How are Christian ideas different from the scientific theories about the origin of the world?

Answer 1

Answer

"Explain how Christian ideas are different from the scientific theories about the origin of the world?"

By Harold S. Kushner (1981)--notes by Doug Muder (1997) offers the following:

Best wishes

8. What good, then, is religion? [pages 132-148]

"No one ever promised us a life free from pain and disappointment. The most anyone promised us was that we would not be alone in our pain, and that we would be able to draw upon a source outside ourselves for the strength and courage we would need to survive life's tragedies and life's unfairness." [page 133]

"I no longer hold God responsible for illnesses, accidents, and natural disasters, because I realize that I gain little and I lose so much when I blame God for those things. I can worship a God who hates suffering but cannot eliminate it, more easily than I can worship a God who chooses to make children suffer and die, for whatever exalted reason." [page 134]

"We could bear any burden if we thought there was a meaning to what we were doing. Have I made it harder for people to accept their illnesses, their misfortunes, their family tragedies by telling them that they are not sent by God as part of some master plan of His? Let me suggest that the bad things that happen to us in our lives do not have a meaning when they happen to us. They do not happen for any good reason which would cause us to accept them willingly. But we can give them a meaning." [pages 135-136]

"The facts of life and death are neutral. We, by our responses, give suffering either a positive or a negative meaning. Illnesses, accidents, human tragedies kill people. But they do not necessarily kill life or faith. If the death and suffering of someone we love makes us bitter, jealous, against all religion, and incapable of happiness, we turn the person who died into one of the 'devil's martyrs.' If suffering and death in someone close to us bring us to explore the limits of our capacity for strength and love and cheerfulness, if it leads us to discover sources of consolation we never knew before, then we make the person into a witness for the affirmation of life rather than its rejection." [page 138]

"God, who neither causes nor prevents tragedies, helps by inspiring people to help." [page 140]

"I firmly believe that [my son] Aaron served God's purposes, not be being sick or strange-looking (there was no reason why God should have wanted that), but by facing up so bravely to his illness and to the problems caused by his appearance. I know that his friends and schoolmates were affected by his courage and by the way he managed to live a full life despite his limitations. And I know that people who knew our family were moved to handle the difficult times of their own lives with more hope and courage when they saw our example. I take these as instances of God moving people here on earth to help other people in need." [page 141]

"When people who were not particularly strong become strong in the face of adversity, when people who tended to think only of themselves become unselfish and heroic in an emergency, I have to ask myself where they got these qualities which they would freely admit they did not have before. My answer is that this is one of the ways in which God helps us when we suffer beyond the limits of our own strength." [page 142]

"Our responding to life's unfairness with sympathy and with righteous indignation, God's compassion and God's anger working through us, may be the surest proof of all of God's reality." [pages 142-143]

"Religion alone can affirm the afflicted person's sense of self-worth. Science can describe what has happened to a person; only religion can call it a tragedy. Only the voice of religion, when it frees itself from the need to defend and justify God for all that happens, can say to the afflicted person, 'You are a good person, and you deserve better. Let me come and sit with you so that you will know that you are not alone.'" [page 143]

Sorry, I just realized the above post doesn't give a clear and direct answer to your question, my speed reading needs fine tuning (smile), but it does touch a little on the subject.

Best wishes (smile)

Because science is based on Natural laws, while god is on supernatural.

Comment

It is a common misconception that Christians ignore the evidence provided by science and then invoke a 'God of the gaps' to account for anything they cannot explain. In fact it was the Christian belief in an orderly Universe based on Natural Laws put there by an all-wise creator that spawned modern science as opposed to superstition. Belief in a supernatural all-powerful deity is not necessarily in conflict with the world that exists. It is in conflict with an anti-supernatural world view which have a set of presuppositions which are put forward as scientific.

A Summary of Some Differences Between Christian and Naturalistic Views on Origins

Christian : God all-powerful (almighty) eternal and all-wise Creator.

Evolutionary: God is irrelevant if He exists at all. Only a naturalistic (non-supernatural) explanation of origins allowed.

Christian: God made universe and living things etc in 7 literal 24 hour days. this occurred about 6000 years ago and was ex nihilo (from nothing).

Evolutionary: Universe made itself (ex nihilo) from a speck of matter which exploded from a quantum fluctuation in a vacuum and eventually expanded into all that is about 13.7 Billion years ago.

Christian : Creation in Genesis in harmony with Laws of BioGenesis, the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics and Genetics, as well as much data (even data discovered by evolutionists).

Evolutionary: Violates all three above Laws of Science (these have no known observable exception). Big Bang and Steady State theories attempt to get around this.

Christian: Races of people do not exist as a biological fact. The idea of different nations of men but not Race is taught. Men are all of one blood. Acts 17 v 26. Human Genome project has confirmed the essential unity on mankind because all descended from same stock - the intelligent couple Adam and his wife Eve. External differences are not genetically significant.

Evolutionary: Different Races of mankind exist some being more highly evolved than others who are closer to their common ancestry in an ape-like creature. This idea not justified by modern genetics.

Christian: Biblical teaching contained in Genesis 1 through 11 and elsewhere remains unchanged over 3500 years.

Evolutionary: Requires constant modification and rejection of false and fraudulent arguments used to support it. Various forms of the theory have sought to get around the scientific problems.

Another View:

Answer:

Christian origin idea are based on the poems that tell about creation, one in Genesis 1, another in Genesis 2, and a third in Job 38. Just like the Babylonian origin ideas came from their poem of creation Enuma Elish, like the Greek origin ideas came from Hesiod's Cosmogony and the HIndu creation ideas came from their poem Rig Veda.

Scientific theories don't come from a religious poem, but from observing nature.

Christain ideas stem from the revelations given in The Bible. They then try to fit what is observed into their religious framework.

Scientific ideas are based on observation and experiments, the frameworks are temporary and are continually being changed or improved.

Because science is based on Natural laws, while god is on supernatural.