Opening the Door

I believe that in order for science to be valid, there must be dialog.  Dialog not just with those who agree with a particular understanding or premise but dialog with those who oppose our view.  One cannot discount and disparage others as a defense of one's position or theorem.  So I am starting this blog to invite others to answer all these questions that are plaguing me.  Yes I am a person of faith, in fact I am a born again Spirit filled believer who has experienced the supernatural and believes in a Creator God.  But I also am a questioner.  My questions strengthen my faith and my questions help me look at the world in such a way as to see the big picture while still being able to wonder about the workings of the smallest processes.

I am grieved by one thing, well maybe more that one, but this one thing speaks to me as serious flaw in the scientific community.  Those who feel necessary to disparage people of faith and to even actively work to exclude them from scientific research and discourse.  Science is about looking at the Universe with a kind of wonder that says "Wow look how marvelous this Universe is, I want to know more about it!" Science isn't hateful or dismissing of others.  Science seeks to understand and explain.  If your position or beliefs cannot stand scrutiny and questioning by others, then maybe your not a scientist but rather some sort of science groopy who would like to be included in the scientific community, but fail to understand that our knowledge is tenuous, every new discovery risks the undoing or changing of what we thought to be so.

To be a scientist in my thinking is to be bold enough to explore and challenge but yet humble before the Universe knowing that no one personal can know all that there is to know.  We can hope to uncover more of the Universe's or the Multiverses' secrets, but we the finite can only know as much as She chooses to reveal in our probings and ponderings.  The Universe is huge, beyond the scope of our understanding, but all the same we must ask and seek to discover what we may.

Having said all of this I hope that is blog will be a place to exchange ideas and understanding.  I left the academic world long ago but I have not stop questioning and seeking.  There are a number of questions rolling around in my head that beg to be answered.  I realize that I may have some things completely wrong, but then again, I think I have been gifted to ask good questions.

So my first question is, "How can we know with any certainty the age of the earth?"  In my next post I will share what is bugging me about the assumptions that have led us to what we think the Earth's age is.

I encourage well thought out comments questions and challenges.  This is a place to learn and grow.  But if all you can do is disparage and condemn, your comments will land in the bit bucket.  Let us be civil but unafraid to ask the hard questions.