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Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward
RM, what I find interesting it that if you correct for multiple translations, and that the original source was written for a non-scientific (and barely literate) audience, what you end up with in the tale of the beginning in Genesis is the big bang theory. The amazing thing is that this myth beat out all the others over 5,000 years to match up with modern physics.....
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
I think one problem on the part of folks like that is a failure to comprehend infinity.
I'm bemused by the folks who think God created the heavens and the Earth in six days of 24 hours each, and rested on the seventh, and that this all took place about 4,000+ years ago. Since our 24 hour day comes from the rotation of the Earth facing the sun, and neither existed when God began, the idea that God's day is 24 of our hours long is a big assumption.
And aside from that, whether creation is 4,000+ years old or 14 billion years old doesn't matter. If we assume there is a God who is eternal, omnipotent, and omniscient, who had no beginning and will have no end, the entire time creation has existed is less than an eyeblink for Him.
Question 1 for the creationists is "What do you think God was doing in all of the uncountable eons before he decided to create the heavens and the Earth? Why do you assume our cosmos is the only one He made?"
Question 2 is "And what did He do on the eighth day after he had rested? What makes you think he's finished creating?"
For the first, I rather like the idea Olaf Stapledon proposed in _The Star Maker_. His Star Maker was an artist, learning its craft by doing, and ours was neither the only nor the last universe it would create. Stapledon had the Star Maker creating many universes, until it finally created the ultimate cosmos, the final flowering of its art, and would settle back and spend the rest of eternity contemplating it.
As for the second, I think He did just what we do after the day of rest: He went back to work. Our universe is a work in progress.
Indeed. Your Mom was a seriously cool person.
______
Dennis
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Originally Posted by jamesdmanley
problem is some out there arent letting live.
dont forget an entire culture the communist party destroyed in china
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Intersting points, guys.
Of course, people of my belief system (I always struggle with what word to use ... since Buddhism is not a "religion" in the true sense of that word) do not believe in a 'creator god."
Although, we are also taught to believe that all faiths are worthy of the highest respect to the extent that they are based in compassion for others. Which is why I've always enjoyed discussing religion with people ... especially when it comes to the history and evolution of the belief structure.
Someone here in Texas once asked me why there didn't seem to be any Buddhist "missionaries." I opined that it was probably because to try to change the faith of another person would be to cause them to suffer ... and the whole idea of Buddhism is to try to relieve suffering.
Every person has to find their own path to enlightenment ... you can't force someone to have faith in something. And, requiring people to believe in something that is just plain wrong ... is just plain wrong.
As the Dalai Lama said (and I'm seriously paraphrasing here so I won't use quotes ...) If modern science proves something to be false, then it is false. It doesn't matter if Buddha himself believed it to be true and stated that it is true ... it is still false. Buddha was enlightened, but he was still a human being, and as a human being capable of being wrong.