Time and Eternity

Eternity
Its unimaginable, in comprehensible, and for many people, mythical. The idea that something can have no beginning or will have no end sounds impossible. Christians are sometimes ridiculed by people saying, “prove your eternal God”. But is there an alternative? Time, matter, space, can’t create themselves. We must assume that either they have always been here, or some supernatural force has always been here. If you believe in the natural explanation for eternity, you must believe that eternity is simply an immeasurable amount of time which has marched on unstopped since um… infinity ago. But if you believe in the supernatural, eternity doesn’t have to be made of time, I believe, weird as it sounds, that eternity is a different realm. Its always happening, and since it requires no time, it requires no beginning or end. Here’s why I believe this.

Logic Affirmed
First off, there are some problems with the naturalistic view of eternity. One is called Entropy. It’s a scientific law. You see, as time marches on certain things happen, new things get old and break down, living things age and were out, and orderly things become disordered. Given an infinite amount of time, entropy could obviously do an infinite amount of damage to anything. This alone destroys naturalistic eternity. But this next problem puts the nails in the coffin. If eternity is made out of time, then picture yourself on a timeline.
< -----------------O----------------- >.
The present time is represented by an O. now pretend you are going to travel back in time to the beginning of infinity. When would you get there? Never. In the same way, if you started out an eternity ago, when would you arrive at the present time? Never. Do you see the problem? I know it’s a little deep, but think about it.

Scripture Affirmed
My second reason is that scripture tells us, “With the lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day”, 2nd Peter 3:8. This doesn’t make sense by time’s standards. So in the end, eternity poses a real problem to people who don’t believe in the supernatural. It’s important to remember that my view of eternity is unproven. It isn’t a scientific law, or even a theory. I don’t have all the answers about eternity. Some things only God can explain. But just the same, if you are ever asked to prove your eternal god, just ask them to prove how time could be eternal.

The Ozone Layer

No such thing
Did you know that there is no such thing as a Ozone layer? More specifically, there is no layer of solid Ozone anywhere in our atmosphere. However, the greatest concentration of Ozone is found from 6 miles to 25 miles up in the stratosphere. Even in its greatest concentration, there are only 10 ppm Ozone, (ppm means parts per million). So how can such a tiny amount of Ozone protect a planet from ultraviolet radiation? Well it can’t, and it doesn’t. you see, we have another molecule to thank for that. It’s called Oxygen, (O2), and unlike Ozone (O3) there’s plenty of it.

How it works
O2 is a molecule of oxygen formed by the joining of two Oxygen atoms. Ozone (which I will refer to as O3 when talking about molecular science) is formed by the joining of three oxygen atoms. Both of these molecules stop ultraviolet radiation the same way. When ultraviolet radiation strikes a molecule, the energy is absorbed into the molecule. But the molecule can’t handle this huge amount of energy. So, the oxygen atoms are forced to separate. In the case of O2, these separated oxygen atoms are highly reactive and quickly join up with each other, often forming a new ozone molecule.

Consequences
Ozone does stop a small percentage of the ultraviolet radiation entering our atmosphere, but many have claimed that it is solely responsible for keeping us alive. The consequences of this deception have been great. It is believed that chloride contained in CFC’s is causing a hole in the “Ozone layer”. The banning of all CFC’s has cost billions of dollars. And get this, there are other ways that nature destroys ozone with chlorine. For instance, volcanic mount Erebus in Antarctica has released 1,000 tons of chloride every day for 20 years. so why are people worried about the puny amount of chloride industries used to produce? I really don’t know.

Global Warming

Maybe its not Such a Problem...
With so much talk about global warming today, I think most people would be surprised to find that it is not actually that much of an issue. In fact, after reading about it in my science book, I don’t think that we need to worry about it. Global warming is an idea based on sound scientific reasoning. But the situation is a little more complex than most people relies.

How it Works
Certain gasses that we call, “Greenhouse Gasses” absorb energy from the sun as it enters our planet. This energy is converted into heat. Without these gasses much of this energy would reflect back into space. Without greenhouse gasses earth would be too cold for life.
Scientist are afraid that too many man-made greenhouse gasses would trap to much heat and cause the earth to warm up, throwing delicate eco-systems off balance. Carbon dioxide is the number one man made greenhouse gas. And since 1900 the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has steadily risen from around 292 ppm, to around 350 ppm. This seems alarming, until you figure out that “ppm” means Parts Per Million. So, even though the amount of CO2 has risen, it is still a very small amount.

How it Doesn't Work
Since the amount of CO2 has risen steadily, one would assume the temperature should be rising steadily two. However, the average temperature of the earth dose not correspond to the amount of CO2 at all. If we were to look at a graph, the average temp of the earth has followed a very shaky pattern, warm a few years, cold a few years. So, why dose CO2 not have much of an effect on the earth’s temperature? Well, CO2 isn’t the only man made gas. Many other gasses we produce actually reflect energy back into outer space. This could be what counteracts the effect of CO2, keeping the temperature balanced. This, plus the fact that human activity only accounts for 3% of all the CO2 formation in our atmosphere tells me that all this frantic talk of global warming is really just a deception.


Stewardship
Only 17% of Atmospheric scientists, (the ones who know what they’re talking about) think that global warming is a problem. 53% think it’s not, and 30% think there’s not enough information for us to determine that yet. I don’t think there is anything wrong with taking care of our planet. God has commanded humans to be stewards of his creation. But when we start de-emphasizing things like the millions of starving people around the world so that we can spend money making industries cleaner than they need to be, something is wrong.

Missing Links Part 2

The Piltdown Discovery
In 1912 Arthur Woodward, director of the Natural History Museum of London announced an important discovery. Doctor Charles Dawson had unearthed an ape like Jawbone and a human skull cap from a gravel pit near Piltdown England. Dawson had the Scientific community convinced that now they finally had a solid link between apes and humans. He called his discovery “Dawn Man” but it became known as Piltdown man. Without so much as a thorough chemical analysis done on the skull, this find was taught as an indisputable missing link between man and ape. Around 500 academic dissertations were written on “Piltdown man” and an imaginative bust of a primitive, blank faced ape man appeared in museums all over the world.

The Hoax is Exposed
41 years later, in 1953 proper tests were done by real scientists and they found that the teeth had been filed to fit into the jawbone, and the skull had been stained to make it look old! It was as complete fake! But by now, it was too late. The public had gotten so used to the idea that science had proven the ape man theory that they never went back. Now the only way we Christians can win the battle is to re-train the way people think about intelligent design. For way to long it's been associated with "religion" and treated like a joke. But science is on our side, and we need to get the word out.

Missing Links Part 1

Nebraska Tooth
In 1922 professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, a confirmed evolutionist and head of the Museum of Natural History, found a tooth in his home state of Nebraska. He claimed it was an early ape man. Dental Experts from the museum of Natural History examined it and concluded that it was from a creature more similar to man than an ape. They assumed that it was a missing link and it quickly became known as “Nebraska Man”.

Wait a second, man? I thought it was just a tooth. “Nebraska tooth” would work for me, but no! a full two page spread was drawn in the Illustrated London News, and distributed worldwide. The picture showed a rather stupid looking ape man with a club in hand, and his mate, in the back ground, an assortment of animals roaming around in a rocky terrain, sprinkled with dead trees and long grass. I doubt that the general public really knew what kind of fossil evidence stood behind this missing link.

Six years later in 1928, a mistake was found. It seems that the tooth wasn’t from an early man, it was from an extinct pig! Oops, just goes to show you what can happen when you base your information on assumptions. Pigs are often dissected instead of humans because their anatomy is very similar to that of a human. But Professor Osborn was looking for evidence for evolution, not a pig tooth, so he jumped to conclusions. This is not true science, scientists should not let their personal ideas affect their studies. I think many evolutionary scientists do.