Somebody else's view might not be your cup of tea. Maybe more or less. So what? We have different voices, our fingerprints differ, and our DNA differs. Why shouldn't our religion IF we have a personal, one to one relationship with God? What ever we call Him, or it?
H and I hiked to a place where enough snow melted to produce some rock seats. We talk 'ligion a lot. He was very high ranked in TSA, and once was in charge of all TSA activites in Europe, and Russia. We have significant agreement. Most importantly he is a person of deep conscience and conviction.
I created a chart and presented my idea of God relative to science and religion. We can't deny the science of the cosmos. We're both enraptured by discoveries by the James Webb telescope.
I sent this chart to H, and we discussed it during lunch on the rocks.
The "war on religion" science has according to many religious zealots views the Bible as the ultimate truth, and science as at most and best, an interesting side show, but often conflicted with God and the Bible. Sometimes at war with it.
How can anyone deny the truth right before their eyes out there? Or in here, peering into our microcosmos? For me, that doesn't refute the belief in God; it strengthens it. The God out there is just as intangible as the God of the Bible. Therefore they must be the same intangible thing.
On a plane, religion and science are parallels that never converge. They remain separate for infinity. But we don't live on a plane.
In space-time, everything is curved. There is no such thing as a "straight line." That is our 3-D reality.
On a sphere, religion and science emerge from one singularity to converge at another singularity. Within the singularity, they are the same thing. Imo, God, what ever that is, is there. It or He isn't the singularity, but something of a force or enabler behind it. Nor is He axis of the sphere. If the original singularity is a pole, and the convergent singularity the reciprocal pole, from which divergence of information radiated, and into which it converges, then there is a quantum entanglement between the singularities where they contain the sum of information.
If information is never lost, a generally accepted theory of physics and astrophysics, it ends up in a singularity. Hawking said information is destroyed in a black hole, but changed to say it isn't, and that black holes "evaporate" in a concept called Hawking radiation.
To summers ago we witnessed a merger of two neutron stars. The spectrograph of that light revealed for the first time, fusion of gold atoms. Astonishing that gold requires the energy of two neutron stars to be fused. Think about that when you look at that band on your finger. Think about where that came from. The only place with sufficient energy to fuse those atoms.
What about the heavier radioactive metals? Did, or do they require merger of black holes... singularities to forge their atoms? Since they all have half lives, decaying into another element, that kind of describes the black hole evaporation in Hawking radiation. Those elements constantly shed electrons.
Scientists already not only have proof of information storage in atoms, they use it in the fastest and most powerful computers. Kind of sounds like non corporeal eternal life to me.
Point is I see as much evidence for God there as in the Bible. In ways, more! But some feel compelled to tell me the Bible is the only source for that, and is proof.
It isn't proof. Neither is the science. God remains a belief, not a proof.
It works for me. It doesn't work for Observer, or Mark, or people like them, and they say so. They made it clear, I am wrong and misguided. Not really even a Christian. They, and people like them shut me down. They don't even bother to read or consider. O called me verbose and extremely offensive. M called me conceited and arrogant. For what? Having an idea beyond the Bible, and expressing it?
That's what I meant when I wrote opportunities are deliberately lost.
They act like they own religion, and are unchallengeable all knowing authorities on it. For me that is a huge turnoff.
Stating what I believe isn't demanding somebody else believe it too. They talk about "free will," but when somebody else expresses it, they're wrong, or flawed, or verbose, or offensive, or some other terms of endearment.