Prose – Page 14 – Poetry, Short Prose and Walking

The Speed of Light, Simultaneity and Genesis

Jason Lisle made some amazing predictions about the data that would come back from the James Webb Space Telescope.

On January 21, 2022, he made his predictions less than a month after the mission launched on December 25, 2021. In July the results began coming in. On September 9, 2022, he announced that his predictions were confirmed.

Essentially, he predicted that there would be more galaxies at further redshifts than anticipated. He predicted that the composition of the stars would contain heavier elements than expected. He also predicted that scientists would claim that stellar evolution went further into the past than they previously thought.

Lisle’s predictions were not randomly contrary to what many scientists expected to see. They were grounded on Hans Reichenbach’s conventionality of simultaneity thesis for relativity theory and Genesis 1.

Reichenbach’s thesis claimed that the constant speed of light posited by relativity theory was best represented by the two-way speed of light, not its one-way speed. No one can measure the one-way speed of light given relativity since two clocks can’t be kept synchronized when one of them moves away from the other. However, the two-way, round-trip speed of light could be measured with a single clock and a mirror.

It is that round-trip speed, the only measurable speed, that is the constant called the speed of light. That means that the speed of light going to the mirror does not have to be the speed of light coming back. So, for example, the speed of light going from the earth to a galaxy 13.8 billion round-trip light years away from the earth could go at half the round-trip speed on the way out taking 27.6 billion years to get there, but come back almost instantly on the return trip. The total distance traveled would be the distance to the galaxy (13.8 billion light years taking 27.6 billion years) plus the distance back (13.8 billion light years taking 0 years) for a total of 27.6 billion light years travelled in 27.6 billion years.

Because of Reichenbach’s thesis what we see in those space telescopes may be happening right now, not billions of years ago. From relativity theory alone, properly using the round-trip speed of light, one cannot tell.

If light from those distant galaxies arrived on Earth almost instantaneously then what we would be seeing would be how those galaxies actually look today. Such galaxies would not be expected to show any hypothesized stellar evolution and, indeed, they don’t. Their light shows heavier elements than lithium, significantly oxygen which with hydrogen are the elements of the water molecule (see Genesis 1:2, 6-8). Their size is too large and orderly. They are too close to that God-surrogate, the big bang.

But if the speed of light incoming from space were nearly instantaneous that would mean that the Earth is very, very, very, very special.

I have wondered if one could save the big bang by acknowledging as nearly instantaneous the speed of the incoming light to the earth. All of that hypothesized stellar evolution would no longer have to be there. However, that would likely be too much for secularists (or even Christians trapped by the charm of the big bang’s unbiblical beginning) to pay. They would no longer be able to assert how old the universe was. They would no longer be able to say that the Earth is just some insignificant blue dot lost in space. Rather they would be admitting that such light were specifically aimed toward the earth. And although it might save the big bang in the eyes of its followers it would demote it to an unfalsifiable, pseudo-scientific myth. So, I guess that wouldn’t save it after all.

Jason Lisle could make his predictions with confidence not only because he accepted Reichenbach’s conventionality of simultaneity thesis, but also because Genesis 1:14-19 told him that the heavens were set there “to give light upon the earth”. And, as soon as God spoke the heavens into existence, “it was so”. When the heavenly lights reached the earth, they did what they were told to do that very day, that very moment, nearly instantaneously.

Genesis 1:14-19 KJV
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: [he made] the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that [it was] good.
19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Genesis 1:2, 6-8 KJV
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
…
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

House of Cards—Six Sentence Story

When the scientist complained that just about everything he knew to be true was not, he heard his mind sing, “When the truth is found—duh-duh—to be-e-e-e-e lies!”

“I only said that it wasn’t true, not that it was a lie,” the scientist corrected his mind.

“Sorry,” his mind replied, “but you do know that it was a lie, don’t you?“

“Lie, schmie, who cares?”

“You do, but apparently you don’t know it yet.”

What the scientist did know was this interchange with whatever it was he kept calling his “mind” could go on and on—and on—and on and on and on and on and on and so he put an end to it by saying, “And with that we move on to the confused conclusion of the last sentence of our story.”

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Denise offers the prompt word “move” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

The Liar: Paradox or Deception

In the 19th century logicians simulated, and thereby simplified, the real world understanding of truth by assigning true/false (one/zero) values to logical connectives in truth tables. Although this was ingenious, the ancient liar paradox remained to haunt the simulation.

The liar paradox gets started by assuming the existence of a Liar who always lies. It immediately reaches its punchline by having that Liar assert as true: This statement is false.

What was forgotten in modern attempts to sanitize the liar was that a truth table only discerns between true and false, one and zero, not between truth and lie. The real world ethical understanding of truth gets covered by a coat of white paint in modern logic. Even in the ancient paradox, the ethical problem got a white-wash as well because a real world deceiver is worse than this hypothetical Liar. A real world deceiver is even more deceptive because he doesn’t always lie.

There’s an older story than the Greek one about the Liar. In Genesis 3, we read about the first deception with death being its real world consequence.

There are many today who see themselves as too “rational” to believe that the deception and fall as mentioned in Genesis 3 actually happened. I suspect that their belief in modern rationality has led them to prefer reality white-washed into truth tables containing only ones and zeros. With a truth table it is easy to forget that a falsehood is the word of a lying deceiver. Speaking such deception is an act of evil, not just a zero in a computer program.

A solution to the Liar paradox would be to reject the Liar without taking seriously anything he had to say. This is what people do in the real world. When they hear lies, they reject the liars. They don’t fret about the English language’s ability to express garbage. People are free to lie. The structure of language itself doesn’t stop them.

If falsehood is a lying deception, what then is truth? The truth has been white-washed as well. We find it easier today to think of truth as an “it”. But if one wants to recover the real world significance of falsehood as deception, as I do, then truth would have to be ethical as well.

Only a living person can be ethical. Only an ethical person can show others through His true words the way to life. Such a Person could be seen as being the truth.

It’s Not Just Dinosaurs Anymore

I was aware that soft tissue had been found in dinosaur fossils.

What I didn’t realize until watching this 11 minute video is that soft tissue has now been found all over the fossil record including tissue from a worm that allegedly lived over half a billion years ago.

What can I conclude from this?

Well, for one thing, when I told my aunt decades ago that chickens came from dinosaurs, I was wrong. The only things that come from dinosaurs are more dinosaurs.

Another conclusion I can safely make is that the earth isn’t anywhere near as old as “scientists” claim it to be.

Faint—Six Sentence Story

Alice wandered through the weeds crediting strange flowers as a source of strength. Regardless, and in spite of appearances, she also trusted that miraculous Light she had grown to long for Who guided her with His caressing warmth and His disciplining heart every time she strayed.

Given all the detours and deceptions she had entertained, as she approached her journey’s end she wondered how she would be received. Would anyone be there to greet her whom she knew over the years? How many allowed themselves to be caught in the quicksand having grown faint along the way?

When Alice finally arrived she found everyone she could now remember waiting for her rejoicing that even she, indeed miraculously even they, made it home.

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Denise offers the prompt word “faint” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

Isaiah 40:31
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Bookstore—Six Sentence Story

Stan entered a used bookstore offering the antique dreams of the late 20th century. Since he remembered the late 20th century he could see his younger self admiring, like Alice chasing the White Rabbit, many of the titles when they were newer, but he wondered why anyone would now.

As he walked the aisles he paused at the Philosophy section bookended between Marxism and New Age Metaphysics like a triple engagement leading to a bizarre wedding. He wondered why philosophy would want to be associated with those wacky mistresses, but then it occurred to him, in spite of his own wacky fascination with it, that that was right where it belonged.

Stan wondered if the best way to keep the Lord from laughing at him was to only fall down those narrow rabbit holes that the Lord Himself offered. Then he could rejoice in the Lord’s wide mercy to quickly catch him rather than let him make a mess of things first.

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Denise offers the prompt word “engagement” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

Colossians 2:8 KJV
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

Gloria—Six Sentence Story

Gloria listened to a girl telling her about Jesus in the nursing home. The girl reminded her of her daughter when her daughter was much, much younger and acted more like an angel than Gloria liked to remember her daughter acting today.

The girl told the staff that she was sent there to visit only those nearest the ends of their lives and so a nursing assistant escorted her to Gloria who could no longer speak, but acknowledged others by moving her fingers. Although Gloria repeatedly rejected her own daughter, the girl’s words moved Gloria to lift her hand which the girl held in hers.

The next morning Gloria died and her daughter stopped by to pick up her belongings. Upon hearing of her mother’s last visitor, the dam safeguarding decades of tears collapsed.

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Denise offers the prompt word “lift” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

Hallelujah—A Story of the Last Days

The devil knew the threat that the church presented. He also knew that he had lost. But there were still an unknown number of years left to do damage. He still had time to abort the destinies of many with distracting deceptions and debilitating diseases.

By his own estimation he was so successful at making a mess that he began to think that maybe he could still win or at least recover some of his losses. Maybe it wasn’t quite game over for him.

He grabbed the church like a rock. He put it in a slingshot. He planned to send it off to the distant stars, but as he pulled the slingshot back, he stumbled. His grip failed as his hand melted.

Some say it was the fire from within the church. Some say it was the laughter from heaven. In the devil’s confusion his aim went from heaven to his very own gates.

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Light Loop—Six Sentence Story

While Daniel walked the loop around the pond he said to himself, When you see that the voice is not your own and you start doing what ‘it’ tells you to do, even when you know you’ll look stupid if you do, things start happening.

After some steps he continued, When the light finally turns on, you are shocked to realize that this ‘it’ was a ‘he’ all along.

Later, halfway through the loop, Daniel said, Then the ‘he’ gets capitalized and you’re in a relationship you would have thought was nutty only a few years ago.

Then Daniel, feeling he needed to answer some fictional objector walking by his side, said, Of course, there are those who’d claim that they could easily explain all of this away as simply me talking to myself, but it’s also not that hard to come up with explanations that explain away why they like to explain away stuff.

Daniel then addressed a more aggressive, but still fictional, manipulator by asserting, To those who insist I cast Him out as if He were some demon or go to a hell of their own choosing…well, I have no intention of doing either.

By this time Daniel was back at his condo where he paused to conclude, When worry becomes synonymous with silliness and there’s a river of joy waiting to overflow where ever you go, whatever you need will be given to you.

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Denise offers the prompt word “light” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Story.

Double—Six Sentence Story

Since I didn’t know where I was going and since AI serves double duty not only as fiction but also as useful fiction, I put the address of the Six Sentence Story Café and Bistro into my phone while walking along the busy street. All I knew was the café was supposed to be somewhere in the area.

The voice coming from my phone told me to turn right so I entered the quieter side street, passed a cobbler shop and then a seamstress storefront which specialized in wedding dresses. As I continued walking I wondered if the software had any better idea than I did where the café was, but then I saw the three granite steps and Nick who let me in. Once inside I could smell Tom‘s cooking and there was Denise at the bar with Mimi while Chris and Clark sat at a table near the stage.

It was a wonderful place with wonderful people something my phone would never be able to appreciate although it did have enough fictional brains to show me how to get there.

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Denise offers the prompt word “double” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

This is my second story for the prompt, motivated by Clark who gave me a good description of the Six Sentence Story Café & Bistro which I am mostly repeating.