[tgs]

Okay so it's that constant amazement and wonder at God as you experience and learn about the universe. Not that it would certainly change someone's faith, but what do you think about all the discoveries that have given us a more accurate understanding of how life began here? Or any question that we now have answered that the bible gave a different (or philosophical?) answer for? That almost every ancient religious text gives an answer for?
I used to be Christian, and a lot of my friends still hold onto "The earth is 5,000 years old, everything in the bible literally happened." But I'm amazed at what may have ACTUALLY happened. It's impossible- the evidence has already been found. We're so close to reproducing the origins of life in the lab. We're literally creating proteins, fatty acids, even RNA by very simply taking the elements that would have been here and putting them through conditions they would have faced. It blows my mind that we're the result of just hydrogen.. chemical reactions, billions of years of evolution and now there are things so amazing as people, self-aware with higher brain function that gives us an opportunity for amazing, fulfilling lives and advanced societies..technology. Neuroscience and origin of life stuff, the process of evolution and everything is just so amazing. I couldn't possibly be satisfied with that part of life being ignored, even if I did have faith I think searching for truth.. You know, you're searching for God. I just have that in me- I want to know! What I am.. how did we get here.. what's going on in the Universe?? What is it? The big questions. And a lot of the answers are already there or 90% there.
You know, a personal faith might not be affected by that at all because it's a critical part of how the brain has learned to survive, think and function. But it's the bible I don't understand. The bible is a religious text, not a scientific one. It's a text that says it is the one truth because God told me so and you may not question anything in here or you're defying God. It's restricting and cult-esque, and absolutely non-credible as a scientific text. It's supposed to be infallible, but for people who are scientists.. something is clearly wrong with the explanations it gives for the questions we ask. So where does that leave one's faith when the bible is wrong? Where do you find answers? How do you reconcile it? Does God become something else not-so-Christian as more and more is discovered? Are you able to approach discovery objectively?
(When I was Christian I could not do this. Faith came first. If something didn't make sense, I wouldn't think about it or would parrot off whatever was the popular (often asinine) answer floating around Christian circles at the time. It was a personal experience for me, Jesus was real and God was real and love was real to me, so I was more concerned with love than logic or anything else. The trouble now has been that I don't know how to be a successful person without the Church, without those people, without that society. I feel like I've gone to a foreign country and have had to acclimate to their culture to get what I want (friends, money, women). Definitely had some culture shock and some difficult years.)