July 26, 2015

Planets, Dr. Seuss and Snowflakes---Combined Proof That There is a CREATOR*

Earth compared to Keplar 452b      NASA.org
IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

By Larry Peterson

This was carried in ZENIT on May 11, 2016*


Nine and a half years ago NASA's New Horizon spacecraft left our humble, little planet and began its voyage to to the edges of our solar system and beyond. After traveling 3 billion plus miles New Horizon finally passed Pluto, the furthest planet from our sun. I don't know about you but I find it so humbling and awe inspiring that we human beings, using the perfection that surrounds us, can mange to find a planet that is so far away. Yet, within our universe, it would be as close as a neighbor down the street.



Let's move past Pluto. It seems NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, launched in 2009, has found a possible 'exoplanet'; something worlds beyond our puny solar system. This exoplanet could be similar to our hometown, Earth. Hello sister planet, Kepler 452b.  The Kepler Telescope has identified close to 5000 exoplanets since it started scanning the deepest parts of space. But this is the first one that could be just like Earth. Now, get this--it is one thousand and four light years away. Our closest star system is Alpha Centauri, a mere 4.3 light years away. That means our closest star system is trillions of miles from our solar system and would take us tens of thousands of years to get there. Kepler 452b is 200 times further than that. My question is--how can  we know these things?


How can we possibly know how to measure distance and location and density and climate relating to places that are so unimaginably far away? The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. Who figured that out? How do you measure the speed of light? Assuming the number is correct, that means in one minute light travels 11+ million miles. That would be almost 16 billion miles in one day. Multiply that number by four and a half years. Do you see where I'm going with this? The light from our own sun takes eight minutes to reach Earth. Yet Kepler 452b is more than  a thousand "light years" away and our scientists know it revolves around its sun in 385 days vs our 365 days. WHEW!


 What about Earth? How much of what Earth does do we take for granted? Well, here is one thing it does that we never think about but without its never ending accuracy we would have chaos. That is TIME. There are 24 hours in a day. Not 25 or 23 or 24.8, but 24. Imagine if there were random hours in a day. Yeah, right. So how did we get 24 hours in a day? Enough---let's just take it for what it is. MIND BOGGLING.


What about explosions? (Please bear with me--I do intend to make a point.) Explosions are destructive and, for the most part, maim, kill and destroy. This past Fourth of July a guy in Maine, in a festive frame of mind, brilliantly set a rocket off from the top of his head. He died instantly. Jason Pierre Paul,  the all-pro defensive star for the NFL's N.Y. Giants, blew several fingers off his hand with fireworks. He will be out indefinitely.  C. J. Wilson, of the Tampa bay Buccaneers, retired because he blew several fingers of his hand with fireworks. We can go back 70 years and remember that on August 6, 1945, the atomic bomb blew the Japanese city of Hiroshima to smithereens. It also killed about 80,000 people. It follows that if I set a bomb off in my car the chances of the result being a nicer car are--well, ZERO.


So now--to the point.  The Big Bang Theory of Creation has become the favored explanation of how our seemingly infinite universe came into existence. Scientists do agree that the universe did, in fact, have a beginning.  They also know that the universe is expanding and changing and dying, just like we do.  To the question: At the moment of creation when the unimaginable explosion took place or whether it was something like a giant balloon expanding and expanding until it "popped" spewing matter outwards, it all had to be controlled. Who did that?


Random explosions do not and cannot result in perfection. Twenty-four hours in a day is perfect for us imperfect species to depend on, including the animals.  It is a contradiction to believe otherwise. Everything around us is perfect. We can predict the rising and setting of the sun to the second, the new and full moons to the minute. We know when the tides rise and fall and can predict their lowest and highest points to the minute. We know when an eclipse, whether solar or lunar will occur and where. We have learned how to use the world around us to maintain our very existence or, in many cases, destroy it.


Bottom line: because the universe is so vast and expansive (and apparently infinite) and all of it is moving and changing within a perfectly ordered system proves someone bigger and smarter than any of us put this in place. We cannot understand this. We cannot scientifically prove it. But, no matter what, we live in it and survive by it every second of every day of our lives. Perfection does not come from chaos. Perfection can only come from someone who is PERFECT. I know who that  Person is even though  I cannot see HIM or touch HIM. All I have to do is see a rising sun, a blooming rose, a full moon, a rainbow...or hear the cry of a newborn baby or ponder the magic of one snowflake, unique unto itself.


Maybe Dr. Seuss nailed it in his famous book, "Horton Hears a Who". Maybe our planet Earth is really no bigger than Horton's, "Whoville". Maybe we are specks on the end of a ball of dust. Maybe we are not as big and as smart as we think we are. We had to have a Creator. It is common sense. It is ultimately all in HIS hands.  I am also sure HE subscribes to the famous sentence in Dr. Seuss's book; "a persons a person no matter how small". Maybe those very "smart" people who reject what must be so, need to breathe in a deep dose of humility and realize that this all did not just happen as the result of some random explosion or expansion. It is illogical and makes no sense (to me).

                           
                                           ©2015 Larry Peterson All Rights Reserved

3 comments:

  1. Perhaps a better account of how insignificant we are in the vast scale of this universe is Carl's Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M )

    Also this universe is far from perfection, as least as far as humans are concerned. The vast majority of this universe is deadly to human life. Even on our planet, 3/.4's is covered with ocean, a lot of the rest to too cold or too hot for humans to live We don't have perfection here, we have a planet where life has arisen through natural selection on random varying organisms and has evolved a species that is capable of comprehending its humble origin. We are now "smart" enough to comprehend and marvel in that.

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  2. So how did we get "smart" enough to survive if we were not smart to begin with? Natural selection? Trial & error? That is illogical because the developing "organisms' could never have made it to the next developmental stage. If that was the way it all happened we would not be here to have this discussion.
    Thanks for sharing the POV.

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  3. "Smart" isn't a factor, Overpopulation of offspring, random mutations in the genome, and natural selection from the environment to determine who survives to reproduce. That is a short version of evolution. For a longer one take a look at practicing Catholic Kenneth Miller's excellent book "Only a Theory",

    Cheers

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