Creationism vs. Science

I apologize for not making my last anime blog yet, but I'll get to it when I get to it. But for now, I feel prompting on the topic of Genesis and a few passages near the very, very beginning that used to worry me.

I had been reading Genesis chapter one, and although I had read it before, I noticed something that irritated me. In verse three God creates light and separates it from the dark. At first, you're assuming the stars and the sun and all that, because it says he called the light "day" and the dark "night". Then, in verse fourteen you are suddenly left shocked and confused because it says that God divided the day and night - implying that they weren't before - and says that he created the sun and the moon (of which they correctly accredited the science of the four seasons to by the way). You're left in the dark, right? He created all these things like the planet and its shape and the water and all that, but apparently the sun wasn't there yet.

Before I go about answering this question, there is the matter of time which trips people up quite a bit. It does indicate in the Bible many times that God doesn't care about time. Humans who claim that God actually created the universe in six days don't really seem to get that God doesn't care about our days. Sure, six days I suppose, but they're six days in God's time, and according to 2 Peter 3:8 "With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." That's God's time for you. When he says "soon", it might mean next year. In thirty years, you might agree with him, but at the time it seems quite lengthy and that is because he lives in the past, present and future all at once. This minute isn't even this minute for him. Kind of mind blowing, right? Anyway, I just wanted to point that out because I think science could have taken as long as God wanted it to take for things to happen.

Back to the original question, the difference between the creation of light and dark versus the sun and the night must be made clear. Oddly enough, I was watching an episode of charlieissocoollike, a popular youtuber who I enjoy from time to time. Charlie is actually an atheist (and for those of you who judge, he's a normal and wholesome individual, for lack of a better term). However, he likes doing these short little vlogs about science, where he briefly and simply explains some smaller scientific concepts so they are fun and easy to understand. Perhaps it is childish that I watch them, but I think they're fun and interesting, even though I generally already know the information. This last one was about stars and he mentioned something I hadn't really thought much about, even though I had heard of it. He dipped into the surface of the fact that we are technically made out of stars, just like everything else on the planet.

If God made the light, and we are made from stars, who is to say God did not create the stars first or something like them, and then when they "died", they became the planet, which is where we could have been truly made from the dust? No human in the days of Moses would understand that we were particles from a ball of gas like the sun, but now we do know that information, and we should also be intelligent enough to interpret the words send in the times. It says he made the light, so perhaps he made the stars. After that, he formed the earth and the waters - everything but the living creatures. So after the light is spread out among other stars and celestial things, we have the dust, and rocks of the earth. This is when we joined our solar system as a planet rotating around the sun, creating our four seasons etc. So now we are a blank planet made from a star, rotating around a star, and with a moon.

Wonderfully enough, there is no woeful tale in Genesis about how creation had to survive in the darkness or anything stupid. Instead, a very scientific and straightforward approach is taken, and it says that next came all of the plants, and then all of the animals. If God created man from the dust of the earth, then we are still made of the same star material which we had before. He may have then just created all life from the dust. We were just made special, and after all of the other animals. Because we were some of the latest creatures to have "evolved" into actual homo-sapiens as opposed to older humanoids, I think its quite possible that Adam and Eve were just the first of our real race, or of one of the much closer races. It is possible that older humans were just not capable of possessing a human soul, or the Holy Spirit and so they could not comprehend enough of God to be considered in his image. We do know that Adam and Eve were not the only people on the planet after all, so what exactly made them so special? The only thing I can think of is that although they may have been the first homo-sapiens or something of the like, they were not the only human-type creatures around.

Of course, this entire blog is speculation, but hopefully it brought you some interesting thoughts and answered a few questions. That's my analysis of Genesis versus Science because I usually find that God and Science fit together nicely. He did create it after all. We just have to figure it out.

Here is the link to Charlie's vlog if you would like to see it. Its about five minutes long, and quite enjoyable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pag1NdPKcYM

Misconception: Young People

I was just admiring myself in the new dress I bought today (original price: $70. Price I bought it at: $11. Never buy things at full price) and I started paying attention to the fun layers. It has a solid white underneath with a transparent pattern on top of it. This seems to be a pretty popular fashion sometimes, when someone is looking for a more flowy or spring-like dress. Somehow, it has more dimension and makes the article of clothing appear more flowing.

Unfortunately, this reminded me of an irritating incident I had with a skirt in the past. I had received this skirt from a family friend who had taken a mission trip to Thailand, and she brought it back for me. The transparent layer on top shined a bright pink with small silver ribbons woven into the pattern, and it reached down to around my knees. Underneath the solid fabric abided by the school rules, coming down to around my fingertips. I had no fears of bending over, because it was just a good skirt. Pink wasn't my favorite color, but I had come to terms with the fact that I looked good in it. Anyway, I received many compliments, and I had deemed it a really fun skirt that showed that I was a responsible young cutesy girl with a sense of culture (even though the people who know me best understand that I'm a bit lazy, and too sarcastic to be considered cutesy).

Well, I had happened to wear this fantastic skirt to school one day in Junior High School. Although our bus had to stop off at the Middle School because the tornado sirens were sounding and we needed to take shelter, I felt confident. I was a gorgeous fifteen-year-old in a culturally diverse skirt that made me feel like I was a fairy princess or something. Sadly my confidence did not last long. Some old lady inspected my skirt as I was walking in and she said "How inappropriate!" as if my underwear were visible or something so scandalous.

I just walked past like nothing had happened, but my pride steamed with frustration. To this day, I do not know if she simply didn't see the solid part underneath the skirt, or if she was just an old fart and thought that anything with transparent fabric made you a [insert offensive term beginning with "W"]. Either way, I felt offended. She had made an assumption based off of my age, most likely.

People make stereotypes all the time. Old people about young people and the other way around; races; genders... its okay to some extent - after all, how would you categorize your thoughts without them? But at the same time, you can't assume that each one you meet is going to be that way and you can't say "Kids these days" and you can't say "Old people always do this" because they don't necessarily. I especially dislike "Kids these days". Its people who think like that who create "Kids these days" because the kids want to be as different as they possibly can from the old people who say it.

So anyway, I know that seemed a little bit random. But I suppose the point is: don't judge anything without all of the facts. The likelihood is anyway, that you will never have all of the facts, so any judgements you make are better left open for change.

Unfortunately, the following image best describes the layering on the skirt. The transparent part came down only to my knees, as I originally described, and it was pink. Not black. Every picture I could find was black -_- maybe someday I'll find a picture of me in the skirt if I have one. I have nothing against black - I mean, ninjas wear black... how could you go wrong? - but this just looks... frumpy somehow? But you get the idea.

The Wise, the Knowledgeable, and the Intelligent

I just was thinking about the differences between intelligence, knowledge and wisdom. People confuse the three frequently (though less often than joy and happiness, which are also completely different).

Two main points I wanted to say:

1) Intelligence is the tool to soak up knowledge, and wisdom is the ability to use it well. *Knowledge is like the image a painter is trying to paint. You can see it there, but that is all. Knowledgeable people have all of the facts. Whether it was difficult for them to gain them is beside the point. They simply know things that they gathered from elsewhere. A person without knowledge is naive.

*Intelligence is the ability to process, put together and interpret the information. Everyone has some degree of intelligence that allows them to process most kinds of knowledge, and people who may be considered less intelligent just don't always get things. Personally, I believe you can be intelligent in one way, like in art or in science, while being incompetent in another. The more things a person is intelligent in increases his overall intelligence more, but if you think of autism, for instance, they may be intelligent in one specific aspect, and not understand other things very well. But that doesn't make them unintelligent, it just means their poker chips are stacked more in one place. Back to the painter analogy, here the painter can conceptualize their painting, and understand what they are doing, though they haven't begun to put their brush to the canvas just yet. Intelligent people may or may not know much. This is the more biological portion. An intelligent person has the ability to gather knowledge more quickly than someone who is less so. A person without intelligence is stupid.

*Wisdom is the action of using intelligence or knowledge. On the painter analogy, this is the ability to use the tools you have to actually put the picture you want on the canvas. With a lot of knowledge and intelligence and very little wisdom, the painter will end up with a product that resembles a five-year-old's watercolor project. You can gather all of the information you would like, but wisdom is needed to execute anything actually needed to be done with it. A person without wisdom is idiotic.

Of course, without knowledge, a wise person would have trouble executing anything, because they do not have enough information to know what they should convey. On that same note, wisdom without intelligence is difficult for similar reasons. It is hard to gain the knowledge needed without the intelligence. With all of that together... you can't blame a wise person for anything. If they were wise enough to research, and simply couldn't find information then they deserve forgiveness because they did the best they could.

2) Sometimes the intelligent have to be wise enough to set aside skepticism if they are to gain more knowledge.

A lot of smart people I see going the route of the skeptic in order to be either safe or lazy. This is a lack of wisdom on their part. There are times when it is good to hold back, but sometimes you just have to risk things to learn anything. If say, you are told to eat a new certain type of food. You know that you like one type of food far more, but you are told you would probably like this one. I would assume you probably wouldn't try the new food because you are wise enough to know you like the older one. On the flip side of that, if you are skeptical of the new food, and you are told you would like it more than what you have, and what you have is good but isn't really all that special, you would be more inclined to try the new food. But it is a risk to try new foods. you might not like it, or you might get sick. However, you will learn of a new food you like or of a new food you do not like in the taste test. Sometimes it is good to set aside your previous beliefs and attempt something new, or something you have not done in a long time.

Another way to think about it is with your beliefs. You have to really experience a community before you can make any judgements on their behavior, but a person who has gained knowledge from others and who has not risked it for themselves has little room to speak compared to the community itself. You have to take risks to learn sometimes.

My main point with all of this is just to say, don't confuse the three, and don't forget that while they all compliment each other well, wisdom is the only way you can really get what you want! Even with less of the other two, you make the decision to be wise and it is the only thing that can assist you to do your best.