Forgive my lack of humbleness. I have a BS in physics, BS in computer science, and a masters in structural engineering. I worked in research in astrophysics during my time in school. In other words, I've done some of the math behind these numbers. I actually understand what's involved for them to have come up with these numbers.
You're forgiven, education can be a valuable tool. I only have a high school diploma, and it's 40 years old at that. But I'd bet you and I aren't too far apart when it comes to an ability (or lack of it) to quickly comprehend how far a light-year actually is. 186,000 miles per second, times 31,536,000 seconds in a year. Almost 57 trillion miles? Doesn't really tell us much. Have you ever been encouraged to do some kind of exercise, mathematical or otherwise, to try to put into some kind of useful perspective how far one light-year is? I haven't - no encouragement at all from any of my high school teachers or science books. But I thought of one anyway, a few years ago. Here's how it went;
8000 miles (the diameter of the earth) multiplied by 23 gets close to the 186,000 figure. So it would take light one second to get from one end to the other of a string of 23 earths lined up side by side, touching each other. If we scale down the size of the earth, it will proportionately slow the speed of light into something more comprehensible. If we make the earth the size of a grain of sand, then we have light moving at about one inch per second. (23 grains of sand lined up is about one inch long) So how far will something moving at one inch per second travel in one year? Just going by memory, not doing all the calculations again, I remember it being about the distance from New York City to Atlanta, Georgia. So if the earth was a grain of sand in New York City, (with it's microscopic Hubble telescope orbiting it about......1/64th of an inch away) one light year away would be Atlanta. We're told that the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is about 4 light years away. That would put it about 500 miles beyond the coast of California in the Pacific ocean, from that grain-of-sand earth, in New York City.
During your higher educational processes, were you ever encouraged to do a mathematical exercise like this, to get some comprehension of great distances? Did your TV show touch on it at all? If not, then maybe society needs some uneducated people, to look at things in ways that the educated don't think of or don't care about, because of a narrow worldview. A worldview that may not necessarily fit everyone in a diverse society.
I've little doubt that the distances and details that science has provided concerning astronomy are largely true. But it's an imperfect human endeavor, and any time long distances are involved in just about any undertaking by humans, chances for error greatly multiply, whether it's in the building of a long bridge, a long pool table shot, or looking into outer space.
marc9000 writes:
I believe that's all we're ever going to be able to do. If you disagree, what methods do you believe are right around the corner to take a closer look at things that are thousands of light years away?
For now, none. Does this mean we shouldn't try?
It depends on the cost and who's paying for it, resources are always limited. If the scientific community would like to do something useful, I'd like to see (as only one example) someone come up with a way to get at the BASE of forest fires and get them put out before firemen are killed and millions in property are burned up. Is squirting water at the tops of flames, and watching 90% of it turn to steam the best we can do?
marc9000 writes:
Not at all, because science restricts itself to naturalistic rearrangement processes only. Those who control it don't even allow the exploration of the possibility of an intelligent designer. The human mind can't comprehend creation and destruction. Science tries to fit all of reality into rearrangement processes. Christianity is much more than that. The scientific community claims that it can't address anything to do with Christianity. (other than their belief that it’s wrong) What could a Christian possibly learn about God from godless science?
Then could you cite a few scientific or technological advancements that are due directly to attributing the processes to a God actively participating in the process?
No, I can't. Therefore I can't see the study of scientific advancements concerning astronomy to be of any use to anyone who seeks to know more about God.
I've spent a great deal of time reading and studying past achievements. What I've found is that attributing the limits of our knowledge to an all powerful magical being gets us no-where.
Concerning many (but not all) branches of science, that's probably true. But science isn't the only source of knowledge concerning human existence and behavior. Applying only science to all of reality often gets us nowhere as well.
Had Newton attributed gravity to God's magic, calculus would never have been invented. That's just one example.
And quite possibly, since the atheists who control science attribute the origins of life to the magic of abiogenesis, we're not going to be able to scientifically discover anything new about God.
Again, can you name us a few scientific or technological progress that were directly resulted from attributing some natural processes to God's magic?
No. Therefore it would do creationists little good to search for God in science, the way science is practiced today. So from this one creationist at least, the main question in your opening post is answered.
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