MODERN ASTRONOMY, THE BIBLE, AND CREATION
Department of Astronomy
and Astrophysics,
University of California
at Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064
SUMMARY
This the web version of a handout intended
for Christians and others interested in Bible and science questions
(particularly astronomical ones). In it
I give my responses to some of the questions I am most frequently asked on the
subject of the Bible and modern astronomy.
I start out by emphasizing that many scientists and philosophers have
strong religious beliefs and I give some quotes from famous scientists and
philosophers. I list, and briefly
discuss, some of the main theological interpretational viewpoints of the
creation stories in Genesis. It is
explained that there are more than just two extreme views on the origin of the
universe and that the majority of scientists who are Christians adhere neither
to the view that the Bible is irrelevant to the earth's origin (which exponents
of atheistic evolution claim) nor the view that God made the earth essentially
as it now is in six 24-hour periods about 6000 years ago (the “young earth
creationist” position.) The origin of
Bishop Ussher's date of creation is explained and the question of “days” in
Genesis 1 is discussed. Examples of
where modern astronomy is supporting the details of Genesis 1 are
described. A list of suggested readings
for those who wish to read more about Christianity, the Bible, and some of the
scientific issues is appended.
Link to printable
PDF version of this webpage
INTRODUCTION
At home we have
a highly useful one-volume encyclopedia, the New Columbia Encyclopaedia (1975 edn.). It is a wonderful book because it has most
topics in it that we want to look up, and it has neither too much nor too
little information. Now I'm not
advocating the divine inspiration of encyclopaedias,
but before the days of the internet I thought it would be interesting to see
what our encyclopaedia said on two topics: “God” and
“Atheism”. The entry for God is 24 cm
long (a bit more than most people get.)
It gives the names of God, discusses concepts of God, and ends with
listing the classical arguments for the existence of God. There are cross-references to other articles
(“Trinity”, “Religion” etc.). Now let's
look at the entry for “Atheism”. This is
so short that I will quote it in its entirety:
“Atheism,
denial of the existence of God or gods and of any supernatural existence, to be
distinguished from AGNOSTICISM, which holds that the existence cannot be
proved. The term atheism has been used as an
accusation against all who attack established orthodoxy, as in the trial of
Socrates. There were few avowed atheists
from classical times until the 19th cent., when popular belief in a
conflict between religion and science brought forth preachers of the gospel of
atheism such as Robert O. Ingersoll.
There are today many individuals and groups professing atheism.”
The article is short (the article on
agnosticism is about the same length).
About half of it is taken up defining the term. The rest of the article is a short history. I was struck when I read the article that
there are no “proofs” or arguments offered for atheism, just a reference to “a
popular belief in a conflict between religion and science.” The coverage by our 20-volume World Book
encyclopaedia is similar. Today a little exploration on the internet
will quickly reveal that, as in bygone decades, the issue of science dominates
attacks on belief in God.
In these notes I
therefore want to focus on this question of “the popular belief in a conflict
between religion and science”. The notes
have three parts: in the first I want to give you, mostly in their own words,
some statements by some of the major figures who have given us our modern view
of the universe. In the remaining two
parts I want to focus on the first chapter of Genesis, because it is in the
question of origins that the conflict between religion and science is often
considered to be greatest. First, I will
present you with some of the major interpretive views of Genesis and then, for
the final part of the notes, I will go through the first chapter of Genesis in
the light of modern astronomy. At the
end of these notes you will find an extensive recommended reading list, and
references in my notes are mostly to books on this list.
SOME
STATEMENTS BY GREAT SCIENTISTS
Part of the “popular
belief” alluded to in my introduction is that great scientists are atheists or
at least uninterested in religion. Let's
see what some of main figures in the development of astronomy had to say for
themselves. If you're unfamiliar with
astronomy, these particular astronomers were all major figures in the
development of astronomy.
Nicholas
Copernicus -
the person responsible in modern times for the idea that the earth orbits the
sun; Copernicus was a prominent churchman:
“[The world]
has been built for us by the Best and Most Orderly Workman of all”
He pursued his
research (he said) “loving duty to seek
the truth in all things, in so far as God has granted that to human reason.”
[See Hummel 1986, “The Galileo Connection”]
Johannes
Kepler -
the man who discovered the laws of planetary motion. A devout Lutheran and
diligent student of the Bible. He
was the person who discovered that Jesus was not born in 1 AD.
“I believe Divine Providence intervened so that by
chance I found what I could never obtain by my own efforts. I believe this all the more because I have
constantly prayed to God that I might succeed if what Copernicus said was
true.”
On his deathbed
he said: “[my salvation lies] only and
alone on the services of Jesus Christ.” [See Hummel
1986].
Galileo
Galilei -- the first person to publish
astronomical results obtained with a telescope.
Opened up a whole new realm of astronomy. Many discoveries. He acquired many scientific enemies who
eventually got even by bringing him before the inquisition since they couldn't
win on scientific grounds. It is
important to understand that Galileo's appearance before the inquisition was
not a simple case of “the church against progress in science”. The Roman Catholic Church was in fact quite
divided over the issues in the Galileo case.
Galileo never blamed the Roman Catholic Church for what happened but
blamed his fellow university professors instead. Here are some of his views on science and
Christianity:
“The Holy Bible and the phenomena of nature proceed
alike from the Divine Word...God is known...by Nature in His works and by
doctrine in His revealed word.”
“The Bible teaches how one goes to Heaven, now how
the heavens go.”
[See Hummel 1986].
Sir
Isaac Newton -
Derived the theory of (“Newtonian”) gravity.
Made the first reflecting telescope. Co-inventor of calculus. Many other contributions to
science. Newton was a complex and
unappealing character and he was unorthodox in his beliefs, but he wrote more
on Biblical subjects than on everything else he did all put together. He published valuable contributions to
religious knowledge (esp. on interpreting
Biblical prophecy).
“There are more sure marks of authenticity in the
Bible than in any profane history.”
[Biblical
prophecy was not intended by God to] “gratify
men's curiosities by enabling them to foretell things” but rather that: “after
they are fulfilled, they might be interpreted by events...The events of things
predicted many ages before, will then be a convincing argument that the world
is governed by Providence.”
One of Newton's
views of his own greatest published work he expressed as follows:
“When I wrote my treatise about our Systeme, I had an eye upon such Principles as might work
with considering men for the beliefe of a deity &
nothing can rejoyce me more than to find it usefull for that purpose.” [See Hummel
1986]
Sir William Herschel - discoverer of
the planet Uranus, but more famous among modern astrophysicists as the father
of stellar and galactic astronomy.
“All human discoveries seem to be made only for the
purpose of confirming more and more strongly the truths in the sacred
scriptures.”
[Quoted by H.H. Halley 1965, “Halley's Bible Handbook” 24th ed., p.19]
Albert
Einstein -
developer of the theory of relativity.
It should be emphasized that he was not
a man of orthodox beliefs, but he believed that science and religion needed
each other and that “science without
religion is lame”. He also said:
“Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit
of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the
universe--a spirit vastly superior to that of men...” [“Albert
Einstein: The Human Side”, Princeton University Press]
“The highest principles for our aspirations and
judgments are given to us in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition.” [Address to Princeton
Theological Seminary, May 19, 1939.
Published in “Out of My Later Years” Philosophical Library, 1950]
“What is the meaning of human life, or of organic
life altogether? To answer this question
at all implies a religion. Is there any
sense then, you ask, in putting it? I
answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as
meaningless is not merely unfortunate
but almost disqualified for life.” [“The World as I See It”, Philosophical
Library, 1949]
“Being a lover of freedom, when the [anti-Nazi]
revolution came to Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing
that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the
universities immediately were silenced.
Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming
editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like
the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. Only the Church stood squarely across the
path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the
Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the
Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual
truth and moral freedom. I am forced
thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.” [Interview in Time
magazine, Dec. 23, 1940, p. 38]
The list could go on with quotes from
many more great astronomers and physicists (such as Michael Faraday, James
Clerk Maxwell, Sir Arthur Eddington, Sir James Jeans, Heber Curtis, and Henry
Norris Russell to name but a few) and be continued down to the present day
(with men like Allan Sandage), but it’s always easier
(and safer!) to
refer to someone as a “famous scientist” when they've been dead a while! For an extensive series of short highly
readable spiritual and scientific biographies of scientists of the past in
various fields see “Scientists of Faith” by Dan Graves. Moving beyond astronomy, the following (more
recent) quotes by two physicists are noteworthy:
Henry
Margenau - former president of the American
Association for the Philosophy of Science, a physics professor at Yale
University and former editor of Reviews of Modern Physics (Margenau
got his start in physics at the University of Nebraska):
“It is often said, and widely believed, that
scientists on the whole are anti-religious or, at least, are not interested in
religion. I believed that for a long
time too. But no
longer. ...as I perceive it, the
fact is, the scientists, the physicists at least, who have been most active,
most successful in developing the quantum theory and further innovations in
physics, are very interested in religion.
If you consider scientists of the type of high school teachers or grade
school teachers or Carl Sagan, you find that, yes,
there is a lack of interest. Quite a few
of them are anti-religious. But, if you
take the outstanding physicists, the ones who have done the most to advance
modern physics, especially Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Dirac, you will find them
all interested in religion. All these
men were intensely interested in religion.” [In “The
Intellectuals Speak out about God”, Chpt. 3, ed. R. A. Varghese,
1984, p. 45]
According to
science historian Frederic B. Burnham, in an editorial in the Los Angeles
Times, (Saturday, May 2, 1992, pp.
B6-B7), the community of scientists now considers the idea that God
created the universe “a more respectable
hypothesis today than at any time in the last one hundred years.”
Robert Griffiths (a physics
professor at Carnegie Mellon University and winner of the Heinemann prize in
mathematical physics):
“If we need an atheist for a debate, I go to the
philosophy department. The Physics department isn't much use”
[interview in Christianity Today, April
3, 1987, p. 18]
SOME
QUOTES FROM SOME PHILOSOPHERS
It is worth
adding that Prof. Griffiths might have trouble finding his atheist for a debate
in some philosophy departments too! The
Society of Christian Philosophers, with about a thousand members, is the
largest special interest group in the American Philosophical Association. The philosophical debate about God is far too
vast go into here, but here are some quotes from some noted contemporary
philosophers:
Bernard
J. F. Longeran Before his death in 1984 Longeran was described by Time magazine as “considered by many intellectuals to be the finest
philosophical thinker of the 20th century”. Over one hundred and fifty doctoral dissertations
have been written on his work! He has
also had the distinction of becoming the first philosopher to have witnessed,
in his lifetime, an entire conference of fellow-philosophers convened solely in
order to study his thought.
“I do not think it difficult to establish God's
existence” [“The
Intellectuals Speak Out about God”, ed. R.H. Varghese, 1984, Regnery
Gateway, p. 180 - the section of this book on Philosophy includes discussion
with two other past presidents of the American Philosophical Association
(quoted below) and is excellent (but not light-weight reading!)]
Alvin
Plantinga (a past president of the American
Philosophical Association). Writing
about one of the classical arguments for the existence of God, he wrote that it
“...provides as good grounds for the existence of
God as does any serious philosophical argument for any important philosophical
conclusion.”
[“The Intellectuals Speak Out about
God”, p.191]
William
Alston
(another past president of the American Philosophical Association)
“I
think that the Naturalist who is convinced that there isn't anything beyond
what we can discover through sense-perception and what science tells us about,
is simply shutting himself off from some of the ways we have to find out what
there is” [“The
Intellectuals Speak Out...”, p. 158]
John
E. Smith
(another past president of the American Philosophical Association) was asked
how he viewed some popular scientific writers such as Carl Sagan and the late Isaac
Asimov presenting emphatically mechanistic (atheistic) views. He replied:
“Well, I think they are being dogmatic and the tide
is against them...There will always be those who try to reduce the world to
materialistic proportions. But then...it
is...a phenomenon worth of study to find people animated by the purpose of
showing that purpose is an illusion!” [“The
Intellectuals Speak Out...” p.
161-162]
Kurt
Gödel. It is also noteworthy that the most famous
mathematical logician of the 20th century, Kurt Gödel, author of the
famous “Gödel's incompleteness theorem” (1931) on the limits of mathematical
proof, believed in the existence of God on the basis of a logical proof of the
existence of God. The proof can be found
in full in the biography, “Reflections of Kurt Gödel”, by H. Wang (1987, MIT
Press: Cambridge, Mass.)
WHAT
THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT CREATION
It is in the area of creation that the
most fuss is made about possible conflicts between the Christianity and
science. The rest of this handout looks
at the astronomical issues here.
First, before
arguing (from any side) about origins and what the Bible says, it is important
to actually read for oneself what the Bible says! The best-known passage is Genesis 1:1 - 2:3. What is perhaps less well known is that there
is a second description of creation (in a different order) in Genesis 2:4-7. The difference in order suggests that we
should not get too “hung up” about the order in Genesis 1.
There are many
other passages in the Bible speaking about creation. I have a companion nine-page handout of over
a hundred of these passages. Some of the
ones I'd suggest looking up are John
1:1-3, John 1:10, Colossians 1:16-17, Hebrews 11:3. From these one learns that Jesus was involved
in the creation and that more things than just our visible universe were
created. This is precisely what modern
astronomy is finding. Already we know
that the familiar ordinary matter you and I are made of currently seems to be
only 4% of the matter and energy in the universe. Of the rest, 23% is made of mysterious
invisible “dark matter”, and 73% is an equally mysterious “dark energy”. Job
38:4-11 is an interesting passage because of the poetic imagery used. It speaks of the “bolt” on the “doors” of the
sea. I've never heard any Bible
interpreter believe that the sea literally has a bolt! This should caution us into realizing that
Genesis 1 is a quasi-poem and being aware that there might be figures of speech
(the Bible abounds in these: who believes that because Jesus said, in John 10:9, that He is the door, that
therefore He has hinges on his side?!).
DIFFERENT
INTERPRETATIONS OF GENESIS
I would like to
say emphatically that there are not just two interpretations of the origin of
the universe: an (atheistic) “evolutionary” one and a Biblical “Creationist”
one! It is important to realize that
there are a wide variety of interpretations held by Christians. If you look at the writings of well known
evangelical Christian writers (such as F. F. Bruce, Francis Schaefer, C. S.
Lewis, R. C. Sproul, etc.) you will find that all of
these people agree on the foundation Christianity – the person and work of
Jesus Christ – but they do not agree on the exact interpretation of
Genesis. For controversial issues St. Paul
offers important guidelines in the 14th chapter of his letter to the
Romans. First, in Romans 14:5b he says, “Let each person be
fully convinced in his own mind”.
Christians are to use their minds!
From this chapter of Romans we can see that true believing
Christians are going to be of different minds over some topics. But verse 3 of the same chapter commands
Christians not to regard fellow believers who are convinced of other viewpoints
on non-essential doctrines with contempt.
Rather they should “...pursue the things which make for peace and the
building up of one another” (verse 19).
In approaching a controversial topic I think there is an important need
for humility.
Here then is a
list of just some of the differing interpretations of the start of
Genesis. The positions are not
independent and there can be a lot of overlap (e.g., someone emphasizing the “Historico-Artistic”
interpretation might hold to all or parts of any of the other views).
“God
made everything pretty much as it is now in six 24-hour days about 6000 years
ago” -
the so-called “Creationist” position (a bad name! – I,
and many writers on the subject prefer the name “Young-Earth Creationist” for
this position). This is the position of
the Creation Research Society (CRS), the San Diego based Institute for Creation
Research (ICR), and a number of other “Creation Science” organizations. I have a lot of respect for people who hold
this view because they are strongly committed to the Bible, but I don't believe
it is the interpretation the Bible requires of itself, and it certainly clashes
head-on with science. This viewpoint is
something of an “American” view and has been much less common among Christians
in Europe. The “Creationist” movement as
we know it originated in the USA among Seventh Day Adventists (see the detailed
history by R. L. Numbers, “The Creationists”, 1993, University of California
Press, $15). To get around the
apparently overwhelming scientific claims for an old earth, the ICR holds to an
“appearance of age” theory where the evidence for an old earth is an illusion
created by God. Many challenge the
theology of this theory since it requires God to be deliberately deceptive,
while the Bible says, “God cannot lie”.
There are many books that discuss the biblical problems with the Young-Earth
Creationist interpretation (see bibliography; “The Fingerprint of God” has a
good section on this).
“Day-Age
Theory” -
interprets the days of Genesis as geological ages.
“Gap
Theory” -
postulates that there is a gap between the initial creation (in Genesis1:1) and subsequent events
(starting in Genesis 1:2). The gap is presumably billions of years long.
“Days
of Revelation Theory” - postulates that the 6 days of Genesis 1 were the
six days over which God revealed things to Moses.
“Theistic Evolution” and “Progressive Creation”. These are perhaps the most popular positions
among scientists who are Christians.
They say that things happen the way science says that they do, but that
God is still in charge and able to intervene as he wills. There are many theories in these
categories. Opinions differ as to when
and how God intervenes. “Intelligent
Design” positions (see below) belong in this category. Theistic evolution is pretty much the
official position of the Roman Catholic church.
“Concordist Viewpoint” - Emphasizes areas in which the
Bible and science agree and assigns different (Biblical or scientific)
explanations to different things.
“Genesis
is purely theological”. (i.e., it is not necessarily meant to relate
what actually physically happened). This
is a broad category covering a wide range of positions. I think this position takes a too low view of
the Bible and I personally believe that the first few chapters of Genesis are
vitally important theologically, but that there is more to them than that.
“Historico-Artistic Viewpoint” - emphasizes that
we have to realize that the Genesis was addressed to people 3400 years ago in a
form and in descriptive terms they would understand. Moses wouldn't have got very far if God had
quoted from a modern introductory astronomy text to him! (“Say, God, what's a quark?”). A senior physicist, who had been chairman of
a large physics department in the US (and who was, incidentally, not someone
with a high view of the Bible), once said to me, “if we put what we now believe
to be true about the origin of the universe into poetic language someone would
have understood 3000 years ago, we would come up with something very much like
Genesis 1 & 2”. The historico-artistic viewpoint would also emphasize that
Genesis 1 is in the form of a poem. It
has a very definite literary structure.
Phrases and patterns of words repeat (e.g., phrases such as “Then God said...and it was so” or “...and
God saw that it was good” or “and there were evening and morning...” But we
must be careful to note that whether Genesis 1 is poetry or prose has nothing
to do with whether it is an actual very literal description of what happened or
whether it is allegorical or something.
We must not make the distinction prose = fact; poetry = fiction.
“The
Answers are not in yet”. This is part
of my own viewpoint. I believe that God
has not yet revealed everything to us in the Bible (see Deuteronomy 29:29 and I
Corinthians 13:9-10,12) and I know that we don't
know all the answers in science yet.
“Humanistic
Evolution”
this non-Christian approach solves the problem by regarding the Bible as a
bunch of myths and ignoring it. However,
the Bible is actually very different from ancient middle-eastern myths and is a
historical book, well confirmed by archaeology (see suggested reading list,
especially Josh McDowell's “Evidence that Demands a Verdict”). The Genesis account is sometimes compared to
the Babylonian creation epic, the Enuma Elish, found on tablets in the Assyrian Emperor Ashbanipal's library (667-626 BC) but they are
fundamentally very different. The Enuma Elish is
about gods and goddesses bearing children, getting angry with each other,
wanting vengeance and killing each other.
The difference between this obvious myth and the Genesis account is most
striking.
The main
controversy has been between people at the two extremes (young earth
creationists and humanistic evolutionists).
“Creationists” attack the science of “evolutionists”. I believe that this sort of attack is very
bad both scientifically and theologically.
The “scientific” explanations offered by “creationists” are mostly very
poor science and I believe this sort of thing actually hinders some (many?)
scientists becoming Christians. It is
true that there are significant scientific problems in evolutionary theory (a
good thing or else many biologists and geologists would be out of a job) and
that these problems are bigger than is usually made out in introductory
geology/biology courses, but the real problem with humanistic evolution is in
the unwarranted atheistic assumptions and extrapolations. It is the latter that “creationists” should
really be attacking (many books do, in fact, attack these unwarranted
assumptions and extrapolations).
While discussing
controversies and interpretations of Genesis I should mention something that
has been much debated in recent years but is not an interpretation of
Genesis: what is called “Intelligent Design”.
This movement, which is often erroneously confused with young-earth
creationism, is just exploring the question of what evidence there is in the
universe for design by an intelligence. This is really a general, non-religious
question (although with obvious religious implications), and there is no
opinion on the interpretation of Genesis.
Also worth
mentioning under different viewpoints is the Islamic creationist movement in
the Muslim world. The leading spokesman
of this is the Turkish writer, Harun Yahya, whose work is widely read in the Moslem world. Yahya is
non-committal about the age of the earth.
Although I’m writing this handout primarily for
Christians, Genesis is, of course, a Jewish book. Jewish creationism includes a continuum of
views about creationism, the origin of life, and the role of biological
evolution that I cannot cover here.
It is worth
noting that a number of important figures of antiquity interpreted the creation
days of Genesis I as long periods of time.
These include the famous 1st century Jewish historian Josephus, and many
important early Christian writers including Irenaeus
(a martyr in the 2nd century), Origen (3rd century), Basil the Great
(4th century), Augustine (5th century), and Thomas Aquinas (13th century) [see
“The Fingerprint of God”, and especially “Creation and Time” by Hugh Ross, for
references]. This is significant because
none of these Bible interpreters of antiquity can be said to have shaped their
scriptural views to accommodate contemporary scientific views for an old earth,
since this scientific evidence dates only from the 19th century.
WHAT
HAPPENED BEFORE CREATION?
Before starting
in at the beginning of Genesis there is a common question that is worth
addressing: “What happened before the beginning?” St. Augustine (354 – 430 AD) in his famous Confessions
(his autobiography) quotes an old joke: “What was God doing before he made
heaven and earth?” answer, “Making Hell for people who pry into mysteries like
that!” (Confessions, Book XI, Canto 12;
Augustine then goes on to have a profound discussions of the nature of
time). The Bible does say what was happening before creation (John 1:1-2; John 17:24; John 17:5; Ephesians 1:4; I Peter 1:20; Titus
1:2). Look those passages up if you
want to know the Biblical answer! The
book “Genesis in Time and Space” by Francis Schaeffer has a particularly good
discussion of the theology of this. I
will spend the remainder of this handout going through the first chapter of
Genesis verse by verse in the light of modern science.
YES,
THERE WAS A BEGINNING
Genesis starts:
“In the beginning...” This is an
important and powerful phrase because modern astronomy says very strongly that
there was a beginning. This is implied
by the expansion of the universe (“Hubble's law”) discovered in the late
1920's. The expansion implies that just
under 14 billion years ago (see below) everything was in the same place. This time is commonly referred to as the “Big
Bang”.
The theistic
implications of the Big Bang were immediately recognized (by Einstein, for
example – see Ross's books in bibliography).
So uncomfortable was this to many atheistic cosmologists that they went
to, and continued to go to, considerable lengths to get round a start to the
universe. Hugh Ross in his books gives a
long list of theories meant to circumvent an origin to the universe. One theory I will mention here, popular 50
years ago, is the “Steady State Theory” which suggested continuous creation of
matter to maintain a constant density in an expanding universe. The authors of this theory made it clear in
their writings (see Ross for references) that their motivation was to do away
with a moment of creation and what it implied.
The “Steady State” theory was shown some 50 years ago to be incorrect
when counts of radio sources showed that the universe was changing with
time. In 1965 the remnant radiation from
the Big Bang was discovered (the “micro-wave background”) which provided
powerful support for the Big Bang theory and gave the coup de grace to the Steady State theory.
People often ask
if the Big Bang was merely preceded by a “Big Crunch” or a “Big Bounce” of a
previous universe. This theory is called
the “Oscillating Universe” theory.
Theoretical work over the last half century argues that on what are
called “thermodynamic grounds”, this attractive idea cannot work [“The
Impossibility of a Bouncing Universe”, Guth, A.
H. & Sher,
M, 1983, Nature, 302, 505; see Ross's books for additional references and
discussion]. As Ross puts it, “Far too
much of the energy of the universe is dissipated in unreclaimable
form to fuel a bounce. Like a lump of
wet clay falling on a carpet, the universe if it did collapse, would go
splat”! [p. 105 of “The Fingerprint of
God”] Modern observational cosmology is making this discussion moot, however, as
the latest results now strongly point to an infinite universe in which the
expansion is actually speeding up because of the mysterious “dark energy” which
is now believed to be making up 73% of the matter and energy in the universe.
WHEN
WAS THE BEGINNING? I: WHERE DID “4004
BC” COME FROM?
Not from the
Bible! The 4004 BC date originated with
Irish scholar James Ussher (1581 – 1656).
For an excellent article on Bishop (or Professor) Ussher see Sky & Telescope magazine, November
1981, p. 404 (400th anniversary of his birth). What Professor Ussher did was very
scientifically respectable for his day (Kepler and
Newton did it, for example). In fact,
lots of people attempted to get dates of creation from the Bible. Alphonse des Vignolles
in 1738 (writing what can be regarded as the first “review article” on the
subject) claimed to have collected over 200 different dates from Jewish and
Christian sources ranging from 3483 BC to 6984 BC! (– all supposedly based on the Bible!) For example, the traditional Jewish calendar
starts in 3760 BC. The reason why
Ussher’s date of creation became particularly well known is that some unknown
person included his dates in the margin notes of a printing of the Authorized
(“King James”) Version of the Bible.
While it is
often believed that such dates are derived by adding up ages in the genealogies
in the Bible and the reigns of kings, in actual fact, people's ages and king's
reigns are often not given so people have to make pure guesses! Ussher got his date by assuming average
reigns and life spans and finding when the autumnal equinox fell on a Sunday
(people believed that the universe had to be made with the sun in a special
place; Kepler had favored the summer solstice; Ussher
had favored the autumnal equinox since there were fruit in the Garden of Eden! – an obvious British northern hemisphere bias!). Such things are clearly not “based on the
Bible”.
A more serious
problem is that if you inter-compare genealogies in the Bible you discover that
there are large gaps in them. If you
compare I Chronicles 6:1-15 with Ezra 7:1-5 you will discover that Ezra
omits 6 generations in verse 3. Another
example of missing generations is Matthew's genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:17). In verse 8 Matthew omits the names of three
kings who can be found listed in I
Chronicles 3:11-12. In both of these
specific examples I have given, we have someone described as “begetting”
someone (to use the King James word) who is not their son, but some generations
later. The Greek word used by Matthew is
also used elsewhere in the New Testament to describe non-genetic
relationships. The important point is
that the Bible does not intend for a genealogy to be used as a chronology! (Its purpose is to show someone's
lineage). Note, in particular, that the
Bible itself never adds up the ages and reigns.
With these
considerations one can see that an age of 13.7 billion years CANNOT BE EXCLUDED
BY THE BIBLICAL GENEALOGIES.
HOW
LONG DID IT TAKE?
1.
What is Meant by a “Day”?
The Hebrew word
for day (Yom) has the same three
meanings in the Bible as in English usage: the time when the sun is above the
horizon and it is light; a period of 24 hours; and a more general period of
time (“in so and so's day”). The very first verse in the Bible which uses
the word day (Genesis 1:5) uses two
meanings of the word (the first two meanings) and we only have to go as far as Genesis 2:4 to find the third
meaning. The allowable interpretations
of the word “day” do not require a 144 hour creation. The Hebrew words boger
(morning) and oreb (evening) also have a
number of meanings. The fact that the
Jews adopted a seven day week is sometimes brought up as an argument for a six
24-hr period creation, but, as Hebrew scholar Gleason Archer puts it, this is no
stronger argument for it than that the 8-day celebration of the Jewish Feast of
Tabernacles is a proof that the wilderness wanderings of Moses occupied only
eight days!
2.
God's Timescale
II Peter 3:8 tells us that “with the Lord one day is
as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day”. Psalm
90:4 also says that a thousand years is like “a watch in the night” (about
4 hours.)
HOW
DID IT HAPPEN? – THE LANGUAGE OF GENESIS I, “FORM”, “MAKE” AND “CREATE”
“…God created
the heavens and the earth.” The three Hebrew words used to describe God's
actions in bringing the universe, the earth, life and mankind to approximately
their present state do not rule out the possibility that natural processes were
involved once the realm of nature was brought into existence.
The Hebrew word yatsar
(translated “formed”) can be shown in numerous usages in the Old Testament to
describe actions that were not instantaneous but accomplished by the use of
natural processes (e.g., molding).
The Hebrew word asah (translated “make” or “do”) has widely
varying subjects in the Old Testament and the action often involves natural
processes and materials.
The Hebrew word bara
(translated “create”) is a special word in the Bible which only has God as its
subject. The word itself does not imply
whether an action is instantaneous or not, but the same action is sometimes
also described by the other two words (yatsar and bara). The three terms bara, asah, and yatsar are used
in Isaiah 43:7 in parallel
grammatical constructions where they are seemingly interchangeable.
WHEN
WAS THE BEGINNING? II: THE EVIDENCE OF
ASTRONOMY
The early years
of the 21st century are golden years of cosmology. Thanks to new surveys and, in particular, to
results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (“WMAP”) published
in February 2003, astronomers now confidently believe that the age of the
universe is almost 14 billion years. The
latest (2008) WMAP results give an
age of 13.73 billion years, with a formal uncertainty of ± 0.12 billion
years. An age of this order is supported
by quite a number of independent lines of evidence. These include: the expansion of the universe,
the ages of the oldest star clusters in our galaxy (globular clusters), the
cooling of white dwarf stars, and nucleocosmochronlogy
(a sort of “radio-active dating” of the chemical elements themselves - distinct
from the dating of rocks).
BACK TO THE STORY…
“And the earth
was formless and void…” (Genesis 1:2a) There is no doubt that soon after creation
the universe was indeed “formless”.
Understanding how this very smooth featureless universe produced the
filaments, clusters of galaxies, voids, etc.,
which make up what astronomers call the “large-scale” structure of the
present-day universe is a very active field of research. The formation of smaller-scale things such as
stars and planets is also being vigorously researched.
“...the Spirit of God was moving over the face
of the waters”. It used to be thought
that space was a vacuum and the idea of water in space would have been
ridiculous. Modern radio astronomy,
however, has shown that there is lots of water in space and that it is
associated with the formation of stars like the sun and planets like the
earth. We are also now fairly sure that
the formation of the solar system took place in “darkness”. (An old theory that the
planets were formed by a passing star colliding with the sun was refuted in
1939). Infrared cameras on
telescopes are letting us penetrate the darkness around newly-forming stars and
see the disks from which planets like the earth will form. Comets are mostly water (ice) and the outer
satellites in the solar system are predominantly water and ice.
“Let there be
light!” (v. 3). There is no shortage of explanations here. When the Bible speaks of light it is talking
about what scientists now call “electromagnetic radiation.” Astronomers speak of the first 60,000 years
or so of the universe as being “radiation dominated”. From about 300,000 up to a few hundred
million years after creation, astronomers speak of the “cosmic dark ages” when
the universe was a relatively cold place without stars. The first stars then lit up and reionized the universe as we know it today. We are just now starting to see far enough
away (and hence far enough back in time) to see back to this era. I'm not sure
of the interpretation of verses 3 and 4 of Genesis 1, however. A fundamental question is: is the Bible
talking about the early days of the universe as a whole, or of the earth? The “light” in verse 4 perhaps makes most
sense under current astronomical understanding as the light of the sun. Although it used to be thought that the sun
is as old or older than the earth, recent investigation of the formation of
stars like the sun suggests that the sun formed after the planetary system (by
about 200 million years), but this is somewhat of a technical distinction since
when astronomers talk about the “age” of the sun they are measuring from what
they call the “zero age main sequence”.
Why should God in Genesis have made the same technical distinction as
modern astronomers? Perhaps what verses
3 and 4 are referring to is the blowing away by solar radiation of the dark
dust enshrouding the early solar system (to produce something a bit like the
present day picture of the b
Pictoris system).
If that “light” is sunlight, the explanation of the later date for the
appearance of the sun from the earth (verse 16) would be the clearing of the
earth's initially cloudy atmosphere (the newly formed earth probably looked
more like what Venus currently looks like).
As soon as we have a rotating planet (albeit cloud-covered) exposed to
sunlight, it is astronomically OK to speak of “morning” and “evening” before the
sun becomes visible.
vv. 6-8. The description of the separation of the
earth from water and things in space presents no problems.
v.9. “Let the
dry land appear.” A number of lines of evidence point to the newly formed earth
being completely covered with an ocean with at most a few islands (for a review
see Cogley and Henderson-Sellers 1984, Rev. Geophysics & Space Physics, 22, 131 “The Origin and Earliest State
of the Earth's Hydrosphere”). The large
continents as we now know them appeared later.
Incidentally, we have also realized that much of the planet Mars was
also under water.
v.11. “Let the
earth sprout vegetation”. At this point,
as a self-respecting astronomer I'm inclined to throw up my hands and say “Yuk,
biology!” (Biology is one of those subjects students have said that they were
taking my classes to avoid!) However, so
long as by the Hebrew word here we understand the origin of the “plant kingdom”
we're doing OK in the order of things as we currently understand them (the
unlikely reading of “grass”, however, would not fit in as grass appears to have
come very recently in the earth's history).
vv. 14-19. “...lights in the expanse of the heavens...”
Perhaps the simplest explanation is to say that this refers to the clouds
clearing and the sky becoming visible.
It seems to me that this is less likely to refer to the creation of a
sun at this stage even though astronomers now think the sun is a little younger
than the earth (see note on the relative ages of the earth and sun under
discussion of verses 3 & 4 above).
The best theory for the origin of the moon is that it resulted from a
collision of a body with the earth after the earth had formed. This makes the moon younger than the earth,
but I would personally favor the interpretation that verse 16 refers to the
moon becoming visible from the surface of the earth. We also have a choice of interpretation for
the appearance of stars in v. 16 (the word “stars” in the Bible includes what
we now call planets as well). Again,
what is described at the end of v. 16 could be the stars (and planets) becoming
visible, but it is interesting to note that almost all of the stars we see in
the sky have formed since when we believe life on the earth started! A check of a list of the 100 brightest stars,
for example, reveals that they are all (astronomically speaking) “young”
stars. The Pleiades star cluster, for
example, is only 125 million years old (very recent geologically speaking).
v. 20
onwards. The amount of biology gets
worse and by Genesis 2:9 we're even
getting into the social sciences! I will
just end this little look at how science currently seems to fit in with Genesis
1, by noting that with the appropriate interpretations of the Hebrew words, the
order of the origin of life forms, culminating in man, can be brought into
reasonable (but not perfect) agreement with our modern scientific
understanding. It is worth noting that
Genesis does not always say “God created”.
In the case of “cattle and creeping things”, God says “Let the earth
bring forth...”.
To me this implies that life has been brought forth out from the
material of the earth. Mankind is no
exception to this, as in Genesis 2:7 we
are explicitly told that we are formed “of the dust from the ground”. Although this is getting outside the realm of
astronomy, it should be realized that, despite some popular claims to the
contrary, science has no satisfactory explanation of the origins of life
yet. Note that the question of the origin
of life is a separate problem from the question of the validity of some
theories of evolution. The
evidence is very good (and gets stronger every year) that all life on earth
descended (i.e., evolved from) from a common origin. There is still a problem of the ultimate
origin of life. A discussion of the
current controversies over evolutionary theory and how Christians view these
controversies, is beyond the scope of this handout, but the now extensive
literature discussing and reviewing books such as those of Phillip E. Johnson
(“Darwin on Trial”) and of biochemist Michael J. Behe
(“Darwin's Black Box”) will give you some of the flavor of the diversity of
opinion of Christian biologists (and geologists).
Although I’m
sidestepping biology issues, I do want to give one quote. It’s by the Nobel prize
winning neuro-biologist and author of several noted
books in the body-mind problem, Sir John Eccles: “We
come to exist through a divine act. That
divine guidance is a theme throughout our life; at our death the brain goes,
but that divine guidance and love continues.
Each of us is a unique, conscious being, a divine creation. It is the religious view. It is the only view consistent with all the
evidence.” [“The Intellectuals Speak Out About God”, p. 50].
This is probably a good place to state that I personally have no
theological problem with the idea of God doing things in the ways described in
modern theories of evolution (i.e.,
“theistic evolution”).
In sketching out
possible astronomical interpretations, I've focused on the order in Genesis
1. It should be noted again that the
order of some of the events described in Genesis 2 is different from the order
in Genesis 1, so (again) we should not get too “hung up” on the order of
events.
CONCLUSIONS
What I've
sketched above is just a series of possible interpretations of Genesis 1 &
2. The main point that I'd like to get
across from doing this is that given that there is a possible scientific
explanation of most things, one cannot say “science
disproves Genesis”. Another point is
that we do not have to take Genesis as something “just theological”. It is quite likely that Genesis is describing
physical things that happened in space and time in the history of our
universe. Having said this, however, I
must say again that I personally don't believe that anything like all the
answers are in yet. I know, even from
the limited experience of my career as an astronomer, that the science will
change. Some of the numbers quoted in
this handout have changed over the last decade.
For example, the age of the Pleiades star cluster was widely believed to
be around 65 million years, but newer evidence has favored the older 125
million year age quoted above. As of
this writing, the latest results from the WMAP satellite study give an age of the universe at 13.73 ± 0.01 billion
years. However, I personally am not
going to be the least bit surprised if someone proves that the age of the
universe is outside that “± 0.01” billion year range (for
example, if it is only 13 billion years or more than 14 billion years). There have been spectacular advances in
cosmology in the last few years, and in understanding the origin of planets
like the earth. I also do not believe
that all the answers are in yet about the Bible. I believe that there are “secret things that
belong to the Lord” (Deuteronomy 29:29,
see also Romans 11:33-36), and that
God in His wisdom has not yet revealed to us the meaning of everything in the
Bible (“For now we see in a mirror dimly...now I know in part” I Corinthians 13:12). I personally am not expecting a revelation of
the full scientific meaning of Genesis 1 & 2 in my life on this earth; I'm
expecting to learn at the end of time (“...when the perfect comes, the partial
will be done away...then I shall know fully...”, I Corinthians 13:9-12).
I don't think
that these questions about the origin of the universe (and of life) are just
remote irrelevant cosmological questions.
They profoundly affect our world views, our morals, and the way we live
our lives. There is a profound
difference between believing that God created the world and people in the world
rather than insisting that the origin of our universe and of ourselves
is to be traced to an accidental chance combination of blind impersonal
physical forces. It as been said that it is doubtful whether the latter, purely
mechanistic, atheistic view of our origins can be a sufficient basis for such
human values as goodness, truth, justice and beauty, etc. It has also been argued that in the atheistic
view, man is left without ultimate meaning and value, that
it is pointless to speak of “human rights”, for example, and that in atheism
existence is ultimately absurd.
The
Judeo-Christian worldview is very different from the atheistic view. In the Judeo-Christian view mankind was
created in the image of an infinite personal God. This belief gives people significance,
dignity and value. In the
Judeo-Christian worldview it is the relatedness to the infinite personal
Creator God that gives meaning to the human understanding of what is good,
true, just, and beautiful. Existence is
not absurd, but is ultimately meaningful.
Acknowledgements: I have drawn
heavily on material given in the bibliography.
In addition I would like to thank my wife and many other Christians who
have contributed directly and indirectly to these notes. Some of the comments on the moral
implications I owe to the Rev. Doug Phillips of East Lansing.
A BIBLIOGRAPHY
This is a list
of recommended further readings, about the Bible, about Christianity and about
the scientific issues raised by Genesis.
Some of my price quotes are more than a few years out of date, and will
be a few dollars too low.
The
Bible
If you don't have a Bible, I'd recommend
getting a modern, but accurate translation such as the New American Standard Bible (NASB), the New King James Version (NKJV), the English Standard Version (ESB), or the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB). If you've never read the Bible before, I'd
suggest starting, not with Genesis, but in the New Testament, with one of the
Gospels, perhaps John's gospel.
Bible
Study Helps
A couple of inexpensive useful books for
understanding the Bible are “Unger's Bible Handbook” by Merrill F. Unger (1967,
Moody Press) and “Richards' Complete Bible Handbook” by Lawrence O. Richards
(1987, Word Books). These books both
give historical background and archaeological information, useful tables and
maps, and so on. If you would like a
copy of the Bible with extensive commentary in it, I would particularly
recommend the Zondervan NASB Study Bible.
Introductory
Books About Christianity
“Mere
Christianity”, C. S. Lewis (1952, MacMillan). Starts with the question
“Does God Exist?” If you saw the
1990s movie “Shadowlands” (very loosely based on part
of the life of C.S. Lewis), you should
read this classic by Lewis to get a more accurate picture of what he was
like. C. S. Lewis was the author of The
Chronicles of Narnia series (including, The Lion, the Witch, and the
Wardrobe.)
“Basic
Christianity”, John R. Stott (1971, InterVarsity
Press). A short explanation of what it means to be a
Christian and the evidence for Christian faith.
“More than a Carpenter” Josh MacDowell
(Here's Life Publishers). Examines the claims of Jesus Christ.
Books
Discussing the Evidence for Christianity
“Evidence that Demands a Verdict” (Vols.
1 and 2) Josh MacDowell (1988, Here's Life Publishers). A detailed examination (in
note form) of such things as the evidence for the resurrection, the reliability
of the Bible and so on. Vol. 2
includes a lot of information about theories about how we got the book of
Genesis.
“Letters from a
Skeptic”, Gregory A. Boyd and Edward K. Boyd (1994, Victor Books, $11). Subtitled “A son wrestles with his father's
questions about Christianity”, this book consists of
60 letters exchanged by Dr. Gregory Boyd and his non-believing father (Edward
Boyd) over a three-year period in which they “debate” many objections to
Christianity, the church, and the Bible.
“The Case for
Christ”, Lee Strobel (1998, Harper-Collins/Zondervan) $13.
The former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune retraces his spiritual
journey from atheism to faith. In this
hard-to-put-down book he presents interviews where he puts the toughest
questions about Christianity to world-renowned experts.
Genesis
“Genesis: An
Introduction and Commentary” Derek Kidner (1967,
Tyndale Press/InterVarsity Press) (Vol. 1 in the
Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries series, general editor D. J. Wiseman). This is my recommendation for a good
inexpensive commentary on the book of Genesis as a whole. A “commentary” on a Bible book is a scholarly
book that discusses individual verses, and addresses issues such as the range
meanings in the original language (Hebrew in this case), possible variant
interpretations, cultural background, and other relevant passages in the
Bible. (~$10)
“The Origins
Solution” Dick Fischer (1996, Fairway Press). Interesting for its discussion of the
relationship of Genesis to other middle-eastern ancient histories, and for
discussion of the questions of where some of the other events of the first
eleven chapters of Genesis fit into history (e.g., Adam and Eve, the flood and the tower of Babel). ($20)
Genesis
and Science
“God Did it,
But How?” Robert B. Fischer (1981, Academie Books/Zondervan: Grand
Rapids; second edition 1996, SA Press).
This is the best book I know of for a brief and succinct introduction to
the issues of the Bible and science.
“The Christian
View of Science and Scripture”, Bernard Ramm (1954, Eerdmann's). Although over fifty years old this remains an important detailed
book on the subject of science and scripture in general. It gives many possible scientific
explanations of things in the Bible.
Incidentally, for the astronomy parts, Ramm
draws heavily on “The Astronomy of the Bible” by the astronomer Walter Maunder
(of sunspot fame - the Maunders were British Pentecostalists).
“The Galileo
Connection”, Charles E. Hummel, (1986, InterVarsity
Press). The first half of the book is about
Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton and their life
and faith. The second half is about
Genesis 1 & 2, and there is a nice epilogue about a Christian
mathematician, Blaise Pascal.
“Creation and
Time”, Hugh N. Ross (1994, NavPress). Perhaps the best book
available on the question of the timescale of Genesis 1. Includes some material about the implications
of modern astronomical observations that can also be found in Dr. Ross's other
books (see below). ($11)
“Genesis in Time
and Space”, Francis A. Schaeffer (1972, InterVarsity
Press). A good discussion of the
theological implications of Genesis 1 - 11.
“God’s Universe” Owen Gingerich (2006,Harvard University
Press). By a former Harvard University
astronomer and noted science historian. ($17)
Cosmology
“The Fingerprint of God”, Hugh N. Ross
(1991, Promise Publishing Co.: Orange, California, about $10). Discusses the important
implications of modern cosmology (at approximately the level of a university
introductory course) for Christian faith. Includes discussion of the history of
philosophy and a very brief (note form) discussion of the problem of suffering
and evil and an excellent discussion of Genesis 1 and 2. Lots of references to the
literature. Ross is an
astrophysicist. He is weak on biology
and geology. Note that this book (and the next one) predate the discovering of
“dark energy” driving the acceleration of the universe.
“The Creator and
the Cosmos”, Hugh N. Ross (1993, NavPress, about
$10). This has quite a bit of material in common
with his earlier book, and is at the same level, but is more up to date. If you're really interested in the
theological implications of modern astronomical discoveries, Hugh Ross's books
are a good place to turn. Many Christian
astronomers have praised Ross's books.
Dr. Ross has a very useful web site (http://www.reasons.org/).
Biographies
“Scientists of Faith”, Dan Graves (1996;
Kregel Resources).
This book consists of 48 biographies of historic scientists and their
Christian faith. It's a wonderful little
book. It consists of short, concise,
well-written, scientific and spiritual biographies and a little additional
historical commentary. Each biography is
kept to about three pages. The book is
great for browsing and casual reading in addition to being a useful reference. Something I particularly admire about
Graves's book is that it presents the faults of the scientists as well as their
strengths, because, as the author puts it “that is how the Bible depicts the
saints” ($10). A lot of information
about the beliefs of Nobel prize winners and other
notable scientists can be found at http://www.nobelists.net/
This includes a large number of quotes in the scientists’ own words.
History
of the “Young Earth” movement
“The
Creationists”, Ronald L. Numbers (1992, University of California Press). This is a very detailed history (about 450
pages) of young-earth creationists. Lots of details, and references to original sources. The Seventh-Day
Adventist connection is well documented.
($16, paperback edition)
The
Origin of Life and Evolution
I don’t have the inclination or space
here to go into the biology issues which have been generating enormous
controversy and many books in recent years.
My first advice to someone interested in the Bible and biology issues is
to talk to a Christian biologist or to a Christian geologist for geology
issues. To sample the range of opinions
Christian biologists and geologists have on the various issues I recommend
looking at back issues of the journal of the American Scientific Affiliation (Perspectives
on Science and Christian Faith) or some of the articles they have available
on-line (see their website below). A
number of Christian biologists have written books (e.g., Francis
Collins, former head of the Human Genome Project, see, “The Language of God”
2007, Free Press, $15)
SOME
ORGANIZATIONS
The
American Scientific Affiliation ) (“ASA”)
(http://www.asa3.org/)
– a fellowship of men and women of science and
disciplines that can relate to science who share a common fidelity to the Word
of God and a commitment to integrity in the practice of science. The ASA was founded in 1941 and has grown
significantly since that time. The
stated purpose of the ASA is “to investigate any area relating Christian faith
and science” and “to make known the results of such investigations for comment
and criticism by the Christian community and by the scientific community.” As already discussed, I particularly
recommend the ASA Journal as a source of book reviews. You will find good discussions of the
strengths and weaknesses of some of the books recommended here in their journal
and on their home page (see above). The
ASA can be contacted at P.O. Box 668 Ipswich, MA 01938 or (508) 356-5656 or asa@newl.com
In addition to
the American Scientific Affiliation, other organizations you might be
interested in include:
The
Affiliation of Christian Biologists http://www.messiah.edu/departments/bioscience/acb.htm
The
Affiliation of Christian Geologists http://www.wheaton.edu/acg
Chr-astro (Christian professional astronomers) http://www.calvin.edu/~dhaarsma/chr-astro/resources.html
Includes a list of articles written by Chr-astro
members, and many resources.
Association
of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences http://www.acmsonline.org/
Christian
Engineering Society http://engr.calvin.edu/ces/index.html
The
Society of Christian
Philosophers http://www.societyofchristianphilosophers.com/
Leadership U – a useful web
site for Christians interested in finding scholarly articles on the interface
of Christiantity and a wide range of academic and
non-academic subject areas, including the humanities and social sciences as
well as science. Many
thousands of articles available on-line. http://www.leaderu.com/
Reasons
to Believe
– also has interesting information. http://www.reasons.org/
List
of religious affiliations of Nobel prize winners: www.nobelists.net
(and huge number of quotes).
These notes are based
on public talks I have given at a number of universities. These notes are updated from time to
time. Last update: March 2010.
Broken web links fixed December 2010.
[The
obvious disclaimers: my inclusion of a
web link here should not be construed as my endorsement of every opinion in
every link or article on every web site!!]