John Luther, my grandson is one of the most brilliant kids that I have ever been around. Well, he and the young second grader whom I am trying to mentor. Both come up with intriguing thoughts, and are quite adept at online searches, though gaming seems a distraction.
When I think of all the information that youngsters now need to absorb in order to compete in life, it is mind boggling. Thankfully, the "cloud" and now AI serve as handy repositories of information. Learning how to access knowledge by way of technology is likely more the focus of the classroom for the Alpha Generation. STEM & STEAM now replacing the reading, writing and 'rithmetic of my Boomer days in the classroom!
I truly admire today's educators and frankly feel for tomorrow's pastors! Your "Momma's approach to religion" will need to shift rapidly to hold place in our society. To me that is a challenge, not a threat!
Somewhere in my reading over the last few weeks I came upon a ministry called, Reasons To Believe, and found this review: "RTB resolved the cognitive conflict I had between belief in Christ, the words of Scripture, and science."
When I saw the quote, I sent the minimum donation to this Christian based nonprofit sufficient to acquire a copy of a recent book by Hugh Ross.
I don't think I have ever met a pastor who is also an Astrophysicist. Ross received a provincial scholarship and a National Research Council of Canada fellowship and earned a B.Sc. in physics from the University of British Columbia in 1967, going on to earn a M.Sc. in 1968, and a Ph.D in astronomy from the University of Toronto in 1973.
His premise in the book, Designed to the Core, which I am now half way through is supportive of the Big Bang, though he challenges the theory of evolution, at least apart from an intelligent designer, as the title implies. Not sure yet where he lands entirely on the latter, nor his perspective on Moses' Genesis Creation Story.
Thus far I find the book fascinating and far above my pay grade, but it was encouraging as a believer to find someone willing to struggle with the realities that science is now discovering, uncovering, deducing, infering however you choose) about our vast universe.
New "photos," some interpreted by way of light waves invisible to the human eye, reveal the heavens with her millions of galaxies, composed of stars that when viewed live, seem to sit side by side, but in actuality average some "4 light years apart." Don't hold me to all this, as again I am way out of my league.
Roth shares an age for our universe at approximately 13.791 billion years old.
With a perspective offered that in between the first few micro seconds of the Big Bang [10^(-36), with 10^(-6) being one millionth] "the universe expanded from smaller than a proton to about the size of a grape fruit."
Four minutes after this cosmic creation event, nuclear fusion had transformed the only existing element, hydrogen such that matter was now composed of only 76% hydrogen, 24% helium, and "a trace amout of lithium."
Then, "exceeding the velocity of light by roughly a trillion trillion times, would perfectly account for the existence of each of these (as now existing) essential features" (necessary to support human life). Parentheses mine.
He then sites a probability of 1 in 10 quintillion chance that this did not occur and, by design such that the expanse of the universe, it's density, thus the vast distance between the stars, along with else occuring throughout the entire universe critical to the production of all the earth's elements so necessary to create this relatively miniscule planet and its ability to sustain human life as we know it.
Just breathe!!
This is taxing my brain!
Meanwhile I am now in the Book of Jonah, hoping this recent compulsion to write is not going to end up with me in the belly of a whale, as I too struggle with the cognitive conflict between a static Christian religion as I have known it, and the ever expanding base of data science now provides.
I have a growing conviction that we are on the cusp of another great awakening given my belief, that Christ was first manifest in the Creation, an ever expanding revelation!
By the way, Roth does warn that the Milky Way Galaxy (MGW) is on a collision course with the Magellanic Clouds, a merger that will shower the entire MWG with deadly radiation.
However, the merger should "take another two and a half billion years."
We'll likely be out of here by then!