In sci.physics Allen Whittaker <whittaker@klis.com> wrote:

When ever you try to combin science and religion it never seems to work out.
But there are some ways in which I think you can believe in both. The Bible
was written for the most part by man, Save a few parts which are direct
words from God. Because of this man is not perfect so how can we create a
perfect book? we can't, but we tried.

How can the bible explain all the stars? it says God created the Heavens and
the Earth but lacks the meaning of each. Since the bible was written by man
we know that we would only have knowledge of this planet and not others.

In the end it creates alot of questions that are not easily answered. But to
get back on track, anyone that says the world is only 4500 years old is
false. Sumer was around 4000bce, meaning 6000 years ago. And we have dated
objects back to about 8000 and 9000 bce, meaning just as the last ice age
ended at about 12000bce.

Whats interesting is that in Sumer texts they talk of a great flood story
that destroyed all the lands and that one man was chosen to save animals and
his family. Sounds like another story I know of about a man called Noah. But
the sumer story was written around 2700bce, about 4700 years ago. Far to
early for the bible to have been written.

When you look at the bible then, I think they were taking these histories
and trying to put it into the views of God. After all if he was around now
he would have been around then?

Being a historian and haveing a strong faith is hard.

Allen Whittaker

Those that I know that understand science and believe in a religion
generally take the position that such stories are parables.

From that position, a god created the universe; the mechanism he used was
the big bang. Nothing to reconcile there.

Everything becomes intractable and orthogonal from the literal position,
i.e. that the world is only 4500 years old.

My favorite quote on the subject:

"In the beginning the Universe was created.

This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a
bad move."

Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"



-- 
Jim Pennino

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