Civility

Primary affections for a Christian are clearly delineated by the Christ: to love the Lord with the totality of your being and to love your neighbor as yourself. He carries this designation into the realm of enmity when He urges sacrifical spirit even towards those who persecute you directly (Matt. 5:38-42). In my opinion, these attitudes must become evident in how we approach both social media and towards those we disagree. Civility should reign in our treatment of all, whether President or Pelosi. We should see the imago Dei in each person that we communicate with or towards before we actually communicate. All news is not false, but almost all news these days is politicized: it is designed to provoke emotional reactions. Those who are to be salt and light in society need to remember our testimony is judged both by its content and by its tone. In a representative democracy where freedom of speech is enshrined in our social discourse, we may choose to participate in conversation. Again, my reading of what the Lord says, is that we may engage over the facts, we may engage over the impacts, but we never get to disparage others when we do it. And, the greatest test of this kind of activity is to respond correctly when disparaging remarks and insults have already been hurled our way.

On distant stars and far off destructions

G. K. Chesterton said, "What we dread most is a maze with no centre. That is why atheism is only a nightmare.." Two articles have recently created in me a desire to talk about the nature of life.  I’ll bring them up shortly.

We live in a time period where much of what is called science really isn’t.  What is science anyway?  The standard dictionary definition is a good place to begin: science is knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method.  Scientific method defines “principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses”.  In other words, if it can’t be reproduced through observation and experiment, it is not truly science.

Much of what is declared “science” these days is really an exploration of reality and eventuality based on what are being accepted as “scientific principles”, but cannot be termed science since it isn’t reproducible or observable.  Sadly, much of current “science” is extrapolation based on other “principles” that aren’t reproducible or observable.  It leads to speculation and is dramatically influenced by the philosophy and opinion of those who do the speculating.

Now to the articles.  The first boggles the mind.  It appears in various places, including Time on April 4 under the title, “Scientists Just Observed the Most Distant Star Ever Seen”.  Here’s the pertinent quote, <<“For the first time ever we’re seeing an individual normal star — not a supernova, not a gamma ray burst, but a single stable star — at a distance of nine billion light years,” added Alex Filippenko, a professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley who co-authored the study. “These lenses are amazing cosmic telescopes.”

Icacrus’ distance of 9 billion light years means that light from the star has been traveling across the universe back to Earth for that amount of time. In contrast, the universe itself it estimated to be approximately 13.8 billion years old.”>>

Our technology keeps getting better.  With it comes the discovery that we really don’t have any idea how vast the “universe” is!  Each technological breakthrough in telescope and space probes, gives us even greater access to examine how little we have actually known about the universe up to that point.

The second article is also telling.  It is titled, “A Second 'Big Bang' Could End Our Universe in an Instant, Thanks to The Higgs Boson”.  In case you missed it, the speculation of a group of Harvard physicists have led them to the following conclusions:

1.     They find that the destabilization of the Higgs boson – a tiny quantum particle that gives other particles mass – could lead to an explosion of energy that would consume everything in the known universe and upend the laws of physics and chemistry.

2.     They believe that none of us currently living will see this phenomenon: They settled on a date 10¹³⁹ years from now, or 10 million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years in the future.

3.     The article goes on to say, “If the researchers are correct, that mass could change, turning physics on its head and tearing apart the elements that make life possible, according to the New York Post, and rather than burning slowly over trillions of years, an unstable Higgs boson could create an instantaneous bang, like the Big Bang that created our universe.”

So without getting into debate about these speculations, here is my reaction:

The star article gives further affirmation to praise of our God.  The Psalmist said, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”  Every expansion of understanding of the immensity of the handiwork of the Lord cries out for praise to Him and His glory!

The big bang article is also interesting.  What they have right, from a Scriptural perspective, is the imminent end to the world as we know it.  John declares simply in the Revelation, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.”

I am happy that there are people who think about the marvel that is God’s Creation.  After He created it, He reflected on it: And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.  What I find astounding is this: the sheer numbers that these speculators have cited, 9 billion years, 10 million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years, ought to reduce us to two other expressions of the Scripture.  First, what is man, that thou art mindful of him?  For none of us represents even a blip on the timeline continuum of these scientists.  James, the brother of Jesus, reflected: For you are like vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes.

What are we in light of these things?  We are those whom the Creator loves. We are those for whom He stepped out of eternity and into this continuum so that He could die, like us.  But, we are also the ones for whom He is risen and lives forever.  From within such expanding complexity, life really is reduced to the question: what is this all about?