Hi Seraphim
The holy spirit made the ingredients but it itself is not an ingredient. Like God himself it cannot be defined as an ingredient. It cant be defined at all. Its more fundamental than that. An ingredient is by definition defined relative to other things. Its static is a sense, whereas the holy spirit is fundamentally non definable and non static. Its a restless entity, always on the move. This is probably why Gods name means among other things, something causing to become. Its never still, defined or static.
OK, I understand what you're saying. I guess my point is this. In Genesis 1, God tells us that the holy spirit played a major role in at least the creation of the earth:
"The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters." (Gen 1:2)
There is nothing like this in orthodox science! (Although there is in plasma science, where a vibrational activity over water can create light). Orthodox science explains the creation of the Earth with no supernatural intervention whatsoever.
So while you're absolutely right to say that the holy spirit is not an "ingredient", it certainly played a role in the creative process.
In other words, the explanation given to us by orthodox science is fundamentally flawed - because it misses out a key player in the process. So why do you put your trust in orthodox science to tell you how the Earth, or indeed the Universe, even arose?
Perhaps my illustration would be better to have compared it to presenting you with a baked cake, and telling you how to make it... but omitting the part where you pop it in the oven!
Imagine an alien came along, who had no idea about human baking, and tried to re-create the cake, but without the critical part about putting it into an oven!
It might falsely conclude that all it needed to do to get a cake was to leave the ingredients lying around for billions of years, and they would eventually congeal into a cake!
Is it possible that Science has come to a completely erroneous conclusion about the Universe, in the same way as our alien might have done, because of missing the vital piece of the process, namely popping the mixture in the oven?
Radiation is the same. The reason radiation exists is because it represents how elements turn into new or different elements.
Only to a point, and only on some elements. Not ALL elements are radioactive! Radiation only occurs with unstable elements, and all unstable elements eventually break down into stable ones. If I recall, there are more stable than unstable elements.
God built into nature its own ability to change and create. Things breaking down and things changing form via natural processes implies God did not want the universe to made static. It implies he didn't make the universe as we see it now in six days. If he did there would be no need for things like radiation and decomposition. The universe would not be expanding and changing form.
I don't see how the one follows the other. As I have said, not every element is radioactive. In fact, the Universe is actually very stable! Take the atom, for example. If the electrons were really just flying around the nucleus like planets, they would collapse into the centre within milliseconds... but they don't. They are absolutely stable in that regard, held in "orbit" by their energy levels, which can only be of certain forms.
(I'm giving myself a "crash course" on quantum mechanics at the moment - it's a truly fascinating world. I've always wanted to know why the electrons are in certain fixed orbits... now I know.)
I would suggest that things are a lot more stable than they are unstable, and the only real reason we break down is because of the Fall. Adam and Eve were not meant to break down.. and maybe their sin affected all creation.
As for the rest of the Universe, when they tell me that in a certain region of the universe whole stars are forming or being swallowed up, think about this... how long have they been studying that region of space? 50 years? 100 years?
Even if we say they've been studying it for 6,000 years... you claim the universe is billions of years old. So all they've been studying is a slither of a snapshot in time... and they are telling us precisely what's happening?
That's like you giving someone a snapshot of your vacation, and then expecting them to deduce how your entire vacation went. :D
Think aboout it... everything... and I mean everything we see around us in the Universe... is a slither of a snapshot in time... and yet 100 years after we realized other galaxies even existed, the human race is suddenly expert at universe generation? :shocked:
I call their bluff. :D
If one encounters a million dominoes that appear to be in the process of the chain reaction, and half have fallen with the other half still falling, we can come to two possible conclusions. Either we have come in to the situation half way through the automatic process that started a long time before we entered the room, or we could conclude that the person who set up the dominoes set up the first half already fallen and just before we entered the room pushed over the remaining dominoes and ran out of the room. Which is the most reasonable explanation?
Depends on whether you can tell me if the loaf was baked or not :D
If God created a pretty fully formed universe almost instantly, with the purpose of it being inhabited right away, well our universe would look radically and unimaginably... the same!
Just as Jesus could have given them the flour and ovens and told them to make the loaves themselves, which would have taken time... but what he actually did was create them... instantly... fully baked, and ready to eat. :coffeeread:
Why could God not have done this... and done it easily... with the Universe?
Radioactivity is part of such a domino process that is only even needed so that one element can turn into another. Its why stars produce elements like carbon from hydrogen, and all the things needed to make life. If God created it all instantly, such processes would not be needed, and we wouldn't even have carbon to be able to do carbon dating. If it was all instantly made, God would have made all the elements as they are without the ability for them to change into new ones.
Think about who taught you this... it was the same scientists who "omit the oven", as it were. I'm not disputing that stars may well "produce" elements... but why do we assume God needed to rely on these stars emitting these elements, before He could get going with the creation of the Earth?
It just seems strange to me that Almighty God, who called forth an entire Universe into existence, then had to wait billions of years just to get hold of the raw materials He needed. Do you really believe He did it exactly as the scientists claim it was done (without God?)
I am saying there is something fundamentally flawed with their entire science, and this is why creation science becomes useful, because they are pointing out specifically which parts are flawed, and which are valid. Not that creation science is the last word either... but which is better? To write off anything they do as "pseudoscience" (aka Derek), or to say... "Hang on a moment... maybe they do have a point."
At what point did we decide God should be taken out of science? Who made that decision? Newton certainly didn't... he was a scientist partly because he wanted to understand the laws put in motion by God! He didn't have this strange notion that "religion" and "science" were two separate things in their own boxes. Science actually impinges on religion all the time... so guess what, it can valldly work the other way round.