July 2011 – rhiannonshymns.co.uk

In days of yore they trimmed their wood,
creating idols that looked good,
but nowadays we realise
a lifeless doll no help supplies.
Instead we sift ideas, build
a house on sand, with bubbles filled,
which cannot last, or satisfy
not now, nor soon, nor when we die.

An edifice may stand awhile,
but soon will be a rocky pile,
if not on lasting pillars founded:
false notions disappoint, confounded.

The truth that claims it will not fail,
must not give transient appeal;
and never crumble, bear all stress,
worthy of trust, not just a guess.

For human words are all so fallible,
but words from God are wholly credible.

But some are angry, and can’t see
why if he’s God, he won’t decree
at once the things they feel he should,
that seem to them so very good;
they do not feel that he can be
a help to those in agony,
nor see the need for this delay
before all evil’s swept away,
and we all meet him on his day.

Their choosing to believe, or not,
won’t change the facts if true, a jot
Will they just toss it in the waste,
without investigative taste?

Science is investigation
of recorded information,
experimenting, testing theories,
giving thought to awkward queries,
and alternative suggestions,
never jumping to conclusions.

When considering the past,
science has got limitations,
looks for traces that remain,
tries to think what they may mean. –

Many fossils show death-agony,
speaking of a great catastrophe,
which makes calculations harder
for we must admit, with wonder,
age-assessment needs more knowledge,
since the modes of rock formation,
and the rates of degradation
of the chemicals we measure,
may have varied in such epochs;
also content of the rocks
when first formed, cannot be known;

– tree-trunk-fossils crossing strata
show how quickly rocky matter
was laid down around to bury them;

in some ‘fossils’ they are finding
protein, tissue still surviving,
bone unfossilised – impossible
if they’d lain there for a multiple
of millions and millions of years.

What framework for interpretation
fits this new accumulation
of unearthed facts, – Darwin’s suggestion,
or the Creator’s revelation? –
the former brings no obligation,
the latter duty and salvation.

Month: July 2011

Building Philosophical houses of cards

The Limitations of Science to study the past