Posted on 10/22/2015 7:20:02 AM PDT by Salvation
I was meditating on time today, precipitated by some mysteries I’ve recently learned about the light of the Sun that reaches this 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 further still at the Andromeda galaxy, I am seeing one 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 the surface of the sun not as it is now, but as it was more than 8 minutes ago.
But I learned yesterday 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 the sun’s core.
Emerging from the sun’s core as the result of nuclear fusion, a photon of light enters the radiative zone (see diagram above). The plasma in that radiative zone is quite a maze for the photon to get through, such a maze that 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.
The diagram above shows the meandering, zigzag motion of a photon as it makes it way through a maze of plasma that detains the photon for up to 100,000 years!
Thus, the sunlight we currently bask in is much more than 8 minutes old; it’s 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 the earth right now, he would not see us as we are today, he might see Joan of Arc and her contemporaries of the 15th century. The light of our “today” will not reach Rigel for 600 years.
What is the present? That is mysterious as the sum total space of the universe and 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 1415, as he does to those of 2015. 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 now.
The future is even more mysterious, but that is just as available to God 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 set our clocks and calendars to measure time and tell what time it is now, is 100,000 years old.
Does anybody really know what time it is? Only God, only God. Time is very mysterious and the more we think we know, it seems 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).
NO!
Do you believe He was raised on the third day?
Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem caeli et terrae,
et in Iesum Christum, Filium Eius unicum, Dominum nostrum,
qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Virgine,
passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus, et sepultus,
descendit ad inferos, tertia die resurrexit a mortuis,
ascendit ad caelos, sedet ad dexteram Patris omnipotentis,
inde venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos.
Credo in Spiritum Sanctum,
sanctam Ecclesiam catholicam, sanctorum communionem,
remissionem peccatorum,
carnis resurrectionem,
vitam aeternam.
Amen.[21]
The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives the following English translation of the Apostles’ Creed.[23] In its discussion of the Creed,[24] the Catechism maintains the traditional division into twelve articles....
I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
Under Pontius Pilate, He was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.
Btw, per John 5:24 and 5:29 believers have passed out of judgment.
I have repeated the Apostles Creed at every Mass I have attended every Sunday for almost seventy years.
As I have said to you that there is zero space between what I believe and what the Catechism teaches.
Therefore your question is just another of your pathetic attempts to bait a faithful Catholic that we can make book on,
Ag Majoram Dei Gloriam
And yet you ignore the part of believers having passed out of judgment. So your creed is incorrect.
“believers having passed out of judgment” = protestant fairy tale
I guess Jesus was part of that "protestant fairy tale" then.
18“He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:18 NASB)
24“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. (John 5:24 NASB)
The Greek emphatically rules out a believer coming into judgment in v24.
The believer has passed out of death and into life.
Like I said a fairy tale
I can only pray your heart is opened to the Gospel.
I understand where you're coming from, but doesn't it have to be decided (judged) whether that person truly believed in Him in his heart (5:24), and whether they really did good in their life (5:29)?
A * Yes*. or *No* is an answer to the question.
Posting some creed and stating that you have recited it your whole life is not.
It’s entirely possible to recite something your entire life and not really believe it, but rather just be parroting words you have been taught to say.
So...... Yes? or No?
Just when you think you heard it all....
John 5:24
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Today is the day of salvation.
Are you saying that God cannot now determine if someone truly believes in their heart at this very moment?
What is God waiting for to figure it out?
Isn’t He omniscient, knowing the beginning from the end, standing outside time?
Do you think that He already doesn’t know how our lives end up playing out, or does He have to wait until we die to see how we did?
Without the Spirit of God in a person’s life, no one is capable of doing any really good work, untainted by sin.
All our rightesouness is as filthy rags in the sight of God because of our sin staining them.
As opposed to millions and millions of super smart people,veritable galaxies of superstar theologians over the last two thousand odd years,over so much settled science and over so much settled theology? Let's face it,how could so many people over so long a time have something so important so wrong? The world and all that's in it is simply too big too fail!
8-/
"Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown" (Rev 3:11)
Amen and thinking we might bring something good of our own to that table really would be akin to standing on the sun expecting to cast a shadow.Our God is an all consuming fire.
Thankyou for those scriptures metmom!
"....for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." (2 Tim 1:12)
"....Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." (Romans 14:5)
"For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his." (Heb 4:10)
Yes, space aliens could be God’s people...read CS Lewis book Out of the silent Planet...
or his Narnia books.
How could so many have it wrong? Ask the Muslims, the Hindus, the Mormons, etc.
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