Brought up in a household with no encouragement to find my faith, I was left to find God on my own. Through the years I've struggled trying to understand how science and the bible tell the same past. My heart tells me God is there but science is factual.
According to the bible, our Earth is only 6,000 years old. Science tells us the world is actually 4.54 BILLION years old. Evidence of this comes from fossils and artifacts. A big confusion to me is the era of dinosaurs and why they aren't specifically mentioned in the Bible. In addition, there are many fossils that date back to millions of years ago.
I've never believed in evolution but recently evidence has shown that all dogs descend from wolfs. If this is true, this transition would've taken thousands and thousands of years. Much longer than 6,000 short years. And of course this raises the question of evolution. Still, I have a hard time believing we come from monkeys. (Again I do not believe in evolution- my example is in reference to the timeline of creation.)
The list of science examples can go on and on. I love science but the more I learn the more I question God and that terrifies me. Please help
Nicole. I am an (ex) scientist and I do not find the contradiction, indeed it is only when such as Dawkins go way past the limits of science into his own nihilistic beliefs there is apparently even a contradiction.
Indeed the more I studied science (and I mean deep theoretical physics at quite and advanced level) the more I discover it not only is not but cannot be a fundamental underpinning of the universe, as scientists would have you believe.
I will answer in several parts - first the "evolution thing"
On your specific question genesis is an allegory not a historical truth. From big bang to matter and worlds, through simple life to man.
The question you should be asking those who point this out to you, is "what is the origin of life".
There is not only no credible theory for abiogenesis the start of life - but the minimum scale of a living organismbased on DNA so that it can reproduce and evolve is way past the possibily of springing into existence. Nor is there any credible lower form that could have evolved to that. Dawkins makes this stupid assertion that even if life is billions to one against happening, then given billions of places to happen, then it is likely to do so. The man has clearly never been anywhere near quantum physics, because if he had he would know, that it is so unlikely it cannot happen. Not billions against but 10 to the power < the biggest number you can think of and then some> against. No credible physical chemist thinks that life as we know it can simply have happened as an accident out of chemical soup. If there is a route to it, it is via things that are much simpler, and the obvious question discounts that, "if simpler existed, where are they now? and if they can happen why dont they"
There is also a problem in macroevolution. For sure - dogs with longer ears and shorter legs can happen. But there are serious problems in explaining how some of the major jumps are even possible.
The Intelligent Design court ruling - an issue for another day -- contained a massive contradiction in the ruling! Goodness knows how the judge managed that but he did! He ruled against ID because he declared it could not be science, as it was not repeatable, ruling in favour of evolution as science, despite the fact that nobody has repeated either abiogenesis or the holes in macroevolution.
Second - what is science anyway? - And sorry if I confuse you here!
Science is finding patterns in things that either do repeat or can be repeated. First at the level of finding the pattern in evidence, second at the level of trying to explain that model in terms of an axiomatic representation of the world, using all the concepts you know, like force mass, newtons laws, relativity, so on. The thing to get your head round is that that model exists on paper in heads and on computers. It is not the world, it is only a representation of it that works very well to allow us to build sophisticated things. But does an electron for example) actually exist in the world and what is it ?
The answer to that is it is a set of equations that seem to work to describe a set of experiments. But as proof the model is creaking a bit, you need two different sets of equations to describe it! one called "particle" the other called "wave" and which one you use depends! (stephen hawking was forced to admit the need for multiple models in his last book in a dogma called "model dependent realism")
Then you discover that some of the effects that are supposed to only happen when there are several of them "like interference" happen when there is just one of them not more, without which the experiments dont add up again.
It gets even weirder when in quantum physics it turns out an electron does not exist at a point and place, but just a probability wave , and then all you know collapses when you discover that two electrons (they repel because of charge right?) are more likely to be one end of a box than at opposite ends? What????
It gets weirder still when science decides that to get the math to work SMALL PARTICLES DO NOT EXIST AT ALL UNTIL YOU OBSERVE THEM! It is not that you do not know where they are, but quantum uncertainty demands they cannot exist at all! Einstein ***hated** that conclusion, but in the end was forced to admit it was the only way that experiments could line up with our wonderful axiomatic model. The only way modern physics has to explain that is get this...we live in a multiverse. An infinite number of universes of every possible outcome and every time you look at something, you select one to live in!
At one point, I was involved in serious astrophysics, big telescope design and such, and I found it somewhat remarkable, that none of the equations of big physics work (like galaxy rotation) unless you assume tha scientists calculated as the mass of the universe is has to be multiplied several times to get close to making equations work! The rates of expansion of the universe not accounted by relativity properly either! Unless you fudge it all that is...
Those paradoxes show that what science claims it is, which is objective (ie we all see the same underlying reality) , causal (ie nothing happens without a cause before it) and deterministic (ie there is nothing unpredictable in nature, only our power to predict it in practice)
Quantum physics violates every single one.
Third, so what science really is.
At which point I hope I have proved that science does not have the answer you think. It is not fundamental as they would have us believe All the problems vanish the day you go back to what science really is. A wonderful suit of clothes, that fits the body very well, but splits at the seams if you push it too hard at the armpits!
Let us go back to the beginning
Science is finding patterns in things and using them. The "explanation" for them, is just empirical. A model of the universe that works pretty well.
And the moment you accept that, all the paradoxes drop away as poor modelling, or trying to use an idea, beyond its useful envelope..
But to prove it cannot be fundamental. Imagine you live in a 2D television world - then you would look at a red dot, observe how it moves, and if it is repeatable, give it a name, and record those properties. If it consistently rebounds of another red dot, you might consider action, reaction momentum and so on. But in our 3D wordl you know, that red circle can be a cylinder end on. It can be a sphere, it can be a spiral end on, or lots of spheres. What is actually there in 3D cannot be uniquely determined in 2D - only "what it looks like" so patterns in observations are no longer fundamental (ie what is actually there), it is only empirical (ie what is observedl) . Even physics now admits (superstrings and ll that) that the world has many more dimensions hidden from us. IN which case physics cannot be fundamental.
It is not just me that saysthese things - A top theoretical physicist - Rizzi - responsible for proving such as gravity waves, and answering some of the theoretical questions in relativity. Wrote a book, "science before science" concluding similar things, and a proof of god.
Four, god of the gaps fallasy
Science maintains that as science "explains" more and more, there is less room for god needed to explain anything!
Which is simply not so, as I have shown science does not explain anything in any fundamental sense, it observes everything and uses the observations it finds.
Five, science is not objective at all.
The idea that science objectively studies truth is simply not true. It has massive prejudice against things it does not like.
Proven in how it rails against indisputable proof for such as telepathy. NO question it is real, but it is prevented from becoming science, by an army of dirty tricks. As witness - carl sagan (later Dawkins) "extraordinary things need extraordinary proof" is a barrier raised to ensure that nothing establishment does not like,ever is considered science.
Sagans statement is the antithesis of science. Either it is true or it is not, and all should be subjected to the same process.
Four, so what evidence is there of god in science?
Here I will get my self in trouble. The answer is a lot - but a lot of it confirms interpretations of biblical matters some here find abhorrent!
From simple things that question whether "conscience" is simply the function of a biochemical machine, the fact of inedia investigated by atheist scienctists, indeed what preserves the incorruptibles? To indisputable forensic proof that links the shroud to the sudarium, and demonstrates both are very old, that the mark is not a contact mark,and the only way known to produce it is a UV laser - ie a radiation burst emanating at the body.
Most remarkable of all is the scientific evidence of the real presence in the so called eucharistic miracles done by proper forensic labs whose day job is work connected with criminal investigation, they say it is real heart, real blood, and - the kicker - living at the time it was sampled. The scientists are at a loss to explain.
Darwin said, if anyone could show life originating by any other process, his theory was proven void.
This evidence says it has.
Read "unseen" by ron teseroriero, see some of the evidence.
Can send you references if you wish
I will get slaughtered for saying it, but as a scientist I go where the evidence leads.