Certainly with you in your celebration of the wonders of nature (whether created by divine design or the blind watch maker it is certainly awesome). The more people that appreciate the beauty and wonder of the world hopefully the more that will realize the imperative to conserve and protect this precious resource as opposed to our current trajectory. Unfortunately, to my great frustration, I see no greater level of desire/action to protect this amazing resource in Christian communities than I do in the general population.
Still can’t get my head around it being termed a “miracle” when it is part of natural process but happy to go with this as an appreciation of the wonders of the world/universe – is it the “cosmic jackpot” or just a just an act of sheer random luck? – I can’t answer this but come back to my point in the previous post that if there is a 1:1,000,000,000 chance that these characteristic occur this seems extremely unlikely that it would happen on earth, but if there are 10,000,000,000 planets in our universe (and potentially many more universes out there) chances are that these unique conditions will occur on 10 of these planets so why not on earth? Also need to consider the effect that life itself has had on creating these unique circumstances in light of the whole Gaia principles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis)
To be honest, as a dub ranger, I do not have the head space or the inclination to devote my time to the consideration of the universe – to much to keep me going on earth itself and my real interests are in biology rather than physics. In this I am happy to accept that this is just the way it is and to move on (although I realize that this response seems lame in light of our current level of discussion).
Can and does god transcend nature? I guess we may never know but I would certainly be interested in the results of a study to see if there is a statistically significant difference in the number of “miracles” (those not attributed to the laws of nature) in response to prayer in Christian populations as opposed to these events outside of Christian populations or in other religious streams.
If we presume that god does have the power to transcend nature if he so chooses why Sam’s Mum’s cataracts. This randomness does not seem equitable or merit based – if I wielded my power/love as a parent in such a random and sometimes downright harsh way I would expect my kids to grow up resentful and possibly seek compensation through the courts.
1 Comment
Peter Thornton
April 20, 2011 at 10:05 pmIt is interesting how we think God should do what we think he should. It brings to mind the movie with Jim Carey he was God for a day. He let everybody win the lotto and everything fell into chaos. Could it be that God wants our hearts and he is constantly revealing himself either through creation or some simple event, or a miracle to turn our thoughts to him. Could it be even if he gave all a miracle still they wouldn’t turn to him, could it be that God’s purpose is something even greater than what we think he should do. The eternal destiny of our soul. I do all things to Glorify my Father, Jesus said this and the Spirit also works to Glorify the Father. To some it’s a miracle, to others it may be a leaf and its design, they both have one purpose to bring us to God and the Son, then the greatest miracle of all happens, we come to a knowledge of who God really is.