I also have no belief whatsoever in the concept of a God. I respect others who do, but all of the arguments my uncle (a monsignor in the Catholic Church) ever proferred me boil down to one unshakeable catechism - you must have faith to believe. Faith is acceptance without verifiable proof - a kind of willing acquiesence to some authority figure based on feelings - and that I cannot live with. Not when people base their entire lives and moralities on it, rather than a more fundamental and non-religious sets of morals and ethics that do not require a supreme being to validate.
Either there is a God that always existed or the universe always existed or there was no universe, then the nothingness exploded and became everything.
Since our feeble human minds are incapable of comprehending infinity, we can never answer this debate. Therefore since something incomprehensible had to occur, I choose to believe in a God figure...simply because it's more comforting - not because anybody can prove (or disprove) it.
Since our feeble human minds are incapable of comprehending infinity, we can never answer this debate. Therefore since something incomprehensible had to occur, I choose to believe in a God figure...simply because it's more comforting - not because anybody can prove (or disprove) it.
I can respect that, SD. However, I choose to believe that the human mind is not so 'feeble' nor that it is 'incapable' of understanding infinity. As importantly, my thinking is that when one dies, there is nothing, EXACTLY as there was no conscious thought of oneself before one was born. I believe that the fear of not continuing in a conscious form, or that one's loved ones will not, is the primary motivation for believing (currently - in the old days it may been fear of Hell, the Spanish Inquisition, the Vatican, etc). And I do not make fun of that - I simply do not adhere to it.
Jake-
Interesting posting topic, and this is certainly the site to attract the top theologians.
As for your proof, I hate to say it, but one of the first questions children ask after they are told about God is: "But where does God come from?" It's a question to which the religions give the generally unsatifying answer: "God has always been there."
As for the scientific info, every year science pulls back the veil a little more. Discovering our origins is a tough problem.
The people that wrote the bible though the stars were little pin-holes in a dark-velvet sky (or some such nonsense) and that all celesital objects were afixed to spheres. They had limited information and whatever they couldn't explain by the science they knew was attributed to God.
Something much more proven than the origins of the Universe is the age of our planet. Some Creationists still try to say the Earth is only 6000 years old. The evidence from all the branches of science all lead to the Earth being around 4 billion years old and the dinosaurs being here tens of millions of years before Man. This is the same science that makes our computers, cell-phones, medicines, cars, oil exploration, etc. work. There is no way for all those sciences to work correctly enough to produce everything we've built, but then for all of them to have the wrong conclusion on the age of the planet or the dinosaurs. Science doesn't work that way.
The iron in our bodies was created from the explosion of stars over 5 billion years ago. The early universe consisted of the simplest element: Hydrogen. This was used to build the first stars. When those stars exploded, the forces produced the other denser elements. We KNOW what elements stars produce when they explode and how new stars are formed. The idea that our star (aka The Sun) is unique amoung the 200 billion stars in our Galaxy and the millions or billions of other Galaxies is pretty ridiculous.
We are only recently scratching the surface of how complex systems (life) are formed and work. It's a hard problem. However, to dismiss the idea that we evolved from something lower, just because we are still gathering information and the answers are difficult is just plain ignorance.
If someone believing in a "God" prevents then from commiting crimes, then fine. But if believing in a "God" make someone kill people that believe in a different "God", then we have a big problem.
How to fight a religious war: everybody go to their churches, temples and mosques and pray for the other religions' churches, etc. to collapse. That way whichever "God" is real, his group wins.
Interesting posting topic, and this is certainly the site to attract the top theologians.
As for your proof, I hate to say it, but one of the first questions children ask after they are told about God is: "But where does God come from?" It's a question to which the religions give the generally unsatifying answer: "God has always been there."
As for the scientific info, every year science pulls back the veil a little more. Discovering our origins is a tough problem.
The people that wrote the bible though the stars were little pin-holes in a dark-velvet sky (or some such nonsense) and that all celesital objects were afixed to spheres. They had limited information and whatever they couldn't explain by the science they knew was attributed to God.
Something much more proven than the origins of the Universe is the age of our planet. Some Creationists still try to say the Earth is only 6000 years old. The evidence from all the branches of science all lead to the Earth being around 4 billion years old and the dinosaurs being here tens of millions of years before Man. This is the same science that makes our computers, cell-phones, medicines, cars, oil exploration, etc. work. There is no way for all those sciences to work correctly enough to produce everything we've built, but then for all of them to have the wrong conclusion on the age of the planet or the dinosaurs. Science doesn't work that way.
The iron in our bodies was created from the explosion of stars over 5 billion years ago. The early universe consisted of the simplest element: Hydrogen. This was used to build the first stars. When those stars exploded, the forces produced the other denser elements. We KNOW what elements stars produce when they explode and how new stars are formed. The idea that our star (aka The Sun) is unique amoung the 200 billion stars in our Galaxy and the millions or billions of other Galaxies is pretty ridiculous.
We are only recently scratching the surface of how complex systems (life) are formed and work. It's a hard problem. However, to dismiss the idea that we evolved from something lower, just because we are still gathering information and the answers are difficult is just plain ignorance.
If someone believing in a "God" prevents then from commiting crimes, then fine. But if believing in a "God" make someone kill people that believe in a different "God", then we have a big problem.
How to fight a religious war: everybody go to their churches, temples and mosques and pray for the other religions' churches, etc. to collapse. That way whichever "God" is real, his group wins.
Java - speaking of which ...
"The Shiite-Sunni split in Islam dates back to a 7th century dispute over the succession of authority after the death of the Prophet Mohammed."
July 4, 2003
30 Killed in Pakistan Mosque Bombing
QUETTA, Pakistan - Suicide bombers attacked a Shiite Muslim mosque packed with worshippers Friday, killing at least 30 people and sending enraged Shiites on a rampage through this southwestern Pakistani city, officials said.
Around 2,000 people were praying when three attackers entered the mosque, said Zulifquar Ali, a worshipper who suffered minor shrapnel wounds.
"First they killed security guards outside the mosque. Then they moved inside the mosque and started firing on the people," he told The Associated Press.
A security guard killed one attacker, Ali said. "The other attacker blew himself up."
The third man was seized by worshippers, many of whom had their clothes soaked in blood, and was handed over to police. Other witnesses said grenades were thrown into the mosque.
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed blamed "sectarian elements" for the attack. He confirmed that two suicide bombers were killed inside the mosque and said another attacker was killed in a shootout with security guards outside.
Officials said a fourth attacker was arrested.
Ahmed said at least 30 people were killed and 52 were injured.
But Allama Mahdi Najfi, the mosque's prayer leader, said after visiting victims in a hospital that the death toll was higher.
"Forty of our people have been martyred," Najfi said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. It was the latest in a long series of assaults on Pakistan's Shiite Muslim minority. Most attacks have been blamed on radical groups from the country's Sunni Muslim majority.
"The Shiite-Sunni split in Islam dates back to a 7th century dispute over the succession of authority after the death of the Prophet Mohammed."
July 4, 2003
30 Killed in Pakistan Mosque Bombing
QUETTA, Pakistan - Suicide bombers attacked a Shiite Muslim mosque packed with worshippers Friday, killing at least 30 people and sending enraged Shiites on a rampage through this southwestern Pakistani city, officials said.
Around 2,000 people were praying when three attackers entered the mosque, said Zulifquar Ali, a worshipper who suffered minor shrapnel wounds.
"First they killed security guards outside the mosque. Then they moved inside the mosque and started firing on the people," he told The Associated Press.
A security guard killed one attacker, Ali said. "The other attacker blew himself up."
The third man was seized by worshippers, many of whom had their clothes soaked in blood, and was handed over to police. Other witnesses said grenades were thrown into the mosque.
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed blamed "sectarian elements" for the attack. He confirmed that two suicide bombers were killed inside the mosque and said another attacker was killed in a shootout with security guards outside.
Officials said a fourth attacker was arrested.
Ahmed said at least 30 people were killed and 52 were injured.
But Allama Mahdi Najfi, the mosque's prayer leader, said after visiting victims in a hospital that the death toll was higher.
"Forty of our people have been martyred," Najfi said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. It was the latest in a long series of assaults on Pakistan's Shiite Muslim minority. Most attacks have been blamed on radical groups from the country's Sunni Muslim majority.
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by SSI:
Jake for the other side of the story: read, The Signature of God -- by Grant Jeffrey,,,, i dare you..<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I'll add it to the list. I actually think I saw that book at Barnes and Noble a few days ago. I'm finishing up a book on Nietzche first but as soon as it's done I'll get to this. I wouldnt mind hearing "the other side".
Jake for the other side of the story: read, The Signature of God -- by Grant Jeffrey,,,, i dare you..<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I'll add it to the list. I actually think I saw that book at Barnes and Noble a few days ago. I'm finishing up a book on Nietzche first but as soon as it's done I'll get to this. I wouldnt mind hearing "the other side".
Jazz-
If something happens to somebody praying, it should be from "God" himself (herself?), not some assholes with weapons. The idea that a "God", that could create the Universe with all the stars, needs some pinhead with gun or bomb as an "instrument of his will" is pretty f***ing ridiculous.
If "God" wants someone dead, he/she/it hardly needs to contact the local militant nutjob to put out a hit.
If some people are worshiping the "wrong" God, then the "real" God should just change the color of the sky and write messages to us telling us which is the "right" God. Oh, gee, that would require there to be ANY God in the first place. Oh, well.
If something happens to somebody praying, it should be from "God" himself (herself?), not some assholes with weapons. The idea that a "God", that could create the Universe with all the stars, needs some pinhead with gun or bomb as an "instrument of his will" is pretty f***ing ridiculous.
If "God" wants someone dead, he/she/it hardly needs to contact the local militant nutjob to put out a hit.
If some people are worshiping the "wrong" God, then the "real" God should just change the color of the sky and write messages to us telling us which is the "right" God. Oh, gee, that would require there to be ANY God in the first place. Oh, well.
Most of you in here know me as laid back, butl et me just say to the guys with the sarcastic remarks to my last post, that it's your azz that is on the line, not mine. I do not try to "live my life right" just because I'm scared of the consequences if there is a God.I live my life right because I do believe there is life beyond this, and I have seen first hand the difference in life in general when you are and when you are not living right, or living for GOD. I've had my own personal experiences that have convinced me there is, and I'll leave it at that. I dont care what anyone says, I still say that it is absolutely moronic and ignorant to think one small organism took millions, or billions of years to turn into what we are now. The human body is too perfected. The eyes, the nose, the ears, the reproductive system. You will never ever convince me that one small micro~organism, after one~million years, grew an eye, and after another million, grew a mouth, after another millon, something to hear with...and so on....and so on.....and so on....
Oh, and for those that believe we "evolved" from monkeys and so on......Then why do monkeys still walk the Earth??
Dear Jake... great post. What could be more important. I have a list of a many great titles by exceptional authors that can help you clear up the confusion on this issue. Bottom line is that there has been an attempt by a select group of beings that has wanted humans to believe in or in my opinion "fall for" a supreme being. A prime creator is one thing but I can't buy any one part of the creation being any more important than another. Frankly I had earlier in my life bought the supreme being thing but once I was able to shift my point of view a profound shift in my consciousness took place. I cannot describe how fanatastic my new view point allows is experienced. I would be glad to share more information that you can investigate so that you too can continue with your awakening. my e-mail address is merlynagain@yahoo.com. Hope to hear from you and I'll send you a list of some excellent sites and some titles and authors of some excellent books. One thing... what is true is true for you at the moment you decide it is true... and there's one really true thing about truth. It usually changes. Eachh pesrson living their own truth freely and being open to eveolution of their consciousness is the new doorway we are passing through on earth at this time. Welcome aboard. Chester (aka Merlyn)
The human eye is actually quite flawed. The photoreceptors in the eye are upside down, with their blood vessels and neurons in front, effectively causing deficiencies in human vision, including a "blind spot" caused by the hole where the neurons exit the eye. The squid's eye, on the other hand, has none of these problems. Are we to believe that a designer whose "crowning creation" was man made such an incredible error in the construction of the human eye, and not in that of the squid? (Diamond, 1985)
Imperfect engineering is apparent in far more than the human eye. Useless and inefficient structures abound in the natural world - flightless birds with hollow bones, as if adapted for flight; blind animals with useless lenses and retinas; the clumsy "thumb" of the giant Panda; introns; the vestigial pelvis of pythons and whales (Futuyama, 1983, 198-200). If these structures did not arise through evolution, they could only have been the work of a deranged or clumsy creator.
But could any complex structure - even an imperfect one - arise through evolution? Certainly no one has documented the gradual development of the eye or the feather, but we can look to the gradations in the present world for clues. In fact, nature displays progressions of simple to complex visual structures (Ecker, 1990, 65-66), and a scale-to-feather progression (McGowan, 1984, 116-121), such that one can see how the gradual development of complex structures could be possible. Ian Stewart notes that a computer simulation by biologists Dan Nilsson and Susanne Pelger has bolstered the case for the natural evolution of the eye by small steps:
[Nilsson and Pelger's 1994 computer analysis] starts with a mathematical model of a flat region of cells, and permits various types of "mutation." Some cells may become more sensitive to light, for example, and the shape of cells may bend. The mathematical model is set up as a computer program that makes tiny random changes of this kind, calculates how good the resulting structure is at detecting light and resolving the patterns it "sees," and selects any change that improves these abilities. During a simulation that corresponds to a period of about four hundred years - the blink of an eye, in evolutionary terms - the region of cells folds itself up into a deep, spherical cavity with a tiny irislike opening, and, most dramatically, a lens. Moreover, like the lenses of our own eyes, it is a lens whose refractive index - the amount by which it bends light - varies from place to place. In fact, the pattern of variation of refractive index that is produced in the computer simulation is very like our own. So here mathematics shows that eyes definitely can evolve gradually and naturally, offering increased survival value at every stage. More than that: Nilsson and Pelger's work demonstrates that given certain key biological faculties (such as cellular receptivity to light, and cellular mobility), structures remarkable similar to eyes will form - all in line with Darwin's principle of natural selection (Stewart, 1995, 22).
Richard Dawkins adds that Nilsson and Pelger used conservative assumptions about the amount of variability in populations and the heritability of new traits when setting up their simulation (Dawkins, 1996, 165). Nevertheless, the simulation showed that "it would take only about 364,000 generations to evolve a good fish eye with a lens"(Dawkins, 1996, 166), where 364,000 generations translates to less than half a million years in time (Dawkins, 1996, 166) - a geological instant which would be difficult to detect in the fossil record.
A species cannot take over a niche that is already occupied by another unless it is in some way better adapted to that niche. A newcomer which is trying to "fit in" is not likely to displace them.
Evolution teaches that there are no such things as souls, that the Bible is fraudulent, and that God does not exist.
These charges, even if they were true, have nothing to do with the scientific validity of evolution. Such accusations reveal the true religious motivations of the creationists, and their eagerness to confuse scientific issues by the inappropriate discussion of metaphysics when a religious audience is around.
In any case, however, the charges are false. Science, by definition, is unable to reveal anything about the supernatural. While the historical sciences do contradict a naively literal interpretation of Genesis, it is ridiculous to assert that this makes them anti-Bible, anti-religion, or anti-Christianity. Carl Sagan reports that
"Modern Roman Catholicism has no quarrel with the Big Bang, with a Universe 15 billion years or so old, with the first living things arising from prebiological molecules, or with humans evolving from apelike ancestors - although it has special opinions on "ensoulment." Most mainstream Protestant and Jewish faiths take the same sturdy position." (Sagan, 1995, 278)
Pope John Paul II's Message to Pontifical Academy of Sciences, October 22, 1996, supports Sagan's claim.
Chris McGowan emphasizes that "The majority of Christians regard the book of Genesis as a collection of parables which illustrate the point that there is a God, a God who has dominion over the world... The issue is not one between Christians and evolutionists, but between a vociferous Christian minority - the creationists - and evolutionists" (McGowan, 1984, 1-2). Exemplifying this, in McLean v Arkansas, "officials of the United Methodist, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, African Methodist Episcopal, and Presbyterian Churches, the American Jewish Congress, and many other clergy and religious groups" (Bakken, n.d.) opposed the "balanced treatment" law that would have given creationism equal time with evolution in Arkansas science classes. Clearly evolution is quite compatible with many religions, Christian and otherwise. Given the evidence for evolution and certain biblical peculiarities - particularly the incompatibility of the two Genesis accounts - there is good reason to believe that Genesis 1 and 2 are allegories rather than factual accounts, and that God is an irresponsible or wicked deceiver if one of the two stories is a factual account. This makes any evolutionist - even an atheistic one - a more righteous upholder of God than the creationists.
Imperfect engineering is apparent in far more than the human eye. Useless and inefficient structures abound in the natural world - flightless birds with hollow bones, as if adapted for flight; blind animals with useless lenses and retinas; the clumsy "thumb" of the giant Panda; introns; the vestigial pelvis of pythons and whales (Futuyama, 1983, 198-200). If these structures did not arise through evolution, they could only have been the work of a deranged or clumsy creator.
But could any complex structure - even an imperfect one - arise through evolution? Certainly no one has documented the gradual development of the eye or the feather, but we can look to the gradations in the present world for clues. In fact, nature displays progressions of simple to complex visual structures (Ecker, 1990, 65-66), and a scale-to-feather progression (McGowan, 1984, 116-121), such that one can see how the gradual development of complex structures could be possible. Ian Stewart notes that a computer simulation by biologists Dan Nilsson and Susanne Pelger has bolstered the case for the natural evolution of the eye by small steps:
[Nilsson and Pelger's 1994 computer analysis] starts with a mathematical model of a flat region of cells, and permits various types of "mutation." Some cells may become more sensitive to light, for example, and the shape of cells may bend. The mathematical model is set up as a computer program that makes tiny random changes of this kind, calculates how good the resulting structure is at detecting light and resolving the patterns it "sees," and selects any change that improves these abilities. During a simulation that corresponds to a period of about four hundred years - the blink of an eye, in evolutionary terms - the region of cells folds itself up into a deep, spherical cavity with a tiny irislike opening, and, most dramatically, a lens. Moreover, like the lenses of our own eyes, it is a lens whose refractive index - the amount by which it bends light - varies from place to place. In fact, the pattern of variation of refractive index that is produced in the computer simulation is very like our own. So here mathematics shows that eyes definitely can evolve gradually and naturally, offering increased survival value at every stage. More than that: Nilsson and Pelger's work demonstrates that given certain key biological faculties (such as cellular receptivity to light, and cellular mobility), structures remarkable similar to eyes will form - all in line with Darwin's principle of natural selection (Stewart, 1995, 22).
Richard Dawkins adds that Nilsson and Pelger used conservative assumptions about the amount of variability in populations and the heritability of new traits when setting up their simulation (Dawkins, 1996, 165). Nevertheless, the simulation showed that "it would take only about 364,000 generations to evolve a good fish eye with a lens"(Dawkins, 1996, 166), where 364,000 generations translates to less than half a million years in time (Dawkins, 1996, 166) - a geological instant which would be difficult to detect in the fossil record.
A species cannot take over a niche that is already occupied by another unless it is in some way better adapted to that niche. A newcomer which is trying to "fit in" is not likely to displace them.
Evolution teaches that there are no such things as souls, that the Bible is fraudulent, and that God does not exist.
These charges, even if they were true, have nothing to do with the scientific validity of evolution. Such accusations reveal the true religious motivations of the creationists, and their eagerness to confuse scientific issues by the inappropriate discussion of metaphysics when a religious audience is around.
In any case, however, the charges are false. Science, by definition, is unable to reveal anything about the supernatural. While the historical sciences do contradict a naively literal interpretation of Genesis, it is ridiculous to assert that this makes them anti-Bible, anti-religion, or anti-Christianity. Carl Sagan reports that
"Modern Roman Catholicism has no quarrel with the Big Bang, with a Universe 15 billion years or so old, with the first living things arising from prebiological molecules, or with humans evolving from apelike ancestors - although it has special opinions on "ensoulment." Most mainstream Protestant and Jewish faiths take the same sturdy position." (Sagan, 1995, 278)
Pope John Paul II's Message to Pontifical Academy of Sciences, October 22, 1996, supports Sagan's claim.
Chris McGowan emphasizes that "The majority of Christians regard the book of Genesis as a collection of parables which illustrate the point that there is a God, a God who has dominion over the world... The issue is not one between Christians and evolutionists, but between a vociferous Christian minority - the creationists - and evolutionists" (McGowan, 1984, 1-2). Exemplifying this, in McLean v Arkansas, "officials of the United Methodist, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, African Methodist Episcopal, and Presbyterian Churches, the American Jewish Congress, and many other clergy and religious groups" (Bakken, n.d.) opposed the "balanced treatment" law that would have given creationism equal time with evolution in Arkansas science classes. Clearly evolution is quite compatible with many religions, Christian and otherwise. Given the evidence for evolution and certain biblical peculiarities - particularly the incompatibility of the two Genesis accounts - there is good reason to believe that Genesis 1 and 2 are allegories rather than factual accounts, and that God is an irresponsible or wicked deceiver if one of the two stories is a factual account. This makes any evolutionist - even an atheistic one - a more righteous upholder of God than the creationists.
Is our universe expanding or static? If it is expanding, is there sufficient mass to cause it all to collapse back in upon itself under gravity's influence? If the universe is static and not now expanding, is it stable?
What holds it all together-if anything?
These are questions gaining more attention these days as our knowledge data base in astronomy and astrophysics increases, and old brought into question. There theories are is much that can be said about these questions from the Biblical revelation.
New Testament References
Several separate passages in the New Testament make reference to the creation of the universe. For example, John's gospel speaks of an earlier state of existence than is described in Verse 1 of Genesis:
"In the beginning was the Word, [logos] and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; [i.e., before creation] all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made." John 1:1-3
This passage teaches that Jesus was eternally existent with God the Father prior to the creation of "all things." There was a time when our material and spiritual universe did not exist. It had a definite beginning. But before that, God was. In fact, God is-because time itself was created by God.
Chapter One of Paul's Epistle to the Colossians gives a further description of the role of Jesus in creation, consistent with that of John's gospel:
[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the first-born [prototokos] of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities [these words in Greek refer to the hierarchical angelic powers]-all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:15-17
The Holy Spirit, in giving us this inspired passage of Scripture, explains that all things (both visible and invisible) in the entire universe were created through this same Jesus, the eternal Word. We may think of the universe and its intricate design as being conceived in the mind of the Father, then spoken into existence by the Son (who makes the invisible, visible). The Holy Spirit is the One who energizes and supplies life to the creation, not only at the time of creation but also moment by moment after that.
We are also told that all things were created for Jesus. He is "the heir of all things." That means that we are house guests in Someone Else's universe! This implies a future accountability for all of us-history is headed somewhere-at the end of the road stands Jesus, to whom all power and authority has already been given (see John 5:22-29).
A. W. Tozer, Pastor at Moody Bible Church in Chicago some 50 years ago, once wrote of this as follows:
The teaching of the New Testament is that now, at this very moment, there is a Man in heaven appearing in the presence of God for us. He is as certainly a man as was Adam or Moses or Paul; he is a man glorified, but his glorification did not de-humanize him. Today he is a real man, of the race of mankind, bearing our lineaments and dimensions, a visible and audible man, whom any other man would recognize instantly as one of us.
But more than this, he is the heir of all things, Lord of all lords, head of the church, firstborn of the new creation. He is the way to God, the life of the believer, the hope of Israel, and the high priest of every true worshiper. He holds the keys of death and hell, and stands as advocate and surety for everyone who believes on him in truth. Salvation comes not by accepting the finished work, or deciding for Christ; it comes by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, the whole, living, victorious Lord who, as God and man, fought our fight and won it, accepted our debt as his own and paid it, took our sins and died under them, and rose again to set us free. This is the true Christ; nothing less will do.
All Things "Hold Together"
One of the key words in the Colossians passage above ("...and in Christ all things hold together") is the Greek word sunistemi which means "to stand-together," "to be compacted together," "to cohere," "to be constituted with."
This passage can be applied to the structure of the atom, for example. The nucleus of every atom is held together by what physicists call "weak" and "strong" forces.
[Physicists today are familiar with four basic forces in the natural world: gravity and electrical forces, plus a "strong" and a "weak" nuclear force. The first two forces decrease in strength inversely with the square of the distance between two objects; the latter two forces act only at very short ranges.]
The nucleus of the atom contains positively charged and neutral particles-to use a simplistic model. Mutual electrostatic repulsion between the like-positive protons would drive the nucleus apart if it were not for the "strong force" which binds the nucleus together.
There is thus an active force imposed on the universe, which actively holds the very atoms of the material world together moment by moment, day by day, century by century.
Similarly, accelerated electrons circling the nucleus should quickly radiate all their energy away and fall into the nucleus unless there exists an invisible energy source to counteract this.
The third New Testament creation-related passage which talks about atomic structure and physics is found in the Apostle Peter's Second Epistle:
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise [rhoizedon, a rushing roar] and the elements [stoicheion, atoms] will be dissolved with fire and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up. 2 Peter 3:10 The Greek word translated "elements" in the above mentioned passage from Colossians (and in 2 Peter also) is stoicheion, which can mean "the building blocks of the universe," or "the ordered arrangement of things." It can also mean the "atomic elements." The word translated "dissolved" in 2 Peter 3:10 is literally (in Greek) luo, meaning "unloosed." This language suggests that there will come a time in the future when God lets go of the nuclear forces which hold the atom together. This passage, like the one in Colossians, strongly suggests that the active power of God is behind the mysterious strong force that holds every atomic nucleus together. If this is so, all the other fundamental forces of nature are likewise forces that originate with Christ and His sustaining direction of the old creation.
Sustaining the Universe
If God "sustains the universe by His mighty word of power," moment by moment, were He to merely relax His grasp on the universe, every atom would come apart "by fire" (that is, by nuclear fire). It is inescapable that the Bible claims that God dynamically sustains the universe, including the very atoms themselves. Atoms, it would seem, are "stable" only because force and energy are being supplied into their physical nuclear binding fields from "outside" the system.
Whatever we may think of God and physics, the Bible leaves us with no room to doubt that God does care about the sparrow that falls to the ground, the widow, the orphan, and the homeless. He does not lose track of His children and watches over them with infinite, patient, intimate Fatherly care. Not only does He sustain the universe by His mighty word of power, God also alters the status quo from time to time and, in response to prayer, frequently changes the course of entire nations. In a future day his intrusive reinterven-tion will be very radical indeed.
Another important claim of Scripture about the old creation is that God is the present Sustainer of the universe. That is, He is not uninvolved, remote, detached and impersonal-leaving things to run by themselves by any means.
Among secular scientists today there are many who acknowledge that God exists. But He is usually considered as only a First Cause-the One who brought the universe into existence and set it into motion. But most of these same scientists assume God was not involved after the initial act of creation.
This is contrary to clear statements in the Bible that God is very much involved in every event that takes place in the ongoing history of the entire universe. Causality links everything together, because God "works (Gr: energizes) all things according to the counsel of His will." (Ephesians 1:11.)
The opening verses of the Letter to the Hebrews give us another New Testament picture of God's role in the creation:
[But] in the last of these days He has spoken to us in [the person of a] Son, Whom He appointed Heir and lawful Owner of all things, also by and through Whom He created the worlds and the reaches of space and the ages of time-[that is] [He made, produced, built, operated, and arranged them in order]. He is the sole expression of the glory of God-[the Light-being, the out-raying or radiance of the divine],-and He is the perfect imprint and very image of [God's] nature, upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by His mighty word of power..." Hebrews 1:2-3 (Amplified Bible)
A fifth great New Testament passage concerning Jesus and His place in creation is found in Revelation Chapter 1:
"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. I John, your brother, who share with you in Jesus the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet... When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand upon me, saying, "Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one; I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades." Revelation 1:8-10,17-18
Here Jesus is called "the Alpha and Omega," "the First and the Last." Not only is Jesus the Son of God to be found at the beginning of history, He also stands at the end of history and at the end of every life. He is the Judge of all, and He is the heir of all things.
Science and the Bible
Truth from science must in the long run agree with Biblical revelation-if the Bible is true. If the Bible "says what it means and means what it says" (to quote Chuck Missler) then it is Jesus who holds the universe in his hands just as the old American folk spiritual says.
Our moment-by-moment existence depends on His gracious sustenance of every electron, every atom, every molecule and every spiritual entity as well. We are safe when we place our trust in Him and put our whole lives into His hands! Can we not then stand in awe of our great God and Creator, along with the Psalmist who wrote:
"O come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it; for his hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would hearken to his voice!" Psalm 95:1-7
What holds it all together-if anything?
These are questions gaining more attention these days as our knowledge data base in astronomy and astrophysics increases, and old brought into question. There theories are is much that can be said about these questions from the Biblical revelation.
New Testament References
Several separate passages in the New Testament make reference to the creation of the universe. For example, John's gospel speaks of an earlier state of existence than is described in Verse 1 of Genesis:
"In the beginning was the Word, [logos] and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; [i.e., before creation] all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made." John 1:1-3
This passage teaches that Jesus was eternally existent with God the Father prior to the creation of "all things." There was a time when our material and spiritual universe did not exist. It had a definite beginning. But before that, God was. In fact, God is-because time itself was created by God.
Chapter One of Paul's Epistle to the Colossians gives a further description of the role of Jesus in creation, consistent with that of John's gospel:
[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the first-born [prototokos] of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities [these words in Greek refer to the hierarchical angelic powers]-all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:15-17
The Holy Spirit, in giving us this inspired passage of Scripture, explains that all things (both visible and invisible) in the entire universe were created through this same Jesus, the eternal Word. We may think of the universe and its intricate design as being conceived in the mind of the Father, then spoken into existence by the Son (who makes the invisible, visible). The Holy Spirit is the One who energizes and supplies life to the creation, not only at the time of creation but also moment by moment after that.
We are also told that all things were created for Jesus. He is "the heir of all things." That means that we are house guests in Someone Else's universe! This implies a future accountability for all of us-history is headed somewhere-at the end of the road stands Jesus, to whom all power and authority has already been given (see John 5:22-29).
A. W. Tozer, Pastor at Moody Bible Church in Chicago some 50 years ago, once wrote of this as follows:
The teaching of the New Testament is that now, at this very moment, there is a Man in heaven appearing in the presence of God for us. He is as certainly a man as was Adam or Moses or Paul; he is a man glorified, but his glorification did not de-humanize him. Today he is a real man, of the race of mankind, bearing our lineaments and dimensions, a visible and audible man, whom any other man would recognize instantly as one of us.
But more than this, he is the heir of all things, Lord of all lords, head of the church, firstborn of the new creation. He is the way to God, the life of the believer, the hope of Israel, and the high priest of every true worshiper. He holds the keys of death and hell, and stands as advocate and surety for everyone who believes on him in truth. Salvation comes not by accepting the finished work, or deciding for Christ; it comes by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, the whole, living, victorious Lord who, as God and man, fought our fight and won it, accepted our debt as his own and paid it, took our sins and died under them, and rose again to set us free. This is the true Christ; nothing less will do.
All Things "Hold Together"
One of the key words in the Colossians passage above ("...and in Christ all things hold together") is the Greek word sunistemi which means "to stand-together," "to be compacted together," "to cohere," "to be constituted with."
This passage can be applied to the structure of the atom, for example. The nucleus of every atom is held together by what physicists call "weak" and "strong" forces.
[Physicists today are familiar with four basic forces in the natural world: gravity and electrical forces, plus a "strong" and a "weak" nuclear force. The first two forces decrease in strength inversely with the square of the distance between two objects; the latter two forces act only at very short ranges.]
The nucleus of the atom contains positively charged and neutral particles-to use a simplistic model. Mutual electrostatic repulsion between the like-positive protons would drive the nucleus apart if it were not for the "strong force" which binds the nucleus together.
There is thus an active force imposed on the universe, which actively holds the very atoms of the material world together moment by moment, day by day, century by century.
Similarly, accelerated electrons circling the nucleus should quickly radiate all their energy away and fall into the nucleus unless there exists an invisible energy source to counteract this.
The third New Testament creation-related passage which talks about atomic structure and physics is found in the Apostle Peter's Second Epistle:
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise [rhoizedon, a rushing roar] and the elements [stoicheion, atoms] will be dissolved with fire and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up. 2 Peter 3:10 The Greek word translated "elements" in the above mentioned passage from Colossians (and in 2 Peter also) is stoicheion, which can mean "the building blocks of the universe," or "the ordered arrangement of things." It can also mean the "atomic elements." The word translated "dissolved" in 2 Peter 3:10 is literally (in Greek) luo, meaning "unloosed." This language suggests that there will come a time in the future when God lets go of the nuclear forces which hold the atom together. This passage, like the one in Colossians, strongly suggests that the active power of God is behind the mysterious strong force that holds every atomic nucleus together. If this is so, all the other fundamental forces of nature are likewise forces that originate with Christ and His sustaining direction of the old creation.
Sustaining the Universe
If God "sustains the universe by His mighty word of power," moment by moment, were He to merely relax His grasp on the universe, every atom would come apart "by fire" (that is, by nuclear fire). It is inescapable that the Bible claims that God dynamically sustains the universe, including the very atoms themselves. Atoms, it would seem, are "stable" only because force and energy are being supplied into their physical nuclear binding fields from "outside" the system.
Whatever we may think of God and physics, the Bible leaves us with no room to doubt that God does care about the sparrow that falls to the ground, the widow, the orphan, and the homeless. He does not lose track of His children and watches over them with infinite, patient, intimate Fatherly care. Not only does He sustain the universe by His mighty word of power, God also alters the status quo from time to time and, in response to prayer, frequently changes the course of entire nations. In a future day his intrusive reinterven-tion will be very radical indeed.
Another important claim of Scripture about the old creation is that God is the present Sustainer of the universe. That is, He is not uninvolved, remote, detached and impersonal-leaving things to run by themselves by any means.
Among secular scientists today there are many who acknowledge that God exists. But He is usually considered as only a First Cause-the One who brought the universe into existence and set it into motion. But most of these same scientists assume God was not involved after the initial act of creation.
This is contrary to clear statements in the Bible that God is very much involved in every event that takes place in the ongoing history of the entire universe. Causality links everything together, because God "works (Gr: energizes) all things according to the counsel of His will." (Ephesians 1:11.)
The opening verses of the Letter to the Hebrews give us another New Testament picture of God's role in the creation:
[But] in the last of these days He has spoken to us in [the person of a] Son, Whom He appointed Heir and lawful Owner of all things, also by and through Whom He created the worlds and the reaches of space and the ages of time-[that is] [He made, produced, built, operated, and arranged them in order]. He is the sole expression of the glory of God-[the Light-being, the out-raying or radiance of the divine],-and He is the perfect imprint and very image of [God's] nature, upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by His mighty word of power..." Hebrews 1:2-3 (Amplified Bible)
A fifth great New Testament passage concerning Jesus and His place in creation is found in Revelation Chapter 1:
"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. I John, your brother, who share with you in Jesus the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet... When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand upon me, saying, "Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one; I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades." Revelation 1:8-10,17-18
Here Jesus is called "the Alpha and Omega," "the First and the Last." Not only is Jesus the Son of God to be found at the beginning of history, He also stands at the end of history and at the end of every life. He is the Judge of all, and He is the heir of all things.
Science and the Bible
Truth from science must in the long run agree with Biblical revelation-if the Bible is true. If the Bible "says what it means and means what it says" (to quote Chuck Missler) then it is Jesus who holds the universe in his hands just as the old American folk spiritual says.
Our moment-by-moment existence depends on His gracious sustenance of every electron, every atom, every molecule and every spiritual entity as well. We are safe when we place our trust in Him and put our whole lives into His hands! Can we not then stand in awe of our great God and Creator, along with the Psalmist who wrote:
"O come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it; for his hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would hearken to his voice!" Psalm 95:1-7
Last month we reviewed passages in the New Testament that refer to God's creation of the universe. We learned that all created things in the material and spiritual realms were created through Jesus, the eternal Son of God. Also, everything was created for Jesus - He is the heir of all things.
Third, the moment-by-moment control of the universe is determined in minutest detail by God-down from the Throne of God through the ranks of angels and into the created order.
We also saw in our last study that active force fields applied from outside the known, physical universe are required to hold everything together in a stable configuration. This is succinctly stated by the Apostle Paul in Colossians, "In Christ all things cohere (are held together)."
This month we'll look at a related subject - the likelihood that external energy flows into our known universe from outside on a continual basis. This energy appears literally out of nowhere; that is, from empty space - "the vacuum."
History of the Aether
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) taught that the physical world was made up of four elements: air, earth, fire and water. Tying these together (so that the "elements" intercommunicated) was a "subtle" medium, a fifth element-the aether (pron. E-ther). This element was later known as the vacuum (Latin: vacuus, "empty").
In a sense, the aether was the substratum of the material world. The Greeks believed that "nature abhors a vacuum" so they could not imagine space as being totally empty. They also believed the stars were suspended from, or attached to, a rotating crystalline shell at a fixed distance from the earth. When some of the "stars" (planets) were observed to be moving with respect to the "fixed" stars, a series of rotating crystal spheres was postulated.
The earth was believed to be fixed, immovable, and at the center of the cosmos. Not until the 16th century were these Greek (Ptolemaic) ideas challenged by the Copernican revolution. And until Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) challenged the notion, the velocity of light was assumed by most everyone to be infinite, so the nature of the space between the earth and the crystal spheres was not of great concern.
Solid or Empty Space?
Rene Descartes (1596-1640) championed the theory that the aether was a plenum, from the Greek word meaning "full." Because it was so difficult for the scientists of that era to understand "action at a distance," Descartes imagined that a very dense medium of very small particles pervaded everything. This medium was capable of transmitting force from one object to another by collisions. The aether "particles" were in constant motion and there were no spaces between the particles. In a sense the aether was more solid than matter, yet invisible. Descartes' universe was purely a "mechanical universe" and his theories were soon superseded.
In 1644, Galileo's former secretary, Evangelista Torricelli, filled a long glass tube with mercury. Inverting the tube into a dish of mercury he observed that the mercury dropped some 30 inches at the closed upper end of the tube, thereby creating what was obviously a vacuum. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) took this work even further and soon everyone was convinced that the vacuum of space was empty after all.
If light were corpuscular in nature, as some believed, it was not difficult to image light "particles" (we now call them photons) that could traverse a pure vacuum without the necessity of a real medium pervading space.
But other experiments soon began to show that light was a wave phenomenon. Of course waves could travel through the plenum aether by collisions, however at the time only compressional waves were imagined. [Sound waves or seismic waves are compressional in nature, for instance, but light waves proved to be transverse.]
In parallel with all these growing controversies, the velocity of light was finally measured by Olaf Roemer in 1675 and found to be finite, although the values he obtained were a few percent higher than the present value of 299,792.4358 km/sec.
Maxwell's Equations
By the time of Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), the aether was believed by many scientists to be "luminiferous." That is, the aether was said to be more fluid than solid, though it was elastic, and therefore it was a medium which would support waves. James Clerk Maxwell (1839-1879) enjoyed great success when he found a set of equations which beautifully described how light waves could travel through such a luminiferous aether. He showed that light waves are composed of oscillating electric and magnetic vectors in an x-y plane for a wave traveling in the z-direction. For a wave to exist at all, it is natural to suppose that there is some sort of supporting medium. Such a medium must possess elasticity (a spring-like property) and also inertia (a mass-like property). In fact, the velocity of a wave in any medium is equal to the square root of the stiffness divided by the density of the medium.
In the case of electromagnetic waves (gamma rays, x-rays, radio waves, heat, and light of various wavelengths), Maxwell found that the aether possessed an electric-field scaling parameter, called "dielectric permittivity," and a magnetic-field scaling parameter, called permeability, such that the velocity of light was equal to one over the square root of permeability times permittivity.
In support of the notion that the aether was a real medium, it was observed that empty space behaved like a transmission line with a "characteristic impedance" of 377 ohms (which is the ratio of permeability to permittivity for "free space.")
Maxwell's equations also explained how light slows down in glass, in gases, and in water-because media other than the vacuum had differing permeability and permittivity. The aether was once again thought of as a very real medium which could be stretched or compressed-it had resilience or compliance and inertia. Yet no known physical substance had a stiffness to mass density ratio anywhere near 9 x 1016, which was required of the aether as a medium. The aether appeared to possess elasticity but negligible inertia.
Michelson and Morley
The idea that some kind of aether medium existed prevailed until 1887, when Michelson and Morley utilized an interferometer in an attempt to detect the relative motion of the earth and the aether-the aether must be viscous and should be dragged along at least partially with the earth.
According to 19th century preconceptions, the velocity of the earth going around the sun should be about 30 km/sec. Yet when the measurements were made, no motion of the earth relative to the aether could be detected. In other words, the aether apparently did not exist. Until Einstein's Theory of Relativity was published in 1905, the negative result of the "M-M" experiment baffled scientists.
Einstein's Theory
Einstein showed that the velocity of light has the same value in all reference frames, whatever their velocity may be relative to other frames. From this point modern physics took off in the direction of Special and General Relativity Theory, and Quantum Mechanics.
For many scientists the notion that an actual aether medium existed was simply discarded. Yet the apparent non-existence of an aether raised many other problems, and the "M-M" experiment is not the end of the story.
Zero-Point" Energy
If all the air molecules are pumped out of a chamber, the chamber still contains residual radiation (electromagnetic noise from stars, x-rays, and heat radiation). Even before quantum mechanics, it was shown by classical radiation theory that if the temperature of the container is lowered to absolute zero, there remains a residual amount of thermal energy that can not by any means be removed. This residual energy in an empty container at absolute zero was named "zero-point energy (ZPE)."
Contemporary physicist Dr. Hal E. Putoff notes that the "vacuum" is a vast reservoir of seething energy out of which particles are being formed and annihilated constantly. The energy potentials in the vacuum are staggering, but most of the time the forces involved balance each other out to zero. Zero point energy, he says... "is the energy of empty space... Finally when quantum theory was developed, it became absolutely clear that space, if you look at it in a microscopic scale, is more like the base of a waterfall with a lot of frothy, seething activity going on, rather than just something like a placid, empty space... This is, by the way, not a fringe concept. It is a basic underlying concept in modern quantum theory."
Putoff continues, "When the idea of the hydrogen atom was first put forward... one of the questions at the time was: why doesn't the electron simply radiate its energy away and spiral into the nucleus, in a way similar to the way our satellites have certain losses and spiral into the planet? At the time, the answer was simply, well it is just the magic of quantum theory, it doesn't obey classical rules, and for some reason hydrogen atoms are like little perpetual motion machines. But in fact, from the standpoint of the zero point energy approach... indeed you expect an electron in a hydrogen atom to radiate its energy away, but it picks up energy from the background zero point energy and therefore is sustained by it. What that means in terms of physics is that it shows why atoms can be seen as perpetual motion machines; it is just that they always have an energy input from the background to make up for the losses."
Australian Astronomer Barry Setterfield has, in the past year, picked up on this latest theory of the vacuum to explain the red shift of light from distant galaxies. Arizona astronomer William Tifft's research has recently shown that red-shifted light from the stars is quantized-this turns out to be also related to ZPE.
Setterfield's new model also takes into account the evidence that the velocity of light is not a fixed constant. Setterfield concludes that the universe is not expanding at all (as the Big Bang model has long supposed) but is static (it has a fixed diameter).
The original energy input of outside energy on Day Two of creation-when God stretched out the firmament to its maximum expanse-accounts for the red-shift and the subsequent velocity of light decrease! Setterfield has also provided a rough calculation at the rate at which "outside" energy from the "vacuum" would have to be fed into the universe per square meter per second if Hal Putoff is correct, and electrons orbiting the nucleus do radiate energy after all. The compensatory energy that must be constantly supplied from the vacuum is a staggering 1.071 x 10117 kilowatts per square meter! (That's a 1 followed by 117 zeroes.)
It is an old tenant of philosophy that ex nihilo nihil fit - out of nothing nothing comes. To imagine that vast amounts of energy flow into our physical universe from nowhere, from empty space, out of the "vacuum," at first appears impossible. To save the day, we must resort either to magic or we must seek some rational explanation in Biblical revelation. The latter is not hard to do.
The Second Day of Creation
On the Second Day of creation week:
God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. (Gen 1:6-8)
The Hebrew word usually translated as firmament (raqia) strongly suggests an originally superdense medium stretched out very thin ("like a tent") on the second day of creation week. This means that what God created on Day One and Two was time, matter, energy, and space (the aether). These, evidently, are the building blocks from which He constructed the universe.
A careful examination of Biblical references to the terms "firmament," "the heavens" and "the heavenly places" and how they are used will show that the Bible depicts the spiritual realm as more solid, more substantial, and more permanent than the present observable, "material" world.
When God created the universe he created it "two-storied." The spiritual realm is where the angels dwell. It is so much more solid and substantial and permanent than our fading material world that we can best describe ourselves as ghosts in a shadow-like world surrounded and embedded in the more substantial world of the spirit.
This view of heaven is beautifully portrayed by C.S. Lewis in his fictional study, The Great Divorce.
Thinking of heaven as more solid than the material world suggests the aether is intensely solid, with objects in the physical world being akin to voids in the plenum of space. It is as if we had come full circle all the way back to Descartes!
What Is Aether Made of?
If the vacuum is not no-thing, what is the aether made of? It can not be pure spirit or even "condensed spirit" or we would be flirting with pantheism, because God is a Spirit, the angels and men are created spirits, and each of these is a "life-form." But the aether is not alive.
The aether does appear to have real metric properties which can change as space is expanded or contracted-it appears to be a substance that is more a part of the created spiritual world than a tangible physical substance.
Is the aether the substrate, the boundary layer, between our physical material world and the created world of the spirit (called in Scripture "the heavenly places")? This is probably not an unreasonable working hypothesis.
God's Energetic Involvement
From behind the curtains of our present world, God supplies not only force but also energy to sustain the created order. In more ways than one we owe not only our lives, but the moment-by-moment sustenance of the physical universe to His energetic involvement.
Knowing the Creator, personally, gives us every reason to feel secure and to stand in awe of Almighty God, who has by no means left us alone in the cosmos-its very existence is a direct expression of His power and His will!
Third, the moment-by-moment control of the universe is determined in minutest detail by God-down from the Throne of God through the ranks of angels and into the created order.
We also saw in our last study that active force fields applied from outside the known, physical universe are required to hold everything together in a stable configuration. This is succinctly stated by the Apostle Paul in Colossians, "In Christ all things cohere (are held together)."
This month we'll look at a related subject - the likelihood that external energy flows into our known universe from outside on a continual basis. This energy appears literally out of nowhere; that is, from empty space - "the vacuum."
History of the Aether
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) taught that the physical world was made up of four elements: air, earth, fire and water. Tying these together (so that the "elements" intercommunicated) was a "subtle" medium, a fifth element-the aether (pron. E-ther). This element was later known as the vacuum (Latin: vacuus, "empty").
In a sense, the aether was the substratum of the material world. The Greeks believed that "nature abhors a vacuum" so they could not imagine space as being totally empty. They also believed the stars were suspended from, or attached to, a rotating crystalline shell at a fixed distance from the earth. When some of the "stars" (planets) were observed to be moving with respect to the "fixed" stars, a series of rotating crystal spheres was postulated.
The earth was believed to be fixed, immovable, and at the center of the cosmos. Not until the 16th century were these Greek (Ptolemaic) ideas challenged by the Copernican revolution. And until Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) challenged the notion, the velocity of light was assumed by most everyone to be infinite, so the nature of the space between the earth and the crystal spheres was not of great concern.
Solid or Empty Space?
Rene Descartes (1596-1640) championed the theory that the aether was a plenum, from the Greek word meaning "full." Because it was so difficult for the scientists of that era to understand "action at a distance," Descartes imagined that a very dense medium of very small particles pervaded everything. This medium was capable of transmitting force from one object to another by collisions. The aether "particles" were in constant motion and there were no spaces between the particles. In a sense the aether was more solid than matter, yet invisible. Descartes' universe was purely a "mechanical universe" and his theories were soon superseded.
In 1644, Galileo's former secretary, Evangelista Torricelli, filled a long glass tube with mercury. Inverting the tube into a dish of mercury he observed that the mercury dropped some 30 inches at the closed upper end of the tube, thereby creating what was obviously a vacuum. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) took this work even further and soon everyone was convinced that the vacuum of space was empty after all.
If light were corpuscular in nature, as some believed, it was not difficult to image light "particles" (we now call them photons) that could traverse a pure vacuum without the necessity of a real medium pervading space.
But other experiments soon began to show that light was a wave phenomenon. Of course waves could travel through the plenum aether by collisions, however at the time only compressional waves were imagined. [Sound waves or seismic waves are compressional in nature, for instance, but light waves proved to be transverse.]
In parallel with all these growing controversies, the velocity of light was finally measured by Olaf Roemer in 1675 and found to be finite, although the values he obtained were a few percent higher than the present value of 299,792.4358 km/sec.
Maxwell's Equations
By the time of Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), the aether was believed by many scientists to be "luminiferous." That is, the aether was said to be more fluid than solid, though it was elastic, and therefore it was a medium which would support waves. James Clerk Maxwell (1839-1879) enjoyed great success when he found a set of equations which beautifully described how light waves could travel through such a luminiferous aether. He showed that light waves are composed of oscillating electric and magnetic vectors in an x-y plane for a wave traveling in the z-direction. For a wave to exist at all, it is natural to suppose that there is some sort of supporting medium. Such a medium must possess elasticity (a spring-like property) and also inertia (a mass-like property). In fact, the velocity of a wave in any medium is equal to the square root of the stiffness divided by the density of the medium.
In the case of electromagnetic waves (gamma rays, x-rays, radio waves, heat, and light of various wavelengths), Maxwell found that the aether possessed an electric-field scaling parameter, called "dielectric permittivity," and a magnetic-field scaling parameter, called permeability, such that the velocity of light was equal to one over the square root of permeability times permittivity.
In support of the notion that the aether was a real medium, it was observed that empty space behaved like a transmission line with a "characteristic impedance" of 377 ohms (which is the ratio of permeability to permittivity for "free space.")
Maxwell's equations also explained how light slows down in glass, in gases, and in water-because media other than the vacuum had differing permeability and permittivity. The aether was once again thought of as a very real medium which could be stretched or compressed-it had resilience or compliance and inertia. Yet no known physical substance had a stiffness to mass density ratio anywhere near 9 x 1016, which was required of the aether as a medium. The aether appeared to possess elasticity but negligible inertia.
Michelson and Morley
The idea that some kind of aether medium existed prevailed until 1887, when Michelson and Morley utilized an interferometer in an attempt to detect the relative motion of the earth and the aether-the aether must be viscous and should be dragged along at least partially with the earth.
According to 19th century preconceptions, the velocity of the earth going around the sun should be about 30 km/sec. Yet when the measurements were made, no motion of the earth relative to the aether could be detected. In other words, the aether apparently did not exist. Until Einstein's Theory of Relativity was published in 1905, the negative result of the "M-M" experiment baffled scientists.
Einstein's Theory
Einstein showed that the velocity of light has the same value in all reference frames, whatever their velocity may be relative to other frames. From this point modern physics took off in the direction of Special and General Relativity Theory, and Quantum Mechanics.
For many scientists the notion that an actual aether medium existed was simply discarded. Yet the apparent non-existence of an aether raised many other problems, and the "M-M" experiment is not the end of the story.
Zero-Point" Energy
If all the air molecules are pumped out of a chamber, the chamber still contains residual radiation (electromagnetic noise from stars, x-rays, and heat radiation). Even before quantum mechanics, it was shown by classical radiation theory that if the temperature of the container is lowered to absolute zero, there remains a residual amount of thermal energy that can not by any means be removed. This residual energy in an empty container at absolute zero was named "zero-point energy (ZPE)."
Contemporary physicist Dr. Hal E. Putoff notes that the "vacuum" is a vast reservoir of seething energy out of which particles are being formed and annihilated constantly. The energy potentials in the vacuum are staggering, but most of the time the forces involved balance each other out to zero. Zero point energy, he says... "is the energy of empty space... Finally when quantum theory was developed, it became absolutely clear that space, if you look at it in a microscopic scale, is more like the base of a waterfall with a lot of frothy, seething activity going on, rather than just something like a placid, empty space... This is, by the way, not a fringe concept. It is a basic underlying concept in modern quantum theory."
Putoff continues, "When the idea of the hydrogen atom was first put forward... one of the questions at the time was: why doesn't the electron simply radiate its energy away and spiral into the nucleus, in a way similar to the way our satellites have certain losses and spiral into the planet? At the time, the answer was simply, well it is just the magic of quantum theory, it doesn't obey classical rules, and for some reason hydrogen atoms are like little perpetual motion machines. But in fact, from the standpoint of the zero point energy approach... indeed you expect an electron in a hydrogen atom to radiate its energy away, but it picks up energy from the background zero point energy and therefore is sustained by it. What that means in terms of physics is that it shows why atoms can be seen as perpetual motion machines; it is just that they always have an energy input from the background to make up for the losses."
Australian Astronomer Barry Setterfield has, in the past year, picked up on this latest theory of the vacuum to explain the red shift of light from distant galaxies. Arizona astronomer William Tifft's research has recently shown that red-shifted light from the stars is quantized-this turns out to be also related to ZPE.
Setterfield's new model also takes into account the evidence that the velocity of light is not a fixed constant. Setterfield concludes that the universe is not expanding at all (as the Big Bang model has long supposed) but is static (it has a fixed diameter).
The original energy input of outside energy on Day Two of creation-when God stretched out the firmament to its maximum expanse-accounts for the red-shift and the subsequent velocity of light decrease! Setterfield has also provided a rough calculation at the rate at which "outside" energy from the "vacuum" would have to be fed into the universe per square meter per second if Hal Putoff is correct, and electrons orbiting the nucleus do radiate energy after all. The compensatory energy that must be constantly supplied from the vacuum is a staggering 1.071 x 10117 kilowatts per square meter! (That's a 1 followed by 117 zeroes.)
It is an old tenant of philosophy that ex nihilo nihil fit - out of nothing nothing comes. To imagine that vast amounts of energy flow into our physical universe from nowhere, from empty space, out of the "vacuum," at first appears impossible. To save the day, we must resort either to magic or we must seek some rational explanation in Biblical revelation. The latter is not hard to do.
The Second Day of Creation
On the Second Day of creation week:
God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. (Gen 1:6-8)
The Hebrew word usually translated as firmament (raqia) strongly suggests an originally superdense medium stretched out very thin ("like a tent") on the second day of creation week. This means that what God created on Day One and Two was time, matter, energy, and space (the aether). These, evidently, are the building blocks from which He constructed the universe.
A careful examination of Biblical references to the terms "firmament," "the heavens" and "the heavenly places" and how they are used will show that the Bible depicts the spiritual realm as more solid, more substantial, and more permanent than the present observable, "material" world.
When God created the universe he created it "two-storied." The spiritual realm is where the angels dwell. It is so much more solid and substantial and permanent than our fading material world that we can best describe ourselves as ghosts in a shadow-like world surrounded and embedded in the more substantial world of the spirit.
This view of heaven is beautifully portrayed by C.S. Lewis in his fictional study, The Great Divorce.
Thinking of heaven as more solid than the material world suggests the aether is intensely solid, with objects in the physical world being akin to voids in the plenum of space. It is as if we had come full circle all the way back to Descartes!
What Is Aether Made of?
If the vacuum is not no-thing, what is the aether made of? It can not be pure spirit or even "condensed spirit" or we would be flirting with pantheism, because God is a Spirit, the angels and men are created spirits, and each of these is a "life-form." But the aether is not alive.
The aether does appear to have real metric properties which can change as space is expanded or contracted-it appears to be a substance that is more a part of the created spiritual world than a tangible physical substance.
Is the aether the substrate, the boundary layer, between our physical material world and the created world of the spirit (called in Scripture "the heavenly places")? This is probably not an unreasonable working hypothesis.
God's Energetic Involvement
From behind the curtains of our present world, God supplies not only force but also energy to sustain the created order. In more ways than one we owe not only our lives, but the moment-by-moment sustenance of the physical universe to His energetic involvement.
Knowing the Creator, personally, gives us every reason to feel secure and to stand in awe of Almighty God, who has by no means left us alone in the cosmos-its very existence is a direct expression of His power and His will!
Jake,
If someone or something had to create God then something had to create the something that created the thing that created God etc....etc...so as the Bible explains God has always existed. Our minds are too feable to understand the concept of eternity. God has always existed and will always exist...I can't grasp it mentally either but I believe and accept it. I posted on this topic once before..for all doubter's the proof that God exists is women. If you read in Genesis..."it was not good for man to be alone." God saw man was lonely so he created woman. A beautiful but impossibly difficult creature that men were highly attracted to and basically cannot live or live without (generalizing here). As much as they drive us nuts we still chase them and want,need them...and this according to evolutionists just happened by space dust exploding??? Women are "designed" for men to be attracted to (most posters don't need an anatomy lesson from me). Nature...plants,animals,birds,fish,mountains rivers, oceans,winds,the sun, stars,planets all signs of God's creation not just a "big bang." Just one man's humble opinion.
[This message was edited by VOLTITAN on July 04, 2003 at 11:49 PM.]
If someone or something had to create God then something had to create the something that created the thing that created God etc....etc...so as the Bible explains God has always existed. Our minds are too feable to understand the concept of eternity. God has always existed and will always exist...I can't grasp it mentally either but I believe and accept it. I posted on this topic once before..for all doubter's the proof that God exists is women. If you read in Genesis..."it was not good for man to be alone." God saw man was lonely so he created woman. A beautiful but impossibly difficult creature that men were highly attracted to and basically cannot live or live without (generalizing here). As much as they drive us nuts we still chase them and want,need them...and this according to evolutionists just happened by space dust exploding??? Women are "designed" for men to be attracted to (most posters don't need an anatomy lesson from me). Nature...plants,animals,birds,fish,mountains rivers, oceans,winds,the sun, stars,planets all signs of God's creation not just a "big bang." Just one man's humble opinion.
[This message was edited by VOLTITAN on July 04, 2003 at 11:49 PM.]
The eternal question, is there a god or isn't there a god. The Egyptians worshipped the sun as well as many other gods and goddesses. The greeks thought Zeus was the supreme god of the heavens. The Romans thought that Venus and Adonis were gods. Is there god? Sure there is some type of supreme being or more andvanced species than humans but we have no idea what it is. In 1,000 years we'll look at our religions of today the same we we look at the ancient Egyptian religions. We think worshipping the sun is silly. Why does religion exist? It exists to control people. I was raised a catholic. I see many people use God to control kids. They tell them that it's a sin to do this or that and it really scares the kids. Not only does it scare the kids but the adults as well.
I don't like getting in religious discussions, but as you asked for books to read I'd like to recommend two: The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes and the somewhat less cumbersomely-titled Consciousness Explained by Daniel C. Dennet (and almost anything else the latter author has written.) Both are very interesting and thought-provoking reads.
In a sort of counter-balance, C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity is one of the most insightful explorations of faith you are ever likely to find.
Phaedrus
In a sort of counter-balance, C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity is one of the most insightful explorations of faith you are ever likely to find.
Phaedrus
