Scientist Studies

The issue of Sanctification will need to be dealt with at a later date...which i am looking forward to. Frankly, i do not have all the pieces i desire to tackle this issue effectively from an educated point of view. Today i would quickly like to observe something. I was on facebook and saw the following quote in a classmates status:

'..."Scientists are open about the details of their work, so that others can follow their thinking and repeat their experiments and observations" (quote from my textbook). I'm sorry... can I be a little skeptical of that statement?'

The person who wrote this in their status is a Christian (assumed), and a Youth Ministries major. i saw this and immediately did not know how to take this. Is this person opposed to the studies of the world around us? Are they opposed to logical investigation of life, the universe, and everything? Do they take Genesis 1-11 as literal? Are they ignorant? Do they think i am heathen for having a different opinion? They must be judgmental, right?

These thought all raced through my head in an inarticulate jumble of confusion, interest, and, unfortunately, aq lack of surprise. My big question: Do most Christians view science as "wrong".

a few thoughts:

What we call 'science' today i will define as, "human attempt to make sense of the world around us". This is fair. through study, experimentation, hypotheses, testing, and whatnot, we try to understand how the world works, and how the world has always worked. Fair, right?

Unfortunately, science was not always a luxury. In the ancient world, this especially includes the JEWISH world, there were no scientists. instead, there were Magus the singular of Magi (a word we all should know) - these would be translated as magician or magicians. What comes to mind when we think of magic and magicians? A Christian mind would immediately stir negative connotations. Magic is evil, wrong, etc. However, in the ancient world, the job of the magus was to make sense of the world. Through magic and religion the ancients tried to make sense of the world around them. They held ceremonies to bring rain,sacrificed to their gods in order to atone for sin, or to entice the gods into providing for them.

It was also the job of the magus to heal the sick. The ancients typically viewed sickness as a result of daimonia, or demons. Daimonia were not always bad, in fact they were sometimes seen as good forces, more like a demi-god than a demon. However, some daimonia were terrible. If a person had what we today call epilepsy, or blindness, it was the result of demon possession. Jesus practiced a ministry of healing, and casting out demons was a major part of that ministry. It was believed that if you knew the name of a demon you could manipulate that demon fairly easily. This is illustrated in Mark 5. Also, there are probably implications of this demon-name belief in the Burning Bush narrative.

Today, things such as rain and blindness are easily explained through science, and the process of rainfall is easily understood. My new question is: Is it right for us to apply this ancient, 'biblical' understanding of the natural world in light of what we know today?

If the major understanding of the process of rainfall (evaporation, clouds, precipitation) is pretty much universally understood and accepted and proven to be true, do we still dance to bring the rain? NO, we do not. At least the majority of the developed, educated world does not. Well why not? because we understand that the rain is not controlled by any daimonia, but by natural process.

i don't know anyone who would seriously call me a heathen for that.

So why is it OK to apply this new, scientific understanding to rain, and not OK to apply this new understand to something such as evolution, or to the big-bang? Why do we believe theories such as "young earth" or "old earth" or "creationism" when evidence suggests otherwise?

does the bible intend to illustrate specifically HOW the earth was created? or does it simply communicate THAT the earth was created?

Science is invaluable to how humans understand the world. Why do many Christians insist on science being illegitimate, or wrong, when much of what we believe about the world is a result of science? Why do we believe in rainfall but not in evolution? We cannot discredit science because the bible says "on the first day...on the second day...etc". Science and faith fit together quite simply because the more complicated we discover the natural world to be, the more of an appreciation we should gain for the One who set it all in motion.

This summer i had the privilege of seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time in my life. It is rather impressive. It is HUGE and you can see each layer of the earth as you look down from the rim to the floor of this truly spectacular display. Science would say "billions of years went in to making this". I don't know about you, but i find God much more impressive NOT when i think, "God plopped this on earth and it is beautiful", but when i think, "God set in motion the the time, the water for erosion, the soil, the layers, the energy for this work of millenial beauty". The fact that it took so much time and energy for the Grand Canyon to exist is a testament to God's patience and ultimate mastery.

I ramble. Science is good. Faith is good. Let's see if they compliment each other.