Imagine we are back three or four billion years and are watching a couple of orbiting bodies. The earth and the moon were very close together–according to one theory. Since the records were lost in a warehouse fire years ago, we can only conjecture as to what happened. We’ll imagine a couple of options. Here are these two orbs, close together and some rogue asteroid smashes into them, either from behind or T-bones them.
The collision melts the moon (or smashes it into the side of the earth, depending) and then the earth and moon rebound and swing out into their present orbits. The moon has to be melted, because its rotational speed is too slow for centrifugal forces to shape it into a ball. Otherwise it would just be an ugly, jagged hunk of space junk.
A second scenario is that the earth and moon were joined, kind of like a “pregnant” planet and our ever useful asteroid smashes into the bulge and dislodges it into the surrounding space, and melting it. Either scenario will lead to the final result–they say. (Incidentally, if these menacing asteroids played such a prominent role in the development of the solar system where are they now? Nearly every planet invokes an asteroid impact to explain some aspect of its formation.) But I digress.
While melting the moon, the impact must keep the earth relatively cool so that all of the water and atmosphere is not boiled off into space. We will need those things later for the next scenario. Now the moon bolts out to its “normal” place, rotating once per orbit as it circles the earth. (Technically called tidal lock.) This was the first “geosynchronous” orbit, which was adapted by the military, the communications industry, and the GPS guys. They built satellites to circle the earth once every 24 hours so that they stay in place over one spot, while keeping one side to the earth.
This is very handy for my GPS to ping the satellite and tell me exactly where I am. It will even show if I coast forward a couple of feet in the driveway. The communications industry uses the stationary antenna to receive and re-send signals of TV, radio, and other streaming media from one place to another. The military can send a signal to the satellite and the satellite “forwards” to one or more others which beam it down to spots all over the earth.
This neat system depends upon a stationary “target” in the sky, just as the moon shows the same side. The exciting thing about this ground and space system is that it spontaneously, randomly developed with available elements and molecules. They just conglomerated together and leapt into action, just waiting for someone to discover them. Now that is really neat.
Uh, maybe not, you say. Maybe there was some intelligence behind it? And where, pray tell, would that come from? Was it from a randomly accumulated group of carbon based molecules that spontaneously joined together and began to live when a bolt of lightning struck the particular glob of “primordial soup” that they inhabited?
Then they mutated into higher and higher life forms until the brain cells began to “think.” What initiated that process? Was it another bolt of lightning? Or something more subtle? Then this thinking organism began to speculate about what is “out there.” Why? If it is self generated, why would there be any curiosity, or indeed impetus to look elsewhere for alternatives?
It would seem that an indigenous organism would be focused on becoming the “perfect” specimen and not wonder about anything else. And as for imagining other species based on alternative elements, such as sulfur or silicon, that would be inconceivable. Sorry Star Trek and the silicon slug that laid diamond eggs. (That crossover always mystified me.) Or a metal based life. Bye Arnold Swartz-inator.
Chemically speaking, we are pretty sure that chemicals react the same throughout the universe. Astronomers aim a spectrometer at a star billions of light years away and can tell us what is in it because the atoms radiate energy the same as they do on earth and our sun. So if the atoms are the same, the chemistry is the same. No silicon or metal-based life. But I digress.
It is ironic that our imaginations frequently and habitually invoke the supernatural or at least extra-natural for our villains and adversaries. But when it comes to explaining the most amazing, intricate, and incredible phenomenon of all, life, we are arbitrarily limited to “natural” explanations only.
Jeremiah would be amused at our musings about origins and destinies. He counseled us from God that “he who boasts should boast in this, that he understands and knows Me.” (God) The verse goes on to describe this “Me” and once we understand that, everything else kind of pales into the mundane. (Jeremiah 9:24)
The Apostle Paul said it well, “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection.” (Phillipians 3:10) All of this is about redemption for a lost race. The eclipse draws our attention to the mysteries and masteries and majesties of the One Who made us.
Jeremiah 10:12 He made the earth by His power, established the world by His wisdom,
and spread out the heavens by His understanding.
He created the earth. (Power) He established the “world” or life as we know it. (Wisdom) And
He spread out the heavens, and we wonder at His “understanding.” We do not understand. But I want to.
I want to know Christ. Join me.
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