Uncertainty among uncertainties The creation of the Air Jordan 1 universe:Faith or fact I am frequently ridiculed by friends for my affinity for the chicago cubs.The obvious question:How can you stick with a team that has brought you so much heart ache and so little joy?My ready answer:Everything i ever needed to know about faith i learned from the chicago cubs:Long suffering, persecution;And most importantly, believing in what i have not seen-This is the year, baby!Now what does this have to do with the problem of origins?In the punchline, lies the fundamental problem in the arguments regarding creationism and evolution or the big bang theories:The bottom line is whichever premise or theory we believe, ultimately it must be taken on some degree of faith.This will be the first in a series of articles on creationism and the arguments for our origins, so i think it's appropriate some ground rules should be set for any discussion of our genesis.Advocates on both sides make the same mistake in the tenor of their debate:They both tend towards absolutism in their thinking and arguments, and in the case of the religious creationists the insistence that the book of genesis is an absolute fact that is supported by overwhelming evidence is at odds with the very definition of faith, the foundation of all religious beliefs, and since their premise comes from the bible, this is a problem.As the book of hebrews states,"Faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what have not seen.As for the scientific proponents of evolution and the big bang, though the prevailing winds of science overwhelmingly favor these theories as the most likely explanations of the origins of the universe and our planet, they are still only theories, and a theory by definition is not an absolute fact.In science, only that which is observed or observable and measurable can be called fact.And since we are discussing events long past, this type of evidence is virtually impossible to provide.Facts that both sides tend to forget in their debate, and this absolutism is a major problem in reaching any kind of mutual understanding. Last summer, i got into an argument with a friend after he had visited the creation museum.Generally i avoid these discussions, but since embedded in his observations was the assumption that all christians adhere to the literal interpretation of genesis, i felt compelled to speak.All i had said was that god could have chosen any way he wanted to create the universe and humanity, and since the bible frequently uses metaphors and is not to be taken literally as a whole--Genesis could be taken as a symbolic representation of creation-Even the stauchest fundamentalist would agree that john the baptist is not a reincarnated elijah even though jesus said john is elijah.After that, the discussion became quite heated and contentious.What astounded me was not that my friend believed in a literal seven day creation, but that my friend was so dismissive of my position, as if it was so obvious that creationism was self evident.My argument wasn't even for evolution or the big bang theory.It just allowed for the possibility that genesis was a metaphorical story.The problem with this line of thought is it not only does it exclude dialogue, but it flies in the face of the very nature of faith.Frankly, if creationism really was evident to all and could be proven as fact, then implicit in this proof is the existence of god which eliminates the necessity of faith.Further, the chapter goes on to commend those who acted without perceivable data:Noah built an ark without a cloud in the sky;Abraham, issac, and jacob believed that palestine would be theirs even though until their dying day, canaanite kings ruled it;And moses left for a better promise despite the fact he was already a prince in the most affluent kingdom in the world to date.If they all made their decisions because they had overwhelming evidence that they would get what they wanted, their would be nothing admirable or commendable about them.And so it is with faith;People believe god was the source and creative actor behind all this, not because the facts are overwhelming or because they understand exactly how god did it, but because of their faith that god created the universe.Our faith in god's hand in creation or in our lives for that matter is what kierkegaard referred to as the leap of faith, the willingness to believe despite the lack enough tangible evidence, for even christ himself praised the people who would believe in him without the concrete evidence that thomas the die-Hard pragmatist and empiricist demanded: "I won't believe it unless i see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side. "Yet i can understand why my friend believes god intended genesis to be a literal explaination of how the universe came to be.Occam's razor, a principle among logicians also known as the law of succinctness, states that when given a variety of choices, the simplest one is usually the correct one, and if god wanted to explain one of the central questions of humanity, why not give us a direct explanation. The necessity of faith regarding our origins or any other aspect of our spiritality does not mean that religion is anti-Intellect.For most historians and scholars agree that the higher order thinking that marks modernity was a direct result of new testaments times and the theologians like st.Jesus himself required those who would follow him to ponder and create meaning from his parables rather than tell them how to think or what to believe.Furthermore, in terms of demanding evidence to justify humanity's belief in a creator, the apostle paul in the first chapter of romans said,"For since the creation of the world god's invisible qualities-His eternal power and divine nature-Have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. "This, however, is not to say that the answers are easily discerned.For the type of evidence that paul refers to is secondary, and not the smoking gun that a court of law or science requires for an airtight case.It requires inferencing which is more subjective than eye witnesses and the culprit's gun in hand when the police arrive.Nor is it to say that all scripture can be unequivocally understood;Scholars, theologians, and clergy are still puzzled by many of the things written in the book of revelation.Throughout history, the anti-Christ has been attached to figures such as the ceasers, the popes, napoleon, adolf hitler, the soviet leaders, and even bush and obama.Premillennialists, millennialists, and postmillennialists, and by very respected denominations and theologians.If this is true of the last book of the bible that takes place in the future where no one has been, why not the first book as well which takes place in the past where, once again, no one has been? Rhetoric jordans shoes for girls which encourages dialogue Note that i asked a question here;I am not making any definitive statements regarding creation or the the bible.For therein lies the problem-Once an absolute statement is made, the dialogue ends, and in effect so does the relationship.And yet, here is one place that the church is in agreement:God is all about relationship.When the pharisee asked jesus what were the two most important commandments?Jesus responded: "Love the lord your god with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. "However, when we speak arrogantly, not allowing for descenting views, we create an audience of one and community falls apart, or if there is a consensus position that doesn't allow for contrary views, again community breaks down.History is strewn with martyrs who died at the hands of religions, denominations, and sects who had cornered the market on god's truth:Socrates because of his beliefs in monotheism;Catholicism's inquisition because they believed they were 'the one true church;' Many English protestants were killed because of Catholicism and vice nike:http://www.duringmeal.com/ verse;Mohamed's followers' conquered and kill because they believed that mohammed was god's last prophet and they were called to bring the 'one true religion;' the crusaders because they believed that Jerusalem was God's city:And the nazis' final solution because german's believed they were anihilating christ's killers, those who rejected the savior, and hence were cursed.Americans and europeans believe they could enslave africans because this dark race was under the curse of ham, noah's son.This is to say nothing of the america's genocide and imprisonment of the indian nations because we believed in manifest destiny.Now it may be argued, and justifiably so, that many if not most of these campaign's were cloaked means of gaining power and wealth, but if it weren't for this kind of absolutist thinking among the general populace, the people in power would never have gotten away with this.It's important to remember there are almost as many periods of christian martyrdom by other christian nations, denominations and sects as there are by other religions or secular political entities, and a good many of the them came out of the absolutist age where the absolute monarchs had the final word on truth.Therefore, it's imperative that creationists' rhetoric be one that models humility and relinquishes pride-More to the central point of christ's teaching-And adopt a tone that invites dialogue rather than model diatribe. The basis of religion and science share common foundation The lord of 'things' must die. " I penned these verses in my senior year of college in a physics 101 course;We had to create something artistic that was inspired by something we studied that term, and present it to the class.It happened that i was also taking a modern history class that dealt with the world wars and the cold war.I wrote this poem to address my disillusionment with the science and modernity which had promised a better world and relief from the killings, torture, and wars that=-According to the enlightenment philosophers--Were the product of superstition, religious intolerance, and prejudices, and only delivered a greater capacity to carry out the same practice and add even more intolerance to the mix:Political and national.The poem had a lot of religious overtones.Though i was searching, i would hardly describe myself as a christian at that time.After reading the poem to the class, i remember the professor was incredulous, commenting,"You mean to say because you don't like the reality you're presented with, you're willing to accept one unsupported by any material evidence. "Being young and easily cowed, i mumbled something unintelligible like"I don't know"And that was the end of it, but in retrospect, there were many things i could have said.For example, from the renaissance until the twentieth century, physicists looked at the world through one lens, and it was the final word on physcical:Newtonian physics.Then came einstein's theory of general relativity and a new reality mushroomed out of it, blowing apart the old tried and true model that had sole say over our understanding of the physical world.This new reality made possible things once thought impossible by the scientific community:Space travel, nuclear fusion, bombs that could blow up entire cities.The quantum universe.The law of gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, etc.A theory, on the other hand, is an explanation of things using observable evidence to support it's supposition, regarding things of the past or future it is a best guess based on the collected evidence to date.And in terms of the faith facet of science, most lay people generally accept unquestioningly the vast majority of scientific concepts and practical science purely on faith because they don't really understand the science behind things, even the most basic concepts we learned in school.Most of what we learned, we memorized, and when we tried to understand it, we, for the most part, didn't fully get it.And even if we comprehended, we didn't do the research that substantiated the concepts-We assumed that it was valid.Several years back, yale graduate students, the crème del a crème of our educational system, were interviewed about some of the most basic concepts of science, and most of them couldn't even explain why we have four seasons.And why should they?They were mba students, they need only put their faith in the experts in the field of science while they worry about business;There is barely enough time in this fast paced world to keep up with their own professions.The irony was they did this same survey with elementary school kids just after they learned the concepts and now only did the kids not understand the concepts, but the teachers that taught them didn't fully grasp the primary science concepts either.When human's don't fully understand something the tendency is to oversimplify it which is why most of us remember learning evolution as a the explanation for how life came about on earth-The truth is we were not presented any other options so that became scientific fact.The reality is that science is unanimous on this point;Evolution is only a theory, a best guess at how life came to be.A theory that is supported with substantial evidence, but one that also has significant logistical problems that have yet to be resolved.Later articles will deals with these issues. There are two other human tendencies at play here on both sides of the debate.In general, the less secure one feels in one's understanding of a core belief or expected level of competency, the more adamant they tend to be about an issue.As a teacher, one of the common of mistakes new teachers-I was guilty as well-Is for them to be overly dogmatic about classroom and school policy.New teachers are also reluctant to admit their wrong or confess doubt for fear of losing the tenuous grip they feel they have in their classroom.I've heard actual accounts and seen many films in which the inexperienced officer is sent to the front line, and when the grizzled veterans on the battlefield try to enlighten him about military theory verse the realities on the ground, the officer perceives this as insubordination and then insists his troops follow the orders to their detriment or worse demise.The classic example was frank burns from the tv series mash.If this is true as a general life principal, how much more so when dealing with some of the most complex, esoteric, significant, and personal issues facing us like how did we get here and does god exist? .The other human tendency is to go to the opposite extreme when abuse is recognized rather than finding a position in the middle.The reformation swung from a world view of there being one true religion to numerous denominations.After the reformation, the counter reformation and it's ugly sister the inquisition, enlightenment thinkers like voltaire were ready to right off religion completely, believing it to be fueled by superstition and intolerance.In this new age of reason, if they didn't eliminate god all together, they embraced deism which reduced the deity to an impersonal, mechanistic creator who set the universe into motion and let the foundational principles direct-It seemed rational and appealed to the intellect.Thomas jefferson actually rewrote the bible, eliminating all the super natural events.This best known legacy of this era are the masons.The vacuum of intolerance was quickly replace by nationalism which had people killing for blind loyalty to the state.Then the gross abuses of humanity that grew out of the new technology created during the enlightenment lead to romanticism, an anti-Intellectual movement focused on family, relationships, and intuition.The list goes on.My point is we must resist these tendencies, and as we consider the view of either side of the topic, we must be aware of our own subjective emotional attachment to the issue, and we must resist the urge to oversimplify our answers.It is easier to go to extremes rather than to sort through our own biases and the mire of possibilities, and find a medium that takes into account vastness and complexities of the subject.And a prime example of the pendulum swinging is galileo and the scope's trial.During the renaissance, galileo was forced to recant his position on the sun being the center of the universe because it contradicted the bible, man's primary measure of truth, and 500 years later, the nation mocked tennessee and william jennings bryant for finding john scopes guilty of teaching evolution in the classroom.They may have won the case, but they lost the respect of the press because of the trials adherence to the bible rather than science, and it marked a turning point in science education in this country. The thing we need to be aware as both sides conduct themselves in this discussion is another scientific term that has tainted science from its beginning:It's really the problem of human perspective in general:It's called cognitive bias, the inclination to find evidence to support one's hypothesis while ignoring that which disproves it.Both sides need to keep their biases in mind as they consider the possibility of the other.One particular type of bias is especially pertinant here:Cognitive dissonance, the discomfort of holding the possiblities of two conflicting concepts in mind simultaneously.We must resist the temptation of spurning the one and favoring our long held beliefs.I do believe there are two principles from science and religion that can keep us anchored and open as the two sides are considered.First, faith is an essential component of any position on god;The impossible is an essential componant when considering the supernatural, a miracle wouldn't be a miracle if it were explanable in the natural realm, so if we can't fully get our mind around creation or the end of the world for that matter, it's a part of our faith.As for science, socrates, the father of critical thinking and modern education, once said,"The more i learn the more i know how little i know,"And einstein, the pinnacle of the scientific age, said,"I think that there are many things in the universe that we cannot perceive or penetrate, and that also we experience some of the most beautiful things in life only in a very primitive form. "From a scientific perspective, the understanding of how little we know of the universe relieves a lot of preasure for scientific advocates to provide absolute answers to the question of our beginnings.Planets, stars, etc.But this seems so unscientific, believing in something based on secondary evidence, remember paul's argument about creation and the creator.Quite a paradox.If nothing else, this vast mystery should make those interested in science whether, personally or professionally, to stare clear of an absolutist tenor in their rhetoric and infuse their comments with humility and tentativeness. This first article has been dedicated to setting up a framework for how we think and dialogue about the questions of beginnings.How can you argue science from a book that was written thousand of years ago, at a time when superstition and not empirical reasoning dictated humanity's understanding of the world? "Or at the other end,"The popularity of evolution is a product of hollywood, madison avenue, and the main stream media;The mechanistic component eliminates the need for a creator and hence also eliminates the necessity of believing in god.This means there's no morality, and sin sells well.Because of their bias, researchers are missing or purposely leaving out essential evidence which support id and refutes evolution.This frees science up from ethical restrictions and allows for human cloning, bioengineering, harvesting human organs, and human experimentation. "And so the inflammatory caricatures go and little true u
