-The problem of managing not to put up a straw man argument (an easily refuted, but false argument on behalf of the "opponent") when talking to believers, is that pretty much every one person you talk to has a differing view to the other. And so it will "always" be a straw man argument to some. My argument here though was not a straw man, because the context was that I was brought up a JW, and they believe the creation was initially perfect. This website is after all mostly for those still in, or who have left the JWs.
However, I must say I thought all other Bible based faiths also taught that both God's creation was initially perfect. I don't think I've heard/read any Christian argue that God's creation was never perfect to begin with, until I came here. In other threads here, Christians would ask "Who says Adam and Eve were initially perfect?". First time I heard that too. But you learn something new every day.
We seem to agree that God is perfect and almighty (as there are several Bible passages describing this), but at the same time, His creation was not perfect?
Genesis doesn't actually say everything was created perfect - it was just 'very good' ie 'how God planned/wanted it to be' (so 'perfect' in that sense without the necessity of the scientific definition). True this is a common misinterpretation by some mainstream Christians as well - they can't seem to accept that God would create anything 'less than perfect' (in human terms!)
I agree with emo concerning assumptions with definitions. Creation was called "good", which is a moral evaluation
(I quote this not to argue with or 'attack' the posters, but to illustrate what the argument is)
I have to ask myself: "How could a perfect (and almighty) being create something imperfect?" The only way I can understand that, is if He decided willfully to create it less than perfect. But how does that work?
-Let's say you are going to build a bird house. Not only are you a certified architect of people's houses, you have also studied ornithology and the 'art' of building bird houses. You live next door to a well stocked warehouse, so you have all the necessary equipment and materials you need. You make drawings and calculations and plan it all out before you start.
What would be the result? Would the bird house have a doorway that would sometimes hurt the birds going in and out (nail sticking out for instance)? Would the roof or walls be slightly askew? Would the mounting mechanism be poor, so that after a few days, weeks or months the bird house would fall to the ground due to weather etc.? No, it would - for all intents and purposes - be a "perfect" bird house.
Now - this analogy isn't perfect(!),simply because as a human being you wouldn't be perfect, and could make mistakes you weren't even aware of, even with all your knowledge. Or the materials weren't of as high a quality as you were told.
God however is perfect, and created the materials Himself from scratch.
Now - what you could do, was to scale down the bird house. Not necessarily in size, but in the cost of the materials, the intricacy of the architecture, etc. It would still functionally be a 'perfect' bird house (it would do it's job perfectly), but we could argue not as perfect as it could have been.
So is that what God did? It could make some sense. He perhaps wouldn't want to make beings (or their home) as perfect as Himself, simply to make a distinction between the divine and the material.
However - this "scaling down" of the universe (scaled down from perfection) wouldn't - or at least shouldn't - lead to imperfections that would be potentially harmful to the beings created to live there, or for that matter visible imperfection, just as the bird house wouldn't have a door with a nail sticking half way through it, or the walls askew. Not when the Creator is perfect. If it was imperfect in that way, it would have to be because he willfully put these potentially harmful imperfections in there.
-As for "good" being a moral evaluation in the creation story, I have to ask how for instance the stars could have been morally 'bad' ? If they couldn't, then what's the point in pointing out that they were created 'morally good' ? If it was the creation process itself that was morally 'good', it would have to have been said in order to distinguish it from something morally 'bad'. At this point in time, Satan hadn't even made his move. God is perfect, so there would be no need to distinguish His creation from a hypothetical 'morally bad' creation. That would be like me (or you) saying "I'm not lying now" as the start of every sentence we uttered in a conversation, to distinguish it from a potential lie. We wouldn't do that, because it's self evident that we don't lie in every sentence we say. We don't have to point that out all the time. Why would God have to say "Hey everybody - the planet and star I'm currently creating are not made with any morally wrong intent in mind".
Thanks for the beautiful image. I don't get the same thoughts from this as you do because our puny little science and our puny little brains can't possibly contemplate much less understand and interpret seemingly cataclysmic cosmic occurrences. But the picture is beautiful nonetheless
To some degree I would agree with this. I for instance do not propose that we know everything there is to know about the universe at this point in time, and the nature of science is that it must adapt to new findings. So what we know now may have to be adjusted in the future. However - to say that this is all so complicated that we might as well stop trying to investigate it or contemplate it, is erroneous in my opinion. To me, advanced calculus is "incomprehensible" - my puny little brain couldn't wrap itself around it. But I know that if I were to really understand it, I couldn't just throw up my arms and say "That's it - no one can possibly understand this, it makes no sense!" And that if everyone before me had done that, there would be no advanced calculus in the first place.
We know how physical objects move in this universe. True, there are hypothesis and attempts at theories that could elaborate and more deeply explain what we now know, but they wouldn't completely replace what we now know, just like Einstein didn't completely replace what Newton found about gravity, but came up with a better, more precise and elaborate theory. Newton explained what happens, Einstein better explained how it happens.
The contents of the galaxies we see 'colliding', or merging, can be measured as to speed, direction, mass etc. If you go to the more elaborate page I linked to in my third post from the top, you'll find projections calculated by supercomputers. With less resolution than the actual galaxies of course, but still with the trajectory etc. of the objects plotted in, which results in an animation of how the galaxies looked before, during and after the 'collision'.
-Even if we look away fromall this, I don't think anyone would describe these galaxies (or this heavenly body if you wish) as being perfect either, simply by looking at them. They are visibly distorted.
when galaxies "collide", nothing in them actually collides but the gravitational forces are what cause the interactions because the stars and matter in them are so far apart. Kinda like the fact that the particles in the atoms of my keyboard don't actually touch but the electrical and magnetic forces between define the substance.
This is also true to some extent. As I also pointed out in my first post - these galaxies are interacting, or merging. However, the result is that matter is flung into space, and I think it would be naive to think that planets and stars don't come too close to each other during this whole merging process. When shown as an animation, the 'merger' is quite "violent". Either way - this is a bit beside my point. As I also pointed out, it would be very strange if this is the way God creates our universe. If God forcefully keeps everything in place, or have created self-acting laws that keep everything in place, it should reflect His perfection as a Creator. You shouldn't see two fully formed galaxies crashing or 'interacting' with each other.
I don't think you can directly compare the simplest elements of atoms with the solar systems and galaxies in the universe, although there are at least apparent similarities in how they look and how the parts interact. If earth was violently hit by a huge asteroid, and slowly started on a journey closer to our sun, it would eventually be pulled in and crash into the sun, just like a satellite will crash into earth if it comes too close. It wouldn't "bounce off" the sun due to a repelling or otherwise interacting force.
Breathtaking ! Are the colors real ?
photoshopped
As W-A-C pointed out, the NASA and ESA images are 'photoshopped', or altered to add or enhance colors, "twinkles" and other 'niceties'. They may also have been taken in a range of light not visible to us. This doesn't take away from their scientific significance, but is done simply to make the images more accessible and compelling to us. The shape of these objects has not been manipulated.
As was pointed out by 'bebu', the fact that the universe can't be said to be perfect has been evident for some time already, for instance by the moon causing tides (I'm sure it has caused some deaths over the thousands of years), and we also have meteorites and asteroids that can potentially be very harmful to us and our planet. Not to mention storms, earthquakes and volcanoes here on earth. But all these things I once thought could kinda fit into the whole "mankind sinned, so even their home planet was affected" (after all, they were told they had to "till the land" from now on, indicating they didn't have to before, and one scriptures says the whole creation is "groaning together".(Rom. 8:22)). And as for meteorites and asteroids, our atmosphere serves as protection from those. So when I was a JW, I could argue that if mankind and therefore also earth had still been perfect, then that protection would also have been perfect. That is was created perfectly.
But why would God create a protective 'barrier' against asteroids and meteorites, but make it imperfect so that it will not protect us if the asteroid or meteorite happens to be too large? Why would He create potentially harmful "rocks" hurling around out there in the first place?
Those rocks and other 'interacting' bodies in the cosmos are our"nail sticking half way through the doorway".