Black Holes

Someone recently posed a question about blackholes and just after writing them on it AiG released this article, go figure. It, and many other astronomical phenomena, are truly amazing and sometimes terrifying. Black holes certianly fall into both categories, but what do we know and what should a Christian think of these monstors?

What we know is that up in the vast expance are many distortions and dark spots which we call black holes. We are lead to believe that these "black holes" are a consequence of the death of stars and their eventual compaction under their own enormous weight. Eventually, as the star "dies", it is unable to maintain a resistance to it's own gravity and so the mass of the star begins to colaps inward to the center where it is compacted and becomes very dense, creating what is called a singularity which acts as a kind of gravity well. (See Image) This is about the extent of what we can pretent to know for sure however, because each black hole has what is called an event horizon. This is a radius that, once inside, nothing can ever come back out; not even light, hense we cannot see inside of the "black hole".
A Christian Perspective:

Black holes are not directly mentioned in scripture and so we can't use a direct scriptural insight in that way, at least to my knowledge. We can however apply the biblical history to interpret the idea or reality of such black holes. Does the idea of a black hole fit Gods perfect creation? No, but it does fit a "fallen" creation in the same way disease, death, and pain fit a fallen creation and that does fit a Christian worldview. We are talking about a dead star, which is then caught in the grip of its own gravity. So, we know that they fit the idea of the fall which is accounted in the word of God. A fallen creation would produce a myriad of degrading processes from genetic mutations to dying stars which generate these proposed black holes.

Truly, a black hole is a frightening concept and yet is not hard to believe within a Christian worldview where God has removed His sustaining power and things are in a constant state of decay, fitting a biblical view perfectly.

Embrios

Now, I'm not one for motorcycles and I try to keep the grown-up toy spending to a minimum, but this thing is awesome and I would certainly want one if I wouldn't be pushing 45 years old when they become available for the general populace. I suppose it isn't very practical, but it would be so much fun to scoot around in assuming you weren't going too far and didn't need to carry anything significant wth you. It's called Embrio, or at least this model of it, but the uni-cycle has taken many forms since it was first concived. For some reason I've always paid attention to one-wheel transport.

This reminds me of the countless hours I used to spend sketching and dreaming up new (or new to me) inventions; new ideas for travel and new ideas for bio-mechanical equipment like prothstetics. On the other hand the name Embrio reminds me of the protestors standing outside the abortion clinic a few blocks away this morning.

Future Schooling

In addition to the future Bible study in September I've also been given a chance to continue to lead Sunday school this year. Previously I'd been leading Sunday school for the 18+ group, but most have either gone on to college or are working most Sundays now so it was decided, for now at least, that I'd let that group alone aside from normal contact. Maybe I can connect with them in some fashion online through sites like facebook and myspace; continuing the lessons, devotions, and discussions in that fashion.

The new Sunday school class is the 14-18 (high school) age bracket. These are all kids who have been in the youth group over the past two years so they are familiar to me. The interesting thing is that, because of their age, this could take many forms. I had been preparing a lesson about being "life-guards" as Christians, creating parallels between the attributes and practices of a pool or beach lifeguard and a Christians attributes and practices. Granted this would have worked better in Spring and Summer than Fall and Winter, but...eh...what can you do?

None of that matters though as I can keep it for later, right now the kids in that class have expressed a desire to get back to bible based lessons which is interesting. Specifically, the accounts in scripture that are often called "bible stories". Things like the burning bush, the flood of Noah, Joshua's two man army, the lamp that didn't burn out, wandering in the deset and passing through the red sea. Things like that and how they connect to us now; still being life lessons, but also being straight out of the bible. I'm glad to hear that this is what they want to do as it presents a unique opportunity for me. More on that later...

Sessions Past

Well the elective Sunday school session is over and so I'm on a hiatus from teaching for the time being. The sessions came together well, considering the size of the topics and the time constraints, and were very well received. Throughout the sessions we covered a great deal and ended on a great note. While many individual topics were covered such as understanding the topics of creation, the global flood, and dinosaurs through a biblical worldview.

That is the key to all of it, a biblical worldview; it is also the cause of the many compromises and confusions we suffer as Christians today. While we come and go each week, pressing towards repentance and bible knowledge and proper worship we fail to understand how to reconcile certain aspects of our lives between Secular understanding and the truth within Gods word.

Anyway, I'm not going to ramble about it as I've got less energy these days for blogging, but I wanted to mention that it went well and that a Bible study was requested by many on the same and many other topics. That bible study is proposed for early-to-mid September at the moment and I'm thrilled about it. So much to share...