Members heartstrings Posted November 27, 2007 Members Share Posted November 27, 2007 2 Peter 3:11-13 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, 12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? 13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Notice that the verse does not say that the elements will be destroyed: When you "melt" something, it changes from a solid to a liquid and takes a different form. God's Creation fascinates me. I was watching this documentary about the Magellan space craft's exploration of the Planet Venus. Could this is be a picture of what will one day happen to planet Earth?http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2210venus.html Here is an excerpt...NARRATION: Among all the strange and inexplicable features, there seemed to be none of the usual geological signs of heat loss: no tell-tale ridges and fault lines of plate tectonics, and no large active volcanoes. Most of the volcanoes, in fact, looked like they had been dormant for hundreds of millions of years. So Venus had to be losing internal heat in some unknown and un-Earth-like way. The key to solving the puzzle turned out to be hidden in an unexpected place on the planet's surface. Like the moon, all solid bodies in the solar system are hit by meteorites. Such collisions scar the surface with impact craters which can tell us about its age. Older land has more craters because it has had more time to accumulate meteorite strikes. Fresh land is formed when volcanoes erupt, coating the surrounding landscape in a new skin of lava. This younger land will have fewer impact craters. When a team of specialists sat down to count, measure and plot every crater on the surface of Venus, they were in for the surprise of their careers. ROBERT STROM: This is the surface of Venus after it has been fully mapped by the Magellan mission. And when we plotted all of the craters on the surface, lo and behold, it was extremely uniform, they were extremely uniformly distributed across the surface. Just totally random. Truly astounding. NARRATION: Such an even distribution of impact craters across the whole planet could only mean one thing: there was no old or new land. The whole surface was the same age. Judging from the number of craters, it was young for a planet - only about 500 million years old. GERALD SCHABER: It was quite amazing. ROBERT STROM: It was incredible to me. I had never seen anything like this in the thirty years that I've been looking at solid bodies in the solar system. I've counted craters from Mercury to Triton at Neptune and this is the first time I've ever seen a crater population that was completely random. It just absolutely blew my mind. No place else in the solar system. One simple way of explaining this is to have a complete resurfacing of Venus and then starting all over again, building up the cratering record. What this actually means: is that Venus has turned itself inside out. How do you do that? You know, how do you do that? NARRATION: For a planet to suddenly resurface itself was unheard of. More proof would be necessary to convince the scientific establishment. ROBERT STROM: It was very hard for the community to swallow this because it was so unusual and it had never happened on any other planet. So what we did was to run fifty thousand Monte Carlo simulations of random point distributions. Now Monte Carlo simulation is named after the casinos in Monte Carlo where gambling is a chance. In other words, it's a random process and that's what these are. So these were computer simulations of....random distributions of points. So we ran fifty thousand of these and you could not tell the difference between the random distributions generated by the computer and the surface of Venus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Interesting observations, to be sure. I wrote a post/article about that passage a year or so ago I believe; if you go back a little ways in the chapter you'll see this:2 Peter 3 10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. In the Bible, "pass away" means to die or be destroyed, so we could deduce that the heavens will be completely done away with. What's even more interesting is even further up the chapter...2 Peter 3 1 This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: 2 That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: 3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: The subject in the passage so far is the word of God, as found in verse 5. Now, I don't want to get into the significance of that verse as applied to Genesis 1, since we've been there too many times already (any questions, e-mail/PM me). The key is the "word of God." Now that that's established, let's take a look at another verse.2 Peter 3 7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. Ok, that's some powerful stuff...the word of God is keeping the heavens and the earth in store unto the day of judgment. Let's keep reading.2 Peter 3 10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. 11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, 12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? 13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. There are four places in Scripture where the word "elements" is used, and the other two times it's talking about worldly things that Christians should put off. In this case, however, it's quite apparent that the subject is the actual molecular particles that are comprised of the elements. (God was already really smart before we invented electron microscopes) Physicists believe and teach that matter, specifically the electrons and protons of atoms, are comprised of smaller particles called "quarks." According to the theory, each proton or electron is made up of three quarks. Quarks have a magnetic charge, some positive and some negative. If this is the case, then having three quarks to make a proton or electron would make the particle magnetically unstable, as you would have to have either two positives and a negative or two negatives and one positive. Theoretically, this cannot occur without falling completely apart, in this case at the subatomic level. But since you and I and all the matter in the universe is still intact, then something unusual must be holding these things together, something that scientists and physicists can't understand or explain. Enter God, still the smartest guy ever. Look at the verses that I posted above again. Twice the word "element" is used, in the context of "pass[ing] away," "be[ing] dissolved," and "melt[ing] with a fervent heat." Now, what would cause the elements, single atoms of matter, to melt, dissolve and pass away? Well, if those were built on an unstable basis (magnetically unstable quarks), and whatever was holding them together stopped holding them together, then we'd have one big nuclear fission bomb--the size of the universe. Physics-wise, this makes sense, but the missing link is what's holding all those cute little magnetically challenged quarks together; let's ask the Smart Guy again.2 Peter 3 7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. Come Judgment day, God's gonna' pull the plug on those little quarks that His word is holding together, and the universe is going to (to quote Barney Fife) "go blewey!" Yet another reason to understand the importance and awesome power of the word of God. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 I remember the last time you posted something about that, Vince. People got all upset that you were assuming the "word of God" could literally, physically hold the universe together. Even if the verses are meaning that the literal word God put the universe together with ("let there be.."), instead of the whole Bible, is what's holding them together, that's still a powerful verse. Of course, the most obvious meaning of that verse is that the "word of God" (which is talking about the Bible) is holding the universe together. It's hard to comprehend, but that doesn't make it untrue. :Green Man, that hurts your brain to think about! :Bleh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members matie-k Posted January 7, 2008 Members Share Posted January 7, 2008 You refer to God as "the Smart Guy"?? Wow! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 You refer to God as "the Smart Guy"?? Wow! Lol He has so many names, I doubt He'd mind a few more. :frog Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members qwerty guy Posted January 7, 2008 Members Share Posted January 7, 2008 Scientist can't explain gravity. Everything in nature expands away from itself Spin something, it wants to blow apart Yet spinning dust comes together? They still can't explain it They can't explain how if there is this "attraction" the planets are not hollow (which no one really has proved they are not, although earth quake data leans toward they are solid) If God holds everything together, it could be why scientists can't figure out what is doing it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 Scientist can't explain gravity. Everything in nature expands away from itself Spin something, it wants to blow apart Yet spinning dust comes together? They still can't explain it They can't explain how if there is this "attraction" the planets are not hollow (which no one really has proved they are not, although earth quake data leans toward they are solid) If God holds everything together, it could be why scientists can't figure out what is doing it. Exactly. I believe God did it that way to confound the scientists. :cool It'll be so fun someday when we get to Heaven to ask God to show us how that works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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