October 25, 2005

  • Wednesday, October 26, 2005


    12.30 p.m. NZ time


     


    I got this e-mail a while back and it was really fun for me to read and I really enjoyed watching my sci-fi brain come up with a reply. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had in writing it.


     


    This is the e-mail I received from a new friend:


     


    Mean’t to send this back at the beginning of October, sorry dude.


     


    I’ve been thinking for a very long time about the “cosmic” stuff you’ve been yammerin’ about and I’ve got this thing I’ve come up with that explains “reality”. At least for me it does.


     


    It’s easier for many people to look at the universe in all its magnitude and magnificence. That’s the macrocosm of life. But try going the other way, into the microcosm of life.  Think of the atom.


     


    For all intents and purposes the atom is a reflection in structure of the universe, a galaxy of spinning, orbiting bodies. If you understand atomic structure, you will also understand that the atom is not as we see it all, too often drawn to look like a sun with planets orbiting around it.  If anything, it’s more like a large cloud surrounded by another cloud.  This is because the “bodies” that make up the atom are actually smaller than we think, but there is a principle that we do understand even in the simplistic view of atomic structure, “energy” and “magnetism.”


     


    “Stuff” orbits in an atom because of energy (yet to be defined) and dose not “touch” because of polarized magnetism.  North (positive) cannot touch north (positive) nor can south (negative) touch south (negative) and what keeps everybody moving it the attraction of north (positive) and south (negative).


     


    Now here’s the “301″ of Cosmic Theology.


     


    If the components (neutrons, electrons, bosons, etc) in atomic and quantum physics cannot “touch”, then what exactly is “between” them? In a physical world we cannot have “nothing”, there must always be a “something” that can be described by the physicist in physical terms.  We cannot see “air” but we know it exists.  We can describe the “physics” of air and see (prove?) its existence. We know that air is composed of hydrogen and oxygen molecules (in a perfectly pure world of air). We know that those molecules are combinations of specially arranged atoms.  We know that those same atoms are composed of neutrons and electrons.  Quantum physicists even know that those elements can be broken down further into elements such as bosons, gluons and photons.  Sub-quantum elements are being defined every day, but no matter how small we get, there is a principle that stays the same, nothing.  Nothing must exist in our physical world for our physical world to exist.


     


    And here’s my point simply stated.  “Before there was ANYTHING there was NOTHING and before there was NOTHING there was God”. Else wise stated, “Before God created EVERYTHING, He created NOTHING to hold the EVERYTHING.”  The point of that being, God is greater than everything. He is even greater than the nothing. He IS. When He creates “the new heaven and the new earth” (everything, He will totally recreate the “nothing” to put the “everything” into.  Our new life will not be as it ever was before and John in the book of Revelation got a glimpse of that new everything.  The problem being that since it was based on a new nothing/everything concept; it would be like describing the color blue to a blind man.  What do you say to him to explain what color is, let alone blue?


     


    John did his best at describing the glory of God and that best is a mere inkling of the wondrous experience of color. Hey this is not a theology nor a philosophy nor even a solid concept.  It IS something to think about, but not too much.


     


    Thought I’d add my 2 cents into the “Cosmic” realm.


     


    Yours,


    BMcA


     


     


     


    My Reply:


     


    Hey Ho BMcA,


     


    Well I had to read and re-read your e-mail several times through, the first couple of times, to try and figure out what you were yammerin’ on about, and then the next couple of times just for the fun of reading it. I love this kind of stuff. I know we’ll probably never solve the mystery of creation, but it’s really fun to play with it, and try to look at from different angles.


     


    If you had a thousand people standing in a big circle, all holding hands, and in the middle of that circle there was a huge elephant, each person in that circle would give you a different description of what the elephant looked like. It would all depend on the angle of their observation. If you or I were to be transported back to the fourteenth century, and shared our present day world view with the secular and spiritual leaders of that day, we would have more than likely been burned at the stake as a heretic. I mean, they all knew the world was the centre of the universe, and the sun, the planets and all the stars orbited around it. But as our world view expanded, and we gained more knowledge on the workings and extent of our natural surroundings, we have discovered God to be much larger, much more pervasive, much more sovereign and loving, than I think they, in those times, could ever have imagined. As the angle or position of our world view changed and continues to change, so does our understanding of God expand into a Majesty that defies description!


     


    So, how about this angle:


     


    Before God created the universe, there was only God. He spoke (I don’t know how he spoke, for there was no air to carry His words, or what language he spoke in, Hebrew, Aramaic, French, Spanish, English, but somehow He spoke.)  And into His own Being He created a universe of light.


     


    Now from what I’ve read, light, (photon particles) travel at a speed of 186,000 miles per second, and I’ve heard that at the speed of light mass becomes infinite and time itself stops. So it sounds to me like time forms a kind of unpenetrateable sphere that contains the entire universe. Everything within that sphere is moving slower than the speed of light. I’ve always thought of time as kind of an anti-body that keeps sin from breaking out into the timeless Being of God. (But that’s another thought for another yammer.)


     


    Anyway, God creates this universe within His own Being, a universe that keeps on expanding and expanding. What is it expanding into?  How about it’s expanding into Himself? (We move and breathe and have our being in Him.) Maybe what we think of as empty space, that eternal unending dimension of nothingness, is really the very substance of God’s Being?


     


    So, we have a Universe. What if the Universe is really a “cosmic uterus,” created for the specific purpose of establishing a birthing place for all organic life? Just like when you plant a pecan seed, it takes six to ten years before it starts producing pecans. Or, just like when you plant an apple seed, it just doesn’t grow another apple. First comes a tiny sprout, then a leaf or two. That’s about it for the first year. The following year the sprout, that eventually becomes the main trunk of the tree, grows taller producing more leaves and maybe even a branch or two. This process goes on for three or four years, until finally out of one of the shoots, growing on the end of a branch, the first apple blossom appears, followed by a real apple.


     


    The whole point of all this “yammering” is this….: programmed into the DNA of the seed is the entire growth sequence of the tree. So it doesn’t just evolve, (although I guess you could say it does) it emerges according to an exact, pre-sequenced program, that dictates the exact growth pattern that will transpire from that first seed, to the seed-filled apple according to the DNA mandate placed within the original seed.


     


    Now, what if, contained within the original mandate of God’s command, “Let there be light”, was the entire sequence, for the moment by moment, step by step, emergence of all that is? This would include the entire galactic dance, cosmic dust coalescing around tiny black holes that were formed in the first few nano seconds of creation, forming stars that in time would go nova, blasting their substances out across the Universe, only to coalesce again into the next generation of stars and planets. Finally, at just the right, predetermined time, (sequenced within the original mandate of God) we have, on this little ball of star dust we call home, the emergence of organic life. And then, once again, at just the right pre-sequenced time, just as the apple tree is programmed to send out its first little branch, that will itself, at just the right time and place, shoot out a tiny twig that will at just the right pre-sequenced moment, produce the blossom from which will come the fruit…..(The Human Race)….. which is the very thing that the entire living organism (Our Universe, or Uterus, whatever?) was designed to give birth to in the first place.


     


    Hey, like you said, this is not a theology or a philosophy or even a solid concept. It’s just fun to think about, but as you also said, not too much.


     


     I once read you can count the number of apples there are in a tree, but you can’t count the number of trees there are in an apple.


     


    I just love this kind of stuff!


     


    BMcG