Blackened

Science seems to really be the the mortal enemy of faith. Many Christians try to marry faith and science, but they just don't go together. Faith is trusting in what hasn't come to be yet. Sure, maybe you have a promise from God, but that's all you have – trust in his track record from the Bible, from your life experiences, and other people's faith testimonies.

Science needs proof. Test it. Research it. Touch it. Observe it. Record it. Run the numbers and see if there really is a significant difference. Then, maybe you can call it a theory.

Then after that, check back with us . . . we'll let you know later if we think it's true . . . after we test it some more.

Many Christians don't like to follow through with the full implications of science, yet they want to use it when it suites their point. And don't forget about logic. Logic is akin to science – perhaps the heart of the scientific method itself.

Christians use logic when it suites, too. But following the full implications of logic is contradictory to faith. Faith, again, is trusting in what hasn't had any direct evidence. Logic seeks truth through weeding out weak arguments that have no foundation. What gives an argument a true foundation?

Evidence. Hard cold evidence.

That's why people always say that God works in mysterious ways and that his ways are beyond finding out. His ways aren't our ways. In other words, God doesn't work in the realms of logic all the time. That's why we need faith – to trust the things that God does and allows which sometimes seem quite illogical, contradictory, confusing, and unjust.

History slapped me in the face again much like in my previous blog post. But this time, Science joined in, too.

It was like a nasty pimp-slap.

Galileo asserted that the heavenly bodies – including Earth – were all round and that the sun was actually the center of the solar system.

Well Duh!

Well, duh, nothin' . . . . 'cause back then, that idea was heresy. Galileo's observations and mathematics backed his claims with solid evidence. But publishing his findings only earned him house arrest during the latter years of his life. And his arrest was enforced by the Catholic Church!

Say what?!

The Church world back in Galileo's day was the authority on faith and science. And, the Church world said that the Earth was flat* and was the center of the Universe! Why? Because the church world of that time period thought the Bible said so!

Was Christendom wrong to believe the Bible inferred a flat Earth?

Biblical cosmology becomes more and more of a fantasy as we learn more about the physical world, the laws of physics, and the Universe around us.

Physics tells us that the universe must be older than the Bible declares. Either physics contradicts itself or the Bible does. Take your pick.

Admittedly, being raised as a Christian, that was not a hard choice to make at the time.
Clearly, science was wrong.

But, I always wondered how Satan was able to take Jesus to that high place and show him all the kingdoms of the world in a single moment.

Maybe somebody thought the Earth was flat.

So then, the “circle of the Earth” – as Job called it – wasn't a globe after all. It was a flat pancake!

But . . . but . . . but . . . the Bible wouldn't ever imply that! God made the world! He made the Heavens and the Earth. He knew what he was doing! He knew the Earth wasn't flat when he made it.

He knew what he was doing when he took the firmament and partitioned the waters of the ocean from the waters above in the sky.

Pay attention to that description in the first chapter of Genesis. Read it again, slowly. The Earth was a super dome! A flat area for the land. The dome of the sky was covered with a firmament that allowed rain to drip through from the waters above.

Say . . . if you didn't know that the sky went to outer space and that the sun's light reflecting off of our atmosphere made the sky look blue . . . . what might you think about all that blueness?


Did you say, “water”?

I heard a small child ask once, “can lightning hit the moon”?

Sounds silly until you realize that a child has no accurate perception of the heavenly bodies. At least, not until they finally start school and take physical science lessons. But why shouldn't lightning hit the moon? From a child's mind the moon is embedded in the firmament of the Earth – just like the sun and stars.

That's how the ancients thought. Mankind generally saw the Earth and sky in those terms until men like Galileo came along.

Ooohhh . . . so that's why Revelations says the stars will fall to the Earth like figs from a tree! The ancient world thought the stars were in the sky like low hanging fruit on a tree! The perspective they had allowed for the stars to fall from the sky and litter the ground.

The sky can peel back like a scroll. The dome of the Earth can be yanked back like a cover or torn away like an ancient parchment scroll.

Jesus can ride the clouds and every eye can see him. However, not because all the news channels of the world will report on this awesome spectacle. Because, when you live on a flat Earth – everyone can look up at the same time and see him in the sky!

Man, if we just could've kept building that tower of Babel, we could have burst through the dome of the Earth and saw God, touched the sun, and tickled the moon and stars. That's why God had to stop all of their fun.

But, now we know better. All of the heavenly bodies are so very far away. None of it is mounted within our atmosphere or "firmament" like the Bible declares throughout it's text.

This was quite problematic.

How could scripture misrepresent the nature of the world if the Creator divinely authored the Bible?!

Then, all the arguments of the skeptics started caving in on my faith. I had to put forth a conscience effort to brace my beliefs and hold them in place. I didn't give in just yet, but boy oh boy, I sure had some more investigation to do now!

And speaking of the heavenly bodies . . . lets take a look at our sun. An awesome display of power and energy. And through science, we now know how to apply the same principles that make the sun glow.

Nuclear weapons.

The sun is a gigantic nuclear reactor. Hydrogen fuels it just like our hydrogen bombs – which are wimpy and picayune replicas of the sun – in principle at least. That's why you had better wear that sunscreen this summer! That radiation will burn your skin. That's why we have the Aurora lights in the sky. The radiation of the sun is bouncing off of the Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere. That's the other reason why astronauts wear space suits; Space is radioactive. But why doesn't the sun explode into a huge mushroom cloud like our little baby sun-bombs? The sun generates a massive magnetic field that keeps it all from going off like a huge intergalactic nuke! So, the sun is a nuclear reactor keeping itself in a tight furnace-like ball.

The scientific community estimates that the sun started out with enough Hydrogen to burn for 10 billion years. Our bright beauty seems to have about 5 billion years of juice left.


So, in about 5 billion years from now, the sun's core will run out of Hydrogen and flare up in a final burst. The sun will start to balloon and scorch the Earth – eventually swallowing it whole and melting it away. Then, our solar system will forever be covered in night as the sun snuffs out like a candle smothered by melted wax.

Regardless of whether Metallica meant nuclear war or the sun's apocalyptic burn-out, their metal song, Blackened is frighteningly backed by science. You can click the link and check out the lyrics or hear the song on their official web site.


But, the Bible also says that the Earth will be melted away with a fervent heat. Maybe that proves the Bible is prophetic. Well, they've got the “scorched Earth” part right. But not because of prophesy. Physics gives us hard evidence of what's in store for the Earth's future.

Sounds morbid, huh? But I'll tell you this . . . I'd rather be nuked once and for all by the sun 5 billion years from now than to live out eternity in a smoldering bottomless pit that flows with a lake of fire.

* Since this post, I've come to realize that people in Galileo's day did know that the Earth was round and not flat. However, they still thought the Earth was the center of the solar system as well as the Universe. And that still got Galileo into a whole lot of trouble.

I cannot say the same for the Biblical writers, however. They really seemed to believe the Earth was flat.