Blazars and God's caring

Now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Once I start talking, the average level of discourse starts to come back down to earth. Hang around long enough, and we’ll be back down there wallowing in the mud.

Welcome!

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Love all the “stuff” there Jon, thanks for pulling that together. On the philosophic side of the coin, I think that God is interested in the process also. While our concept of God is that he could have created it all in an instant, at the danger of presuming the mind of God, I think he takes pleasure in watching the universe unfold, and Genesis indicates he continues that process in creation through the narrative, and most of us here feel he continues though evolution. He also used process in forming the nation of Israel, which from the standpoint of Abraham, took some real twists and turns. In our personal lives, we too are formed through time and trial, and I hope that perhaps God takes some joy in the progress we make through life.

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Haven’t processed everything fully. Will take some to do that. @Jonathan_Burke you seem to have really studied this stuff. What are your thoughts about our relationship with God vs all the stuff out in the Universe. I can fathom a little bit what you’re talking about with the gravity vs size stuff from what I’ve seen in documentaries. I mean, fathom JUST a little bit. But, what are your thoughts on the energy spent there by God vs the energy spent relating with us. With Christ having risen (I assume you believe He rose, Nicene Christianity, etc, correct me if I’m wrong), God could take fraction of the sound energy released as asteroids in the Kuiper belt smash together and use that to communicate… that is… RELATE with us on a regular basis. Have you thought much about that? If so, what are your thoughts?

@jpm I can appreciate the growing process that God might be putting us through, and perhaps ponder that maybe that was part of the point of allowing the Fall. However, as growing goes, I wish so much that He would speak to us more directly. I’ve cried my eyes out and called out to Him about this. It’s not easy to say that in public. Some people say God speaks to us through uncanny coincidences in our lives. I’ve definitely experienced things like that, but it’s our skeptical natures can be so strong. It’s like “some doubted” in Matthew 28.

I see the energy spent there by God as part of the energy spent relating with us. The universe is one of the way He communicates with us. Of course you’re touching on a broader question, of why God chooses to relate and interact with us the way He does, instead of via other methods which are more direct. But that’s a much bigger question which I think deserves another thread and a lot more thought.

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I would say that we need to be cautious about evaluating anything God does (or appears to do) by our human standards. In this case, the sentence above presumes that there is a correlation between “total energy spent by God” versus “energy God expended on communicating with us.” I would say that that is a very natural comparison and concern—but is it valid?

Imagine the young child who reasons “I like it when Dad spends time playing with me and taking me on daily activities. But he leaves me and goes to work every day for many hours. If Dad really cared about me, he wouldn’t be gone so much.” Obviously, the child doesn’t connect his father’s love and his father going to work each day.

I think that we humans are prone to such thinking. Of course, in God’s case, the Bible tells us that he is TRANSCENDENT and his ways are above our ways. We can’t judge what God does by our human standards. God isn’t a human.

While thinking about comparisons, such as those you made in previous posts, consider and compare these two concepts:

(1) The finite era of human existence.

versus:

(2) The eternity of Christ’s reign (“forever and ever”) as we related to our Creator in total intimacy and love.

Thus, the Bible compares this temporary longing to that which will be realized as a final reality forever and ever, Amen. That future really will, eventually, entirely outweigh what troubles us now.

I entirely relate to the feelings you are describing. I deal with aging, disability, pain, and lots of questions. So I don’t want to sound trite or making anything sound simple. It’s not. And it’s hard.

I think that that helps us develop perspective.

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Here is another brief summary of why we need everything in the universe:

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Why should God be efficient?

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@Matthew_O

I think you are looking in the wrong place for God’s communication with God’s people.

Look to God’s Word, John 1:1-5, 10-14. It app0lies to the human world as well as the physical world.

Let me share my simple way of looking at things. Many people say they feel insignificant when thinking about the size of the universe. I have never shared that feeling when I actually go look at it.

I am fortunate enough that I live in an area without a lot of light pollution.
Many nights I will go out and look up and watch the universe do what the universe does…crickets kind enough to play some background music for my experience. Everything I see is part of something so large that I can’t even comprehend it. And it all came from something so small I have never seen anything like it with my own eyeballs

I could be told 10,000 times how all that was accomplished naturally. But that doesn’t matter when I am looking at it. I almost feel bad for the crickets, who seem to have nothing else to do but look at that every night. I am blessed with the ability to understand the vastness of it all, and that doesn’t make me feel insignificant at all.

Besides, I don’t think Star Trek would have ever been made if the universe ended just after the orbit of Pluto.

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I too go out look at the sky, with a little help from the star walk app. It is fun to watch the planets move across the sky in their orbits, visualizing where they are in their orbits in relation to Earth and the sun. It does fill you with wonder.

Matthew O. I found your query interesting. I also like the night sky and wondering about the vastness of space and reading about the galaxies and planets and etc

. It was by looking at the night sky — a clear night in the desert away from city lights, with the sky – from horizon to horizon-- filled with stars sparkling like diamonds on black velvet – that first made me wonder whether there was a Creator at all. Blazers Do you mean quasars???

I do not know which particular documentary you refer to. When I consider the cosmos — the work of the Creator’s hands – I suppose I do not think
pointless junk". I think in terms of creativity. An endless creativity and an amazing imagination. Someone who took pleasure in what was being done and in the array of things that came forth…Who would ever think of black holes? For you, perhaps, there is the physics involved. You explain every thing with numbers and make things tidy. And I have heard mathematicians talk about how wondrous and precise things are. But for me, it is just awesome… it represents the Pleasure that some Creative Being felt when the thing was going on, and the pleasure in seeing it still…the Crab Nebula…galaxies with binary stars and all sorts of things…quasars!!..who would ever think of such???..how interesting. And also how immense.

The idea that the Creator then put a population on a specific planet at a specific spot in the Universe – a spot, I am told, that is perfect for observation of the Universe and for wondering about it all — to me that is really intriguing.

As for God’s “silence” — I suppose that is a matter of perspective. I have never been one of those who are into “faith healings” and looking for some grand display on a stage to prove that God is with us still…But I was the only “human” being in the room when my sciatica was healed “just like that.” Does not happen to everyone and not to me all the time …And when no one else was paying me much mind (talk about pain and suffering), God intervened and restored my life in many other ways.

Since that series of events occurred, my life has been much different…

.As for the Bible having “a few bits here and there over thousands of years and then…2000 years of silence” — I see this as a reason for considering the outworking of God’s purposes in what we mostly would call ordinary things. Part of faith is believing in things not seen – though that belief is not based on nothing, but it is based on something.

But even with that — there was the strange moment when my sciatica vanished (in the blink of an eye, literally)…and a number of other things. I hope this helps. Maybe others will have better comments.

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As the Psalms declare, “the heavens declare the glory of God.” God’s vast, beautiful creation of the cosmos was created to declare His glory, and indeed this vast space of stars, solar systems, galaxies and more contain fascinations beyond our wildest dreams. This is a declaration of His glory, not a waste.

In order for God to be “wasteful”, His resources have to be limited in some way or fashion. However, since God has infinite resources, He could endlessly create in His magisterial creativity without end and to show us what He can do with His wisdom. Indeed, me knowing about astronomy, I am only in awe of the creation.

Here’s what I want to specifically recommend to you in this comment. Read the book ‘Celebrating the Universe’ by James Mullaney, a professional astronomer and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society of London. I’m just about finished this book, and taking it into consideration and in the light of your question, you have quite something ahead of you when it comes to learning about God’s creation. Read this book and with certainty your questions will lie with their rightful answer, if I have not already provided this for you. Celebrating the Universe by James Mullaney.

You know you have a point about the Earth being a very good place to observe it all. I think part of the frustration of seeing so much is when you’ve gone through recent pain. Before I really felt grief, life was wonderful and I would have said the same thing as you about wonder. When I really felt loss and the pain of death, the engineer in my contrasted that with the functional resources spent on all that wonder. I recently said to friend about the wonder of it all: “After so many galaxies --I get it. Amazing. Powerful. You’ve driven the point home. Now. We’re hurting down here”

You know, I also had a spontaneous healing of sciatica. I did not know that was the name for it. I just had this horrible pain going up and down my nerves. The first time I prayed, it went a way. For good.

Thanks! I’ll look into that book. You know, already people have given me so much to read… I’m afraid to ask any more questions, lest the list grow even longer!

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It is nice to know I am not the only one to have had sciatica healed. And why should I be?

I come from a family of engineers – but that gene skippedd me – and you can be pretty black and white, what works and what does not thinkers. I also have lost friends and relatives and I know that it is painful. There are two ways of looking at it, and you may not accept either. One: in the Bible, Jesus wept and so it is not a sin to be devastated – even if you ARE God Incarnate and about to call the man out of the tomb!! Death here must be seen as a sad consequence of the rebellion that occurred early on in human history.

Two: When my father was 91 he suddenly asked me why God had done nothing about Stalin. I told him that God was giving Stalin time to repent. Getting into a theological debate with a 91 year old man (who did not believe too much) is a tricky thing and so I left him with that thought. But you could also surmise that one way God has dealt with evil is to make sure we do not hang around this Big Blue Marble forever.

All the above is dependent upon a certain level of faith – faith, for one thing, in the goodness of God, regardless of how bad the circumstances — and maybe faith in a certain reading of things. You may not share that.

You have heard many views on this site, and I have learned things too. I have requested Hawkings A Brief History of Time from my library and hope that I will learn some new perspectives.

Have a good week…

Consider a cut rose in a vase vs. a rosebush growing from your garden. A child might prefer the single rose, “just the cool/pretty part,” distilled from its surroundings, maybe even dethorned. But how much more valuable is the whole bush, which produces roses on its own schedule and without you telling it what to do?

And does the fact that the bush may or may not produce other roses make the one it has produced, that you are looking at, any more or less beautiful?

On a separate note, you mentioned that you were dealing with grief, and I wonder if you’ve either read or seen “The Shack.” It addresses questions of God and loss that may be relevant to you.

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I’ll ditto this book recommendation. It won’t be for everybody --and acute grief from the loss of a child may make it a bit too close to home for some. It also weaves a narrative that pushes people into uncomfortable zones. So I would only recommend it with care, but recommend it for spiritually mature reflection nonetheless. It carries a lot of message that badly needs a hearing today.

Hello Matthew,
I didn’t read all the comments on your question so the suggestion to read Dr. Hugh Ross’ web site, “Reasons to Believe” and he has a book on point also.

The ancient Israelites don’t appear to have felt any rational or theological need for a cosmos whose dimensions were measured as stupendously as those we have since discovered since the invention of telescopes, i.e., a cosmos billions of light years in diameter containing a trillion or more galaxies (at last count).

Furthermore, does an almighty Being need to be restricted by physical laws? Couldn’t such a Being produce bubble cosmoses with say, miraculous borders of far smaller dimensions?

Instead, we live in a cosmos where matter and energy seem to be have been mixing on their own for billions of years, an experiment of size and duration that no one could conduct in limited human laboratories over limited spans of human lifetimes. Such evidence might even be taken to mean that the Designer was really a Tinkerer. Is this the Tinkerer’s first cosmos? And what about all the extinctions over billions of years, including mass extinction events? Was that the Tinkerer shaking His Etch-I-Sketch? Just some heretical thoughts for the day.

You know, I’ve often puzzled at the idea that God guided evolution by chucking an asteroid at the earth to cause the non-avian dinos to go extinct. (Which is not really guiding. It’s pushing the reset button.) Anyway, why not start at the end of the Permian extinction? No need to make dinosaurs and let them grow so large that you need to fry them in order to get humans going

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