I wrote something that I'm certain Jehovah's Witnesses (and x too) would like and wanted to find out what everyone thinks about it. Looks like this is the almost the only place, but right place.
I research scientific discoveries that have yet to be fully described to the public. Then I describe it to both sides of the religion/science divide until both gain inspiration from it, including Creationists.
When I was growing up I was, as they put it, in training to be a "religious leader" as opposed to training to be a "follower" but after I "graduated" from it in my later teens my calling became science. Couldn't get enough of it. Still can't. The fun part is that my religious side is there too. In essence, the church training worked. Science didn't replace that, just added to it. So I can't resist sometimes pushing science to the limit to see how far I can make it to the other side without crashing somewhere in between.
I'm not starting with a religious conclusion then trying to bend science to make it fit that world view, like Intelligent Design crashed doing. What makes it different is that everything ends up having to do with "forces" found in chemistry books like the polar force, electrostatic force, etc.. I'm not trying to explain the existence of an "Intelligent Designer" entity, I show the life giving breath a godlike entity such as that would possess. Simple basic classroom forces together can be seen as a "Creative Force" that makes life come together, the part that does the "creating".
Science is just a giant repository of what we know about how things we can see around us work, can't bend that. And religion has an unbendable component too. Namely that its purpose is to give us peace, comfort, meaning to life and its changes, through "divine inspiration". Going past that point to create fears, phobias, excessive guilt, hostility, emotional pain to subdue another, is when religion goes bad. Cant bend that line between good and bad, no matter how pleasurable it feels to do it.
Now that you see what I try to accomplish, I only have to add that my first priority is to make sure I'm not starting some kind of science/religion conflict because I'm proud that all of this is just high school level science already taught in schools, with no Trojan Horses in tow. What I do on the religion side is secondary to what I do on the side where the scientists and teachers are. That adds to the meaning for those on the religion side because academia thinks its great to have such an educated religious side like that. Can go anywhere with something like that. Enjoy!
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[b]Scientific Prophecy - Creative Force[/b]
When we hear the phrase "divinely inspired" we normally think of scripture. One of the last things we might consider to be divinely inspired is something scientific. But that could not be further from the truth. Many in the clergy of ages past were fascinated by science, even nurtured science, for that very reason. It was revelation, a way to reveal how God worked the miracles people saw all around them. Of course Galileo and Darwin caused some serious conflicts but all in all the clergy has usually been supportive of science.
Now, in our lifetime, science reveals exciting new discoveries that are showing us how cells are dependant on forces that create the self-assembly of life. All of the mind boggling molecular complexity that is involved in cellular growth and replication all boils down to these molecules having the ability to self organize into complex life giving intelligent structures. We can now understand the creative force like none before us ever could. Science is showing how we are a microcosm of molecular interaction on the scale of all the visible stars in the universe and beyond. If you counted all the atoms in all of the molecules in our body then believe it or not there are around 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms in us! Wow!!
Science is in no way taking purpose or meaning out of the equation. Science is revealing to us a world inside of ourselves that is absolutely astonishing. In one way it is complexity on an unimaginable scale due to the sheer number of simultaneous molecular interactions, yet, it all runs on a small number of understandable forces that are covered in our chemistry books.
What you presented made me think of mate-selection, whereby we are in part what the human mind finds desirable, meaningful to us. Therefore, evolutionary theory may seem undirected, purposeless, but its direction has been in part guided by the conscious will of our many ancestors. Science can explain the random mutation and natural selection of that process, but only we know what it feels like to be the human making these decisions that add purpose and meaning to our lives.
Science explains how, and religion (from our divinely inspired side) explains why. When properly used, the two add awe inspiring meaning to our lives. And just like us, they slowly evolve without ever losing the core that was there from the very beginning.
No scripture on Earth ever explained all of this to us. No prophet ever left this vital prophecy. It took science to make these revelations possible. And it will take us to deliver its positive message to others that need this good news. We ended up in the shoes of the prophets, in an age when all thought there were no more.
Science, with all of its thorns, is still blossoming into something as beautiful as a rose. All who have the eyes to see this miracle happening have been blessed by the creative force that gives life to all. :D Further Study: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_self-assembly
http://members.aol.com/fromscience/experiments/cellmembrane.html
Scientific Prophecy - Creative Force - Opinion?
by Science101 29 Replies latest jw friends
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Science101
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ellderwho
First, welcome to the forum. Second, were you/are a witness? Third, if your in some way given credit to I.D. be prepared.
Again welcome
EW.
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Kudra
Sci 101,
what in the world does this mean?
"I research scientific discoveries that have yet to be fully described to the public"
Tell us one of these discoveries that you research that hasn't been described to the public.
-K -
journey-on
Welcome Science 101. I am so looking forward to your posts. I believe Science and God are coming closer and
closer together myself. I wish I had a stronger background in Science because correlating the spiritual with the
scientific fascinates me. Have you read The Science of God by Gerald L. Schroeder?
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Science101
Thanks for the nice welcome EW! I'm not a Jehovah Witness, but do have contact with witnesses from time to time. Is almost always a good experience. Was just one time when an elder became annoyed that I wouldn't commit to becoming a member. We had a lot of good discussions, and it seems he was expecting I would officially join, but I was happy just having the chance to meet once in a while. Was no big thing. For a while it was hard to tell if I was an ID'er or not. I knew that I was in a unique area, but some found it hard to tell. And years before the ID even became known to anyone I was describing intelligence as the product of the "forces" I described above being nonrandom, conditional. Then when ID became a controversy I added a disclaimer that it was something different. What makes mine different is ID starts at the top with an Intelligent Designer (God) then tries to connect downwards towards science, but in science the top must be proven to exist, so ID failed. In my case I start with very rudimentary molecular scale intelligence on the level of a transistor logic circuit that builds upwards to our level of intelligence with speculation of one above at the biosphere (Gaia) then stop there so I'm not making claims with no science that can back them up with. Here's a link to that in case anyone wants to see it. http://members.aol.com/fromscience/ This time I described just the forces. The intelligence that comes from them is another topic for later when there is less chance of confusing the two. Even mentioning the word "intelligence" can be difficult without becoming ID, due to what it is saying being highly ambiguous. I had to became better able to explain the differences. Is one reason why I added the intro about myself and what I have. Better also add that towards the end where it sounds like I am talking to someone, that's the result of rushing. I extracted a response I wrote to someone else in another forum since it was a nice addition to what I was discussing, but didn't notice I needed to reword it until after I found out I can't edit it yet. But at least I got the message itself posted OK!
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Science101
And Hi Yemen, I was careful to say "fully" where I said "I research scientific discoveries that have yet to be fully described to the public" because in cases like the mate-selection that I mention, the conscious driven non-random part of evolution is not normally presented. Usually evolution is seen as a totally random process with no goal or direction but that is not entirely true. If it were then the male peacock would not have the giant tail the female peacocks find sexy. Survival of the fittest does not favor variation that is easier to catch, yet, what peacocks think the perfect peacock looks like was stronger than that too. And not many yet know about self-assembly or how so much of OOL science deals with nonrandom processes. All of the claims of everything being random process has led to hostility towards science, from those on the religion side that feel there must be at least a little that is nonrandom about our origins.
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Satanus
Religion hasn't done that well in answering the whys. Religion has been at the root of much conflict. Truthful answers would have reduced conflicts. S
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Science101
Thanks Journey-On! I'll make it a point to add anything new that I come up with, here. And the forum even has Kudra from Yemen to make sure I am precise in my wording! I like that though, helps prove that I'm not making claims I cannot support. I agree, science and religion is coming closer together. And the ID debate actually helped. Academia was forced to do a better job communicating with the layman and even though ID didn't have anything that could survive peer-review people who would normally not read anything scientific, were learning about how cells work and other rather complex topics. I would not be this far along in my work if it were not for the challenge the debate created. Forums to talk about science and religion sprang up like mushrooms after a good rain. Was a blessing in disguise for me. Really helped move science and religion along. Even without knowing the hard to read science jargon, you should have no problem understanding the fun stuff. I try to keep it simple. Besides, the average person only wants what they learned in school to make sense, don't need a degree in science for that. Just a passion like yours.
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Science101
Yes Satanus, the why's are sometimes buried under layers of doctrine. But maybe we can dig some up. I usually focus on the "how?" but "why?" is a big question. If you (or anyone) has anything that might work here then please mention it. I'm still searching too.
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Satanus
"the why's are sometimes buried under layers of doctrine."
So true.
"But maybe we can dig some up. I usually focus on the "how?" but "why?" is a big question."
"If you (or anyone) has anything that might work here then please mention it. I'm still searching too."
I see. I used to be searching, too. I did find enough answers, so that, i stopped searching, stopped reading books, etc. But, rather than tell you my answers, may i suggest that outside of ourselves, we find only arrows that point to the answers. And, the answers are hidden within ourselves.
There are volumes of systematic theology, encyclopedias of religious history, rolls of eastern writings on mysticism. They are all useful. When one realises the answer, one throws them all away.
S