Here's a post that got munched. For some reason if I reply from the forums, it often borks up. But I learned from the last one that got munched and copied this one. Here it is, and after that I'll comment on your light thing in a separate reply.

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Well, I had a long post in here and Stardock ate it. Too tired to do it all again.

On the light/stars thing, I like fun stuff. To have a little fun, there's a hint as to the answer I arrived at in this very post! I like puzzles

Again, without someone to test your conclusions on, how do you know they're right?

Part of my "religion" is that IF there is a God, I see it as my responsibility to learn about the creation by using the mind I was given. And I want that to be purely me, for better or worse. That I be "judged" if such a thing occurs on my ability to take sensory input and logical thinking and turn it into something salient.

If I die and do appear at some pearly gate, and they say "Dude...what the hell?" I'll say "I'm sorry...I was trying to seek. I could have just believed what other people thought when they said they seeked, but how could I know for sure they were astute thinkers?" "Well, we left a guide." "Yeah, but the guide was assembled by seekers, and part of it was left out? Am I to be sure they knew what they were doing? They couldn't even microwave a hot pocket back then!" "Well, they were divinely inspired...so you should have known it was perfect." "But they went on to change it, and they did so pretty often!"

If there's a God, and he doesn't understand where I'm coming from with that, I'm dubious that it's really God and not just some control freak alien.

To answer your question about being right, there's only one thing I'm sure of. You don't know with absolute certainty what the turth is, and I don't either. It's impossible for a man to conceive the mind of God, but as the good book says, "Seek, and ye shall find." If you do NOT seek...what will you find? Only what others said they found when they were seeking, and at that point I see it as a pawned off responsibility of your own thought and the biggest slap in the face you could give a God.

Looking forward to your ideas on light/stars. Take your time.

How can a star give off something that was not created yet?

The question I thought of as a kid was "Why would a supreme intellectual being do something so silly? Photons (light) are a result of a process that stars go through. So why not just create the stars and let the light come naturally?" OR "If I'm going to create stars separate from light, why would I create the product before the source?"

I am a firm believer in that contradictions do not exist. That if you see a contradiction, then you should check your premises. One of them must be wrong. And this is a perfect example. Here is the contradiction:

God made light, then he made stars
Given power to create, I can conceive of a better way to create light - by making the stars first.

The contradiction here is that a man, myself, can conceive of a smarter way to do something than God can. It should be obvious that the brilliant thing to do would be to create the stars and let the stars create the light! It's a simple property of a star...they create light. All the time.

So looking at our premises, which is most likely to not be true. That God created light before stars, or that I am smarter than God?

I've diverted you however. There's another answer. The one I finally arrived at and believe for better or worse.

Well, God didn't make light, then make stars. I don't remember reading anywhere that God made stars after light. When He said Let there be light, perhaps the stars were made and got the light going? But, of course, God, being God, can create light out of nothing if He wants. Are we just trying to reason why He would create light BEFORE Stars, when the Stars could in fact create the light just by being stars?

Well, you know, I use a flashlight to screw in a lightbulb in a basement. The torch is a temporary, but necessary, solution to the light problem - then I turn on the lightbulb, providing a more permanent solution to the problem. But I needed the torch to where the bulb goes, etc.

Saying God needed light to see to create stars would diminish Him, and is really not very logical regardless, so I cannot truly argue that point.

"I like puzzles"

Me too, especially when the answer is upside down at the bottom of the page. I like to think through what others have done a lot more than I like to think for myself. You're right. But that's probably because I'm mostly lazy - to come up with an idea all by myself... why bother when there are plenty of ideas out there to think through? Which is, of course, exactly your point. But my point was that God didn't want it to be hard. It's plenty hard to BE a Christian once you find God.

The danger with thinking it all by yourself, though, is that you will often start with incorrect premises, and without someone to point it out, you just keep going and going and have all kinds of great ideas, but not based on the truth. Of course, you say that one can't know the truth, and I believe I already addressed that to a certain degree, that one can know something is true by personal experience while not being able to show others that it is true.

"But they went on to change it, and they did so pretty often!"

What? Where? When? Who? Why?

"That I be "judged" if such a thing occurs on my ability to take sensory input and logical thinking and turn it into something salient."

Well, if that were the case you would be fine, but that's not the case. You're judged based on whether you believe that God actually was willing to send His Son to Earth to die for your sins, and that He actually did so.

"If I'm going to create stars separate from light, why would I create the product before the source?"

Again, from a human standpoint, a car factory was not built until the car was invented. The product came before the source. As it has with everything. You can't make something for the purpose of producing something that hasn't been created. You have to have the product designed and ready before you can create a way to mass produce it.

Yet again, it diminishes God to argue this point. Gah.

Except there had to be source parts for the product to exist . . . the "factory" may not have existed, but the "engine" and the "chassis" had to be made before the car could.

Good point, SC. But hey, this is a thinking process. I probably haven't used my brain in years, right Ock?

SC, I took your engine-Chassis thing further, and said without sheep, no wool would exist. But is there another source of light besides stars? I don't know enough about light. I think it is a form of energy?

Ok, I'm going to bed, so I'll just say my thought. And I won't rehash a lot of what you've said, 'cause that would take me a while.

There was some site that straniera posted that had all kinds of bibles you could look stuff up in. King James, New Translation, and every one in between. They're all different. And why? Well the obvious reason is because it was originally written in a different language, and so scholars must interpret meaning.

My guess is that everyone just got it wrong with the interpretation of the word "light" because they didn't have the scientific concepts we have today.

Such as how light is directly related to TIME. And there was the clue. "Take your time."

My belief is that it would have been a better translation to say "Let their be TIME." because the first thing you'd need to create a universe of any meaning, assuming nothing existed prior to it, aka Time/Space both = 0 would be a way for things to progress, and things cannot progress without a temporal-spatial continuum. Otherwise everything created just sits there.

Now what I did here was THINK about what didn't make sense, and I think the answer is a pretty good one. Might not be true, but it's MY creation and by proxy, God's.

So I have brought to you a concept that LOGICALLY puts God back in his position of superior intellect where he belongs, without a need for faith in it, makes the bible more believable to someone that thinks about it, and upsets nothing - all by thinking.

I don't mind being wrong. I am sure I am about a lot of things. But I'm not wrong because I refuse to think about contradictions and resolve them. I'm wrong because I tried to and failed. Your mileage may vary regarding whether or not God appreciates that effort.

Thanks Ock. Have a nice sleep (forgot that you're not in America) and I hope to continue to have such enLIGHTening discussions with you.

Also, when you wake back up, how is light directly related to time?

Jytheir writes:

I would highly recommend reading a book entitled, "Christ, the Life of the Soul" written by Rev. D. Columba Marmion. My copy is the 9th edition from B.Herder Book Co. St.Louis, MO. 1922.

It's 402 pages will do much good and be restful for the soul. It's the type of reading that's hard to put down yet easy to reference time and again. In the preface, "It must be read and meditated with the heart as well as with the head, ...there are perhaps some souls who will wonder at this simplification of sprititualit; they cannot accustom themselves to the idea that it is not necessary to seek difficulties where none exist, in order to arrive at perfection."

Lula,

I'm glad you chimed in on this. I think you would benefit much from both of these books as well.

In case you did not know, Rich Mullins was VERY close to the Catholic church, even though he did not belong to an express denomination. Towards the end of his life, he had gone on several retreats, and even considered joining the Catholic church at one point.

And Bonhoeffer, as a good Lutheran, was much closer to the Catholic faith than many Protestants, and indeed, had Catholic friends in the Confessing Church.

One of the most inspirational books I have ever read was "Sometimes God has a Kid's Face" by Fr. Ralph Beiting, founder of Covenant House. While I am most decidedly NON Catholic, I have found in many faithful Catholics kindred spirits, as the Catholic church is one of the few that consistently adheres to my definition of "pro-life": anti-war, anti-abortion, anti-death penalty, anti-poverty.

I hope you'll pick up these books as well. I will check out yours as well, as I have found much of benefit in the writings and teachings of such noted Catholics as St. Augustine and St. Francis

Thanks, Lula. Maybe next time I run by the library (I did today but had completely forgotten to request Gid's books) I will pick up these books and check them out.

St. Thomas More remains my favorite saint of all . . .

Besides me, of course.

Lula, double thanks for a meaningful post that I could fit into one screen!

And Gid, thanks for stopping by again. What can I say. Sometimes I write sanely, other times not so much.