Formless and Empty: Genesis Meets Science Part 3

I’ve written before about how science and Genesis 1:1 tell the same story of the beginning of the universe. Regarding the very first moment of time, the Biblical account of creation and the big bang model of the universe share many striking similarities. But what comes next? Do the stories continue to agree, or do they part ways?

The answer may surprise you.

For this article, let’s focus our efforts on the following verse:

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

~Genesis 1:2 (KJV)

When we read this passage, most Christians are probably going to visualize something like a world completely covered by oceans, partly because “the deep” is a common term that we use in order to avoid repeating boring words like ocean or sea or water (because one can never have too many words which describe the same thing), and partly because we know that subsequent verses mention the waters being separated by dry land.

But that mental image is wrong on many levels.

It's About Time: Creation and the Theory of Relativity

We know that 60 seconds make up a minute, 60 minutes make up an hour, there are 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week, and so on. Humans are obsessed with time. We celebrate the passage of it with anniversaries and birthdays, we plan our waking activities around it, and we build clocks of all different shapes and sizes, from Stonehenge to cuckoo clocks to building sized monuments like Big Ben, to smart watches synchronized automatically by your cellular network to super-precise atomic clocks.

Peter Cetera, in a song by his band, Chicago, famously asked, Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is? As it turns out, that question may be a lot harder to answer than you think.

What Is The "Value" Of Life? (What If Atheists Are Right, Part 2)

When debating the questions of existence with an atheist, at some point the value of human life will inevitably arise. This happened with my previous post, when a viewer on my YouTube channel challenged the idea that eternal life would be valuable. She said quite correctly that scarcity gives items, even our time, higher value. It’s basically Economics 101: supply and demand. Simple concept. For example…

In the US today, we tend to take water for granted. It’s typically abundant and cheap. But elsewhere in the world, that’s not necessarily the case. Desert-dwelling societies put a much higher value on water, and access to water may play a central role in their economy. But where I live, I pay about $30-$40 a month and I can shower, do laundry, run the tap, and flush the pooper as much as I want.

Water is an absolute necessity for life as we know it, so it makes sense that a scarcity of it makes it that much more valuable to us. But humans also place high value on a lot of things that are not necessary for survival at all.

What If Atheists Are Right?

Atheists are quick to point out the differences between religions (and especially between different denominations of the same religion) as proof that people of faith have failed to come to any kind of
consensus. That alone, they say, is enough to prove that faith is nothing more than a bunch of superstitious hogwash. But they are overlooking something when they resort to this argument. Even though there are literally thousands of different religions, there is one factor that they all have in common.

I’m going to call it “continuity.”

According to the Pew Research Center, 84% of the people on this planet are affiliated with a religion. This means that the vast majority of humanity shares the belief that there is something more to our
existence than this life. Whether it’s Heaven, Nirvana, reincarnation, or returning your energy to the cosmos, people of faith all believe that some aspect of what we call “us” continues to exist beyond physical death.

Hence… continuity.

Atheists say that this is all there is, and when you die… it’s GAME OVER.

Now, I love science. Almost more than I love barbeque. Probably less than pizza… I also believe that there is more to reality than science can explain. But… what if I’m wrong? If atheists are right, and science is the only appropriate way to interpret reality, what does the future look like for humanity as a species?

In the Beginning: Big Bang or the Bible?

For as long as I can remember, there has been a battle
raging between the Bible and science.

Actually, let me correct that statement: there has
been a battle raging between proponents of the Bible and proponents of science.
The battle is between people, and that’s an important distinction, because
science and the Bible are not enemies.

Human beings are generally FAR too eager to choose
sides in arguments, and then once a side has been chosen, to completely
disregard, discredit, and even attempt to destroy the other side. That’s what
has happened in the so-called “debate” between scientists and believers - BUT
believe it or not, science and the Bible get along just fine.

The first sentence of the Bible is: In the beginning, God created the heavens
and the earth. In case you were wondering, “the heavens and the earth”
means… everything. The Bible says quite plainly that the only reason that there
is “something” instead of “nothing” is because God made it. He made it all!

Contrary to what some new-age religions claim, God and
the universe are not the same thing. He is the creator, not the creation, and
as such, He exists independently, outside of that creation, and - according to causality
- He must have existed BEFORE what He created.

Even if you’ve never heard the term “causality,” you’re
probably quite familiar with it by its other name: the law of cause and effect.
Those two words must occur in that order. CAUSE first, EFFECT second. Any
observable effect happens after whatever caused it. It’s a very common sense
type of thinking, but it’s also one of the cornerstones of modern science.

The Day the Science Died

March 14, 2018. On this day, world-renowned scientist Stephen Hawking passed away at the age of 76. I admired the man’s brilliance, especially with regard to astrophysics and cosmology, though I hold a significantly different worldview than the openly atheist Dr. Hawking.

Pixabay

His passing will naturally be mourned by the scientific community, as he was arguably the greatest scientific mind of this generation. Some might say his was the greatest scientific mind which humanity has ever produced. The news of Hawking’s death might be likened unto the passing of rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, who were killed in a plane crash. Their deaths left a void in the American music industry so profound that February 3^rd, 1959, became known as “The Day the Music Died.”

Likewise, many might consider referring to today as “The Day the Science Died.”