Roland Earnst Archives - Page 14 of 44

November 19, 2021November 17, 2021

Full Moon – Mini-Moon

If you saw the full moon last night and the partial eclipse early this morning, you might have noticed that it seemed to be a little smaller than usual. That’s because it was a mini-moon.

The Moon’s orbit around Earth is slightly elliptical. For that reason, it is not always the same distance away from us. The average distance to the Moon is 238,855 miles (384,400 km). When it’s closest to Earth, the distance is 225,623 miles (363,105 km), and we call that “perigee.” When the moon is farthest away, the distance is 252,088 miles (405,696 km), and we refer to that as “apogee.” So the difference in the distance is approximately 26,500 miles (42,648 km), and that’s just enough to make a noticeable difference in and size.

Since the Moon is now at apogee, the result was that the full moon last night was smaller, and some people call it a “mini-moon.” Why should we care about the distance to the Moon? Two things make our Moon unique as compared to other moons in our solar system. The Moon’s orbit is less elliptical than that of other moons, and it is also the largest compared to the size of the planet it orbits. Because of its size and orbit, the Moon has many beneficial effects on our planet.

We have previously discussed some of the beneficial effects of the Moon, such as HERE, HERE, and HERE. However, perhaps the most crucial benefit is that it gives stability to Earth’s rotation. Spin a top, and you will notice that it tends to wobble in its rotation. That wobble is called “precession.” Without the Moon’s stabilizing effect, the Earth would wobble, causing instability in our seasons, climate, and weather. In other words, without the Moon, our planet could not support advanced life.

Even if you call it a mini-moon, the Moon is the right size and distance with an orbit that is only slightly elliptical. Because of those precise design factors, we can look up at the full moon and thank the Designer who gave us everything we need to make Earth our home.

November 18, 2021November 17, 2021

Lunar Eclipse and the Bible

What is the connection between tonight’s lunar eclipse and the Bible? Before we answer that, let’s consider the eclipse.

Lunar eclipses occur twice a year on average when the Moon passes through the shadow of the Earth. Every 29 and a half days, the Sun, Moon, and Earth are in line with the Earth in the middle. When that happens, we see a full moon. However, a couple of times a year, the alignment is so precise that our planet momentarily blocks sunlight from reaching the Moon. When Earth’s shadow falls across the Moon, we call it an eclipse. Sometimes the shadow completely blocks the Moon, giving us a total eclipse. This eclipse will be 97%.

The eclipse will occur in the early hours of Thursday, November 19, and it will be the longest partial eclipse in 580 years. The reason for the length is that the Moon is at apogee, meaning it is at its farthest point away from Earth in its somewhat elliptical orbit. Because of that, the Moon will be moving at its slowest speed in its orbit. (That’s a little bit of high school physics.) This eclipse is occurring during what some refer to as the Beaver full moon because it was the opening of the beaver-trapping season. In this case, it is the Micro Beaver because the Moon is farther away and will appear a little smaller.

This eclipse will be visible from all 50 of the United States at different areas of the sky, depending on your geographic location. The peak will be at around 4 a.m. EST (9 a.m. UTC), but it will stretch over almost three and a half hours. You can see a world map of the areas where the eclipse will be visible, check the exact beginning and end times for your location, and even watch a live stream of the eclipse at the timeanddate.com website. You may have to resort to the live stream if your area is overcast, or you don’t want to go outside early in the morning.

Now, back to the connection between the lunar eclipse and the Bible. The point is that we can accurately predict the exact times and dates of lunar and solar eclipses many years in advance. We can also precisely know the time for sunrise and sunset anywhere on Earth. We can also launch a rocket to Mars, knowing exactly where the planet will be in space when the rocket arrives. How is that possible? Because God is faithful.

The ancients believed in many gods with human failings, acting capriciously. It was Christian faith in an omnipotent and never-changing God that made science possible. We have often said that we can know God from the things He has made. Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from has been made…” The book of scripture and the book of nature were both written by God, so they must agree. Even though we learn more details about God and His plan from scripture, we can know much about Him from nature. That is the connection between the lunar eclipse and the Bible. One thing the creation teaches us is that God is faithful, just as we see in Hebrews 10:23: “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for he who promised is faithful.”

November 17, 2021November 16, 2021

Do We Really Want to Move to Mars?

Mars is our closest neighboring planet at 33.9 million miles (54.6 million km), and it seems that various countries want to send people there. Several countries have launched successful missions to fly by, orbit, or land on the red planet, but none have yet sent people there. The list includes the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan, the United Kingdom, India, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and China. As for human explorers, Elon Musk of SpaceX once expressed a desire to send people there in 2024—an overly ambitious objective. The UAE wants to establish a colony there in the next 100 years—a much more conservative goal. The question is, “Do we really want to move to Mars?”

Why does Earth seem to be designed for life while Mars is a rocky and barren place without an atmosphere? Scientists theorize that at one time, Mars had an atmosphere but then lost 99% of it. Why? Mars is smaller than Earth, so it has less gravity to hold onto the atmosphere, but that’s only part of the answer. One hypothesis is that solar wind (charged particles from the Sun) tore away the atmosphere. Then why didn’t Earth lose its atmosphere since we are even closer to the Sun? Earth’s magnetic field protected our planet. Why do we have a magnetic field? The movement of Earth’s molten iron core generates the magnetic field.

Many other factors make planet Earth ideal for life, and importantly, advanced life. So do we really want to move to Mars? The now-defunct Mars One project got tens of millions of dollars from thousands of people who signed up for a one-way trip to Mars to establish a human colony there. Elon Musk has indicated that he wants to get people to Mars just for the sake of getting there. He was quoted as saying, “Fundamentally, the future is vastly more exciting and interesting if we are a space-faring civilization and a multi-planet species…”

With all of this desire to leave the planet ideally designed for life, the question we should ask is, “Was Earth’s design merely chance happenstance, or was it part of a divine design?” I suggest that the many factors that make our planet just-right for human life indicate more than chance coincidence.

November 8, 2021November 7, 2021

Are We in a Matrix or Base Reality?

When speaking on evidence for the existence of God, John Clayton often begins by saying that first, you must believe that you exist. He says, “If you don’t believe that you exist, you have more problems than I want to deal with.” Some people today are suggesting that we do not exist in reality. The question we need to consider is, “Are we in a matrix or base reality?” Let’s examine what that means.

Philosophers have often contemplated the question of whether there is any reality. A philosophy professor I once learned from said that some of his associates begin their philosophy class by suggesting to their students that nothing is real, including the walls of the lecture hall. However, he pointed out that the professor always exits through the doorway at the end of the lecture. Are the walls real? Is anything real? Are we in a matrix or a base reality?

In 1999, there was a movie titled The Matrix in which people were made to believe that they lived in a surreal world where they could have superhuman powers and face life-threatening dangers while all the time being strapped to a chair with electrodes connected to their bodies. The idea must have found a sympathetic audience because it spawned three sequels, with a fourth scheduled for next month.

Now, some scientists are suggesting that we are in a simulation. According to one analysis, the chances that we are living in a “base reality” (meaning not a simulation) are about 50-50, with a slight edge to base reality. So people from scientists such as Neil deGrasse Tyson to entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk have suggested that we could be merely characters in a massive video game. To further that concept, we have quantum theory with its “spooky action at a distance” (Einstein’s quote), such as quantum entanglement and superposition.

In 1948, American mathematician Claude Shannon introduced the concept of the bit as a basic unit of information. Computers work with bits, which can have a value of either 0 or 1. By combining millions, billions, or trillions of bits, we can perform complex calculations and create sounds, images, or even videos. That is how modern cameras, televisions, telephones, and computers work. So the question is, “If the universe is a giant computer simulation, a matrix rather than base reality, how many bits would it take to create the simulation?”

Melvin Vopson, a physicist at the University of Portsmouth, England, estimated that the minimum number of bits of information in the visible universe could be around 10⁸⁰. (That is 10, followed by 80 zeros.) If you include dark matter, which we can’t see or detect, it could be ten-trillion times that number.

So, do we believe we are in a matrix or base reality? If we believe that this universe is a computer simulation and we are only a relatively few bits in that matrix, you would have to believe that an infinite intelligence wrote the code for the program. However, it seems to me that a more reasonable explanation is that we are living in a base reality created by an infinite intelligence. The most incomprehensible thing is that the omniscient Creator cares about each one of us. (Read Matthew 6:25-34.)

References: LiveScience.com and Inverse.com

November 1, 2021October 31, 2021

The Overview Effect and What It Can Do

The International Space Station (ISS) has now been actively supporting humans in space for 21 years. Since November 2, 2000, people have continuously resided in that small laboratory looking down on the rest of us, watching sunrises and sunsets sixteen times a day from a different perspective. The experience can be a reminder of how small we are. Astronauts have described a feeling that has been called “the overview effect.”

The overview effect is a change in perspective that many people experience when looking down on Earth from space. We are accustomed to seeing a limited view of our surroundings. However, when a person’s horizon opens to see the circle of the Earth (Isaiah 40:22) hanging on nothing (Job 26:7) surrounded by an extremely thin and fragile atmospheric layer (Job 26:10), the experience can be mind-changing if not life-changing.

The ISS orbits a little over 200 miles (322 km) above Earth’s surface. The Kármán Line at 100 km (62 miles) is the internationally-recognized boundary of space. Recently, commercial space companies have taken private individuals beyond that boundary to view Earth from space and briefly experience microgravity described as weightlessness. Perhaps the most notable was 90-year-old actor William Shatner who played Captain Kirk on the TV series Star Trek. In a tweet he wrote before the flight, he described himself as “a boy playing on the seashore…whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Shatner’s reaction after he returned to Earth’s surface is very interesting. He shed emotional tears, and here is some of what he said:

“I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened. It’s extraordinary, extraordinary. It’s so much larger than me and life… It has to do with the enormity and the quickness and the suddenness of life and death… To see the blue color whip by you, and now you’re staring into backness…everybody in the world needs to do this. Everybody in the world needs to see this.”

I think Shatner is correct that it would be beneficial for each of us to see Earth from that perspective just once in our lifetime. The overview effect could change our attitude toward many things, including life and death. In addition, it would help us realize just how small we are and how amazing it is that God cares about us. (See Matthew 6:25-34.)

October 24, 2021October 23, 2021

Suffering Disproves God – Or Does It?

We often get objections from atheists who say that suffering disproves God. They say that God cannot exist because there is pain and suffering in the world. Actually, the opposite is true. Suffering makes more sense under the Christian concept of reality. Therefore, suffering does not disprove God.

For atheists to make the moral judgment that suffering is bad, they are deciding what is good and bad while at the same time saying that in reality, there is no ultimate good or bad. The atheist is only saying that he does not like things that he has determined are “bad.” Since suffering is bad, suffering disproves God.

People, in general, seem to assume that if there is a God, then His purpose is to make us happy as if God is our servant. On the contrary, Christians believe that the primary purpose of life is not happiness but knowing God. Human suffering may not make us happy, but it may very well give us a deeper knowledge of God and His love.

In times and places where the hardships have been the greatest, faith in God and Christianity have grown the most. Also, we have to realize that humans are in rebellion against God and His purpose. As long as people are in rebellion against God, there will be evil in the world, and we will all suffer as a consequence.

If God is not limited by our time dimension, then His purpose for us will not be limited to this present world and the life we are living. As someone said, we are in the cramped entrance foyer opening into the Great Hall of Eternity. If there is a God, as I believe there is, to know Him is the greatest of all goods. Any suffering in this life cannot compare with the good that God has in store for us.

While the atheist says that suffering disproves God, Christians can face the problems of life and say, “God is good all the time!” Perhaps there is no “earthly” reason for the catastrophes we face. But perhaps there is a “heavenly” reason that we are not yet equipped to see. As John Clayton has often said, “For the atheist, this life is the best he will ever experience. For the Christian, this life is the worst we will ever have to endure.”

We have a website dealing with pain and suffering – www.whypain.org.

October 11, 2021October 10, 2021

October Meteor Showers

October is the month for two meteor showers—Draconid and Orionid. They get their names from the constellations closest to the places in the night sky where they seem to originate. The truth is that they have no connection to those constellations. Instead, these October meteor showers come from comets.

Meteor showers result from Earth passing through dust trails left by comets. The Draconids peaked this year on the night between October 8 and 9. They originate from debris left by comet 21P/Giaconini-Zinner that makes a revolution around the Sun every 6.6 years. Every October, when Earth passes through the dirty dust trail, the bits of debris burn up from friction as they enter the atmosphere at extremely high speed, and we see them as “shooting stars.”

The Orionid meteors are the result of Halley’s Comet. That comet makes a complete orbit around the Sun every 76 years, but Earth passes through the left-over debris twice a year in May and October. This year’s Orionid shower will peak on the night between October 20 and 21. However, a few of them may be visible even tonight as the October meteor showers almost overlap.

Unlike asteroids, which can be very large and cause severe damage, comet dust is beautiful but harmless. The Chixculub asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was 6.2 miles (10 km) in diameter. The impact was like a 100 million megaton bomb blast, and it wiped out three-fourths of all plant and animal life on Earth.

What if a whole comet struck planet Earth? The result would be catastrophic. We can find comfort in the fact that our solar system was designed with comet sweepers to prevent that from happening. The comet sweepers are named Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, and the main one–Jupiter. Those giant outer planets all travel in the same plane, or ecliptic, as our planet. Comets come from outside the solar system, and because those outer planets are much larger, they have much more gravity. Since they are in line with Earth’s plane, they pull in the comets before they can reach our home planet.

The picture from NASA shows some fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 being pulled into Jupiter after the planet’s gravity ripped it into 21 pieces in July 1994. Those pieces were up to 1.2 miles in diameter and traveling at 134,000 miles per hour. Imagine what would have happened if that comet, or even one of those pieces, had hit the Earth! That is something to think about while watching the beauty of the October meteor showers. There is a reason why God designed the solar system the way He did. It was not an accident–and neither are we.

October 7, 2021October 6, 2021

Illness Is in the Blood or Life Is in the Blood

The year was 1799. A farmer was working hard supervising farming activities from horseback through snow, hail, and rain. The next day, despite a sore throat, he was back out in the snow. That night he woke with difficulty breathing. In those days, it was common practice to bleed a person who was ill. Doctors, believing that illness is in the blood, sought to cure it by removing some of the person’s blood.

A supervisor on the farm opened the man’s vein and drained half a pint of blood. The farmer was not getting better. The family doctor arrived and bled the patient a second time with still no improvement. That doctor sent for another doctor, and while waiting for the second doctor to come, he bled the patient a third time. When the second doctor did not arrive, they sent for a third doctor. Then the patient was bled a fourth time, this time removing a quart of blood. Within two days from the time he first developed a sore throat, George Washington was dead at age 67.

What was the problem that led to the death of our first president—the man we call the father of our country? Believing that illness is in the blood, medical doctors ignored a simple truth found in the Bible. Leviticus 17:11 clearly says, “the life of a creature is in the blood.” Since life is in the blood, draining a person’s blood is not the way to cure a person’s illness. It’s a way to end a person’s life. It took thousands of years for medical science to catch up with the wisdom of the Bible.

After feeding thousands of people with five barley loaves and two fish, questioners confronted Jesus. He told them, “…it is my father who gives you the true bread from heaven (John 6:32). He went on to say, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty (John 6:35).” Then, in perhaps the most shocking statement of all, Jesus spoke in a figurative sense. He said: “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man (Jesus’ most common name for himself) and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6:53-54).”

Life is in the blood. That is true of any creature or person. Moses knew it because of divine revelation, not from human wisdom. We can see evidence for the accuracy of the Bible in this and many other ways. However, the blood of Jesus Christ sacrificed for us on the cross is the ultimate source of life. As John wrote, “…the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purifies us from all sin (1 John 1:7). Eternal life is in the blood of Jesus.

October 5, 2021October 4, 2021

Ultimate Meaning, Purpose, and Morality

I enjoy watching BBC’s video programs “Planet Earth” and “The Blue Planet” written and narrated by David Attenborough. Those programs display the fantastic beauty and design of this planet and its many living creatures. Seeing the way planet Earth’s systems work together like a well-designed machine fills me with awe. However, I find it amazing that Attenborough believes that this incredible beauty and structure came about by mere chance and natural selection without any design, purpose, or meaning. How can he not realize that ultimate meaning, purpose, and morality come from the God who created these wonders?

In his book Miracles, Christian philosopher C.S. Lewis refers to unbelievers as “naturalists.” He wrote, “A moment after they have admitted that good and evil are illusions, you will find them exhorting us to work for posterity, to educate, revolutionise, liquidate, live and die for the good of the human race.” Lewis called that “very odd.” Attenborough teaches us about the beautiful design of our planet without a Designer. He advocates for the environment, even though that environment may have no ultimate purpose or meaning. A BBC interviewer once asked Attenborough if he ever had any religious faith, and he replied “no.” He said, “It never really occurred to me to believe in God.”

When asked why he does not believe in a creator, Attenborough will point out what he considers an evil creature, such as the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus that infects children’s eyes in tropical climates. He said creationists believe that God created each individual species, so why would “an all-merciful God who cares for each of us individually” make a creature like that. However, as John Clayton has pointed out many times, the Bible says God created “kinds” of animals, not each individual species. (See Genesis 1:11, 12, 21, 24, and 25.) But then He specially created the first humans in His image (Genesis 1:27).

Attenborough strongly advocates for various environmentalist causes telling us what we ought or ought not to do. C.S. Lewis said that those who don’t believe in God often tell us what we ought to do, but their natural impulses can say nothing about objective right or wrong. Lewis wrote, “Do they remember while they are writing thus that when they tell us we ‘ought to make a better world’ the words ‘ought’ and ‘better’ must, on their own showing, refer to an irrationally conditioned impulse which cannot be true or false any more than a vomit or a yawn?”

Lewis goes on to say that if we make moral judgments, “then we must believe that the conscience of man is not a product of Nature.” He writes that it “can be valid only if it is an offshoot of some absolute moral wisdom…” In other words, ultimate meaning, purpose, and morality come from God, not evolution.

References: Miracles by C.S. Lewis, and “David Attenborough” on Wikipedia

September 27, 2021September 26, 2021

Enjoy the Beauty of a Sunset

We were riding through the Arizona desert shortly before sunset on a Does God Exist? canyonlands field trip. We saw a storm in the distance, and it quickly surrounded us. Then, the storm lifted to reveal the sunset. We couldn’t stop gazing out of the bus window to enjoy the beauty of it all.

This incident reminded us that God sends the sunshine, and the rain, even in the desert. It also reminded us that God created a beautiful world and gave us the ability to enjoy that beauty. I think that ability is evidence that God created us in His image. God must enjoy beauty because He has created a universe of beautiful things that humans will never even see. We are aware of some of them only because our telescopes or space probes sometimes give us small glimpses of the beauty normally hidden from our eyes.

Even on our planet, there are beautiful things to be seen in locations where few people ever go. After scaling mountain peaks, a few of us enjoy the beauty of the valley below. While on the mountain, we look down and see beautiful flowers that grow in the rocky soil and cold air. Colorful plants and animals live and grow in the ocean, where only the most adventurous humans can enjoy their beauty. God sees all of the beauty, wherever it may be.

Are there any creatures other than humans that will stop to enjoy the beauty of a sunset? Thankfully, God has gifted humans with that ability. However, we often fail to do so because we think we are too busy. However, if we pause long enough to enjoy the beauty, we might be compelled to give thanks not only for the beauty but also for the ability to enjoy it.