.  It so happens that He has done exactly this... the Bible is the written message which He has caused men to write by His guidance, and Jesus Christ is the human being in whom the invisible God made Himself known in our world, so that we could get to know Him.

    Sue: Interesting. But all of this is predicated on the assumption that God exists.  How do you know that God exists?

    Tim: Sure.  Here's a question for you - Do you believe in perpetual motion machines?  Or let me ask it another way.  If some person came to you with a black box and said, "This box puts out twice as much energy as you put into it.  If you put in 100 watts of electrical power, it will put out 200 watts of electrical power.  This box will make you rich.  I will sell you this box for only $99."  Would you believe it?  Would you buy the box?

    Sue: Probably not.

    Tim: Why not?

    Sue: It is well known scientifically that in the long termyou can't get out more power than you put into something, in an otherwise closed system.  It's related to the first law of thermodynamics.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamics)

    Tim: Ok, I would agree with you.  I wouldn't buy the box either.  So what does this principle mean about the universe?  If we say that energy/matter cannot spontaneously arise out of nothing, then how did the universe spontaneously arise out of nothing?   The Bible says that in the beginning, God created the universe.  But if there is no God, how did the matter/energy universe begin to exist?

    Sue: What if the universe is eternal?  Why are you so sure the universe had a beginning?

    Tim: Well, doesn't the second law of thermodynamics say that entropy is constantly increasing in any closed system, such as our universe?  That means that the usable energy is constantly decreasing.  Since there is still usable energy available (that's why we're still alive), that means the universe must have been "wound up" with energy and order, a finite time ago.

    Sue: Ok, well, who knows, the laws of physics might have been different back then, before the Planck time and the Big Bang.  Dr. Hawking thinks that there are imaginary time dimensions, meaning that the universe is essentially repeating itself in an endless loop. Some scientists think there might be an infinite number of parallel universes in a 'multiverse', constantly appearing and disappearing with balancing energies and entropies, and we just happen to live in this particular one.  Anyway, it's impossible to know exactly what the laws of physics were back then.

    Tim: Notice what you're saying... you're saying that if God doesn't exist, the physical laws and processes which we can observe today in the lab are unable to explain how our universe came into existence.  There are all sorts of hypothetical speculations about how it might have occurred without God as the Creator, but there are no ways to measure or verify any of these speculations in the lab.  They are, in fact, unscientific speculations.  That is why I think that it is more scientific to believe that God created the universe than to believe that it popped into existence out of nothing.

    Sue: Let me get this straight.  You're saying that it is "more scientific" to believe in an invisible spirit-person, whom you can't see, or touch, or hear, or measure?

    Tim: I'm saying that there are really only two explanations for how we came to be here.  Either it all arose spontaneously out of nothing, or God created it all as the Bible describes.  And I'm saying that the physical laws we can see and measure in the lab today are not consistent with the idea that it all popped into existence out of nothing.  So the only alternative is to conclude, scientifically, that Someone outside of this physical universe created us.

    Sue: That's hard to believe.  It's a lot easier to believe that scientists will soon figure out how the universe came into existence without God.  You know, there are a lot of physicists who are working on this very question right now.

    Tim: Yes, but I'd rather believe what I have evidence for right now, rather than saying "someone, someday, might discover something which would justify my current belief".  Don't you think this is more reasonable?

    Sue: It depends.

    Tim: Actually, this problem goes even further.  If the physical laws were fundamentally different back then, and the universe truly popped into existence out of nothing, that actually destroys the whole rationale for science!

    Sue: How so?

    Tim: If we assume that the fundamental laws of the universe could drastically change at any moment, and matter/energy could be arising out of nothing in our scientific experiements, we would have no good reason to do experiments.  The whole basis for experimentation and the scientific method assumes a stable, orderly universe, established by God, that we can asymptotically know.  Think about it, Sue.  If you were about to perform a scientific experiment, and the laws of physics do sometimes spontaneously fluctuate, why would you trust the results of your experiment?

    Sue: Well, if it works the same way every time, then it is reliable.  If I've done the same experiment 50 times in a row and it gave me the same results, I can trust that it will give me the same result on the 51st time... and I can publish the results so that other scientists can try it too.

    Tim: I think there are two problems with that logic.  First, you only THINK that your experiment gave you the same results 50 times in a row.  What if the physical laws happened to fluctuate such that actually the results of your experiment were all over the place, but your equipment just so happened to malfunction as the laws were fluctuating so that it gave you the same readings each time?  Second, even if the laws of the universe stayed the same for 50 experiments in a row, what's to stop them from suddenly fluctuating on the 51st time?  It turns out that if we say "the laws were different back then" in our explanation of how the universe arose, that completely destroys the foundational assumptions necessary to perform science today.

    Sue: Well, I hear what you're saying, Tim.  I don't really agree, but I'll think about it.  Actually, to be honest, there are other reasons why I can't believe in God, not just scientific and philosophical reasons.

    Tim: Do you mind if I ask you what those reasons are?

    Sue: Well... all my colleagues and scientist friends would think I'm crazy if they were to find out that I'd started believing in God.  They would secretly laugh at me and think I've become kooky.  And I couldn't publish this stuff about God in journals like Science or Nature... they would turn down my papers, and the scientific community would hear that I've started believing crazy stuff like invisible spirits and gods, and I would stop getting my grants funded.  It would completely ruin my career, Tim.  Sorry, but it's just not an option.

    Tim: I hear you.

    Sue: And my family... my family would be ashamed of me... they've sacrificed so much to help me reach this point in my career, as a scientist... and now for me to turn my back on all of my training and start believing in an invisible God just because some book talks about Him... I can't disappoint my family like that, Tim.  I'm sorry.

    Tim: I know it would be very hard.  All I'm saying is to be honest.  Follow where the evidence leads.  It may be painful, but in the long run it is always better to follow the truth.

    Sue: I've got to go now.  Maybe we can talk again some other time about this.

    Tim: Sounds good.

     

    To Be Continued...

     

    ("Sue" is definitely a real person... actually there are about 30 friends with whom I've had similar conversations... this article series is for all of them... and everyone else... I hope others will benefit from this fictional dialog... and if you have points you'd like to see addressed, let me know in the comments section!  Also, I'm trying not to give the agnostic/atheist friend any "straw-man" arguments... but if you think I accidentally did, let me know.)

  • quick thought on "goodbye"

    When saying goodbye to friends, I am finding that the emotional load is not directly tied to the goodbye itself, at least for me.  As follows:

    Each of my friends either believes in Jesus Christ (as described in the Bible), or does not believe in Him.  Those who believe, I will absolutely see again, in much better circumstances, in heaven, whether or not I ever see them again here on this broken Earth... and we will spend eternity together with each other and with God in extreme joy.  So there is not much sorrow now...  it's only a temporary goodbye... a 'see you again soon.'

    For those of my friends who do not believe in Jesus, in many cases (if they persist in their unbelief for the rest of their lives), this is GOODBYE, forever.  Of course, in some cases I will see them again here on Earth a few more times, in visits, etc.  But those fellowship times are also temporary.  Those who refuse to believe in Jesus, God's perfect way of salvation, are choosing for themselves an eternity in despair, darkness, pain, and sorrow.  Ultimately, if they would really prefer that to humbling themselves before God and asking for salvation, it's their choice...  But oh, how I wish that they would turn before it is too late.

    Revelation 20  11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

    Revelation 21  Then I saw "a new heaven and a new earth," for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.'

(I use 'tags' and 'categories' almost interchangeably... see below)

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