Recently, I was in quite a heated conversation with a friend of mine who happens to be a die hard Fundamentalist Christian. We have been friends for close to 20 years and the main reason we have been friends is because we both have quite a sense of humor. We both allow a certain amount of rhyme and reason with one another when we talk about issues regarding evolution/creation and my personal fav universal theories.
One thing he could never come up with a decent argument for the existance of black holes or any other cosmic bodies for that matter. So my questions for the teeming millions are these:
For those of you who believe in creation as opposed to evolution why is it that there are no (in my opinion) valid explinations for cosmic bodies outside the earth and moon?
I am tired of hearing that God created it and therefore it IS . That is just plain not enough. Seriously, how would someone who believes that all human form started from Adam and Eve explain the existance of the universe and of all cosmic bodies outside the earth?
God created heavenly bodies to do what they do.
Stars shine…that’s what they do.
Black holes suck…that’s what they do.
Everything doesn’t have to have a reason.
Maybe one day when/if you find your way you can ask God yourself.
Creationist thought has problems with more than just evolution; geology, astrophysics and astronomy come to mind as other disciplines whose tenets collide in disagreement with creationism.
Well, I believe that there is a need for another cosmic body, namely the Sun. And the north star comes in handy as do many of the other stars for navigation. In the future, humans may find many of the distant stars as a place to colonize or a place to escape to if the earth gets zapped.
Also, do creationists believe that God only did His thing here on Earth? Maybe He made some mud pies in other places in the universe. He had six whole days, after all. :rolleyes:
Black holes exist to act as the putty that fills in the holes (no pun intended) of Star Trek scripts.
“Hey, Burt… I wanna have the Romulans attack the Enterprise, but I can’t think of a reason…”
“I know, throw in a black hole somewhere!”
“Hey, thanks, that’s perfect!”
“Yeah, but just be sure to include the word ‘quantum’ in there somewhere…”
Who cares? There doesn’t really even have to be a reason. Maybe God thought it would be neat to make a black hole and did it just for his own enjoyment. Or, maybe a black hole is simply a consequence of the parameters God set up for the universe that he made.
And if there really is a reason for their existence, it’s beyond any of us to know the purposes of a being who is infinitely greater and wiser than we are. Do you think goats walk around wondering what in the world people use calculus for? Even if they were capable of knowing that calculus exists, what makes you think they would ever be able to understand its uses? And we’re only finitely more intelligent than goats.
Anyway, my point is that just because you don’t know the reason for something doesn’t mean there isn’t one, and that isn’t a flaw in your worldview.
First, I care, and so do other science minded people. Second, virtually everything (if not absolutely everything) we’ve studied on Earth has a reason for being, is part of some larger natural system. Why should we assume that celestial bodies we cannot directly examine should be any different? I don’t mean to pick a “skeptic/believer” fight here, but seriously at least come up with some excuse. How about, “God accidentally punctured the fabric of space time when he was sewing the universe together.”
I’ve heard it asserted (by biblical literalists) that black holes might be where hell is (nasty, no escape etc.), yet others have cast doubt on the existence of them (‘it’s only a theory’).
Well of course evolution has nothing to do with Black holes. I simply wanted view points from those who believe in creation as to why black holes and other celestial bodies exist. And I have seen some pretty interesting responses. I am familiar with ** Astronomy and the Bible** though I had not heard of Answers in Genesis. I am quite fascinated with some responses about celestial bodies and how God created them. Though I did not think of the North Star/Star of Bethlehem it is quite interesting to think that observations of the heavens have been directing human thought and (way finding) for millenia. I wonder what early Christians thought of comets and eclipses. I bet the puritans shat themselves during eclipses, it could have easily been mistaken for a sure sign of rapture.
As a science minded individual it is difficult for me to accept creationists beliefs, but I do not denounce them and would never ridicule someone for believing in them. I just find it interesting when a fundamentalist can’t explain something, they immediately say God works in mysterious ways or something along those lines. Also completely denouncing scientific thought and theory as simply not true does not give them too much credibility in my eyes…
I think several very good answers have already been posted. Among the best are: for stars in general - celestial navigation; for black holes - God doesn’t need a reason.
For both of those, I’d add another answer: to inspire us in our scientific and engineering work, to attempt someday to visit those things, and the many technological benefits which will accompany that trek.
Well, of course Polaris wasn’t the north pole star in the creation “scientists” presumed date of creation, i.e. starting about 0930 Wednesday morning March 19, 4004 BC.
In Stephen Hawkings A Brief History of Time he mentions a meeting he once had with the Pope. The Pope basically told Hawking that all this science stuff was all well and fine but that he shouldn’t look into the moment of creation (e.g. the Big Bang) as that was God’s place. Hawking didn’t bother telling the Pope that he had just given a speech that suggested a universe in which God had very little to do. In essence, God set the ball rolling and then would have to leave well enough alone. All the parameters that make our universe what it is were set at the moment of creation (Big Bang again if you accept that theory). Black Holes are merely a side effect of the rules that govern our universe. Would God have known ahead of time about Black Holes? Almost certainly but God may not have set out to make them…they are merely a consequence of the rules God chose for this universe.
cainxinth:
Interesting link but it doesn’t really debunk the notion of Black Holes as far as this thread is concerned. While a Gravastar (proposed in the link in place of Black Holes) is certainly a different creature from here on earth they would look and behave almost exactly like a Black Hole would. The whole dispute in the link is about how a black hole is actually structured. For purposes of the OP just replace black hole with gravastar and you still have essentially the same question. JohnClay:
This is a bit OT but I don’t get that bit from AiG. I’ve never heard a scientist say evolution is correct because it shows a tendency towards order. Indeed, high school physics tells us that entropy always increases. It was one of the most fundamental laws known to science. While that law comes from thermodynamics (which is far different from evolution) I don’t see how evolutionists use a tendency towards order as support for their arguments (as any system ultimately tends towards chaos).
I’m not trying to bust your chops…I just don’t get it.
Why do black holes have to make sense right now anyway? For years people thought that the appendix was an evolutionary cast off. Think of how many eons people have been trying to figure out medicine- we still don’t have it down! Maybe black holes serve some important purpose as yet undiscovered, maybe God just wanted things to be more interesting- He seems to like doing that, I mean, look at Australia! Why do we think we’re at the top of our game right now and everything should make sense at this very moment?
