That's not what I meant. These things have a tendency to snowball and completely ruin the threads. I got the irony of your post; your post wasn't the problem.
The significance of this image...
by Awakened07 46 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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greendawn
I think Ninja got the analogy right.
I can't see in these pictures any imperfection in the universe it could just be a natural process like galaxies dying, stars also die in time, in a 14 billion years old universe that could happen. Far more important is the astonisshing order found in the vast universe. -
nvrgnbk
Cool.
Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Interesting thread.
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Narkissos
Thanks for that awesome pic. The best I think we can say about it: it is. And even that doesn't mean much.
As I must have already said dozens of times on this board (but of course you're not supposed to know), the aporetic notion of "perfection / imperfection" as used by the WTS regarding creation (or Adam, or Jesus) is wholly unscriptural. It belongs to 19th-century mechanistic thinking and must not be confused with Biblical dichotomies like "good" and "bad" or "sin" and sinless" which have their own problematics (not exactly the same).
"Perfect" carries the ideas of "complete" or "finished". From this perspective the very concept of "initial perfection" is self-contradictory, unless you assume that anyevent (implying change or becoming) is, by definition, negative: a fall from "perfection". Once time comes into the picture, "perfection" must relate to the whole process. Either it is read at the "end" (which is rather paradoxical) or at every single stage. Iow, "perfection" is both too absolute and too relative a concept to be really helpful imho.
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Awakened07
The best I think we can say about it: it is. And even that doesn't mean much.
I already explained that we can calculate the direction, speed and mass of the individual objects, and project an animation using supercomputers. We can know something about this, if we dare to try.
"Perfect" carries the ideas of "complete" or "finished". From this perspective the very concept of "initial perfection" is self-contradictory,
Most Christians (that I have heard of, read about, met) agree that God the Creator is perfect. JWs certainly believe this. And also that His creation was initially perfect.
Deu. 32:4 "His work is perfect, all His ways are just" (or: "his work [is] perfect: for all his ways [are] judgment" (KJV))
As always with the Bible though, there's the possibility of misinterpreting it. We can't just read it as-is apparently, we need to know the original languages to a T as well, otherwise we might misunderstand the meaning.
How would you describe the word 'perfect' as it's used above, Narksissos (I know about your credentials, so I'm not challenging you here, just asking)? When I search KJV online, I find that his work here can mean: work, deed, doing or work, thing made or wages of work (these are the things that make sense in this context, IMO).
And as for perfect: complete, whole, entire or whole, sound, healthful or complete, entire (of time) or sound, wholesome, unimpaired, innocent, having integrity or what is complete or entirely in accord with truth and fact.
So - "what He has made or worked on or done is either complete, whole, or completely true " .
Or - if I read this scripture in KJV (which apparently is a very trustworthy translation according to most Christians) as-is, it simply states: "his work [is] perfect".
Again: one could argue that 'perfect' in the context of this verse simply means that His work is complete; that His creative action is complete. That wouldn't necessarily mean that it would be 'perfect' in the sense that nothing should be harmful or flying arbitrarily around in space, right? It could simply mean that He's done creating.
-But if so - what's the point in pointing that out, in a verse (and context of verses) that emphasizes how great God is in every way? That would make the passage mean: "What He has made is done [completed],
for [because] all His ways are just". Would that sentence make sense?
But if He is perfect as this verse may imply, then we have to ask; by what standard is He perfect? Something that is 'perfect' has to be completely fulfilling it's purpose. A wrist watch is 'perfect' at telling time, but very 'imperfect' at washing dishes, if you know what I mean.
So what's God's purpose? The only thing we know about that, is that He's supposed to be a Creator. So He'd have to fulfill that purpose completely in order to be a perfect Creator (to do perfect work). As God, He may have a lot of other purposes, but that's beside the point of this thread.
If (again) you are an architect, your purpose (in your work) is to make (or at least design) buildings. If you follow what you've learned about designs, materials, and forces that will work on the building, and it is built exactly according to your design and calculations, it will fill it's function 'perfectly' (within the budget and the location and usage). However - this wouldn't mean that you yourself would be perfect in every way. But you would be a perfect designer, a perfect architect. You have fulfilled your purpose as an architect.
Is He or isn't He perfect, and is or isn't His creation perfect? When I combine what each of you believe, I now suddenly find that God is not perfect, and neither is His creation. On the other hand, this would certainly fly in the face of many other believers.
- If He is a perfect Creator, but His creation was never perfect in the first place, then He must have "scaled down" His creation from perfection (because as a perfect Creator, He should be able to create a perfect universe), and has willfully put in potentially harmful things in the universe (as explained in my former large post above).
- If He isn't even a perfect Creator, then I would say the Bible doesn't agree, as per the scripture and explanation of it above ("His work is perfect [completely fulfilling it's purpose]"). In addition, if this is the case, He would then not be able to fulfill His purpose as a Creator to completion.
But God is almighty though, right? Or is that another misinterpretation? He's omnipotent (Rev. 19:6, KJV), right? All powerful?
If God is those things, but His creation is not perfect, is it then because He is not able to create perfection? If He cannot create things perfectly because He is not able to since He is not perfect, is He then still almighty and omnipotent?
-I find that if we start chipping away at God's 'powers', we end up with: An imperfect being that is simply stronger than us, has the ability to create matter and life, and exists in another dimension.
We have been chipping away at Him for the last few thousands of years already, though. You know that storm outside? The rain, the wind, the clouds, the bolts of lightening? -All directly caused by God. Don't believe me? Go back a couple of thousand years and ask the people you find. They'll tell you it's a fact that God is controlling and causing these things directly. Actually, if you don't believe them, there's a good chance you'll be killed.
If they had been able to see the galaxies back then, they would also tell you it's a fact that God is swirling them around up there and controlling them with His invisible hands.
If we keep on chipping away at Him, what will be left of God a few hundred years from now?
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JCanon
Fascinating, and I hear what you're saying, but...
This in turn means that if we're to believe the Bible's story - no matter if you believe in an old or a young earth; in literal or figurative creation days - these galaxies started colliding several million years before the original sin.
This statement is not necessarily true. It's a reasonable presumption but not absolute. That being, that God understanding how long it would take for light to travel, he may have created the light when he created the universe not too long ago. That is, he created the universe already 70 billion years old with their light in place already. That is, he created the universe already "aged", which makes sense. So what you're seeing is another subtle power of the Creator to do something like this. What the Hubble is seeing is what God understands those stars would have looked like 20 billion years ago. It's as if to speed things up, he created the "light history" of the new galaxy at the same time of the galaxy so that the earth would have instant light from there. God is smart enough to do that. So scientists don't really know anything conclusive based upon light. It certainly doesn't disprove the Bible.
Same thing with the Global Flood issue. Lots of scientists don't believe it and claim there should have been more evidence. But God may have hidden, buried or destroyed any critical evidence of the global Flood just to trip modern-day scientists up. To force them to chose their misconceptions over God's word, which would end in dire consequences for them. It is not by any means beyond God to go out of his way to mislead the "wise" of the world. We have examples of that in the Bible.
God is amazing. He could simply imagine what the current, already developed universe would have looked like 3000 billion light years ago and provide the coordinating light reaching the earth. So we might not really be seeing what is actually real, but what would have been all those years ago. Thus the images are of something very old, but the light itself is no older than who knows? Whatever age God wants it to be.
Think of it in terms of Adam. Here's a brand new human. But God didn't create it as an embryo grown in a test tube, then nutured into a fetus and then gradually matured. He simply made man at a certain advanced level, physically and mentally. Emotional and chronological maturity would catch up with his physical age eventually, maybe in about 30 years. Same with the universe, he wouldn't have necessarily started from scratch but created it in all its magnificence in midstream and since he needed to bring the light to the earth, he created the appropriate "pre-light" at the same time. Perfect.
As far as the stars colliding and creating such a light show, that is EXACTLY what it is. It's incredibly beautiful, is it not? But it's like fireworks. To make bright lights like this, you need to have stars colliding. It's just something God is doing in that neck of the universe for our amusement and fascination. If the galaxy implodes onto itself, in ten trillion lightyears, so what? Who knows, it may have already completely imploded but we're seeing the light of what it was before.
LESSON: Know the Bible and and as much about God and his powers before assuming anything we see in science contradicts God's word. God's word is true, period. Regardless of what he has provided scientists to stumble over in regard to the universe. For all we know, God may have pulled a ready-made universe off the shelf (pre-light and all) and used it to create the earth? What the Hubble telescope is seeing may have never taken place at all, except in God's imagination.
JCanon, theextreme fundamentalist
Thanks for the post!!!
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blueviceroy
I have always had a problem accepting the fact that we are all accidents and I have also had a problem accepting the fact that we are the product of divine creation . Because someone says God made us or someone says we are a by product of a chemical spill doesnt really matter> I dont understand why people argue a moot point> what matters is the fact that we are here and we wonder why ,,,,,,Well I guess it might not be moot to everyone .. You know ,,,,it seems like all I do is wonder why we are here . People that have the truth in their pocket have always scared me I agree the significance of this image is equal to the significance of a tree that has fallen over in the woods or a solar flare or a meteor impact crater or the birth of a child or the questions we all have in our head about why we must lead such an unsatisfactory exsistence when we are certainly capable of so much more than we are ..sorry some times I ramble
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flipper
Awakened- That beautiful galaxy/skull with those beautiful colors raging in it, reminds me of how colorful and pure my mind inside my skull feels since leaving the witness organization. I know, I'm a bit of an abstract thinker. Really think outside the box so to speak
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Euphemism
Interesting post, Awakened07, but I do see this a bit differently. When I was a believing Witness, I was perfectly well aware that the galaxies collided, and it didn't trouble me one bit. What's so 'perfect' about clockwork or stasis? I imagined God as an artist, creating a beautiful, dynamic cosmic system built around constant change. To take your car analogy, think of a craftsman who keeps building new and different cars by taking apart different cars and combining the pieces. It's not imperfection, it's creativity.
That said, we each had a different 'wedge'... something that didn't quite fit in our worldview, and got us thinking critically. If this served as the wedge for you, then more power to you.
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Awakened07
This in turn means that if we're to believe the Bible's story - no matter if you believe in an old or a young earth; in literal or figurative creation days - these galaxies started colliding several million years before the original sin.
This statement is not necessarily true. It's a reasonable presumption but not absolute. That being, that God understanding how long it would take for light to travel, he may have created the light when he created the universe not too long ago. [....] God is smart enough to do that. So scientists don't really know anything conclusive based upon light. It certainly doesn't disprove the Bible. [....] But God may have hidden, buried or destroyed any critical evidence of the global Flood just to trip modern-day scientists up.
Ah - the argument of the deceitful and plotting God... 'He was only pulling our leg all that time after all'. I think I'll leave that one alone. Study cosmology.
Think of it in terms of Adam. Here's a brand new human. But God didn't create it as an embryo grown in a test tube, then nutured into a fetus and then gradually matured. He simply made man at a certain advanced level, physically and mentally. Emotional and chronological maturity would catch up with his physical age eventually, maybe in about 30 years.
Well - He couldn't very well have created a fetus lying on the ground. Whether we believe in a 'Big Bang' or not, the universe is not static, the stars are moving away from us, and there is background radiation indicating something along the lines of a Big Bang occurred. If you have to twist and bend a puzzle piece and cram it in in order to make it fit, you haven't really solved the puzzle (even if the piece finally fits). There's an awful amount of twisting and bending of observable and testable phenomenon implied in your argument in order to make it fit that 'God did it'.
As far as the stars colliding and creating such a light show, that is EXACTLY what it is. It's incredibly beautiful, is it not? But it's like fireworks. To make bright lights like this, you need to have stars colliding. It's just something God is doing in that neck of the universe for our amusement and fascination. If the galaxy implodes onto itself, in ten trillion lightyears, so what? Who knows, it may have already completely imploded but we're seeing the light of what it was before.
You were correct at the end there. The light we see is old, so how it looks out there if we were able to move there in an instant, would be quite different from what we see now. Fireworks? We haven't been able to see this firework until the last maybe 100 years or so (in any detail anyway). There's still a lot of 'fireworks' out there that we still don't see, because it's so far away. He could have created only a billion or so stars, and most of the 'fireworks' we can see would still be intact. Why create something for our benefit that is too far away to be seen? You could argue that He made it for the angels then, but they live in another dimension (or whatever it is), and He could create beautiful things there for them to see instead.
God's word is true, period.
And that's where we end up. Anything and everything we can possibly use our brain to find out is for naught, because the answer is that 'God did it'. "Tornado? God did it. Lightening? God did it. Rain? God did it. -Now go read your Bible, and don't ask silly questions as to how the world around us works".
JCanon, theextreme fundamentalist
Thanks for the post!!!
Thanks for having a sense of humor about it, at least.
(edited: )
-To round things off here(?), I would like to say that no; I don't think I have all the answers, and I don't think science has all the answers. I do however think we shouldn't be afraid of asking the questions and get more answers.
I didn't fully explain it above, but let's say we went back in time to the first few humans (either if we believe the Bible or not). They were about to travel around, and learn things about their surroundings. If they had been content with the answer of 'God did it' to every natural phenomenon, think of all the things we wouldn't have known today or throughout history. We would be stuck with not much science at all.
-I posted in order to put forward an argument, and get feedback. To learn from it, or refute it if possible. I feel I have said what I needed to say in this thread (if people can muster the thought of reading it all) and heard the replies I needed to hear. By all means, I'm not "closing the thread", I just thought I'd clarify the above. I think I've touched on most of what has been put forward against my point. So it's up to each and every one to make their own conclusions.
I don't like the notion though, that because a person thinks that science actually can learn something about the universe, that person automatically is very closed minded, and thinks he/she's got all the answers. I don't, and I'm even open to believing in a God. As Terry too, I guess, I put my thoughts forward to see if believers can refute them in a rational manner and explain it all to me.
Some times we have to agree to disagree I guess. I think I've reached that point with this. At least I got my point across to some. And possibly learned something from some. Thanks for the replies (but keep them coming if you want, of course).