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Science and religion: creation mythos



Today I thought I'd take a look at one of the issues that causes the most fracas between science and religion. The issue of creation. Now before I start I must  stress this is my opinion, I've thought about this since I was about 10 so it's been a long time that I've put into it,i do accept it could be seen as daft and completely untrue, or it could make perfect sense, either way the aim is not to change anyone's opinions just to provide an alternative viewpoint. 

First of all I need to address the focal point of the argument. The Bible. I fully believe the Bible is the word of the Lord. The word of Him/Her. Not necessarily the truth of history. Through the stories in the Bible God is demonstrating how to live our lives as good, morally upstanding  people.  If the exact truth was stated you can get lost for none is fully just, other than God him/herself. If it was fully truth it would be boring and also the key messages in how to be good people would be lost. The stories are embellished to highlight how to be a good person. 
Secondly, the Bible is an old book. Seems like a dumb point to make but it is vastly important. These things happened centuries ago, in an age when 30 miles took a day to travel, not 30 minutes.   The world to the people of yesteryear was much smaller. The world shattering events that happen in the Bible will have shattered their world, much like the Japanese tsunami devastated the island, or the earthquake in Nepal caused untold devastation or Hurricane Katrina destroyed the east coast.   All these events are horrific but localised. They didn't necessarily have an impact on the world as a whole.   The same goes for events in the Bible. Now that doesn't mean God didn't guide people to safety, it just means that the Bible is written from quite a small perspective so can't be used in the context of our wider one to provided 100% accurate accounts. 

Right with all that out of the way let's tackle creation. 6 days, 144 hours. Doesn't seem like a long time but that's how long it took God to make everything. He mustve been very busy! But at what point does it say Earth years? Yes it says a rising and a setting of a sun, but does it say it was our sun? A day on Mercury lasts 58days, 15hours and 30 minutes going off Earth time, a day on Pluto lasts over 6 Earth days. We all know that Heaven isn't necessarily part of Earth, and for all we know it could exist outside of our universe. Can the term day possibly mean 24 hours when put in that context? This allows me to reconcile God creating everything in 6 days and the fact things have exists for nigh on 14 billion years quite well in my head. 

The next thing I believe is that we have souls and that God's love is omnipresent.  For me that can only mean one thing. God is pure energy.  Energy is the one thing  that can't be created or destroyed,  it exists and transfers from type to type.  If any of you have ever been so unlucky as to watch  someone die it is clear that some form of energy leaves them quite shortly after. 
What does that have to do with creation? I'm glad you asked!  One thing scientists agree on is that the first thing present in the universe was energy,and it's from energy that everything was made. E=MC^2, even matter is made of energy!   That means everything is made from and by God.  Convoluted maybe, but we can't disprove it so for now it could be seen as a valid theory. 

So there are my thoughts on that matter. Next week I'll look at evolution, feel free to tell me if I'm spouting a load of rubbish, or to expand on any points I've made if you wish. 

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