I like to read and watch Science Fiction. A lot of the ideas that are presented in Science Fiction are ridiculous, and I do not take them seriously, but they are entertaining. I like to think outside of the box, and Science Fiction helps me do that, but I leave it there. I acknowledge that most of this stuff is nonsense. The problem with a lot of people that I know that like Science Fiction is that they think that this stuff can possibly be reality, and they will believe anything but simple truth.
One concept or theory that has gotten a lot of attention in Science Fiction lately is the “Multi-Verse”. No, this does not have anything to do with long songs! The multiverse (or meta-universe) is a hypothetical set of various possible universes including the universe which we live in. Together, these universes comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy and the physical laws and constants that describe them. This concept actually originated (as far as we know) In Hindu Puranic literature. The Bhagavata Purana states:
“Every universe is covered by seven layers — earth, water, fire, air, sky, the total energy and false ego — each ten times greater than the previous one. There are innumerable universes besides this one, and although they are unlimitedly large, they move about like atoms in You. Therefore, You are called unlimited.” (Bhagavata Purana 6.16.37)
To be honest, I don’t understand what this means, or what it is based on, but at least it gives us a starting point in understanding how this whole idea originated.
The idea of the multi-verse has gotten more attention recently, and the concept has been used in some recent sci-fi movies. It is a comforting idea. In this hypothesis, there are a million versions of you running around, and if version 14 of you screws up, perhaps version 1075 will get it right. That way, you don’t have to worry about morals, bad decisions, and all that other cumbersome stuff. It is kind of like the idea of evolution. Hey, if you stick enough zeros behind it, anything is possible, right? It is a stupid idea.
Black Holes, White Holes, Worm Holes. It seems that our universe is full of holes. I think that the people who devise all these theories are full of something also, but it is not holes. I do admit, however, that the ideas themselves appear to be full of holes. Listen to this definition of a white hole:
“A White Hole is a hypothetical region of spacetime which cannot be entered from the outside, although matter and light can escape from it. In this sense, it is the reverse of a Black Hole (duh), which can only be entered from the outside and from which matter and light cannot escape.”
The fascinating thing about all this to me is that there are probably people getting paid to make all this stuff up. None of this makes any sense. How do we know that a “hypothetical hole” cannot be entered from the outside? I guess it does make sense to say that a white hole is the reverse (opposite) of a black hole, in the same sense that a black horse is the opposite of a white horse. How long did it take them to figure that out? All this is just a bunch of linguistic gobbledy gook that doesn’t mean anything, but it makes people feel smart to sit around thinking about it.
Having said that, I do not deny the fact that the Hubble Space Scope has revealed to us some very interesting and perplexing things in outer space, and as far as black holes, white holes, and worm holes go, there is something there that has been seen that we do not understand. I do, however, take issue with the hypothesis’ about what these things are, and what they mean, being presented to the public as if they were fact.
I work in the IT (Information Technology, not weird scary clowns) field. I get the opportunity to chat with a lot of people with weird ideas about stuff (multi-verses, holes in space, space-time continuum, etc.) They seems to love to speculate and hypothesize about these sort of things. They also seem to have very wrong ideas about lots of things pertaining to Scripture. Forever learning, but never coming to a knowledge of the truth.
I have heard it all: The Crusades prove that Christianity is a murdering, blood thirsty religion, the Bible promotes misogyny, male dominance, and slavery. Jesus was an alien. The idea of God originated from a time lord from another dimension. Blah, blah blah. I could refute all of this, if space permitted, and I were so inclined, but that is not my purpose at the present time.
Suffice it to say that a lot of otherwise intelligent people come to the wrong conclusions about ultimate matters. The reason that is so is because the human mind is hostile towards God. This is part of the Fall, Original Sin. The un-regenerated human mind has the capacity to generate all kinds of bizarre ideas to avoid simply acknowledging the truth.
Human beings are very intelligent and creative. This is part of our being created in the image of God. The problem is, that, because of the Fall, Original Sin, this intellectual, creative force is directed towards the wrong ultimate ends, and comes to the wrong conclusions about the ultimate meaning of things.
Danny's Stump 