God did not create the universe, says Hawking

[Touchstone]

This is all just assertions and principles based on your purely philosophical world view. You are assuming a purely naturalistic world view which is not metaphysically necessary;

I don’t claim that. I have no way to know if it’s metaphysically necessary or not. It’s an unknown.

and you are falsely mixing this up with science as if the two are the same. You are being misleading; either that or you have been mislead. Empirical Science cannot determine the truth or false hood of logic; it doesn’t have any epistemological authority to do so.

That is just to beg the question of what defines ‘truth’. And in any case, it doesn’t matter – you’re free to define it in whatever mystical or intuition-satisfying way you like. Science can’t be bothered. The ‘truth’ of science is just practical, not cosmic or ultimate: natural explanations for natural phenomena. So when our logic, our rules become problematic, we can insist that nature is “wrong” or “irrational” and disbelieve our lying eyes, or we can hone our tools such that the aid in better understanding and better performing models. The epistemology is grounded in practice, in real world performance and testing.

Claiming your alternative epistemology has some kind of trumping “authority” just generates a shrug. So what can this authority do to show its authority, or its potency at all? I can’t think what it can do to assert itself. And all the while science goes on and builds the knowledge base, and enables innovations and new developments of medicines, tools, machines, etc. It’s authority is conceded by you every time you take an aspirin or get on a plane. The authority you’re pointing at is utterly impotent, isn’t it?

This is the key to your misunderstanding. Classical physics as in classical laws are not synonymous to metaphysical laws. This is something you have assumed. That physical reality has become counter intuitive is not a good reason to think that therefore this counter-intuitiveness is a sign that logic has no objectivity, it purely means that the laws of classical physics are not absolute.
The point was that our logic preceded (by a long shot, it goes all the back to Aristotle at least!) and informed the development of classical physics, and it was of great utility in that respect. Classical physics is one of the “fruits” of those intuitive rules. It’s not synonomous with classical physics, but prior to it. It just turns out that it fails in other areas we’ve now explored a bit.

Again you are confusing classical physics with metaphysical logic.

No, see above.

Your whole argument is a straw-man, since it all amounts to the argument that metaphysical logic and classical physics is synonymous, and thus to disprove classical physics in one context is to disprove the objective realism of logic. Like I said, that which is in comprehensible is not evidence of that which is contradictory.

It’s comprehensible – the math is tight and thorough, and that is as comprehensible as comprehensible as it gets in physics. You’re missing the force of the empirical witness here. It’s not that we don’t understand the probability distribution, the overlay of “nowhere” and “everywhere” at the same time as a mix of probabilities in the universal phase space. It’s that it does resolve and cohere while it rebukes our intuitional rules, the innate logic we derive from macrophysical experience, and which some of us mistake for “cosmic metaphysics”.

Epistemologically speaking, given are finite state of knowledge, I dare say that there are logically consistent reasons why QM can perform some of the things that it does.

Sure, that’s the axiom of science – there is a logic in there somewhere to be found and developed. Nature is just not beholden to human prejudices, though, so if we want to understand it deeply, we accomodate nature by adjusting or abandoning our problematic intuitions in favor of what works.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

MindOverMatter2:

Logically consistent truth doesn’t necessarily require a classical understanding of physics in order to be viewed as objective, so long as we respect that there are many different contexts and levels to reality.

If you do understand that, then it’s no problem to understand that for an extant universe, the physical dynamics are uniform and symmetric within it, while the perhaps the physics that generated that universe itself are completely different (different contexts and levels of reality). That means that a proposition like “the universe can’t pop out of nothing” gets distinguished from propositions that apply inside our universe *(different contexts and levels of reality). Yet, I expect you to say “necessarily, universes don’t pop out of nothing” based on your experience which is limited to the inside of this universe.

It may be that the universes don’t pop out of nothing. I can’t know. But that’s the crucial point – your parochial intuitions are perfectly irrelevant to the question. Maybe universes do spontaneously pop out of nothing, and those universes that do get created are rigidly uniform, conservative, and symmetric. If that were the case, you’d have no way to know – the rules are different outside from inside, but you cling to rules that are quite effective inside, mistaking them as necessarily transcendent to all contexts, signaling confusion about the different contexts and levels of reality that may obtain.

That is not the scientific sense of law. If it was, than it was false, since the scientific method doesn’t deal in absolutes.

Well, it doesn’t deal in epistemic absolutes – that’s the province of theology. But by “law” science is invoking a rule, a definition, which does exclude exceptions. See this page at Dr. Matson’s site at Kennesaw.edu, for example:

**LAW **
   1) An empirical generalization; a statement of a biological principle     that appears to be **without exception** at the time it is made, and has     become consolidated by repeated successful testing; rule (Lincoln et     al., 1990)
    2) A theoretical principle deduced from particular facts,      applicable to a defined group or class of phenomena, and expressible      by a statement that a **particular phenomenon always occurs if certain     conditions be present** (Oxford English Dictionary as quoted in     Futuyma, 1979).
    3) A set of observed regularities expressed in a concise verbal     or mathematical statement. (Krimsley, 1995).

(my emphasis)

Note the absolute language, there. It’s not absolute knowledge. It’s just a rule that admits no exceptions.

This is only true of a philosophical world-view that characterises physical laws as absolute logical laws.

I don’t know what “absolute” would mean in this context. Manifestly, nature is logical in its own terms. It operates. Whatever rules it operates by, that is its operating logic. It doesn’t owe us any explanations, and is what it is. But it is necessarily logical, to the extent there are any rules or principles involved.

I do not hold this view, as I have always contended that physical reality and thus physical laws were created. At the very least, from the stand point of epistemology, I cannot assume that physical laws are universal or absolute.

We don’t know a priori what the scope of the principles we uncover is. We can and do experiment with our instruments, and apply tests in different contexts, and the results here support the idea that the physical laws we identify are isotropic, symmetric, and uniform from one part of the universe to the other. Cosmic microwave background radiation, for example, is a largest possible scale test for the uniformity of gravity and relativity. It only comes out as it does, implicating the Big Bang in the process, if physical principles we’ve identified obtain from one end to the other.

That’s empirical support for the hypothesis that our physical models apply in a universal sense, but science is always tentative, and open to new evidence.

Again you have successfully erected nothing more than a straw-man posing as a true representation of logic. As soon as you bring epistemology and context in to the picture your whole argument dissolves in to gooey puddle of uncertainty and faith.
I again have no idea what you mean by “true” in “true” logic. What makes “true” logic “true”, in your view? How is it distinguished from “false logic”??

-TS

 

[MindOverMatter2]

The ‘truth’ of science is just practical, not cosmic or ultimate: natural explanations for natural phenomena. So when our logic, our rules become problematic, we can insist that nature is “wrong” or “irrational” and disbelieve our lying eyes, or we can hone our tools such that the aid in better understanding and better performing models.

Again this is a straw-man. Physics cannot prove by its discipline that logic is not objective, and to simply say that it implies something is no empirical proof at all. Since the question of objective logic is out side of its empirical reach, it is scientifically meaningless to us QM as some how undermining a realist approach to logic and metaphysics.
Touchstone;7027827:

Claiming your alternative epistemology has some kind of trumping “authority” just generates a shrug. So what can this authority do to show its authority.

I have direct observation of the fact that being in general is being as opposed to nothing at all; therefore being is not and cannot be identical to that which is non-being; thus we have certain knowledge of that which is impossible since it is meaningless to apply activity or reality to that which isn’t real. Being as an “act”, rather than a particular nature or power, is therefore the measure of what is possible and what is not possible. However that doesn’t mean that I can know from metaphysics what particular physical powers can exist and cannot exist, but I can know what being (in general) as an act of reality in its most general sense cannot do. This isn’t linguistic subjectivism, it is a fundamental objective fact of what an act of being is. Thus neither the empirical or logic can support the idea that something can come from nothing. since both deal with reality as an act as opposed to that which is nothing. Let me also add that metaphysics does not question scientific discovery until it begins to make inferences out side its legitimate domain, and once you are in the domain of metaphysics you have lost the authority of science and subjected yourself to the principles of metaphysics.

No doubt you quote the above out of context using a play on words.

Classical physics is one of the “fruits” of those intuitive rules. It’s not synonymous with classical physics, but prior to it. It just turns out that it fails in other areas we’ve now explored a bit.

Metaphysics is a separate discipline to classical physics. Anybody willing to study the differences between the two will realise that. But you won’t since you already think that you better. Informing is not the same as being synonymous to.

It’s comprehensible – the math is tight and thorough,

To speak of sir tight mathematics is to assume that I am a rational person and that I should agree with you on some objective bases or standard of rationality. Mathematics is a logical system. It either applies to reality or it does not. Science is obviously “realist” in its application of maths to reality, thus it by default must be a realist about objective logic.

Are you a post-modernist idealist?

and that is as comprehensible as comprehensible as it gets in physics. You’re missing the force of the empirical witness here.

You are exaggerating the force of the empirical witness. If you can be certain of the fact that you exist as oppose to non-existence, then you are necessarily wrong about assertion that we cannot know some things for certain using logic. You are wrong that being isn’t fundamentally logical.

It’s not that we don’t understand the probability distribution, the overlay of “nowhere” and “everywhere” at the same time as a mix of probabilities in the universal phase space.

You are certain misunderstanding what scientists are saying if you thing for a second that they are speaking outside the context of space time energy. If they are staying true to the empirical method, then they are speaking within that context alone, and the words they use can only refer to real events and thus real physical things and not nothing. They cannot possibly mean that nowhere means literally an absence from reality no more than a quantum vacuum can be said to be metaphysically synonymous to an nothing. Hawking’s along with every other scientists who thinks otherwise is speaking from a purely philosophical position that has nothing to do with what the empirical data “proves”. They merely refer to the data as a means to an inference which is epistemological invalid as I have explained. Science will never prove that the universe created itself from nothing.

It’s that it does resolve and cohere while it rebukes our intuitional rules, the innate logic we derive from macrophysical experience, and which some of us mistake for “cosmic metaphysics”.

Get a book on Metaphysics. I good writer is Edward Fesser.
Sure, that’s the axiom of science – there is a logic in there somewhere to be found and developed. Nature is just not beholden to human prejudices, though, so if we want to understand it deeply, we accommodate nature by adjusting or abandoning our problematic intuitions in favor of what works.

You are working from a prejudice and a straw-man. I am working from the irrefutable facts of metaphysics.

 

[JDaniel]

Touchstone: Very good job. I think you’ve been very patient as well and you’re an asset to us all. I see your point that nature doesn’t have to conform to our notions of logic. I think you also mean that if we observe something illogical, we’d have to change our notion of logic.

Will Hawkins deliver some kind of knockout blow? I think most people wouldn’t ask for real evidence. A plausible theory that shows that laws cannot not exist and that nothing cannot not exist because of those laws would be sufficient.

As religious people, we only need to fight to a draw. Faith is a virtue, after all. I’ve decided to have faith until it contradicts reality.

Nguirado:

There’s an unusual thing about logic. It, unlike empiricism, and, perhaps even demonstration, has its own rules. Rules that preempt our colorization of them, and, our colorization of the syllogism at hand. If one really looks hard at St. Thomas’ Five Ways, e.g., one discovers that they seem to have a life of their own. That life makes them irrefutable.

As an ex-atheist, I came up with rationale after rationale that, supposedly, would render them ineffective. But, they remain, impervious to rationales, impervious to additional logics. The conclusions are inescapable. And, all of them lead directly to an inescapable thing, beyond our imaginations and beyond our universe. A Prime Mover, a First Cause, a Necessary Cause, a Final Cause, and a Pinnacle of all Predicates. A singular thing that might not be G_d, per se, but, then again, it just might be. But, that is another thread.

Hawking is supercilious yet superficial.

God bless,
jd

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Being, as a fundamental act, is a prerequisite of all and any meaning whatsoever; thus even if an apparent contradiction does occur in reality it must still follow, as in proceed, from a necessary act of reality, and not precede it; since reality is the arena in which the apparent contradiction occurs and has meaning.

 

[JDaniel]

Whats not considered is the simple fact that there in no such thing as nothing. The mere concept when placed under scrutiny doesn’t stand up.

There is that which we know, that which we don’t know. Considering what we don’t know, and explaining it as Nothing is something.

What consists of Nothing? Empty Space, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Air? I fail to grasp this logic. If Dark Energy consists of 75% of the Universe, and is itself expanding constantly, how could it be nothing, its energy.

Many, many very real values can’t be seen. This doesn’t explain out as nothing though. I’ve heard an argument that mathematics itself is nothing. This is also wrong. All mathematical symbolism represents something. The symbol itself may be nothing more than a symbol, that is still something.

E=MC squared, Energy-Something Matter-something C-speed of light-something, Squared-itself is something, in that it represents a specific number of Something.

The value One [1] it represents one [1] of “something”.

What is nothing defined? NO- Thing, not anything, naught.

It is necessary to explain what nothing is. Nothing does not exist, that is to say, something that is nothing does not exist, or to put it another way, nothing is something. Otherwise, you couldn’t be thinking about it.

Nothing’ is nothing that cannot be explained because there is nothing to explain about nothing.

This is nothing below the arrow V yet it is something. The nothing logic eludes me.

Gary:
Actually I think you’ve got something here!

I am as amazed as you that agended-scientists can superimpose a quantum something where nothing existed before. The elegance of the process of “creation” is that God, and only God, can Create something where nothing existed before. Not the nothingness, not the universe, not energy, not dark matter, etc., etc.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

Here we have Touchstone…master of the universe I guy who obviously spends countless hours on forums because someone, in his opinion is wrong:bowdown: why are we wasting so much time with an atheist? the man obviously has discarded the concept of Christian faith.Tell me TOUCHSTONE, how do you rate Christians in regards to intelligence? so your point is we are idiots? dude you are quite possibly the most arrogant forum participant I have ever run across. My faith is strong and you have no impact on my faith in Jesus Christ our lord.

Saint:

It is imperative that we remain “charitable.” Charitable means loving. No matter what. One thing I can tell you is that TouchStone is very smart. He argues with great skill. I’d like him on side, and hopefully, some day he might be. Hopefully. There is enough from our side to argue for with great skill, too.

God bless,
jd

 

[Charlemagne_II]

JDaniel

It is imperative that we remain “charitable.” Charitable means loving. No matter what. One thing I can tell you is that TouchStone is very smart.

I am reminded of the occasion when I was leaving a Catholic church after Mass and overheard two elderly ladies remarking on the Monsignor’s rather clever homily. One said, “You know, I think Monsignor is a brilliant scholar.” The other replied, “Yes, but not so brilliant as he thinks he is.”

One lady was charitable. The other, I had to agree, was truthful.

 

[Touchstone]

Here we have Touchstone…master of the universe I guy who obviously spends countless hours on forums because someone, in his opinion is wrong:bowdown: why are we wasting so much time with an atheist? the man obviously has discarded the concept of Christian faith.Tell me TOUCHSTONE, how do you rate Christians in regards to intelligence? so your point is we are idiots? dude you are quite possibly the most arrogant forum participant I have ever run across. My faith is strong and you have no impact on my faith in Jesus Christ our lord.

If you go searching these forums here, you can find posts of mine that have made this point previously, but my understanding is NOT that religious credulity is an index of intelligent; I was a devout Christian for decades, and I think I had an adequate command of my senses and learning abilities all throughout. One reason this forum is worth putting time into for me here in there is that there are many intelligent believers here, and some who are quite articulate and gifted rhetorically, to boot.

My view is that religion is a rough index not against one’s intelligence, one’s mental horsepower, so to speak, but is rather an index against one’s trust in one’s own intuitions. As a razor, it works very well. If I talk with people, and get a sense of the disposition, gauging their intelligence tells me very little towards accurately predicting whether they are Christians or not. But the more I can gauge a person’s implicit trust in one’s brute intuitions, the better I am able to predict not just whether they are believers or not, but the depth and quality of that religious belief as well. If you are one that “just knows” what is right and how things are, intuitively, my experience is that you are much more likely to be strongly religious, and committed in a way that is relatively impervious to appeals and propositions that are often persuasive to those less reflexively tied to their intuitions as normative.

That’s not the only factor either. Some people are more inclined toward authoritarianism and clean, simple hierarchies of power. That’s an indicator toward religious piety, too, especially in the Christian west which identifies a god as cosmic plenopotentiary. I find, unsurprisingly, that antinomian dispositions tend to indicate unbelief, or at least a begrudged agnosticism. But these are coarse indicators in any case – individuals are individuals and every case is a different story.

But intelligence doesn’t get much traction in the mix, in my experience. What one wants exerts much more control over what one believes than intellectual process. If you want God to exist (or not exist), it’s easy to suppress even the most high powered intellect into subservience to that desire. One only lets the intellect assert itself through discipline and a desiree that one’s intellect gets a seat at the table in choosing one’s beliefs, it seems.

-TS

 

[tonyrey]

“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist,” Hawking writes.

Hawking is making the elementary mistake of equating the physical universe with reality - and persons with physical organisms. In other words he is guilty of scientism in basing the metaphysical theory of physicalism on a scientific hypothesis…

 

[Saint_Castulus]

If you go searching these forums here, you can find posts of mine that have made this point previously, but my understanding is NOT that religious credulity is an index of intelligent; I was a devout Christian for decades, and I think I had an adequate command of my senses and learning abilities all throughout. One reason this forum is worth putting time into for me here in there is that there are many intelligent believers here, and some who are quite articulate and gifted rhetorically, to boot.

My view is that religion is a rough index not against one’s intelligence, one’s mental horsepower, so to speak, but is rather an index against one’s trust in one’s own intuitions. As a razor, it works very well. If I talk with people, and get a sense of the disposition, gauging their intelligence tells me very little towards accurately predicting whether they are Christians or not. But the more I can gauge a person’s implicit trust in one’s brute intuitions, the better I am able to predict not just whether they are believers or not, but the depth and quality of that religious belief as well. If you are one that “just knows” what is right and how things are, intuitively, my experience is that you are much more likely to be strongly religious, and committed in a way that is relatively impervious to appeals and propositions that are often persuasive to those less reflexively tied to their intuitions as normative.

That’s not the only factor either. Some people are more inclined toward authoritarianism and clean, simple hierarchies of power. That’s an indicator toward religious piety, too, especially in the Christian west which identifies a god as cosmic plenopotentiary. I find, unsurprisingly, that antinomian dispositions tend to indicate unbelief, or at least a begrudged agnosticism. But these are coarse indicators in any case – individuals are individuals and every case is a different story.

But intelligence doesn’t get much traction in the mix, in my experience. What one wants exerts much more control over what one believes than intellectual process. If you want God to exist (or not exist), it’s easy to suppress even the most high powered intellect into subservience to that desire. One only lets the intellect assert itself through discipline and a desiree that one’s intellect gets a seat at the table in choosing one’s beliefs, it seems.

-TS

‘just knows’? that is faith ‘just knows’ make me sound like a simpleton, please tell me what your definition of Catholic faith is? if you are not faithful…well thats OK, however your main goal seems to be discrediting the Catholic church? you make me feel like I am your science experiment.

 

[Saint_Castulus]

JDaniel

It is imperative that we remain “charitable.” Charitable means loving. No matter what. One thing I can tell you is that TouchStone is very smart. yes very smart AND arrogant.

I am reminded of the occasion when I was leaving a Catholic church after Mass and overheard two elderly ladies remarking on the Monsignor’s rather clever homily. One said, “You know, I think Monsignor is a brilliant scholar.” The other replied, “Yes, but not so brilliant as he thinks he is.”

One lady was charitable. The other, I had to agree, was truthful.

 

[SedesDomi]

Whats not considered is the simple fact that there in no such thing as nothing.

How do you interpret the Christian belief of creation ex nihilo, creation “out of nothing”?

 

[JDaniel]

How do you interpret the Christian belief of creation ex nihilo, creation “out of nothing”?

Sedes:

It is the Catholic belief that God created (, , ,) where there was nothing before. That, my friend, is very different from saying “creation out of Nothing.”

I added the dots and parentheses.

God bless,
jd

 

[Charlemagne_II]

*I was a devout Christian for decades, and I think I had an adequate command of my senses and learning abilities all throughout. *

I have no idea what that means, or what it has to do with abandoning faith.

I prefer Chesterton’s take below. The first thing we start to do when we abandon God, is to make a god of Reason. Reason is a whore and will sell herself to the greatest passion of the highest bidder. If that passion is to defend abortion or homosexuality or a godless universe, she will find a way to defend them all … in defiance of all common sense.

In the case of a godless universe, Reason will invent a multiverse, or else discover the power of nature to create herself out of nothing.

 

[Saint_Castulus]

Saint:

It is imperative that we remain “charitable.” Charitable means loving. No matter what. One thing I can tell you is that TouchStone is very smart. He argues with great skill. I’d like him on side, and hopefully, some day he might be. Hopefully. There is enough from our side to argue for with great skill, too.

God bless,
jd

you obviously have low self esteem? the man is on here to agitate, intelligent? yes no doubt.I wager I am as intelligent as touchstone if not more.The issue is faith…not intelligence.God bless you

 

[Saint_Castulus]

Nguirado:

There’s an unusual thing about logic. It, unlike empiricism, and, perhaps even demonstration, has its own rules. Rules that preempt our colorization of them, and, our colorization of the syllogism at hand. If one really looks hard at St. Thomas’ Five Ways, e.g., one discovers that they seem to have a life of their own. That life makes them irrefutable.

As an ex-atheist, I came up with rationale after rationale that, supposedly, would render them ineffective. But, they remain, impervious to rationales, impervious to additional logics. The conclusions are inescapable. And, all of them lead directly to an inescapable thing, beyond our imaginations and beyond our universe. A Prime Mover, a First Cause, a Necessary Cause, a Final Cause, and a Pinnacle of all Predicates. A singular thing that might not be G_d, per se, but, then again, it just might be. But, that is another thread.

Hawking is supercilious yet superficial.

God bless,
jd

I agree, and I am going to sign off this thread.Atheist? my God what a depressing,pathetic point of view.I do hope that TOUCHSTONE does not continue to turn away from God I will do my best to be a good Christian…see ya.

 

[JDaniel]

you obviously have low self esteem? the man is on here to agitate, intelligent? yes no doubt.I wager I am as intelligent as touchstone if not more.The issue is faith…not intelligence.God bless you

My Friend,

The mod will not see it your way - except maybe once! I’m trying to be helpful. Whatever.

God bless,
jd

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Saint Castulus

I agree, and I am going to sign off this thread.

Likewise for me. I smell the smoke of Satan in this thread.

Atheism has outlived itself intellectually. Spiritually it has nothing whatever to offer and everything to take away. If I may paraphrase Nietzsche:

“Nogod is dead, and we have slain him.”

So long. :tiphat:

 

[Touchstone]

*I was a devout Christian for decades, and I think I had an adequate command of my senses and learning abilities all throughout. *

I have no idea what that means, or what it has to do with abandoning faith.

I prefer Chesterton’s take below. The first thing we start to do when we abandon God, is to make a god of Reason. Reason is a whore and will sell herself to the greatest passion of the highest bidder. If that passion is to defend abortion or homosexuality or a godless universe, she will find a way to defend them all … in defiance of all common sense.

In the case of a godless universe, Reason will invent a multiverse, or else discover the power of nature to create herself out of nothing.

I can never tell if Chesterton understood the irony of so many things he said, or not. He had a brilliant sense of humor and a keen wit, which suggests maybe he did. I will note that I’m not an eminent scholar on Chesterton, but this is not a quote I recognize from Chesterton, even paraphrased. “Reason is a whore”, is of course a famous quote from the illustrious Martin Luther, but I’ll take your quote at face value, here. If you have a link to that quote I’d like to read it, as it sounds like an interesting bit from GKC that I’m not familiar with.

But here you have Chesterton appealing to Reason (er, “worshipping” it a bit, to use his distorted terminology) as a means of establishing the futility and inefficacy of Reason as a tool for knowledge building and truth finding. Can you see the problem with that?

If Chesterton’s right, I ought not to believe him! He’s sleeping with that whore Reason in offering this to me!

My point to St. Castulus was that I don’t think intelligence is a determining, or even substantial factor here. It’s not a question of horsepower, but of principles and goals we adopt by choice. I wasn’t “stupid” in my view as a Christian, any more than believers here are now. Rather, I made governing choices that controlled everything else. I was a young earth creationist the way I was raised, and as a young adult for a time I chose to continue on that path because I thought it more pious and faithful and pleasing to the Lord to embrace that kind of view than to open the question up in a critical, skeptical, analytical way, based on the evidence. I wasn’t any less intelligent then, and indeed can look back at some of my best intellectual work as a software developer and engineer during that time. I had simply made choices that favored my intuition that suggested I had better believe a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible if I wanted to please God. My analytical skills were there all along, they just got held on the sidelines on that question. I used them every day on other things.

-TS