I challenge you to mute the football game this afternoon and set aside your disbelief, on principal, of evolution, while you read The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions by Peter Brannen.
You will come away partially educated. You will realize that the truly knowledgeable walk shoulder to shoulder with the ignorant on every sidewalk. You will begin to respect the world in which we live. You will come away humbled and in awe of every living creature both flora and fauna.
You will come away with the beginnings of an understanding that, although humanity is speeding the process of mass extinction through a man-made greenhouse effect, the warming and cooling of the earth is a natural phenomena over which civilization holds but little control.
We've looked into the heavens this week at the sun and the moon. We follow the International Space Station, orbiting the earth, as it crosses over our patios. We are becoming somewhat amazed and uneasy at the size of the universe even though the facts still seem unreal to us. Like watching a movie.
I believe that we (scientists and laymen) are beginning to realize one fundamental fact. Our God is a mighty God who doesn't think like we expected Him to think and doesn't operate within our human ideas of time, space, distance, or reality. He has let us know that He made us in His Image through the words of the Bible. Something we can understand.
I believe that the spark of Himself that God has implanted in each of us is Love, just as Jesus tried to tell us when he walked among us. God is Love. If you read this book, The Ends of the World, which has nothing about religious beliefs in it, I think you will see that life in all its manifestations is on a journey of change and discovery.
And then, there is our faith in an Almighty Creator. If we believe we know His plan, we are delusional. But we do know some of it
through His Son, Jesus, who told us that He will Come again and receive us unto Himself.
I believe those words, although I know not how or when. The scientific knowledge doesn't tell me otherwise. Neither does it explain the other important religions of the world and the things that those believers understand about God.
Humanity has to learn to incorporate scientific knowledge with the faith that understanding the Mystery is not important. A book like The Ends of the World and many other things always end up in my mind in the form of a mantra. "Be still and know that I am God."
