Kermos wrote:
Faith is proof of things not seen; in other words, that which you say/think but not see is what you believe.
I want to give you an idea of who I am. I was an evolutionist, but Christ changed me into a Christian.
Christians can believe in evolution, most do I think, becoming a Christian doesn’t necessitate ending belief in evolution by any stretch of the imagination.
Many scientists believe the beginning of Universe was about 13.8 billion years ago. A subset of those scientists believe an infinitesimally small, densely packed, super-heated region (point) exploded as the Big Bang, and other scientists believe that nothing exploded as the Big Bang.
The mechanics aren’t completely worked out, but Big Bang Cosmology is the scientific consensus.
Regardless of alternative models, such as a cyclically oscillating Universe, I am focusing on the beginning, that is, the origin of the Universe.
I believe the Universe is about 6,000 years old.
You are trying to sell us on a deceitful God who would create Man with a rational mind, a sense of wonder, and seeking intellect, while creating a universe with the false appearance of tremendous age, placing a preponderance of overwhelming evidence of evolution having occurred as some kind of hoax. Your concept of a deceptive God is very hard to accept; it strikes me as a much greater challenge to Christianity than any damage the concept of evolution could ever hope to do.
For me, and not for scientists of the Big Bang persuasion, "faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen" ([Hebrews 11:1](https://biblehub.com/hebrews/11-1.htm)) applies because my assurance of things hoped for is my Lord and my God Jesus Christ's triumphant return while scientists are not hoping for the Big Bang since scientists believe the Big Bang is an event of the past.
I’m pretty sure Christians “of the Big Bang persuasion” define faith that way also, the rest of this paragraph does not make any sense.
Scientists believe the Big Bang Theory is science. I postulate that the Big Bang Theory is based on faith. I propose scientists of the Big Bang Theory are more accurately identified as philosophers of the Big Bang Philosophy or Evolution religion, and I write this because of the difference between science and faith. Can any of you scientists rationally explain away this postulate as wrong?
Sure, the Big Bang is science because it is a scientific theory based on scientific observations, philosophy and science are two different things. Just because faith is involved in science, that doesn’t mean it isn’t science. One of the founders of modern physics, Max Planck said: "Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: Ye must have faith. It is a quality which the scientist cannot dispense with"
LiveScience presents an excellent explanation of the term science at [www.livescience.com/20896-science-scientific-method.html](https://www.livescience.com/20896-science-scientific-method.html) with an essence of the scientific method including (1) hypothesis, (2) repeatable observation and experimentation, and (3) conclusions. This is pertinent to this thread.
Yes, LiveScience provides a pretty good rough overview of the scientific method, and that method is the process by which scientists arrived at Big Bang Cosmology.
Your post is unfounded and based on a contrived presumption that the theory of evolution in some way contradicts Christian faith, and it doesn't. The theory of evolution does not in any way eliminate the mystery of life, question the existence of God, or bring into doubt any of the basic tenets of Christianity. I certainly can’t say the same thing about your postulated God of deception.
As far as science is concerned, what you are contending requires a direct refutation of the most general principles of most of our physical and biological sciences. As a unifying theory of biology, evolution holds true. Its mechanisms are by no means completely understood but the evolutionary framework is absolutely central to science.
The theory of evolution is the great unifying principle of biology, as powerful a model to biology as Newton's model was to physics. The conceptual framework of the theory of evolution makes sense of a profoundly wide range of scientific facts and it does it in a magnificent and comprehensive way. It provides a principle of unity, a framework by which science can attempt to explain, to unify, and to order, a vast amount of disparate data into a consistent whole providing tremendous coherence and clarity. To deny evolution you must bring into question the entire interwoven fabric of scientific research.
Flat out denial of the theory of Evolution requires the concomitant denial of an astounding range of scientific disciplines, not just the disciplines of geology, paleontology, archeology, radiometric dating, genetics, and zoology but also such fundamental disciplines as physics, astronomy, astrophysics, chemistry, biochemistry, geophysics, biology, botany, microbiology, and meteorology, and many others. Because of the interrelated aspect of the sciences, you can't really propose that the theory evolution is false without being fundamentally anti-scientific. You can contend that the theory of evolution is incomplete, nobody claims it is complete, but you can’t really deny evolution and still be talking about science. If you could in fact, deny the theory of evolution, it would, in effect, unravel the world of science.
I’m sorry, but I think your post betrays a lack of understanding of both science and Christianity. I cannot accept your contrived conflict between religious truth and scientific truth because to do so I would have to believe in a self-contradicting God; and that is something I simply cannot accept.