{"id":14,"date":"2009-05-06T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-06T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/05\/a-gift-of-love.html"},"modified":"2014-05-19T09:16:39","modified_gmt":"2014-05-19T13:16:39","slug":"a-gift-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/05\/a-gift-of-love.html","title":{"rendered":"A Gift of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Snake_Nebula.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/202\/import\/Snake_Nebula.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"margin: 0pt auto 20px;text-align: center\" width=\"540\" height=\"540\" \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<div align=\"right\"><b>Copyright: <\/b>Digitized Sky Survey (DSS2)<\/p>\n<div align=\"left\">The image above is of Barnard 72, known as the &#8220;Snake Nebula&#8221; because of the dark snake-like pattern it forms.&nbsp; The shape comes from a concentration of dust and dark matter that blocks escaping visible light.&nbsp; Most likely, these mysterious dark clouds are the birth place for new stars.<\/p>\n<p>The newborn stars that emerge from these clouds point to a universe that is creating and maintaining itself.&nbsp; Does such independence preclude the existence of a divine creator?&nbsp; In his book <i>The Hand of God<\/i>, author Michael Reagan discusses one clergyman&#8217;s response to the idea that modern science could explain this process of creation:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>&#8220;The view implied that God had created a world that could and did make itself.&nbsp; This was a gift of love, the clergyman argued, allowing the creation to have independence rather than making it a divine puppet theater.&#8221;<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"right\">&#8211;<i>The Hand of God<\/i>, pages 12-13<\/p>\n<div align=\"left\">For more, be sure to check out Reagan&#8217;s book, <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Hand-God-Thoughts-Reflecting-Universe\/dp\/1890151521\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1241580244&amp;sr=8-1\">The Hand of God<\/a>.<\/i><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Copyright: Digitized Sky Survey (DSS2) The image above is of Barnard 72, known as the &#8220;Snake Nebula&#8221; because of the dark snake-like pattern it forms.&nbsp; The shape comes from a concentration of dust and dark matter that blocks escaping visible light.&nbsp; Most likely, these mysterious dark clouds are the birth place for new stars. The&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-thoughts"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Gift of Love - Science and the Sacred<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/05\/a-gift-of-love.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Gift of Love - Science and the Sacred\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Copyright: Digitized Sky Survey (DSS2) The image above is of Barnard 72, known as the &#8220;Snake Nebula&#8221; because of the dark snake-like pattern it forms.&nbsp; The shape comes from a concentration of dust and dark matter that blocks escaping visible light.&nbsp; Most likely, these mysterious dark clouds are the birth place for new stars. The&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/05\/a-gift-of-love.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Science and the Sacred\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-05-06T08:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-05-19T13:16:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/scienceandthesacred\/files\/import\/Snake_Nebula.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"The BioLogos Foundation\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Gift of Love - Science and the Sacred","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/05\/a-gift-of-love.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Gift of Love - Science and the Sacred","og_description":"Copyright: Digitized Sky Survey (DSS2) The image above is of Barnard 72, known as the &#8220;Snake Nebula&#8221; because of the dark snake-like pattern it forms.&nbsp; The shape comes from a concentration of dust and dark matter that blocks escaping visible light.&nbsp; Most likely, these mysterious dark clouds are the birth place for new stars. 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