Posted on 10/23/2017 8:31:56 AM PDT by Salvation
I was meditating on time today, precipitated by some things I have recently learned about the light of the Sun that reaches Earth.
I have long known that to look up into the night sky is to look far into the past. Looking up at the star Sirius, I am seeing 9 years into the past. Looking over at the star Antares, I am seeing 250 years into the past. And when I look the star Rigel, I am seeing 600 years into the past. Looking farther still at the Andromeda galaxy, I am seeing a million years into the past. That is how long it takes the light of these stars and galaxies to reach us! We are not seeing them as they are now, but as they were then. The past—even the distant past—is very present to us.
The light of the Sun takes 8.25 minutes to reach us. Thus we see its surface not as it is now, but as it was more than 8 minutes ago.
Yesterday, I learned that the light of the Sun is even older than I had thought. A little research on my part revealed this astonishing fact: the photons of light that reach the surface of the Sun (and then reach us 8+ minutes later) were actually generated 100,000 years ago in its core.
Emerging from the Sun’s core as the result of nuclear fusion, a photon of light enters the radiative zone. The plasma in that zone creates quite a maze for the photon to get through; it takes the better part of 100,000 years to make the journey to the convective zone and the photosphere where it finally begins a rapid journey out into the vacuum of space.
Why does it take this long? Imagine being in a large room filled with people, trying to get to the door on the other side the room. But as you try to make your way across the room, person after person strikes up a conversation with you, delaying your progress. It won’t take you 100,000 years to get to the door, but you get the idea.
Thus, the sunlight we currently bask in is much more than 8 minutes old; it’s actually 100,000 years old! The light we see today was made in the Sun’s core back during the beginning of the last ice age.
The great mystery of time is on display for us at every moment. The past is present in many ways. And our past is on display and still present as well. If anyone on a planet near Rigel were looking back through a telescope at Earth right now, he would not see us as we are today but as we were in the 15th century. The light of our “today” will not reach Rigel for 600 years.
What is the present? It depends on where you are. God, who is just as present at Rigel as He is here, has the same access to the images of 1417 as he does to those of 2017. Indeed, He is present at Andromeda just as much as here on Earth; and a million years ago is just as accessible to Him as is today.
The future is even more mysterious, but to God, the future is just as available as is the past.
Do not miss the irony of the fact that the light of the Sun (and the reflected light of the Moon), by which we measure the passage of time and tell what time it is now, is about 100,000 years old.
Does anybody really know what time it is? Only God, only God. Time is very mysterious. It seems that the more we think we know, the less we really do.
All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with you (Psalm 139:16-18).
Monsignor Pope Ping!
One more proof against the “Earth is no more than 10,000 years old” notion.
At some point people should consider:
- either practically everything we honestly observe & deduce is wrong, or
- the one vaguely-established notion requiring the former is itself wrong.
The sunlight we see is only about 8 minutes old.
Be precise, please.
Reading comprehension.
That light took 8 minutes to get from sun to us.
It likely took 100,000 years to get _out_ of the sun.
My last astronomy class, granted... about 25 years ago, said it was on average 1 million years before a photon at the core of the Sun made its “random walk” to the surface.
Each second the Sun converts 600 million metric tons of hydrogen into 596 million metric tons of helium, releasing 4 million metric tons of energy.
In the inner Sun the energy is mostly transported by radiation, with a photon being emitted and absorbed many times on the journey to the surface. Nearer the surface the primary energy transport method becomes convection.
“The sunlight we see is only about 8 minutes old.”
Agree, but...the photons that comprise the sunlight take about 50,000 years to escape the sun, and then travel those 8 minutes.
Real science keeps me in awe of the Creator. I find it sad that the universe of Young Earth Creationism, which is required dogma in some churches, has the world as little more than a super-sized Disneyland prop and God is shown as doing illusions like it is all a magic show.
As I approach 50 years (WTF?), I finally grasp what a century is.
And by extrapolation, what 10,000 years is (one hundred 100-year lifespans back-to-back) ... and it really isn’t much, certainly not big enough for the visible universe to fit in.
But cow farts are causing Global Warming
“Does anybody really know what time it is? Only God, only God. Time is very mysterious. It seems that the more we think we know, the less we really do.”
That last sentence from the post is about the only thing that is any where near exact. The rest is theoretical physics and at best conjecture or postulation. But really, who cares and why should we?
Focus on the singular fact that God (the “I am that I am”, not some one else like a spaghetti monster etc) is and you are His creation, and therefore ought to pay attention to the details of His revelation for you. Find out what that is in the scriptures, then follow the instructions therein.
BTW, there is only one message in the entirety of the Holy Scriptures-that God saves by grace- accept the free gift of HIs salvation by faith in the singular act of sacrifice by Him on the cross.
All else is distraction. Are you distracted?
Well there you go. People could spend all the time in the world contemplating that mystery, and yet not spend even a moment thinking on it.
It seems to me, then, that the secret of timelessness (eternity) is not having any time pass. In this world we peer inside that phenomenon whenever we are involved in what we love doing.
It's as if no time passed. For example, a man has a life's dream of starting a certain business. Once he's able to directly 'work' at it, he could go for 14, 18, even 20 hours a day for the love he has toward realizing his dream. He'll even forget to eat.
Contrast that with some dead-end job. It's slavery. Every minute is more like an hour. Tick tock, ugh, when will it end.
When Jacob served seven years for Rachel, they seemed but a few days in his eyes, for the love he had toward her.
Meaning, it's not any work at all if it is love.
There's not even any time involved if it is love.
Eternity = love, with people doing what they love. Not a good retirement plan to love evil.
Simple meaning.
The Torah of the Messiah is love, which is the secret to eternal life.
“One more proof against the “Earth is no more than 10,000 years old” notion.”
You say that as if those who believe in a young earth haven’t considered the issue, when they have written a fair amount about it.
https://creation.com/how-can-distant-starlight-reach-us-in-just-6000-years
https://creation.com/the-young-faint-sun-paradox-and-the-age-of-the-solar-system
https://creation.com/search?q=light+years
But then, as a Catholic priest, we already knew anyway.
If we really wanted to get picky, and equated the “age” of the light to when the photons were created, then the “light” (bunch of photons) we see from the sunlight is even older than 100,000 years + 8+ minutes suggested by the article.
Can “time” and the omnipresence of G-d through all time be expressed without such nonsensical use of science? Yes.
Starlight and Time by Russell Humphreys.
God is outside of Time. Humans have no choice but to live in Time. For God there is no change. Humans cannot escape the continuum of cause and effect.
Time is eternal but life is short.
the sun was created fully formed and functioning, just as adam and eve were created as fully functioning adults, from a YEC standpoint....no need to use man-made faulty methods to date the time it takes photons to reach the surface....since these methods rely on atheistic uniformatism presuppositions.
excellent book, sums up the issue and shows how YEC works well with it....bet you dollars to donuts, not one of these folks on here, other than maybe you and me, have read it, or could refute it....
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