Posted on 04/25/2017 6:52:00 AM PDT by Kaslin
In “A Big Bang in a Little Room,” Zeeya Merali describes the consensus among science’s biggest brains: “The notion that a god made our universe is several rungs on the wackiness ladder above the idea that it was made by aliens.” Nevertheless, Merali describes herself as both a believer in God and the holder of an Ivy League Ph.D. in theoretical physics, so she asks a good question: If God desired to send us a message, how would He do it?
Thirty-two years ago Carl Sagan’s novel “Contact” included speculation about finding a code in the digits of pi, which starts out 3.14159 and keeps going forever -- but no one’s found it. Others said God might encode a message within the human genome -- but that would be useful only for creatures on this planet. Merali suggests a message embedded in background radiation, so any sufficiently advanced creatures anywhere in the universe could perceive it. (Astronomers learn about distant galaxies and galaxy clusters by mapping tiny radiation wrinkles.)
The time to engrave such a message in the sky would be at the moment of creation, Merali writes: “Think of it like drawing a smiley face in marker on a balloon straight out of the package. Blow up the balloon and the picture stretches with the rubber. In the same way, as the cosmos rapidly inflated, its creator’s message would shine out across the whole sky.” She says no one has found such a message thus far, thus disappointing those who believe in God.
No such message? With respect for Merali, who writes charmingly, I think she’s wrong, for three reasons.
First, we live on a Goldilocks “just right” planet within a Goldilocks universe. The “RTB Design Compendium” at reasons.org lists nearly 1,500 features of the universe and Earth that must fall within narrow ranges to allow for the possibility of life, and then advanced life. For example: We need a particular composition of the Earth’s core and atmosphere, a particular Earth axis tilt and rotation speed, particular capillary action and surface tension, and so on.
We exist because of things most of us know nothing about: cosmic ray protons, intergalactic hydrogen gas clouds, molecular hydrogen formed by supernova eruptions, etc. If one loose definition of miracle is “a highly improbable or extraordinary event,” look at the likelihood of simple bacteria being able to survive anywhere in the universe apart from divine action: 1 chance in 10 followed by 556 zeros. What about the likelihood of advanced life? One chance in 10 followed by 1,054 zeros.
In February’s Super Bowl the New England Patriots trailed by 25 points with 17 minutes and 7 seconds left in the game. They managed to tie the game and win it in overtime: Headlines proclaimed “a miracle comeback.” But what if the Patriots had trailed by 8,216 points and needed to score one touchdown (plus two extra points) in every one of those 1,027 seconds left in the game? That gives us a sense of the unlikeliness of our existence purely through material causes -- and we’d have to multiply that physical improbability/impossibility by about a trillion. (That’s why some atheistic scientists grab on to the wacky multiverse theory.)
The second proof of God’s existence: 20th-century theodicy. Decisions by three atheists -- Mao, Stalin, and Hitler -- led to 100 million deaths. Some people say that shows a merciful God does not exist, but we should flip the surmise: Atheism kills, and we’ve seen since the 1930s what happens when we worship human gods. (Yes, some “Christians” have also murdered, in smaller quantities, but they also claimed godlike status.) God warns us throughout the Bible that sin has consequences: Should we consider Him a liar because He tells the truth?
Why don’t we wake up every morning and realize our existence is miraculous? Maybe because so much noise surrounds us. But here’s a third reason to believe in God: I’ve met some men in their 20s whose thinking as teens was so destructive that it looked as if they would soon be dead, imprisoned, or traitorous. I was one of them. But “the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end” -- and the Bible tells me so.
God has sent a message, not in background radiation but in our existence, our history, and in what should be our daily reading.
All throughout the Old Testament, there are ‘plays on words’ and puns in Hebrew, though not as evident in English.
It seems that the ancient Hebrews loved word play...........................
“By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent.”
Job 26:13
Double gravitational lensing around a binary star?
“If God desired to send us a message, how would He do it?”
” .... a still small voice.”
God communicates with us in so many ways.
1 Kings 19:11-12 King James Version (KJV)
11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:
12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
“if the planets are expanding, wasn’t earth in venus’s orbit millions of years ago? And couldn’t mars have been in earth’s orbit millions of years ago?”
The space is expanding, not the planets. The arrangement of planets shouldn’t change as space expands, since the arrangement is dictated by the forces that bind the solar system together in equilibrium. That equilibrium remains the same unless the elements of the system change, or the laws of physics that govern it change.
Say Cheese! Hubble Telescope Sees Cosmic Smiley Face in Space:
http://www.space.com/28512-cosmic-smiley-face-hubble-photo.html
If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into?..................
So true. Here is an excellent video on the cell:
Wonder of the Cell - Dr. Georgia Purdom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrDBl9ywM3A
Are the planets expanding?
I haven’t heard that, but my answer would be the same- I don’t know.
I wonder if ‘earth’ would be ‘here’ if it wasn’t for everything up there.
you mention mars and venus, if those weren’t where they are, would earth, His footstool, be what we know of it today?
Is everything up there playing a role that allows ‘earth’ to be ‘earth’?
By definition, nothing, or at least nothing that science is in a position to comment on.
This is a good read.
Look at your hand.Hold it up and flex your fingers.No one can tell me that it’s the product of evolution.
No kidding! Even the first word is a visual pun, because "In the beginning" (בראשית) is followed by the word "created" (ברא). The second word *is* the first three letters of the first word (same order), so it makes a simple dumb statement:
"'In the beginning' (bet resh alef shin yud tav) is bet resh alef."
Well, yeah. ;)
Tells you right there that this God of Abraham (אברהם) is quite the character. The first three letters Abraham are those same three letters, alef bet resh.
In looking again at the letters in DNA, the letters spell out in full (by their names) as
[dalet (434) + yud (20)] + [alef (111) + nun (106)] + [alef (111) + yud (20) + yud (20)] = 822 = 411 x 2
And that's exactly what DNA is, information encoded on a double helix. The principle in the Bible WRT doubled information (and doubled verbs) is one of surety, validation.
Who cares who made the Universe or if, in fact, it was made at all? The question is unanswerable with our current state of knowledge, it’s all speculation. The salient point is that THE UNIVERSE IS KNOWABLE and we are the agents of that knowledge, thus, as a matter of direct observation, not hubris, WE ARE GODS. If we are made “in his image”, we are gods. OK, some of us are too stupid to realize our birthright, to stupid to learn, but that’s a temporary statistic in the Age of Info. We are gods so we better damned well start acting like it and stop acting like knee jerk thoughtless idiots. If you are capable of putting new, unfiltered data in your head and integrating it into a you resynthesized moment to moment, welcome to Olympus.
quote-God’s Fingerprints are Everywhere
Ezekiel, have you seen where people were able to ‘see’ Aleph Mem Nun (Amen strongs Hebrew #543) above the ‘finger lakes’ of NY?
It seems above the finger lakes, on the Canadian side of Lake Ontario, there are inner channels that, from satellite imagery, show what could be described as Hebrew letters:
Aleph
Mem
Nun
or ‘amen’.
I think one of the finger lakes in NY even resembles an ‘ayin’, the 16th letter in the Hebrew alephbet..
I tried to see that but no luck.
I figure that with any imagery, there will always be multiple layers of meaning for validation.
On a map, for example, an apparent (previously undiscovered) shape/message might also appear as a place/business name on that same spot. Weird stuff that wouldn’t be due to human orchestration, so not like finger lakes being... fingers.
Satan thought he was a god also. He is headed to the Lake of Fire. Where are you heading?
God's Final Message to His Creation, written in letters of fire on the side of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains. "We apologize for the inconvenience."
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