In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth

Mr.Gill
A very good article. All known laws of physics break down at singularity, so it seems as if humans are incapable of knowing anything beyond that. The very concept of existence loses its meaning. I guess for now we should accept it as a brute fact that the universe exist and keep looking for a way to find the ultimate truth.
Introducing God does not solve the problem. It’s like trying to solve a mystery by introducing another mystery.

Dear Mr. Gill,

You have written, ``the Roman Catholic Church has abandoned its opposition and now believes that the universe may have come into existence by evolutionary process.``

I think what you are referring to is the emergnece of life forms thru an evolutionary process and not the creation of universe thru evolutionary process.

Please correct me if I`m wrong.

Rafi

rafi-aamer:

Thanks for your feedback. There is Darwin`s biological evolution and there is cosmological evolution. There are other evolutions also because nothing in the world is static. For instance, there is cultural evolution, for another.

I used ``evolutionary process`` in a general but particularly both cosmological and biological sense.

Mohammad Gill

Dear mr Gill,

I would refer you and others to watch a movie a documentary by an australian woman. The title is ``The Secret``. It entails interviews from physics professors also. The movie is rgarding a phenomenon, a universal one. Some statistical patterns have confirmed that such phenomenon exists.

I hope it will help you to understand the existence of God though the documentary never implicitly mentions anything like God. But I hope you can then connect some links yourselves.

Best

Re: # 17
Gill sahib,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, there are many evolutionary processes but which one the Catholic church has changed its position about?

Rafi

A very good article to read after Dr. Sohail`s attempt;) on God.

Paradox`s post is illuminating as well. I missed the gems of Partha and Masadi.

rafi-aamer:

Roman Catholic Church has not gone all the way to accept biological and cosmological evolutions but it does not oppose them with the same fierceness and certainty that it used to in the past. I have not done a great deal of research myself as to what it accepts and what it rejects but the situation has changed appreciably. Religion does not give up its stance easily; it changes gradually. That is the reason that my statement was not absolutely definitive. The following extract from an internet article might be of some use.

Mohammad Gill

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The Catholic Position



What is the Catholic position concerning belief or unbelief in evolution? The question may never be finally settled, but there are definite parameters to what is acceptable Catholic belief.

``Concerning cosmological evolution, the Church has infallibly defined that the universe was specially created out of nothing. Vatican I solemnly defined that everyone must ``confess the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, as regards their whole substance, have been produced by God from nothing`` (Canons on God the Creator of All Things, canon 5).

The Church does not have an official position on whether the stars, nebulae, and planets we see today were created at that time or whether they developed over time (for example, in the aftermath of the Big Bang that modern cosmologists discuss). However, the Church would maintain that, if the stars and planets did develop over time, this still ultimately must be attributed to God and his plan, for Scripture records: ``By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host [stars, nebulae, planets] by the breath of his mouth`` (Ps. 33:6).

Concerning biological evolution, the Church does not have an official position on whether various life forms developed over the course of time. However, it says that, if they did develop, then they did so under the impetus and guidance of God, and their ultimate creation must be ascribed to him.

Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that ``the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God`` (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are, `` (Catholic Answers, Adam, Eve, and Evolution).

Mohammad Gill

While the Church permits belief in either special creation or developmental creation on certain questions, it in no circumstances permits belief in atheistic evolution.

Re: # 21
``it in no circumstances permits belief in atheistic evolution.``

I wonder why. :-)

I think the idea that `God is not the same as he used to be` is very true. I personally think that God`s role in the life of poeple is fanning out slowly as life is becoming more and more understandable. In older times, a person would have thought that there must be an invisible hand pushing Sun from behind to take it from one side of the horizon to the other. Coming of customers to one`s shop would have also required invoking God. Hopefully, with education increasing day by day, man would have to some day lay off God of its job responsibilities, for economy of thought, if for no other reason.

Nature of God


If God is truly unknowable why does humanity spend its entire existence trying to decipher him? Isn’t that what religion is, trying to explain the nature of God? I think the best explanation for me of this paradox is Rafael’s painting of the Academy where he shows Plato and Aristotle. Plato is pointing up towards the Gods. Pointing out that it is all about striving for the ideals, the form of the perfect, the Good (God – is the plural for the good).

Aristotle on the other hand is pointing straight out - saying yes that is the ultimate perfection but man has to live in this world, which is imperfect and has to live by totally different rules then those needed to understand or be God like. We live in imperfection, life is a balancing act between imperfect, competing and misty alternatives. More over this is the life of flux, of change, a fleeting wrinkle in time, how can we capture even a glimpse of the eternal when we are completely consumed by the transitory.

Plato makes a tremendous case for the pursuit of the Good, he talks about the forms his dialogues are methodically constructed all the time raising man towards the ultimate good. Till you come to his dialogue called Parmenedes, and here every thing falls apart. Beyond a certain point every thing becomes a unity or gibberish. Just like Paradox suggested in his #15 at the singularity it means nothing you are just revolving around looking at your naval because that is the perfect state. Similarly at ultimate plurality everything becomes meaningless because you cannot understand any thing. So again we come back to the fundamental dilemma of human existence.

So! What is a good life? The best life is the one which is lived at the middle. Aristotle called it the Golden mean. Islam refers to it as the Sirat e Mustaqeem. This is where we live in a body which is fully engaged. Our construct is such that what we do not use - we loose. So the best body is the one which exercises each and every portion of it. The exercise in sports, the mind in rational discourse, the heart in appreciating beauty, art, music, indulging in good food, good drink are all parts of what adds to a good life. But the most important of all is virtue, being virtuous, always trying to lift our self to the highest level we can. It is the journey, never actually achieving perfection but always striving for it that is the pursuit of God - that is Love. Once in a great while actually getting a glimpse of perfection a moment of clarity, he refers to as an Aha moment. We mere mortals experience such moments a couple of times in our lives. But if you can stay in that state, you have achieved Nirvana, that is what Buddha found under the Banyan tree. I don’t know – this just blows my mind.

Since due to some software error on Chowk, this didn`t get posted earlier, I am posting it again:

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Another foolishly written, pseudo plaigirised article by Mr. Gill. The facts are

1. The universe originated out of nothing
2. The Big Bang event does not have any physical cause effect explanation.
3. In order to collapse the waves of the quantum potentialities of the early universe, consciousness was needed, nothing except the GOD concept can explain this.
Timothy Ferris states in his book, The Whole Shebang :

``...the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics treats as real only observed phenomena, raising the riddle how the EARLY universe could have evolved in the absence of observers. The riddle may be ``solved`` by invoking God as the supreme observer, who by scrutinizing all particles converts their quantum potentials into actual states (Ferris, page 308).``

4. The cosmic constants necessary for the universe to evolve in a certain way and for life to subsequently form were set with extreme precision, nothing except conscious setting can account for them
5. There is no reason why laws like the law of evolution should operate, in other words these laws themselves do not explain the origin of the laws, they signify intelligence, they require a pre-existing order and pre-existing entities governed by that order.

Why there is just one God and not gods given the organization and the uniformity in the universe. The fundamental postulate of Einstien`s Special Theory of Relativity state this unity of law phenomena in nature. Consider what the Koran says in 21:22.

If there were more than one God then different parts of the universe would not have worked with such uniformity as they did and as is always the case (when two or more equals create something), parts of the matter in the universe would have originated at different times. Yet scientists and laws are agreed on that the big bang was when all energy and matter originated in the universe. Koran 29:31 should throw light on this.

By the way, creation refers to the event that led to the origin of the universe, all matter and energy originated at the time of the big bang, evolution on the other hand refers to something quite different and not the creation event. You seem to be oblivious of the laws of thermodynamics. Genesis is not the end word on creation, neither is your deceptive ``last nail`` bit about the six periods (not days). Things that are merely theoretical as is most of early cosmology, cannot be the ``last nail`` on anything.

CHOWK EDITORS WHY ARE YOU CENSORING MY SUBMITTED ARTICLES? I SUBMITTED ONE ON THE VT MASSACRE AND ITS CAUSES AND HOW THE MEDIA COVERED IT. WHY HAVE YOU CENSORED IT?