Is the Bible consistent?

Growing up, a close relative used to express his frustration with the Bible to me at times. "I am frustrated many times with the New Testament. It's all about forgiveness and love. We Protestants have forgotten about the God of the Old Testament- the punisher. You didn't mess around with Him. We need more of Him today. We need a flood!"

The exact opposite was what I usually heard from my friends. "The Old Testament is so judgmental. Why can't everyone be more loving and forgiving like Jesus?"

Then I met crusty, old Army guys who talked about "the commie threat" and that Jesus seemed "like a hippy" to them.

Then there were the collegiate folks who talked more of tolerance than anything else- and made the case that Jesus would have been more tolerant than Christians today (I guess they missed the part about the moneychangers and the part of Peter trying to get Jesus to fight back).

Lastly there were the folks that thought contemporary preachers ignored the "fire and brimstone" parts of the Bible in order to not turn-off people who were looking for hope. Joel Osteen and others seemed to be the anathema of God to them.

I, too, see a difference between what was stressed in the Old Testament and what seems to be the focus of the New. In the Old there was instruction, disobedience, and punishment. There were laws- tons of them.

In the New Testament there was one message: love. God loves us, so Jesus sacrificed Himself, so that we could be saved. And all we have to do is believe in Him and love one another.

How do we reconcile these differences? Some say that is how it was meant to be: Jesus came and changed things. Others see no difference- they talk of a consistency throughout the Bible.

I tend to think that Jesus did change things. What I think about a lot is why we don't add more books to the Bible. Surely we have learned things since Jesus was here. Things that could expand our knowledge of life, purpose, and the universe.

Complexity Theory would hold that things get more complex and complicated over time. Following that- that is why religions keep breaking off into different groups and sub-groups. Things won't get simpler- things will just get more complicated. And more diverse. And there will be more groups.

So- that's why I don't think books will be added to the Bible. No group would be able to sell their ideas of additions to the other groups. It wouldn't be accepted.

But that is too bad. I am reminded of the story of the guy who passed up all kinds of chances to be saved during a flood thinking that God would save him. In Heaven God tells him, "I sent you a boat, a helicopter, a...." I think God has given us many things since Jesus was here. We have discovered and understood so many more things about His creation. We have uncovered many more questions. I sometimes feel that God would want more added to the Bible. That He still inspires people to write about Him and His creation. Will he one day say to Christians- "Why did you stop adding to my book?"

1 problem with Evolution down, 1 to go

After a HS education and some college-level classes on biological evolution and then reading a book called Scientific Creationism (and 20+ years of religious education and thought) I found myself having two issues with evolution as I understood it:

1) on the macro level I tied it to The Big Bang and saw an inconsistency at some level with respect to the need for a "first cause" at some point. At some point I thought science had a problem with being consistent: the further one went back, the closer one got to a conclusion that a Creator of some kind was needed (who created the mass of stuff that "banged"?).

2) at the micro level I thought there were too many holes in the fossil record to back up evolution. I thought evolution theory held that over a long period of time through random mutations and natural selection new species would emerge. If that were true surely at least one species would have a fossilized record of most of the variations it went through to arrive at what they are today.

Since there was no such record that I could find for even one species- I thought the theory didn't jive.

Recently, however, from readings on Complexity theory and "Emergence" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_Equilibrium) I've come to the belief that the fossil record might not contradict a theory of evolution- and that the education I got on evolution (and the way Darwinian evolution is taught) was wrong. The basic idea is that life is not chaotic or random- there are rules that structure life and that we all have to follow (one could suppose physics is an attempt to "discover" these rules that govern the universe).

From that initial structure- certain changes in the environment (quite possibly NOT random- but seemingly to us on the micro level) lead to very quick change and whole species developing seemingly overnight. And that is followed by long periods of seemingly no change. So- the fossil record wouldn't show a thousand different variations in a species because there weren't a thousand variations.

The bottom line on these concepts is that we aren't here by accident- based on the initial conditions everything we see at the macro level is more or less pre-determined (although there are plenty of micro happenstance) based on the structure (rules) of the universe (think physics)-although "emergence" would probably state it is pre-determined, but only identified as such from hindsight (unless one is an all-knowing entity).

All of that leads me to believe that one of my problems with evolution has died a slow death. But- does that lead me further from the concept of God? My conclusion is "no"- and actually I even feel closer to a belief in a "Creator". I somehow get the feeling that the mechanics of God are way out of my league the more I learn- but I actually think my other "problem" with evolution- the one that deals with the eventuality of inconsistency- is actually GREATER as I accept the "new" evolutionary theories. When one follows the logic trail all the way back to the beginning of the universe it seems to me that there IS design, there IS structure, there IS a purpose- based on emergence theory and punctuated equilibrium.

Why? Because everything rests on initial conditions and thus the world isn't chaotic and filled with chance- based on those concepts. And there are rules and structure to life. All of that leads me logically towards something setting those initial conditions, establishing the structure and rules, and something that could possibly figure the macro patterns that will emerge light years from now (or from the beginning) i.e., an all-knowing entity. Of course we can't prove this, but I'd argue it goes both ways (we can't prove another way either). When you factor in the fact that only a very small percentage of the universe (4%) is even detectable (see dark matter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter) and only 22% of the rest is even indirectly detectable- it seems very likely that we may never be able to "prove" (or disprove) a Creator in this life and/or dimension.

In the end I may be framing the term evolution incorrectly. To me evolution cannot be separated with the initial conditions of the universe and what started it all (Big Bang or something else). I know they are two distinct theories, but in my overall concept of the universe it is difficult and seemingly inconsistent to separate them from the same underlying logic (that logic being either no "Designer" running things and having influence- or a Designer doing something either at the beginning or continuously (read: God). Indeed, both emergence and Complexity theories would hold that evolution at the micro biological level depends entirely on however the Universe started and the rules inherent within.

Can you have evolution and still have God? Or, more presciently: can you be consistent within the concepts of evolution as we understand them today and declare there is no God? I would argue that it would be difficult.