Origins Flashcards
What is revelation?
The giving of knowledge from god
Examples of revelation
Scriptural revelation
Religious experience
Strengths of revelation
Provides hope, certainty, security, comfort and guidance.
Provides morality.
Gives sense of purpose.
Weaknesses of revelation
Can become outdated
Unreliable-cannot be verified
Tends to be an individual experience
Explain god of the gaps
God was he answer to the gaps in human knowledge
Explain the scientific method
Scientific method gather empirical knowledge through observation to construct, test and approve/disprove a hypothesis to create a theory.
Steps of the scientific method
Only hamsters eat vomit Observation Hypothesis Experimentation Verification
Problem with scientific method
Senses can be decieved
Later information can disprove theories-falsification
E.g. at one point the only swans ever seen were shite and many sightings confirmed hat o my swans were white however black swans were later discovered
Strengths of scientific method
Doesn’t rely on blind faith
Ordered, reasoned and consistent
Describe genesis I
God created the world in 6 days from nothing by the power of speaking things into existence and rested on the 7th
The earth was created perfectly to support human life
Order of creation in Genesis I
Light, sky, dry land, seas,plants sun moon and stars sea creatures and flying creatures Land animals and humans
Weakness to Genesis I
The sun moon and stars where created on the fourth day, so how can there be three days when a day begins at sunrise and ends at sunset.
If all this happened at the beginning then there was no one there to witness it.
Contradicts evolution.
Quote from Genesis I
In the beginning god created the heavens and the earth
What argument supports the existence of god?
The cosmological argument
Summarise the cosmological argument
Everything that exists have a cause and this in turn has a cause and so on and so forth however these causes must have a first cause. The first cause being god as he cannot be caused by definition.
Arguments to support cosmological argument
Solves problem of going back infinitely
God does not need a cause
Arguments against cosmological argument
If everything has a cause, so must god.
Quantum physics has shown that things can spontaneously appear/disappear without a cause.
Describe the Big Bang theory
Around 15 billion years ago there was an enormous explosion of energy that over billions of years, formed our universe.
Facts to support the Big Bang theory
The universe is explaining, the red shift principle, background radiation can still be detected from the original explosion.
Summarise Genesis 2
God created man perfectly ‘in his image’.
Adam was formed from dust from the ground and eve was formed from one of Adams ribs.
Argument to support Genesis 2
The teleological argument
Summarise the teleological argument
Many things in nature are so perfectly created that they must have been made through ‘intelligent design’.
Example of intelligent design
Hummingbird has unique wing design making them the only birds capable of sustained hovering so they must beat their wing 60 times per second.
Human eye is so complex and clever.
Examples to disprove intelligent design
Natural disasters
Mayfly
Summarise the theory of evolution
Species have evolved from one common ancestor through natural selection in order to adapt to their environment.
Example of evolution
Peppered moth
Giraffe
Evidence to support Big Bang theory
Fossils, ape genome, different species have similar characteristics.
Incompatibility between science and religion
In Genesis I the sun was created after plants, but science has now shown that there would be no life on earth without the sun
The earth was created perfectly to suit humans however there is fossil evidence of the evolution of different human species, contradicting this.
Areas of compatibility between science and religion
The order in which living things are created in Genesis I is the same order to which scientists agree living things were synthesised.
Liberal Christians could believe that the earth was not literally created in 6 days instead it is a parable for a more gradual evolution.
Liberal Christians may believe that the bible was written in a drastically less educated time and still follow the moral guidelines of the bible, but do not take everything to be the truth.
Perhaps god caused the Big Bang
Quote that supports compatibility between science and religion
“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind”- Albert Einstein
