babelfish

I always wonder, if the purpose of human beings is to worship and praise God, what is the purpose of God?

Mageth

No, for me, Magus. Now, get out of my universe before I tell Big Daddy.

Maria L

Hello everyone. After months of lurking, I'm finally joining in the fun.
I notice two main counter-arguments from our xian friends. That old chestnut "god works in mysterious ways", and god created this lovely universe for us to gaze at in wonder.
Well, thanks, god. You really shouldn't have... (I was hoping for a new PC instead... and perhaps a Ferrari).
Having lived 90% of my life in the UK, I never got to see our lovely universe much. The stars were usually hidden by rain clouds. And do I really need to? It reminds me of that Ausin Powers movie (the second one I think) where the president wants to destroy the moon because Dr. Evil has turned it into a "Death Star". One of his generals says "You can't do that!" to which the president replies "would you miss it?"
I suppose a third argument is we need other planets and stars for reasons of gravity. But hey, this is god we're talking about, right? I can imagine god saying 'Gravity? Hehehe, we don' need no stinkin' gravity!"
He (xians claim) created the universe along with everything it contains, including the laws of physics. Genesis tells us that god created light (and plants) before he made the sun and stars.

Shadowy Man

Hey! Some of us actually study that dirt floating randomly about!

Wyz_sub10

Welcome to "active participation" Maria L. Please do not be a stranger in putting in your two-cents around here!

Cheers,
Wyz_sub10
EoG Mod

NZAmoeba

Actually, does Genesis say ANYTHING about the creation of other planets? (or does it just also call them 'lights' like the moon is a 'light')

Also, why doesn't the bible say god created all these galaxies just for our enjoyment? why instead does it just say that the world is flat, the sky is a dome, and that above that dome is just water? (with windows in it that god opens to make it rain... =/ ) And that that is all there is, with nothing else being created? (the stars being little pin pricks of light on the skydome)

You know, that sounds like the kind of explination of the world a 3 year old would use... (or a primitive sheep hearder 2000 years ago...)

lpetrich

The writers of the Bible had little interest in cosmological matters, but from their comments, they reveal that they believed that the sky is a solid bowl overhead and that the stars move on its surface. See The Flat-Earth Bible for more.

One religious book that did not make the canonical-scripture cut was 1 Enoch, and it went into much more detail about cosmology, clarifying what the Bible has to say about that subject. The Sun, Moon, and non-circumpolar stars travel along the rim of the sky bowl from their setting points to their rising points; if they dawdle, they get tossed into a jail.

NZAmoeba

Makes sence to me!

And jeez, meer pin pricks of light getting jail terms? methinks they've spent too much time around those burning bushes wouldn't you say?

emotional

The stars one gets to see in the night sky are but a fraction of how many there really are. I have looked at photos of star clusters and galaxies in astronomy books, and it just fills me with an awesome feeling: how many there are! Millions of them! All alive, all fiery with life, shining by God's grace! All of them a vast Army of God, glowing at the behest of the Life-Giver!

Faith changes everything. It is by faith I triumph over death. When I looked at the stars before faith, I would look at a star a thousand light-years away and think to myself: in a thousand years from now where shall I be? Dead in the grave, that is where I shall be. But now that I have faith, the stars are the glory of God, and that is what I expect to see after I die.

Shadowy Man

And just a little thermonuclear fusion, too!!