I, am neither christian nor atheist. I believe what proves itself to be true.

Ok, so according to Christians; god created the world and life in seven days and that God (a human) was the first (living) organism on earth.

The scientists may rebutt to this by citing the fact that there is vast geological and scientific proof that the world was in fact crafted over millions of years and that organisms 'evolve'.

Alright christains, where did God come from? And, - putting things very scientifically - is he energy or matter. Or is he some force we have yet to discover?

It's a shame this question is only directed towards christians. Otherwise I'd be happy to share ideas.

Most of the beginning of Genesis is not meant to be taken literally. 'Days' to God could be billions of years, for all you know.

BTW...

Alright, caesius. Putting things VERY scientifically - where did energy come from?

like what my friedn wrote above genisis is not meant to be taken litterally and is not specifically what christians believe, and We do not know if God is human (except for Jesus) he is possibly spirtual energy, nature whatever, you just personified him as human which is utterly stupid. Jesus is considered God to christians because he was the perfect human who contributed his entire life to ensure the survival of the human race. so really there is no argument here. Christianity and Science are two truths we just don't understand something in between.

I don't think religion or science have many answers, as far as the big picture goes.

Look for yourself. Eat some acid. Think for yourself.

About Genesis,

There are scientists that prove evolution,

Then there are other ones that refute that.

Then there are others that try to find a middle line, by making there own scientific hypothises, or saying the 6 days is actually not literal, like they are increments of billions of years, or stages. Or merging it all.

Now where did God come from? What is He.

Well, Stephen Hawking wrote a book about where particles came from. They had to come from nowhere, too. What happens is really unimaginable to our minds. It spontaneously appears. Electrons, protons, etc... just appear as with space and time. They are dimensions that aren't always there. At the edge of the universe there is a physical end to space. Then there is absolutely nothing, not even a vacuum.

Now this all had to just appear so why couldn't God?

Don't be ripping my clever philosophical arguments, Zman.

I put them so much more cleverly. What took you an entire paragraph to explain, I did perfectly with only 10 words.

Looks like I've got a few people angery, sorry about that - I'm not denouncing christ, in fact I do like to consider myself a christain.

Just interested in each sides veiws.\

Maybe God can only be explained by science and science can only be explained by God.

- Cheers

Hey, you side-stepping snake, answer my question.

Don't sidle out of the way, not when I so elegantly made your question look rediculous.

No, you didn't make my question look stupid. I'm asking for opinions - not stating what I beleive.

Who knows where energy comes from? God maybe?

It doesn't come from anywhere, man.

It just has always existed. This is the official consensus in the physics world, as far as I know.

I just find it amusing when the trendy athiests try to be clever and say 'well, where did God come from, huh? huh?!?,' while at the same time professing to believe in science, which assumes basically the same thing as the religious folks do.

Nothing makes any sense at all, in reality. Ok, so God exists. Where did he come from? A decent answer would be that he always existed.

But let's say God doesn't exist. Alright, so where did the universe come from? A decent answer would be that it was created by the fabled Big Bang. However, the infinitely dense particle that started it all had to come from somewhere, right?

According to science, that matter cannot be created, nor destroyed. It just always 'is,' and always will be.

Now, I like science. I think it's very interesting. But, I just can't understand people who have faith in it while denouncing others who have faith in something else.

quote:Originally posted by Kikey_Kikeowitz:

According to science, that matter cannot be created, nor destroyed. It just always 'is,' and always will be.

For the 50 bajillionth fucking time, it's under normal conditions!!!

The laws of the universe as we know them do not apply prior to the planck wall barrier of the big bang. Hardly what I would call notmal conditions.

What is defined as normal conditions, then?

although not christian the bible does give an amazingly scientific description of the beginning of earth as told from the perspective of an observer standing on earth at the time.

that last part is crucial in understanding this.

"1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was [1] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. "

it is no secret the earth started out without any form as it orbited around the center of gravity which was becoming our current star. as "formless" cloud of dust from creation of heavier elements through the previous star going nova.

"And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning-the first day."

the nuclear reactions occurred and our star was born, the source of the "light" however was not visible from the earth as we see...

"6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning-the second day."

the cloud of dust is now becoming the earth as gravity is bringing the debris together, where heavier elements combine and fall to the "surface" such as "water", other elements combine to form gasses, and the gasses like "water vapor" rise, and you do have water beneath and water above.

"9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good."

the earth is cooling, molten lava which once flowed like water, is now cooling rapidly and forming land.

this next part is really interesting.

"11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning-the third day."

how could ancient people have known that plants had to occur before animals?

"14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. 16 God made two great lights-the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning-the fourth day. "

here is why i said it was important to note that it is from the perspective of an observer standing on the earth.

notice the light was created on the first day, but as i stated the earth was not yet formed at that point, and now that earth is formed it's atmosphere is thick and extremely cloudy, making the source of the light unseen.

how did ancient people know the sun would not be visible until the vegetation had helped in clearing the atmosphere?

"20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And there was evening, and there was morning-the fifth day."

now you have the creation of the sea creatures and air creatures, this could include dinosaurs, as science as theorized that birds are the descendants of dinosaurs.

"24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, [2] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.""

the next step, also evolutionary accurate, mammals arose, followed finally by man.

although i don't put much relevance in the bible, i do find these first passages to be quite interesting. to an observer witnessing the creation of the solar system from a point on the earth it is remarkably scientifically accurate in the way that a primitive man would describe it.

It has recently come to my attention that 18th and 19th century authors had access to privileged information they could not possess without some supernatural aid. They made uncanny predictions about what modern science would discover, but this strange phenomenon has gone unnoticed--until now.

To demonstrate how writers living back then were gifted with such prophetic abilities, here are a few choice excerpts of their writings, compared with the discoveries of modern science.

"IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us..."

With this cryptic opening paragraph from A Tale of Two Cities (http://www.literature.org/authors/dickens-charles/two-cities/book-01/chapter-01.html), Dickens implies that at least two contradictory versions of reality exist. Until the 1950s, this was merely considered an interesting literary device called parallelism, but in actuality it hid a deeper meaning...

Schrodinger's cat (http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci341236,00.html), a feline neither alive or dead but both at the same time, immediately springs to mind, as do other phenomena like quantum interference. There can only be one possible explanation--Charles Dickens predicted quantum mechanics! How could he have possibly done that when physics didn't yet exist?!

Example 2:

"But, tell me, Watson, what do you make of our visitor's stick? Since we have been so unfortunate as to miss him and have no notion of his errand, this accidental souvenir becomes of importance. Let me hear you reconstruct the man by an examination of it." - Sherlock Holmes, ch.1 of The Hound of the Baskervilles (http://www.literature.org/authors/doyle-arthur-conan/hound/chapter-01.html)

This is obviously a prediction of DNA testing, since things like walking sticks can contain skin flakes, hair, etc. and offer us incredibly useful help in reconstructing who did the crime! To hell with context and the authors' intention, it's obviously intended as a prophecy of future science by Gawd!

Example 3:

"And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel, although he neither saw nor heard, to feel the presence of my head within the room." - Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell Tale Heart (http://www.literature.org/authors/poe-edgar-allan/tell-tale-heart.html)

What phenomena can neither be seen nor heard, but felt, and can be used to detect human activity? Why, infrared rays, of course! Amazing!

And let's not forget how the prophet Mary Shelley (pbuh) predicted organ transplantation almost two centuries before it was successfully performed... I could go on and on, but I think this will suffice for now.

The moral of this story? Well, there are several:

1. Vague, out-of-context verses that superficially resemble some new development do not a prediction make.

2. Humans are extremely good at retroactive shoehorning (http://skepdic.com/shoehorning.html), which explains the prevalence of belief in Nostradamus and other frauds but not our ability to predict the future.

3. Said shoehorning can produce "foreknowledge" in the Bible (http://www.creationists.org/foreknowledge.html), Quran, Hindu Vedas (http://www.eclectica.org/v3n4/gaborro.html), or Moby Dick; a few selected statements out of thick tomes are SURE to match up, at least superficially, with some of the mountains of scientific knowledge we've uncovered.

4. One must ask why the scientific developments are never actually inspired by the book, but always conveniently "realized" after scientists infer them from the empirical evidence.

4. IMHO, the ones who originate these type of arguments are dumb as rocks and should do humanity a favor by not reproducing*.

*The above refers to the professional scam artists who con those lacking critical thinking into using these arguments on random web forums. "Hate the scammer, not the scammed" is an appropriate adage.

My $0.02,

Religion is separate from science, they each have a purpose. Religion is what has held our civilizations together in the past so we could invent, discover and produce. Now out technology is our god.

i ain't christian, i'm "mormon", but this is what i have to say to "where the fuck did God come from?" Do you believe in god? 'cause if you do, he exists then, doesn't he? but if you don't, he's just a figment of our imaginations. so, in other words, we only know what we believe. man believed in dragons way back when, until science had to fuck that up and replace it with "proof that it's false". so what? without believing in something, not much could have happened in the world, especially for the human race. so let scientists believe that evolution happened. let those who believe in one religion or another that god exists. me, i'd personally prefer to believe that in a couple of minutes i'll get hungry and make myself a sandwich. Case closed

Shadow Knight

dark magneto you can really be a pain in the ass.

where the hell did i mention prediction?

i didn't know the bible was written before creation?

holy shit.

"IMHO, the ones who originate these type of arguments are dumb as rocks and should do humanity a favor by not reproducing*. "

will it make you happier if i told you i want to know where it came from?

there are two distinct versions of creation in the bible, the jewish one and that one. the jewish one comes later, where man is created first, then the animals, then woman.

i want to know where moses got the information for the first one. the story of the flood he got from the epic of gilgamesh, the epic of gilgamesh does not have a creation story like that, no other culture in the world has a creation story so primitively scientifically correct.

it would've been nice if the library at alexandria would've remained intact throughout history, we may have been privy to the same information moses was, and who the originator of the story was.

---Edit--- http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria

---Edit---

besides jackass, ever since the jailing of galileo thoughts on new sciences were often put into books to avoid heresy, such as schroedinger's cat, a tale of two cities, gullivers travels...

"The puzzle lies in the fact that Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) in his famous satire "Gullivers' Travels" (1726) written to "vex the world" as he put it, describes Mars as having two tiny moons as Hall discovered in 1877, some 151 years later! This delightful satire certainly did vex the powers that be in the early 18th Century and is a story loved by young and old alike today. It also vexes historians to this day, how did he know? Was it just a lucky guess? Did he have access to an unusually powerful telescope during unusually good seeing conditions? We may never know. What ever the results of this puzzle, I highly recommend the original "Gullivers' Travels" (1726), but be warned, it is not a children's story in the original like it is in some later adaptations."

ever wondered why jules verne is credited in some circles for the invention of the helicopter, or arthur c. clarke the satellite?

sometimes magneto you remind of that one guy that brings everybody down, and disagree just for the sake of disagreeing.

[This message has been edited by IzzyReele (edited 08-05-2003).]

Has it neve occoured to you that scienc could be wrong! How do you know for shure that everything scienc has "proved" is correct! And how do you know that God's time is not different from our time! For all we know God (in his time) could have created the earth a year ago! Sciec iswrong and that is the bottom line!!!!!!

http://www.yfiles.com/Biblical-creation.htm

http://www.mindspring.com/~kenwear/genesis1.htm

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1576831116/102-1743032-9933727?vi=glance

"In his latest work, he demonstrates that Genesis 1-11, a series of chapters that many biblical critics contend are stories that can't be verified historically or scientifically, contains some of the strongest evidence of the Bible's supernatural accuracy."

http://www.westmont.edu/~work/faq/creationscience.html

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=2X35OT6S5E&isbn=0553354132&itm=3

"In this groundbreaking book, physicist Gerald Schroeder takes on skeptics from both sides of the cosmological debate, arguing that science and the Bible are not at odds concerning the origin of the universe. Line drawings."

http://www.jewishsf.com/bk970131/ebabang.htm

http://home-1.tiscali.nl/~sttdc/bontingtheology.htm

"I note several striking parallels between the Gen. 1 story and the account of cosmic and biologic evolution (Bonting, 1999): initial mystery, three separations, ordering and contingency in both, and the parallel between chaos and the concept of entropy in the second law of thermodynamics. I also note that the physical theory of chaos events (Crutchfield et al, 1995) shows the course of the universe to be unpredictable and open, even though obeying the physical laws laid down initially."

quote:Originally posted by ***crazed***:

Has it neve occoured to you that scienc could be wrong! How do you know for shure that everything scienc has "proved" is correct! And how do you know that God's time is not different from our time! For all we know God (in his time) could have created the earth a year ago! Sciec iswrong and that is the bottom line!!!!!!

See, that's the thing about science that makes it both different and superior to faith. It is very possible that it is wrong about many things, and if you can give evidence that it is wrong, it will adjust so that it can be correct.

Religion, of course, only allows change through bloody schisms.

Originally posted by ***crazed***:

Has it neve occoured to you that scienc could be wrong! How do you know for shure that everything scienc has "proved" is correct! And how do you know that God's time is not different from our time! For all we know God (in his time) could have created the earth a year ago! Sciec iswrong and that is the bottom line

All most religions are is a constantly shifting collection of rules and ideas that prey on peoples fears and hopes with false rewards and restricing ideals. Christianity way back 2000 years ago had such a strong hold on entire nations that it could afford to say whatever the hell it wanted to and everyone would follow. Now Christianity is a pick and choose religion that decides whenever society changes one of its fundamental values like slavery it just turns right around and preaches the new change. The bible advocates slavery but modern christians don't own slaves do they? Science is just an unbiased study of something that needs explaining. So before you go and dis science why don't you go pull your head out of your ass and look at your own damn religion. Now has it ever occurred to you that you need to think for yourself for once instead of just following what a 2000 year old book says to do?

quote:Originally posted by Spookey:

All most religions are is a constantly shifting collection of rules and ideas that prey on peoples fears and hopes with false rewards and restricing ideals. Christianity way back 2000 years ago had such a strong hold on entire nations that it could afford to say whatever the hell it wanted to and everyone would follow. Now Christianity is a pick and choose religion that decides whenever society changes one of its fundamental values like slavery it just turns right around and preaches the new change. The bible advocates slavery but modern christians don't own slaves do they? Science is just an unbiased study of something that needs explaining. So before you go and dis science why don't you go pull your head out of your ass and look at your own damn religion. Now has it ever occurred to you that you need to think for yourself for once instead of just following what a 2000 year old book says to do?

umm.. dude... yer missin' the point entirely. just because science can prove one thing or another, religion says one thing or another, what's the big deal? do you choose to believe it? i mean, COME ON! some people may be gullible enough that you could pull stupid jokes on'em and they would give you the same reaction, but it's what you believe that reflects who you are. if you think that science is right and albert einstein is the world's most intelligent man throughout history, then by all means, GO AHEAD! if you think that God is like me looking down at an ant-hill with a sprinkler in hand to cause distruction disorder and chaos, then by all means, GO AHEAD! just leave out the statement "pull your head outta your ass." it makes you look stupid, ya damn noob

quote:Originally posted by shadow knight:

it makes you look stupid, ya damn noob

No, you know what makes you look stupid? Claiming that religion is as valid as science.

I think god is nothing but a common imaginary friend that alot of people have gotten waaaaay to attached to. Thats just my idea, i could be wrong. But who knows eh?

quote:Originally posted by IzzyReele:

dark magneto you can really be a pain in the ass.

where the hell did i mention prediction?

i didn't know the bible was written before creation?



I wasn't directly referring to anything you wrote.

quote:Originally posted by caesius:

Alright christains, where did God come from? And, - putting things very scientifically - is he energy or matter. Or is he some force we have yet to discover?

How could we (meaning Christians) possibly answer these questions? There is nothing in Scripture and nothing in logic to determine how God came to be, or even if He came to be, MUCH LESS what He is composed of. For all we know, He could be a conscious pile of sand with supernatural powers - but we don't know, and we mustn't pretend we do. The effects of pretending to know these answers could be damaging.

What you have you ask yourself is this: does not knowing these answers mean the faith of Christianity is false?

The answer is no.

So when weighing the validity of Christianity upon useless questions like pondering the unponderable, we must remind ourselves what exactly is important in discussions like these. Certainly not what God is made of.

Perhaps you could explain to me the significance of these questions? What would it mean if we could somehow know what God is made of?

here's a kicker, where did the laws of the universe come from?

Gee, I wonder how a Christian would answer that...

quote:Originally posted by DarkFire47:

here's a kicker, where did the laws of the universe come from?

States of matter. It's not like these "laws" are something that was decided upon, they just happen to be the case.

actually it's more profound than that magneto.

"It's not like these "laws" are something that was decided upon, they just happen to be the case."

now tell me why they just happen to be the case.

if you can answer that, you will have discovered the quantum theory of gravity, and answered hawking's question if god had a choice in making the universe.

your explanation is pretty accepting, and simplistic.

i can hear the same reasoning given for why the rain falls down instead of up, it just happens to be the case.

hey you fuckin pieces of shit there is no god so stop bein god damn pussies and realize christianity is the state of being afraid of dying. thats truly all it is ppl just believe there is a heaven because they dont want to think for themselves and just be "dead" when they die. do u have a spirit when unconscious or while asleep fuck no. so dont be prancin around with ur bullshit actin like you kno what ur talkin about. it isn't hard to believe when u've believed nothing else but since ur all christians im gonna give it to u how it is in Lamen's close minded terms. all mass has gravity. mass is created by energy. energy was created by the vacuum in space which is described by infinity. just because something ends on earth doesn't mean all ends. hundreds of years ago ppl discovered that earth isn't the center of the universe give it up

and believe

LMAO