I did not expect to get called out, I was really hoping to read more about sabertooth pandas. I do not have much time but I can quickly offer this.
I pulled this from the Church thread, entire post.
[quote]Jewbacca wrote:
[quote]Edgy wrote:
haha~ I was referring to his [Einstein’s] concept that time is not linear.
[/quote]
Well that, and the fact that time is a construct of the universe and G-d exists outside of it.
To Him, you are, all at the same “time,” a sperm, egg, baby, child, adult, dottard, and rotting corpse.
Here:
[/quote]
I did so because I think we can agree that Jewbacca knows the OT pretty well.
So, if God exists outside of time then why does it matter is the 1st day was 24 hours or 1 billion years?
I disagree that science demands there is no higher power. Plenty of top scientists are religious, though not all.
Especially since the Popperian revolution scientists do not claim infallibility in general, where the goal of science is often to find better ways to measure, think about, link together, etc. aspects of this universe.
Positivist science, generally construed as laboratory experiments where pieces of a object (atoms, biologic agents, whatever) are broken down into their smallest parts, tested individually to assess their characteristics, and then used that way to explain a process, to provide a x+y=z explanation is not the only game in town. this is the style of science that looks for large overarching theories of the universe.
Complexity theory - from systems theory via Chaos theory - is an alternative, and has been for a long time and if I remember correctly predates positivism - is different philosophically than positivism in that it does not claim within complex systems x+y=z but rather the system may behave at different scales in a way that is not predictable - positivism is all about producing predictions - given the parts that it composes. It allows of emergent properties, i.e. something within the system that is, in essence, greater than the parts themselves. I fall within this camp. (I was working on a debris flow problem with a pal - positivist - that involved taking the understanding of that flows in non-linear space will produce the same shape irrelevant of nature of debris, etc. and then transforming that information to estimate/approximate potential debris flow ares and outcomes of different sized debris events. His approach was trying to understand what each grain would do to extrapolate out what shape the fan would take where I was looking for changes in behavior with would signify a scale change so I could develop more a series of possibilities rather than one outcome, for example).
Neither of those approaches to science disallows for higher being.
Geology is actually a rather young science. It’s start was noticing different layers of rocks in different places, analysis of their components, to find matches or strata. Fossils were used to link different stratas together (generally fossils of a particular plant/animal exists within a rather narrow range) or major events like debris from volcanoes/shifts from faulting (earthquakes) also helped set up a time line. Plate tectonics, the idea that plates moved, was not a new idea at all when raised by ??? in the late 1880 but was not accepted until the 1960s when the core of the Earth was getting better understood. Throughout this short but rather busy time period (consider the exploration of oil, coal, large-scale mining all benefit from geologic data) it has had opposition from those who feel that the dating methods used could not be right. Under that scope two things happened; there was pressure to make sure the claims were valid and an understanding that dating is not perfectly exact and so, when possible other old-school information - looking at fossil records, major events, etc. needed to be used to triangulate the estimations. Generally, given the nature of anatomic decay there are sometimes time gaps and less precision in more recent dating, there remains a push to keep trying to get better at dating methodology, not sitting back on their laurels. Geologists do not claim they are perfect, it is the best they have now. Much of science works that way.
There is not claim of infallibility to dispute because there is no claim of infallibility.
The thing is, however, is the process of turning sand into stone, stone into dust, of moving pates from one place to another, all takes a lot of time and proving so has always come under a strict lens.
So I ask again, if God exists outside of time then why does it matter is the 1st day was 24 hours or 1 billion years?
I have stuff to do and classes to teach. I will check on this in the morning.
