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About as close as I’ll ever get to Heaven (image from James Webb)
Cluster of 5 galaxies taken by the James Webb Telescope and released by NASA July 12. Two are in the process of merging, making it appear at first as only 4.
I’ve been asking: “Is there anyone home out there?” That magnificent sight just might replace Amy Lee as my home screen background on several devices. Close call. I was the nerd in 3rd grade who marched down to the corner library after school every afternoon to read dusty old astronomy books.
P.S. One European scientist on NASA today referred the Webb in the female gender (as a “she”) in the same way ships are often referenced. I kind of like that.
@hank My ability to comprehend the universe is limited. Although I've tried to ponder the distances and "what's out there".....I get stuck at some point. My best sensory feeds directly to my brain have been times spent at Eagle Harbor, MI in the Keweenaw peninsula. I've spent a fair number of hours laying on my back looking at the vastness above me once the sky has become fully dark, and no ambient light sources anywhere nearby. Stars and everything in the night sky. Course, no magnification; only what my eyes can view, for my brain to "see". However, I fully appreciate the human imagination, combined with the electronics and mechanics; to build such amazing devices as the Webb. My adult years work has been involved with mechanicals, electro-mechanics and 1975 based mini-computers using paddle switches to input 1's and 0's to get the damn thing to "base" start, through the developed years of Windows based computers. While I was fully trainable in these areas, my mental capacity to have actually designed what I worked with, is not possible.
I remain curious and fascinated, whether I'm able to comprehend or not.
Thanks @Catch22 for the introspection. Yep - The distances involved are so immense & profound that even scientists surely must find them hard to get their heads around, When I was 5 or 10 years old scientists didn’t even realize other galaxies (outside the Milky Way) existed. How far our understanding has evolved the past 60-70 years.
I’m beginning to grasp gravity. And “light years” I can comprehend. But the concept of time actually being a “finite and measurable quantity” is the hardest for me to get my head around.. It would seem to me as if time has always and will always exist. But, no. It is finite, having begun only with the big-bang (and presumably ending at some distant point). That’s a tough one to comprehend.
A good sci-fi film dealing with the mystery of space & time is Intersrellar. I’ll rate it C for acting, plot and directing. But A for its focus on one of the most bizarre aspects of space & time.
Astronomy blows my mind. Thanks for starting this thread. Is the universe infinite? I used to think so, until I thought it through. Nevertheless, it's so huge, it might as well be infinite. Like being a gnat in a stadium. That gnat will never see it all. Will we ever get back to the Big Bang? My career was in theology. Complemented by new scientific knowledge, it continues to engage me, entertain me and leaves me awestruck. I'm paying close attention to the James Webb telescope.
Answer: We don’t really know. You can Google that and arrive at different theories. -
I’m more inclined to ask a few questions of the religious sort, no disrespect intended:
- The Bible says God created the world. Now, that certainly included the earth, the sun, the moon & the stars? Right? (widely assumed in Biblical times I’d imagine). )
- How about those other hundreds of billions of galaxies with their own stars and planets? Did God create all that too? All at the same time? (Assume yes)
- God created all life. Correct?
- According to one story, Noah built an ark and loaded it with 2 each of all living creatures. Right?
- Comment - That’s millions of different life forms from bacteria to worms, from mosquitos to robins, from skunks to elephants. Obviously that can’t be true. Where did the other life forms not on the ark originate?
If and when life (or definitive evidence of such) is discovered elsewhere in the universe (as II’m confident it will be) did God create that too?
Ahh … That last one’s a tough one to crack, I suspect, from a religious standpoint. Were I moderating the next Republican Presidential debates, I’d ask Ted Cruz those questions, religious zealot that he appears to be.
@hank. Good questions. I'd say that the universe is finite, though immeasurably gigantic. Why? Simple: Because it is physical, tangible. Therefore, it is measurable.
Who or what is "God?" At this point in my life, that is much less definite to me. I'd say certainly "God" is real, but bigger and more inscrutable than ever before, in my previous understanding. By definition, God is Ultimate. Ergo, God as Creator would be responsible for the genesis of ALL life. But you'd have to be deliberately, willfully ignorant not to accept Evolution. Changes, growth, mutations, some randomness along the way. It's complicated. (A favorite quotation, from Voltaire: "If God did not exist, we should have to invent Him.")
The rabid atheists I've read and listened to always argue against the existence of God and religion in a way that shows me that their conception of God and religion is a caricature. **************************************** - According to one story, Noah built an ark and loaded it with 2 each of all living creatures. Right?
- Comment - That’s millions of different life forms from bacteria to worms, from mosquitos to robins, , from skunks to elephants. Obviously that can’t be true. Where did the other life forms not on the ark originate?
The Noah/Flood story, so the scholars tell us, is obviously a re-make of an episode from the EpicofGilgamesh. In the telling, it was Jewish-ized. It is among the "pre-history" myths that fill the book of Genesis up until the start of chapter 12. Of course, the bible is rooted in experience, in history. But the writers were inspired to creatively construct and express stories and narratives in order to make a point. That's why so many different theological angles can be found in the bible's pages. The Flood and aftermath represents a new start for humanity. Perhaps you'll recall that in chapter 6, things became so corrupt and perverted and evil and screwed up, even Nature itself was twisted and mangled--- communicated in the narrative by having even "sons of God" come to earth and have sex with human, finite women.
The basic, misguided mistake of fundamentalism is to take all of this literally. It's like looking at poetry and forcing yourself to read and understand it as if it were a technical manual or a history book. The bible is rooted in human events, but the contents are not newspaper reports.
One of the official Statements out of the Presbyterian Church (USA) appears below. It certainly does not contradict the teachings of any of the other mainline denominations today: "The Scriptures, given under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, are nevertheless the words of men, conditioned by the language, thought forms, and literary fashions of the places and times at which they were written. They reflect views of life, history, and the cosmos which were then current. The church, therefore, has an obligation to approach the Scriptures with literary and historical understanding. As God has spoken his word in diverse cultural situations, the church is confident that he will continue to speak through the Scriptures in a changing world and in every form of human culture." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh
+1 Thanks @Crash. Good points. Of course the story of the ark is a fable or parable or whatever else one chooses to call it. That certainly does not disprove the existence of God.
Religions vary tremendously. I do think that for some more rigid / traditional orthodoxies, the proven existence of life in other parts of the universe would be ground-shaking. (Of course they would deny it). I do believe that before James Webb’s years are ended, it will have contributed to such evidence. More fascinating yet, a conclusive confirmation of life might be found in some distant planetary system 4.5 billion or more light years away (the time it took those radio waves to reach earth) - well within Webb’s range. That would mean life existed elsewhere long before the earth was even formed.
Comments
P.S. One European scientist on NASA today referred the Webb in the female gender (as a “she”) in the same way ships are often referenced. I kind of like that.
My ability to comprehend the universe is limited. Although I've tried to ponder the distances and "what's out there".....I get stuck at some point. My best sensory feeds directly to my brain have been times spent at Eagle Harbor, MI in the Keweenaw peninsula. I've spent a fair number of hours laying on my back looking at the vastness above me once the sky has become fully dark, and no ambient light sources anywhere nearby. Stars and everything in the night sky. Course, no magnification; only what my eyes can view, for my brain to "see".
However, I fully appreciate the human imagination, combined with the electronics and mechanics; to build such amazing devices as the Webb. My adult years work has been involved with mechanicals, electro-mechanics and 1975 based mini-computers using paddle switches to input 1's and 0's to get the damn thing to "base" start, through the developed years of Windows based computers. While I was fully trainable in these areas, my mental capacity to have actually designed what I worked with, is not possible.
I remain curious and fascinated, whether I'm able to comprehend or not.
I’m beginning to grasp gravity. And “light years” I can comprehend. But the concept of time actually being a “finite and measurable quantity” is the hardest for me to get my head around.. It would seem to me as if time has always and will always exist. But, no. It is finite, having begun only with the big-bang (and presumably ending at some distant point). That’s a tough one to comprehend.
A good sci-fi film dealing with the mystery of space & time is Intersrellar. I’ll rate it C for acting, plot and directing. But A for its focus on one of the most bizarre aspects of space & time.
Answer: We don’t really know. You can Google that and arrive at different theories.
-
I’m more inclined to ask a few questions of the religious sort, no disrespect intended:
- The Bible says God created the world. Now, that certainly included the earth, the sun, the moon & the stars? Right? (widely assumed in Biblical times I’d imagine). )
- How about those other hundreds of billions of galaxies with their own stars and planets? Did God create all that too? All at the same time? (Assume yes)
- God created all life. Correct?
- According to one story, Noah built an ark and loaded it with 2 each of all living creatures. Right?
- Comment - That’s millions of different life forms from bacteria to worms, from mosquitos to robins, from skunks to elephants. Obviously that can’t be true. Where did the other life forms not on the ark originate?
If and when life (or definitive evidence of such) is discovered elsewhere in the universe (as II’m confident it will be) did God create that too?
Ahh … That last one’s a tough one to crack, I suspect, from a religious standpoint. Were I moderating the next Republican Presidential debates, I’d ask Ted Cruz those questions, religious zealot that he appears to be.
Who or what is "God?" At this point in my life, that is much less definite to me. I'd say certainly "God" is real, but bigger and more inscrutable than ever before, in my previous understanding. By definition, God is Ultimate. Ergo, God as Creator would be responsible for the genesis of ALL life. But you'd have to be deliberately, willfully ignorant not to accept Evolution. Changes, growth, mutations, some randomness along the way. It's complicated. (A favorite quotation, from Voltaire: "If God did not exist, we should have to invent Him.")
The rabid atheists I've read and listened to always argue against the existence of God and religion in a way that shows me that their conception of God and religion is a caricature.
****************************************
- According to one story, Noah built an ark and loaded it with 2 each of all living creatures. Right?
- Comment - That’s millions of different life forms from bacteria to worms, from mosquitos to robins, , from skunks to elephants. Obviously that can’t be true. Where did the other life forms not on the ark originate?
The Noah/Flood story, so the scholars tell us, is obviously a re-make of an episode from the Epic of Gilgamesh. In the telling, it was Jewish-ized. It is among the "pre-history" myths that fill the book of Genesis up until the start of chapter 12. Of course, the bible is rooted in experience, in history. But the writers were inspired to creatively construct and express stories and narratives in order to make a point. That's why so many different theological angles can be found in the bible's pages. The Flood and aftermath represents a new start for humanity. Perhaps you'll recall that in chapter 6, things became so corrupt and perverted and evil and screwed up, even Nature itself was twisted and mangled--- communicated in the narrative by having even "sons of God" come to earth and have sex with human, finite women.
The basic, misguided mistake of fundamentalism is to take all of this literally. It's like looking at poetry and forcing yourself to read and understand it as if it were a technical manual or a history book. The bible is rooted in human events, but the contents are not newspaper reports.
One of the official Statements out of the Presbyterian Church (USA) appears below. It certainly does not contradict the teachings of any of the other mainline denominations today:
"The Scriptures, given under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, are nevertheless the words of men, conditioned
by the language, thought forms, and literary fashions of the places and
times at which they were written. They reflect views of life, history,
and the cosmos which were then current. The church, therefore, has an
obligation to approach the Scriptures with literary and historical understanding. As God has spoken his word in diverse cultural situations, the
church is confident that he will continue to speak through the Scriptures
in a changing world and in every form of human culture."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh
Ted Cruz? Don't bother. Doink-brain. EVIL doink-brain.
Religions vary tremendously. I do think that for some more rigid / traditional orthodoxies, the proven existence of life in other parts of the universe would be ground-shaking. (Of course they would deny it). I do believe that before James Webb’s years are ended, it will have contributed to such evidence. More fascinating yet, a conclusive confirmation of life might be found in some distant planetary system 4.5 billion or more light years away (the time it took those radio waves to reach earth) - well within Webb’s range. That would mean life existed elsewhere long before the earth was even formed.
Just some things to ponder.