{"id":60971,"date":"2018-05-10T12:53:07","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T18:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=60971"},"modified":"2018-09-05T09:53:45","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T15:53:45","slug":"worlds-in-collision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/05\/worlds-in-collision.html","title":{"rendered":"Worlds in Collision"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"When<\/a>
Two colliding galaxies, from the Hubble telescope \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0(NASA public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The natural prospects of the Universe, and of life within it, aren\u2019t good.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell eloquently recognized this more than a century ago:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man\u2019s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins\u2014all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair can the soul\u2019s habitation be safely built.\u201d \u00a0(From\u00a0A Free Man\u2019s Worship<\/i>, 1903)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s one British science writer\u2019s appeal for an effort to\u00a0save<\/em>\u00a0the Universe:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

http:\/\/aeon.co\/magazine\/science\/how-to-save-the-universe-from-certain-death\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m so grateful for the message and gift of the Gospel.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Without taking a stance here on the question of human-caused global warming, let me simply observe that the climate of the Earth is, and always has been, variable. \u00a0The fact that we speak about average and mean temperatures implies pretty strongly that, over shorter periods (\u201cshorter\u201d in geological terms, though not in terms of brief human lifespans), they rise and fall.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

You may or may not have heard of the\u00a0\u201cLittle Ice Age,\u201d<\/a>which began around 1300 AD and continued, albeit in three major phases, until AD 1870.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But there it was.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And\u00a0a recent doctoral dissertation<\/a>\u00a0out of Denmark examines the effect of the cold winters that began to afflict the Vikings of Greenland in or near AD 1300, and the measures that they took to survive.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Little Ice Age, by the way, probably wasn\u2019t caused by factory emissions and auto exhaust.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I often marvel at the bizarre internet behavior of certain apostate critics of Mormonism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, though, I think I may have found an explanation:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.braindecoder.com\/caffeine-induced-mania-1168100701.html<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

More than a few of them also post from time to time on the life-transforming wonders that they\u2019ve discovered in their post-liberation consumption of coffee.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pure coincidence?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maybe.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m a man of science, and the alternative seems to me something more along the lines of demonic possession. \u00a0I would prefer not to resort to that explanation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unless, of course, we postulate that the devil dwells in coffee. \u00a0Something to ponder . . .<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from Jerusalem, Israel<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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