Myth Busters
God is not a white male in the clouds
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. John 4:24
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Exodus 20:4
God is beyond big and beyond my imagination. It seems nothing is only one way with God. What we see of God is faceted. If in fact God is truly omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, could it be that God knew how much discord could come from His perceived image.
Topic Study Materials
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/picturing-god-as-a-white-man-is-linked-to-racial-stereotypes-about-leaders/
Consequences of perceiving God as a white man
https://obu.edu/stories/blog/2020/06/what-does-the-bible-say-about-race.php
Only EARTH has intelligent life
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/alien-worlds/strange-new-worlds
Take God out of the box. Stop reducing God’s infinite thought to our finite understanding.
Looking at the life that exist in a single drop of sea water should help us understand that there is more to God’s creation than what meets the naked eye.
Thinking earth has the only intelligent life is so vain it becomes ridiculous. Man is continuously learning new things about the universe as we know it. NASA has been trying to discover life on other planets for years.
What in God’s creation is simple? Even the atom is complex. It does not seem feasible that the only intelligent life can be found on one very tiny planet.
Why does the acknowledgement of life on other planets matter? It matters because we inhabitants of earth belong to each other. I believe, acknowledging our place in creation is relevant for self- reflection and global unity. Our world is a cosmic spot in the big universal picture. Looking at humanity, examining how we interact with other inhabitants of this planet is thought provoking. When you look at earth from a universal perspective we are a community of human beings. We are we mammal Earthlings sharing and caring for a planet. Scripture tells us we have dominion over and are to take care of this planet.
For those who believe ‘If there was other life we would have found it by now.’; consider a few things. Colonization, apartheids, genocide, abortion, wars… If there is intelligent life, would it want to engage with a planet that has so little value for creation?
Coming soon: There will be more on this topic found in the Study Corner. The purpose is to gain understanding of how BIG GOD is.
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. 4And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. Genesis 1:1-5
Earth is the only planet in our solar system with 24 hour days.
I have heard Fundamentalist say God created the world as we know it in six 24 hour days. This is a statement rooted in pride reducing God to our finite ability of understanding. It is this minimalized train of thought that opposes science. Science is man’s finite mind, trying to understand infinite thought. An appreciation for scientific truth helps us realize how BIG our God is.
Our 24-hour days can be traced to Babylonians observing periodic movement of the Sun and constructing the Sundial. Babylonians divided the day into twenty-four hours.
Ancient Egyptians divided day-time into 10 hours measuring time with shadow clocks. They added a twilight hour at the beginning and another one at the end of the day-time. Night was divided in 12 hours, based on the observations of stars. Egyptians had a system of 36 star groups called ‘decans’. The system observed one decan rose 40 minutes after the previous one.
Hipparchus of Nicaea was a Greek mathematician and astrologer. His work primarily took place between 147 and 127 B.C. Hipparchus divided the day into 24 equinoctial hours, based on the 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness observed on equinox days.
http://www.space-awareness.org/bg/activities/6048/build-a-babylonian-sundial/#:
https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/11/15/3364432.htm#:
The next time someone uses creationism as a case to prove science and religion do not mix, help them take God out of the box. The 24 hour day argument is equal to the belief the earth is flat. Science helps us gain a better understanding of how BIG God is.