Re: Steven Hawking
 

I'm a Catholic, biologist with numerous grad-level courses in speciation, evolution, paleobiology, etc. My under-grad major professor, who taught evolution, used to invite priests and ministers to class to "debate" the issue of evolution. The Catholic priests were no fun because the Church had basically signed off on evolution, even back then in the 1970's. The fundamentalists told us that fossils were buried in the ground by the devil to confuse man and if we believed in evolution we were all going to hell.

One of my sister-in-laws married a member of the Church of Christ. We used to have fun debating the issue of creation, but finally we had to declare a truce since neither of us were going to change our position.

I always got/get a kick out of fundamentalists who are willing to "interpret" some passages of the Old Testament, but insist on reading others (Creation) literally. I guess they are just more comfortable with having criminals in the blood line a few generations back (don't we all) than having monkeys in the blood line a million years ago. Go figure.

My point when debating my brother-in-law was that you have to remember that the Old Testament was written over 2000 year ago for a people who had absolutely no understanding of any of the sciences. A good author always keeps the "grade level" of the reader in mind. Taking this into consideration, it is really amazing how close some of the "principals" of the story of Creation come to current theories of astronomy and evolution.

Re: Steven Hawking
 

If you've ever heard a skilled bible scholar debate an atheist, its pretty overwhelming. The Bible scholars are rarely invited back on these liberal shows after they totally annihilate the atheist's point of view.

I'm just an ordinary guy, but I'm thoroughly convinced of the following...

God created everything.
Man betrayed God, allowing evil into the world
God allowed man salvation through Christ

Pretty much all I need.

Re: Steven Hawking
 

I don't think either side will find much common ground to be honest. Both sides are cemented in there views and rightly so. I sit somewhere in the middle and am unsure what I believe. So long as no side try pushing there views on me im in the believe what you want and ill respect you for it.

Re: Steven Hawking
 

9 Then God commanded, “Let the water below the sky come together in one place, so that the land will appear”—and it was done. 10 He named the land “Earth,” and the water which had come together he named “Sea.” And God was pleased with what he saw. 11 Then he commanded, “Let the earth produce all kinds of plants, those that bear grain and those that bear fruit”—and it was done. 12 So the earth produced all kinds of plants, and God was pleased with what he saw. 13 Evening passed and morning came—that was the third day.

Mystery of Earth's Water Origin Solved

Just maybe?

Re: Steven Hawking
 

I believe we are the universe slowly becoming conscious of itself. Evolution was required to get to where are today. We are now in a position to think consciously and push evolution to where it was intended. What that is, I am not sure of but Andrew Cohen had a great attempt to explain it in his book Evolutionary Enlightenment.

Re: Steven Hawking
 

Not only written 2000 years ago, but, definitely not written in English. None of us have any idea what was lost in the translation.