Ah, there we have it. Could you please explain the difference between no faith and undecided? It seems to me undecided would fall under no faith, would it not?

I agree. To me faith suggests taking that extra step of belief that is not yet confirmed by any physical evidence discovered by scientific inquiry. Faith may be similar to trust in what someone else tells you. Bear with me as I provide a silly example.

It's 5:30AM and your wife tells you there is a foot of snow on the ground. You go back to sleep realizing the commute to work will be ridiculous (I live in the Washington D.C. area so trust me on this). You plan to take personal time. Why do you do this?

A) You discover there is a foot of snow on the ground because you went outside with your handy yardstick (or meterstick) and conducted a scientific inquiry to ascertain the depth of the snow and its implications on your commute. In other words, you did not have faith in what your wife told you.

B) You believe what your wife says because you have a trust in what she tells you. So without confirming her "testimony" you nod off to sleep having "faith" in what she says.

C) You remain undecided. I think if you had faith in your wife's testimony, you would quickly move to "decided" and stay home.

D) You go back to sleep becuase you relly don't want to go to work anyway. Haha - just kidding folks. As your host, I have to provide a little amusement here and there.

If we select B, I think our "faith" is "trust" in another's testimony. I would argue much of the Bible requires faith. Interestingly, scientific inquiry (in the form of Archeology) is finding evidence of past civilizations mentioned and/or documented in the Bible's many stories.

However, I think scientific inquiry will not reveal/confirm everything the Bible tells us for a long time if ever. If you have faith, then perhaps you do not need confirmation of every little detail.

This is the mistake I think creation scientists make. They are attempting to use the scientific process to qualify things like the creation stories in Genesis. From what I have found in my basic research, they will take a scientific postulate that somehow fits into "the plan" and just trumpet it as the be all end all scientific evidence needed to support Creation. So far, every postulate they have referenced have all been later found inaccurate or just plane wrong via continual research, inquiry and discovery. This bugs me silly because the scientific process they claim validates their point of view also invalidates it through additional research. Moon dust is an excellent example of this; Here are some references:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moon-dust.html

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1372.asp

http://www.cincinnatiskeptics.org/blurbs/moon-dust.html


If these links are dead try this:

http://www.google.com/search?q=Moon+dust


I think the creation science folks have good intentions, but they miss a point. If we as religious believers have faith, we do not need scientific inquiry to back up our beliefs. We are told that "faith in Jesus" is the requirement for salvation. If that's so, then, by definition, believing in Jesus (and his sacrifice) because of the testimony of his associates suggests we have room to believe in other things without the benefit of scientific evidence. This can be our wife's/husband's testimony about the snow or the account of creation in Genesis or anything in between.

I think it boils down that Faith = your trust in the testimony of others.

Here is another point. The scientific process is never complete and never pretends to fully qualify any postulate to 100% accuracy. To do so would violate the idea that every scientific theory is challangable. Thus, we are not stuck with the 1950s Moon Dust theory as admirable as it may have once been.

It's ashame that the Creation debate has taken the title of "Creation vs. Evolution." It should probably be called "Creation vs. Naturalism" as that seems to be the two camps involved here. Evolution seems to me as just another discipline in the scientific world with good theories, bad theories and corrected theories. To me it seems that it really is just biology. Oh well, enough of this topic.

For me personally, I enjoy researching these kinds of things on the Internet and really enjoy the debate.


I would suggest doing some reading on the internet.

I totally agree and the above links are some starting points.


I don't think I have completly answered your question. This post turned into more. I have been very quiet on this forum since putting it together some years back so please bear with me while my pent up thoughts leak into my posts.

Thank you for your participation in this and other Astronomy Net forums and thank you for your ear.

John