A Step Toward Reconciling Christianity and Science: Is God, Time?

Over the past several months I’ve been mulling a way to make steps toward reconciliation between the broad spectrum of science and the judeochristian texts. At odds I think are the impressions that science and “organized” religion’s seemingly mutually-immutable tenets — but I think the primary separation between the two is almost entirely an emotion reaction about the other, and perhaps emotion itself, rather than reason. Religion seems to swing foremostly upon the pivot of feelings and faith, whereas science seems more to operate on evidence, matters of true and false and whether those matters can be repeated in the presence of witnesses. I tend to view the world in matters of true/false but grew up in the church and still maintain a foot in its door.

The greatest attitude problem with these discussions is the inane politics between perceptions that the other party is speaking out of insistence of being actually correct instead of holding a serious discussion where one’s decided belief is held in suspension momentarily to consider as to whether one key does or doesn’t fit into that keyhole, despite a callous examination of its outward appearance — as iron sharpens iron of Proverbs 27:17 (neither being more right or sharper than the other). It is in this “perhaps this” kind of discussion that I pose you, rather than with a stern, furrowed brow of conviction that clouds most forum banter.

I would like to challenge both parties to consider, as a momentary suspension of belief, for consideration of judeochristian YHWH to be a personification of time itself, and approach the scriptures as matters of scientific claim rather than solutions to emotional instability.

Consider the scriptures as a technique to communicate deeper scientific principles to the education level of hunter-gatherers — perhaps the Adam’s rib missing concept is an attempt to communicate chromosomal differences that, when examined, illustrate the XY nature of men, versus the XX nature of women (with the “Y” being the rib missing, as if lying side by side the pairs illustrate a rib cage). Evolution is possibly the biggest point of contention, which the suggestion that God and Time are the same, I think, solves. By time, I mean, what has happened, what is now happening, and what will happen. I think we can all agree that things have happened, things are happening now, and things will happen in the future.

What set my thinking along this path was reading of the tendency for action to be determined by “casting lots” (more or less, a roll of the dice) to make a decision and, in essence, to determine God’s will. The idea appears in Proverbs 16:33 as, “The lot is cast into the lap, But its every decision is from the LORD” (NASB). This would seemingly reconcile evolution with scripture, as creation being a process through which the lots of survival are meted, that the “intelligence” with the now-evident “design” of animals was brought about by the natural survival of the most capable creature to fit an environment — just as surely as the children’s toy that fits square blocks through square holes.

Evolution could also be evidenced through Christ’s appearance — the dietary habits, for instance, of the Hebrew people permitted and disallowed various types of proteins from entering the systems of those obedient, eventually producing a person who was intimately familiar and ever-present in time. The concept that “time” is God, also more or less bridges the concept of evolution with the prophetic “elect” of Matthew 24:31 as those who are swept up from among those who are left behind, as it were.

I have no particular formal reading to offer other than an English major’s involvement in rudimentary university science, and no particular advancement in the realm of philosophical reference. I prefer to explain things out than abridge them with dictionary words like eschatology or anything-ism. I am a Christian (who claims Christ’s perfect-obedience merit as a replacement to my own imperfect obedience and thus gaining favor, through no works of my own) who is highly, highly critical of many uncited beliefs held by many Christians today such as the inerrant text lunacy that infects the vast majority of attempts sensible discussion. If I were to describe myself as part of “the body” of Christ, I would propose my role as an antibody in pursuit of those foreign objects latched unto portions of the body that ultimately must be rid, no matter what degree of pain will be involved in its removal.. or portions of the lower intestine whose task it is to accumulate and eliminate the wastes that come along with the nutrition that enter the body.

Sin, it might be said, might be a string of RNA consumed from the environment, or perhaps whichever evolutionary variable was responsible for separation from the intimacy with time that Christ could so easily grasp, and that sin (as scripture describes as death being the wage earned from it) is responsible for our departure from time, as death is a kind of removal from active presence in time. Christ being a genetic mutation of some prescribed kind, as with evolutionary survival thinking, was able to shed the time-restrictive aspects of death, being without one such evolutionary variable that the rest of us endure.

It could in fact be that those with the genetic predisposition producing an excitement and fervor for the scientific study of time, in fact, were the scientists who wrote the texts Hebrews hold dear, in attempt to communicate higher scientific concepts through the transcription and re-transcription of those who lacked such genetics, knowing that those who later held such predispositions would recognize the text and concepts for what it is and build upon it.. and the Hebrew texts are a collection of those works that contribute to the same analysis of time.

Did the National Debt Increase Under Obama More Than All Past Presidents Combined? With Sources.

There’s a Facebook meme and another graph image post being forwarded around these days touting that the national debt under Obama’s campaign has *increased* more in his days of office than it was even in existence from everyone before his term began, total. That is to say, the accusation is that the debt at the time of his inauguration was x, and the new total debt since inauguration was x + x + y, with y < x.

As the text version goes:

Debt added by previous 43 presidents = $6.3 trillion
Debt added by Obama = $6.5 trillion

As the image making the rounds notes:

What smart people often realize is that when something is not cited, it could very well be completely false. Rephrased — when a statement doesn’t back itself up by references apart from itself (“Billy was born with crossed eyes” vs “Billy’s mother claims Billy was born with crossed eyes”) then all we have to go on is the word of the person who made the image, as well as the word of the person who forwarded it for having due diligence to research it, confirm it, and pass it on. Falsity gets spread because the credibility of the redistributor gets called into question, and if that redistributor (or propagandist, if you will) is a family friend that you trust, or perhaps your grandfather that you respect, then people believe it to be true because that trusted person forwarded it.

I could just as easily create another graph, without citing my sources, that states that “fiscal accountability index” of Obama’s campaign increased by 90%, while for other presidents it decreased by 30% per president before him, demonstrating though a chart I just decided to make up, that Obama is therefore more accountable for his actions. I wouldn’t have a lick of evidence to back any of that claim up, but by failing to cite my sources, the degree of credibility would be the same as these meme statements.

I, however, recognize uncited claims or claims made without identifying the sources so I could research it myself, are very often complete nonsense — even if it comes from someone I suspect probably did the legwork to ensure the information was sound.

So, I went to see if I could find any non-meme sources to back these claims up. One source in particular, seemed to state this very matter outright in two paragraphs of official-looking news style, but throws in several strange numbers (dividing the debt by household) that muddle up the point. One thing the article does bring up worth noting, is that national debt totals can agreeably be cited from the Treasury department’s running totals here.

One thing to realize, is that the day Obama took office, the nation was operating under Bush Jr’s budget from the previous year — so the increase in debt for that year was not a result of Obama’s campaign. The true amount of debt accrued by Obama’s campaign will not be known until at least one year after Obama has left office since the budget for one year is assigned the year prior — so it’s not yet possible to say whether Obama’s complete campaign has, in total, been lower or higher compared to all presidents combined, given that he could still dramatically lower the current debt over the remaining term(s) in office.

The date Obama took office according to this is January 20, 2009. The Treasury site’s national debt quote for that date, for government debt (not private debt) is $4,319,566,309,231.42 or $4.319 trillion. This isn’t the real “all presidents before him combined” figure, since it takes into account the debt that ordinary, non-government citizens have themselves accrued.

Since Obama was, at inauguration, operating on a budget set forth by Bush Jr, the accrual for that year is not genuinely “his” debt, so the reference point should be the following year under Obama’s campaign’s budget. For the sake of argument, the “following year” will begin on January 1, 2010 even though it wouldn’t have been a complete year, shy ~19 days. According to the Treasury, the debt at the start of the following year was $4,500,340,892,024.73, or $4.500 trillion. This is the more-accurate “all presidents before him combined” figure. As of the day this article was written (June 26, 2012) the total debt for non-private debt is $4,745,245,475,535.32, or $4.745 trillion. The difference of the two figures is $244,904,583,510.59, or $244.904 billion.

The meme suggests that Obama’s debt has increased the total by 103.174% — by not only adding as much to the debt as had already been accrued before he began term, but even more on top of that. However, my numbers suggest that his increased to the total only pushes 5.443%

I’m not sure where the original writer of this meme procured a “6.2 trillion” figure that Obama had, by then accrued, by this rationale.

Edit For the sake of argument, I find the percentage increase from January 1, 2010’s start ($12,311,349,677,512.03, or $12.311 trillion) thru June 26, 2012 ($15,778,438,599,568.28, or 15.778 trillion), taking into account both private and intragovernmental, shows an increase of $3,467,088,922,056.25, or a 28.161% increase.