Being a outspoken Facebooker and Blogger, I get a fair amount of email. This one shocked me because of the author’s uninformed disposition. The name has been changed to protect identity.
Kara:
I’m sorry if I’m bringing up a touchy subject with you, but a mythical deity? How can you think or say that Jesus Christ is mythical? Just look all around you at everything and everyone, even your beautiful Arizona couldn’t have just appeared. Someone had to create it; and that was God. And this is the greatest weekend in the history of the Catholic Church, when we celebrate Jesus’ life, passion, death, and resurrection! How and why did this change in religion come about? Again, sorry if this is a touchy subject, but I’m very surprised. You were raised Catholic, attend a Catholic University.
What is Astrophysics? Never heard of it! Lol! Well, I hope everything works out for you. And I will keep you in my prayers!
Chrystine:
Thanks for opening up discussion. This is by no means a touchy subject and something that I am happy to talk about with others.
Having been indoctrinated with religion, I was given a chance to think for myself upon entering college and found that religion does not stand up to the microscope of logic and reasoning.
The universe and the small planet we call earth are all a result of the “big bang” and the aftermath of that. Life began on earth in the microbial stages billions of years ago and evolution has taken life to what it is today. Through technology we have been able to find over 1 billion galaxies in our universe. Each of those galaxies has aprox. 1 billion planets within it. Therefore, there is 1 billion billion planets (at least) in our known universe. If you say that the chance of an earthlike planet being formed is a 1 in a billion chance, you still have 1 billion earthlike planets that could have formed. The odds are rather high, even for a probability equation. None of this gives evidence to a sky-god.
You say “someone had to create it; and that was God”. Why did someone have to create it? Why is that the only option? Just because we do not understand something does not give us credence to shove a god into that crack of the unknown. Religion has operated in this sense for many years. we didn’t understand lighting so Zeus must be throwing it down. we didn’t understand rain, so God must be opening flood hatches to dump water on us. we didn’t understand the sun and moon so we worshiped them. the church was convinced the earth was flat, and then that the earth was the center of our solar system. Wherever science honestly says “we don’t know the answer, but we are looking for evidence of the correct answer” religion steps in and shoves god into that gap. That is otherwise known as “God of the Gaps”. I have yet to see provable, repeatable evidence for any type of god.
Kara:
Hmm… If you couldn’t guess already, I don’t agree with you in the least. The Catholic Church is my everything and I will do my very best to defend Her. From what you’ve wrote above, you have studied this and I have studied my Catholic Faith, but you’ll have to give me a little bit to gather my thoughts! :) But, in reaction to the “big band” theory you believe in, (I hope this doesn’t come across as sarcastic) but saying that the world just “became” or “came into exsistence” is like saying that a dictionary is the product of an explosion in a printing factory. The Book of Genesis, says it all. It takes you through day by day of how God created the universe. Now all of the information you gave above of the billions of galaxies seem to be information from within the big bang theory and therefore, I don’t believe it. As for evolution, do you believe that we evolved from apes? Because if you do… why are there still apes on this planet? Adam, the first human being, did not just come to be. God created him from the dust of the earth. That is why on Ash Wednesday, at the beginning of Lent, we have ashes placed on our foreheads and the words “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return” are said. God then created Eve, from Adam’s rib. From Adam and Eve came the rest of the human race. There are some things that we need to just believe and not always have an exact reason or logic for. Again, in the Bible Jesus Christ said: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.” The supernatural things throughout the Catholic Faith, for instance: The Eucharist, Heaven, Purgatory, Hell, Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven are things that a human cannot wrap their mind around and will go absolutely crazy trying to figure out. This is where God, Jesus Christ, and the Catholic Church come into play. Seminarians, Theologians, Priests, Deacons, Bishops, Cardinals, and Popes have studied this and questions like these for centuries and the only way any of this world can be true is if someone supernatural created it. Which brings me to the question: “Where do you believe that people go after they die?” We don’t just cease to exsist. Depending on the way we live out life, we will go to Heaven and spend eternity with Our Almighty Father, Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the saint and angels, or we will go to Hell and burn in fire with the devil and his followers. And yet there is hope for those who die with sin still on their soul. These people go to Purgatory and are purified from their sin and then will be taken to Heaven. Those are my thoughts and belief’s. I have many more but I don’t think Facebook has the capacity to hold them all! :)
Chrystine:
The bible says the earth is 6,000 years old. Science and evidence through carbon dating and zirconium dating have dated the earth to be 4.5 billion years old. Astrophysics has established that it has been 13.7 billion earth years since the big bang. all these numbers are supported by evidence, repeatable math equations, fossil records and physics. arguing against it is the modern equivalent of saying the earth is flat.
Humans did not evolve from apes. do some research on this from non religious science sources. Humans, Neanderthals and apes and chimps evolved from previous lines of now extinct ape like ancestors. That humans somehow evolved from monkeys is the uneducated reply to evolution.
You claim god created the universe. Prove it. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
What is your proof that something happens to humans after death? Humans have created the allusion of eternal life because death scares us. Our brains do not know what it is like to not exist. However I did not exist for billions of years before I was born and I imagine I will be just fine not existing for billions of years after I die. There will be no “me” to be sad or concerned about it either.
How Evolution works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpNeGuuuvTY
Kara:
Well, for my point of veiw this hasn’t really been “fun”, because I’m worried about your soul. I’m glad you enjoyed it though. Again, I must say I’m extremely shocked at your change of religious beliefs. God bless you Christine and I will pray for you. AND I will also come up with form of proof for you in the future! :) And then we shall continue this discussion! Talk to you later!
Chrystine:
If you can prove that I have a soul, I will let you be worried about it. :) Please do not pray for me, as it is a true waste of time and will amount to nothing. Instead, educate yourself and branch out from your comfort zone. It is refreshing outside the box. I look forward to your proofs, though I must warn you I haven’t found one yet that has held up to logic. Let me leave you with this little gem:
In The God Delusion, Dawkins discusses evolutionary by products. The example he chooses to use is a moth flying into a flame as a demonstration of what we see as abject stupidity. Why would a moth deliberately fly into a flame?
This is not an example of natural selection….it is an example of natural selection gone wrong. Moths evolved to fly at night by using celestial objects as guides: Keep the light source in a certain position and you can navigate, much as we do with a compass which points north. Dawkins notes that it was not until comparatively late in evolutionary history that there was anything like artificial lights to throw off the moths. We see only the moths who get distracted by the flames. We do not see millions of moths who merrily go on their way without self-immolating themselves.
So, what is the Darwinian answer to religion? Dawkins sees it this way.
“My specific hypothesis is about children. More than any other species we survive by the accumulated experience of previous generations and that experience needs to be passed on to children for their protection and well-being. Theoretically, children might learn from personal experience not to go too near a cliff-edge, not to eat untried red berries, not to swim in crocodile-infested waters. But, to say the least, there will be a selective advantage to child brains that possess the rule of thumb: believe, without question, whatever your grown-ups tell you. Obey your parents; obey the tribal elders, especially when they adopt a solemn, minatory tone. Trust your elders without question. This is a generally valuable rule for a child. But, as with the moths, it can go wrong.”
Dawkins then continues:
“Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them. Such trusting obedience is valuable for survival: the analogue of steering by the moon for a moth. But the flip side of trusting obedience is slavish gullibility. The inevitable by-produce is vulnerability to infection by mind viruses. For excellent reasons related to Darwinian survival, child brains need to trust parents and elders whom parents tell them to trust. An automatic consequence is that the truster has no way of distinguishing good advice from bad. The child cannot know that “Don’t paddle in the crocodile-infested Limpopo” is good advice but “You must sacrifice a goat at the time of the full moon, otherwise the rains will fail” is at best a waste of time and goats. Both admonitions sound equally trustworthy. Both come from a respected source and are delivered with a solemn earnestness that commands respect and demands obedience.”
The Jesuit maxim “Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man” clearly understand the net result of this principle.
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