{"id":1456,"date":"2011-01-07T05:00:37","date_gmt":"2011-01-07T12:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=1456"},"modified":"2011-01-07T05:00:37","modified_gmt":"2011-01-07T12:00:37","slug":"the-pope-me-fans-of-the-big-bang-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=1456","title":{"rendered":"The Pope & Me: Fans of the Big Bang Theory"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday night, I did something I have not done in a long time.\u00a0 I watched an awards show on television.\u00a0 Not just any awards show mind you, but The People’s Choice Awards<\/em>.\u00a0 How can the people be wrong?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Well, the fact that “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse”<\/em>\u00a0was named Favorite Movie\u00a0and\u00a0“Keeping Up with The\u00a0Kardashians”<\/em> walked off with the award for Favorite TV Guilty Pleasure means the end of the world might be near.\u00a0 If you have never seen any of the Twilight<\/em> movies or don’t know who the Kardashian girls are, you should get your own award for good taste!<\/p>\n

I can honestly say that I have never watched the Kardashians’ show (although with Bruce Jenner as their step-dad, hi-jinks are sure to ensue) nor have I ever subjected myself to viewing any of the Twilight<\/em> movies.\u00a0 I suppose one person’s guilty pleasure is another one’s cruel and unusual punishment.<\/p>\n

However, I do have at least one guilty pleasure when it comes to the television shows that I watch.\u00a0 I wouldn’t be so open about it, but when the Pope recently admitted that he too had an affinity for it, I knew that I could no longer keep it a secret. You see, the Pope and I both like the Big Bang Theory.<\/p>\n

In news stories reporting Pope Benedict XVI’s glowing review of the Big Bang\u00a0Theory<\/a>, the Pontiff seemed to offer some positively stunning and heretofore unheard of insights:<\/p>\n

“Christians should reject the idea that the universe was created by accident, Pope Benedict<\/a> said Thursday, adding that God\u2019s mind was the driving force behind scientific theories such as the Big Bang.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In yet\u00a0another nugget of praise, Pope Benedict was quoted as saying:\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The universe is not the result of chance, as some would want to make us believe.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wow!\u00a0 I had no idea that the Pope was a big fan of the Big Bang Theory.\u00a0 Me too.\u00a0 And, I am so glad that he told Christians that the universe was not created by accident, but rather God’s mind was the\u00a0Force behind it.\u00a0 Cool.\u00a0 Sounds almost like Star Wars <\/em>(now those were some good movies — the originals, not that awful mess\u00a0with Jar Jar Binks)\u00a0— “Let the Force be with you.”<\/p>\n

Wait a minute.\u00a0 I think I may have misunderstood the Pope’s praise for the Big Bang Theory.\u00a0 I thought he was talking about the hit CBS sitcom with the four nerds and Penny, the pretty next-door neighbor.\u00a0 I think I’m all confused now.\u00a0 I thought that we both liked the same guilty pleasure.<\/p>\n

It turns out that the Pope actually likes the scientific Big Bang Theory.\u00a0 Who knew?\u00a0 That Christians should reject\u00a0theories (scientific or otherwise) that posit\u00a0the\u00a0random, God-less creation of the universe is something I thought\u00a0most Christians — or at least theologically astute Christians like the Pope — should already know.\u00a0 That\u00a0he had to spell this out is either an indictment of Christianity or an indictment of his understanding of Christianity.<\/p>\n

If one were inclined to believe that the Bible is God’s Word and, if one were further inclined to read God’s Word, it would not take very long to come to some sort of conclusion that God may have had something or another to do with the creation of the universe!\u00a0 The first words of sacred Scripture — “In the beginning God”<\/em><\/span> — might just be a tip-off.<\/p>\n

By accepting the Big Bang Theory and rejecting the Genesis<\/em> account of creation, the Pope (and other Christians) try to have their cake and eat it too.<\/p>\n

The Catholic Church<\/span><\/a> no longer teaches creationism — the belief that God created the world in six days as described in the Bible — and says that the account in the book of Genesis is an allegory for the way God<\/span><\/a> created the world.\u00a0 But it objects to using evolution to back an atheist philosophy that denies God’s existence or any divine role in creation. It also objects to using Genesis as a scientific text. (full article here<\/a>)<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But, herein lies the real problem.\u00a0 When you reject the Genesis account of creation or write it off as myth or allegory and, when you minimize God’s central role in creation, then what prevents you from rejecting or re-writing other portions of Scripture or minimizing God’s role in other historic events?\u00a0 The answer is:\u00a0 NOTHING!<\/p>\n

The world will always offer people of faith\u00a0— Popes, Pastors, and Laypeople — the temptation to walk by sight — hand in hand with the “wise”\u00a0and “esteemed”\u00a0— instead of living by faith, hand in hand with the Master.<\/p>\n

Contrary to what Pope Benedict said, the Big Bang Theory and other scientific theories of evolution which re-interpret or reject God’s Word\u00a0will continue to be in conflict with the\u00a0kind of faith described in the Bible.\u00a0 And, while science will never have all the answers to how the universe came\u00a0into being, men and women of faith\u00a0ultimately know where those answers lie — in God’s Word.\u00a0 After all, when we talk about issues of faith, shouldn’t we rely more upon Scripture than science?<\/p>\n

The Pope and I both like the Big Bang Theory.\u00a0 He can keep his.\u00a0 I think I’ll stick with television’s The Big Bang Theory — <\/em>Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, Raj, and Penny.\u00a0 We all have guilty pleasures in life.\u00a0 Seems like some are more guilty than others.\u00a0 You be the judge.\u00a0 On second thought, don’t judge me.\u00a0\u00a0I think that’s in Scripture somewhere too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday night, I did something I have not done in a long time.\u00a0 I watched an awards show on television.\u00a0 Not just any awards show mind you, but The People’s Choice Awards.\u00a0 How can the people be wrong?\u00a0 Well, the fact that “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse”\u00a0was named Favorite Movie\u00a0and\u00a0“Keeping Up with The\u00a0Kardashians” walked off…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,11,35,1],"tags":[144,147,182,360,578,770,790,883,887,981,1051],"class_list":["post-1456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-culture","category-religion","category-uncategorized","tag-bible","tag-big-bang-theory-the-big-bang-theory-show","tag-bruce-jenner","tag-evolution","tag-keeping-up-with-the-kardashians","tag-peoples-choice-awards","tag-pope-benedict","tag-science","tag-scripure","tag-the-twilight-saga-the-eclipse","tag-word-of-god"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-nu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}