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Vatican announces stance on Big Bang Theory (Not the show)

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MONKEY
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07 Jan 2011, 2:22 pm

Hmmm, I wonder what the pope thinks of the show :chin:


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07 Jan 2011, 3:47 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
I agree that it is a positive step.

With importance way beyond catholics.

By saying god created the big bang hes admited that there WAS a big bang, and that the universe is billions of years old.
By implication he's admitted that for most of time that creation has existed it was evolving without God's assistence=- or atleast not god intervening in a miracalous magical way.

Thats huge. It means you can be a christian, and keep your brain!

Its a step towards marginalizing the biggest threat to the survival of christianity- which is the YEC movement.
The YEC (young earth creationists- what they used to call biblical literealists) are accidental apostates who threaten the faith for two rrreasons: they give the impression that you cant be christian and keep your brain ( thus scaring off potential reentry into chuch by the secularized), and to be a YEC is to proclaim your total LACK of faith (if your ffaith is threatened by something as harmless as Charles Darwin than you dont have any faith).

Im a long time fan of Jane Goodall.
I was leafing through a book in a store about the current activities of Jane Goodall (the chimp lady) who is now involved with animal rights, and crusading against bushmeat and so forth.
She talked about ethics which she said she got from her Episcopalian upbringing in Scotland.

I dont know how religious she actually is, but jane goodall even mentioning christianity struck me as interesting. A lady whose whole life's work was inspired by Charles Darwin ( the world would not giva a rats about chimpanzees if werent for Darwin) has christian leanings!

So if you're a Christian there is hope that your religion may survive. The Pope says you can keep your brain, and not have to subscribe to idiocy like YECism. And there are starting to be role models, like Jane Godall, to help show the way towards modern religous thought.


Exactly my point in posting this. I'm not even a Christian and I see this incredibly positively. The people who are ranting in this thread are missing the point, go start a new thread and hate on the Pope, real intellectual discussion will not degenerate to this level



Inuyasha
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07 Jan 2011, 3:52 pm

Genesis actually may refer to the Big Bang, because in the beginning there was nothing but darkness.

On day 1 God said, "Let there be light." A massive explosion like the Big Bang would generate a lot of light putting it mildly.



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07 Jan 2011, 3:56 pm

"And God said, Let there be cosmic microwave background radiation"



Sand
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07 Jan 2011, 7:38 pm

Do you really think that someone so benighted as to accept the total nonsense of young Earth creation will be influenced y a Catholic pope and suddenly start thinking clearly? Is the existence of a proposed supernatural being's works totally based on the opinion of a current pope? There's an awful lot of rather fragile conjecture in there.



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07 Jan 2011, 11:52 pm

New reason this is good, it helped a YEC prove Christianity wrong:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011 ... o_be_a.php


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08 Jan 2011, 12:32 am

Vexcalibur wrote:
New reason this is good, it helped a YEC prove Christianity wrong:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011 ... o_be_a.php


The doctrine of Biblical literalism is just a subset of the doctrine of inerrancy, itself a subset of the doctrine of inspiration. Though each view has its merits, neither is necessary for one to accept that one needs a Saviour or that Christ died for your sins. Lots of Christians have got themselves into appalling situations by putting a doctrine rather than Christ at the center of the religious experience.

As to the idea that Genesis is the literal story of Creation, consider this, nobody thinks that when Jesus says that the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds (Mark 4.31) this is an error, even though there are smaller seeds than mustard seeds. Why? Because Jesus is not teaching botany; he is trying to teach a lesson about the Kingdom of God, and the illustration is incidental to this lesson.


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Inuyasha
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08 Jan 2011, 1:04 am

Vigilans wrote:
"And God said, Let there be cosmic microwave background radiation"


Technically microwave background radiation is a form of light.



Sand
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08 Jan 2011, 1:51 am

Inuyasha wrote:
Vigilans wrote:
"And God said, Let there be cosmic microwave background radiation"


Technically microwave background radiation is a form of light.


No. Technically, light is a form of electromagnetic radiation. That's not the same thing.

See http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/abs_list.html



Last edited by Sand on 08 Jan 2011, 3:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

aspi-rant
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08 Jan 2011, 2:50 am

Inuyasha wrote:
Genesis actually may refer to the Big Bang, because in the beginning there was nothing but darkness.

On day 1 God said, "Let there be light." A massive explosion like the Big Bang would generate a lot of light putting it mildly.


genesis also speaks about gods (elohim) ... as in (masculine) plural... as in polytheism.

Quote:
in the beginning god (elohim - plural) created the heavens and the earth


now exactly, what part of that book is really true?


and - no, the majestic pluralis trick doesn't fly this time, because the singular version eloah is also used intertwined with the elohim version... and the hebrew bible and old testament writers seemingly even used the latter over 2500 times!

or were the hebrew writers simply poorly schooled and were bad in grammar? or were they actually still believing in more than one god... and not yet fully adapted to their "new" religion(s) of monotheism?

were these simple mistakes?

well then, how many other "mistakes" about real facts did they make in their book?



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08 Jan 2011, 4:00 am

^^^^

Interesting point.

But I think you should check your Hebrew, there are many words that exist in both plural and singular form within that language. The first and most common mistake that people make when studying languages other than their own is that they attempt to apply their own languages rules when dealing with others. In Hebrew some words can be both singular and plural or singular at the same time, other words for example are:

zequnim — old age (Gen. 21:2, 7; 37:3; 44:20).

ne`urim — youth. David was only a boy (na`ar), but Goliath "has been a fighting man from his youth [ne`urim]" (1 Sam. 17:33).

gebhuroth — strength. The singular form gebhurah is the usual word for strength, but the plural form is used in Job 41:12.

tsedaqoth — righteousness. The singular form tsedaqah is the usual word, but tsedaqoth is used in Isaiah 33:15 — "he who walks righteously [or "in righteousness"]."

chokmoth — wisdom. Chokmah is the usual form, but chokmoth is used in Prov. 1:20.

'adonim — lord. 'adon means "lord," and 'adonim normally means "lords," but Isa. 19:4 says, "I will hand the Egyptians over to the power of a cruel master ['adonim]."

behemoth. This word normally means beasts, but in Job 40:15 it refers to one animal.

Some people who wish to ground their trinitarian views (note, I also believe in the trinity) in the OT have used the word elohim in order to state that Genesis implies the trinity.


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08 Jan 2011, 5:13 am

jagatai wrote:
I'm not sure that anything the pope thinks has much relevance to science. If he chooses to think in a scientific manner, then maybe he might be worth listening to, but until then he's just making noise.

Sure, there may be a lot of people who will now be willing to consider the idea because the pope said it's okay, but someone who has to rely on another person's permission to think is just relying on an ideology. It would be far better if people made more of an effort to think for themselves rather than rely on the pope's opinions.


Amen to that.



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08 Jan 2011, 5:16 am

Quote:
Vatican announces stance on Big Bang Theory (Not the show)


Shame, I was expecting the Pope to say "that Sheldon guy is f**king hilarious!" :lol:

But, yeah, this is progress I guess.



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08 Jan 2011, 7:19 am

91 wrote:

Some people who wish to ground their trinitarian views (note, I also believe in the trinity) in the OT have used the word elohim in order to state that Genesis implies the trinity.


Elohim is plural. At no time is the number three mentioned.

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Inuyasha
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08 Jan 2011, 7:37 pm

Sand wrote:
Inuyasha wrote:
Vigilans wrote:
"And God said, Let there be cosmic microwave background radiation"


Technically microwave background radiation is a form of light.


No. Technically, light is a form of electromagnetic radiation. That's not the same thing.

See http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/abs_list.html


Light isn't just what is within the visible spectrum for humans...



Zara
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08 Jan 2011, 8:38 pm

Inuyasha wrote:
Sand wrote:
Inuyasha wrote:
Vigilans wrote:
"And God said, Let there be cosmic microwave background radiation"


Technically microwave background radiation is a form of light.


No. Technically, light is a form of electromagnetic radiation. That's not the same thing.

See http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/abs_list.html


Light isn't just what is within the visible spectrum for humans...


Light is typically defined as the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.


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