Andreas Ramos writes:
For Christians, time goes back to only a few thousand years. No big
bang, no evolution.
Certainly, Andreas, you are not suggesting that all Christians dispute
the cosmological theory that the Universe started with the Big Bang.
So you're saying there are Christians who accept the universe was
created as a random
fluctuation of quantum mechanics? They are atheist Christians?
Yes, I am, actually.
While I don't have precise numbers, I believe that the global Christian
community numbers
in the tens of millions at least. One can assume that not every member
of this community
adheres to the same docrtine. In fact, one would be recklessly
irresponsible to make that suggestion.
It is true that some Christians regard the Bible as an absolute truth
which only lends itself to literal
interpretation. Yet, most of them believe that the Biblical
creation timeline is more of a parable
rather than a direct explanation of creation.
Doesn't anybody find it alarming that in the 21st century so many still
cannot reconcile the existence of a higher
designing intelligence with cosmological theory and biological
evolutionary processes? To many, God could only have fashioned the
Universe with a wand snap on blank parchment. Could it not be
possible that creation necessarily had to be a prolonged event? That
the quantum flicker sparking our genesis might have been precipitated by
a deliberate action in a higher dimension.....that this flicker might
very well have been engineered to produce the proper balance of
fundamental force
strengths. (If gravity were only slightly less powerful, such
structures like galaxies, stars, planets could have never formed.)
Yet, it was strong enough to produce the stars without being so powerful
as to make the Universe collapse in on itself within a few nanoseconds
of its creation.
The stars, through nucleosynthesis, fashioned the heavier elements out
of the light elements -hydrogen, helium- and thereby produced the
elements (oxygen, carbon, iron, etc) that are required to cause the
biochemical reactions necessary for life.
Simple life forms evolve to higher life forms....big things eat little
things, making intelligence in little things such an asset...
intelligence becomes more sophisticated...and on and on.
All of this takes a great deal of time.
So, one can be a Christian and readily accept that the Universe is
billions of years old and will remain in existence for billions of more
years.
(Although, Andreas, please defend your assertion that the Universe will
end in heat death 50 billion years from now. This is only one possible
scenario.)
I admit that I am an agnostic. I became an agnostic because I am
unequal to the task of comprehending the nature of a deity capable of
creating the Universe. Heavens above, I am at a loss to comprehende
the intellects of most humans, so I won't presume to know what God has
up his hyperdimensional sleeve.
Edward Gleason
Portland
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