Newsletter Vol.3, #14—April 29, 2007
Matthew 10 34"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36And a person's enemies will be those of his own household.
Astronomers
have discovered the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, an
exoplanet with a radius only 50% larger than the Earth and capable of having
liquid water. Using the ESO 3.6-m telescope, a team of Swiss, French and
Portuguese scientists discovered a super-Earth about 5 times the mass of the
Earth that orbits a red dwarf, already known to harbour a Neptune-mass planet.
The astronomers have also strong evidence for the presence of a third planet
with a mass about 8 Earth masses.
See the entire article at http://eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2007/pr-22-07.html
It seems to me that the scientific world is obsessed with trying to find life (water) on planets other than earth. I am a science fiction fan and enjoyed such shows as Star Trek but I also realize that the possibility of finding life outside our earth is remote. While I do not preclude the possibility of such, I do not think the vast amount of money spent on trying to find such is justified.
I realize that many inventions and benefits to society have resulted from the necessity of making things for space exploration, and I’m thankful for such benefits. However, it seems the resources spent on such would be better spent on other things or not spent at all and thus reduce our national debt. --Larry
Apologetics Press :: Sensible Science
Is There Intelligent Life in Outer
Space?
by Bert Thompson, Ph.D.
Q. I have heard a lot about the possibility of life in outer space. Has science established that extraterrestrial life does exist? What, if anything, does the Bible have to say on this subject?
A. There can be little doubt that the prospect of intelligent life existing in outer space has intrigued evolutionary scientists for generations. Pick up almost any evolution textbook, and you will find a reference to, brief discussion of, or whole chapter on, extraterrestrial life.
Some years ago, Carl Sagan, the late astronomer of Cornell University, raised private funding for a radio telescope that would search the skies for a message coming in to us from supposed extraterrestrial beings. Dr. Sagan, and Dr. Frank Drake, were asked by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to design an interstellar communication specifically aimed at extraterrestrials, in hopes of letting them know that we are here. Consequently, attached to NASA’s Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spaceprobes (1973) were identical gold plaques, inscribed with pictorial messages sent across the light-years to tell about Earth’s civilization. Since that time, various other attempts either to accept communications from alleged extraterrestrials, or to communicate with them, have been made. –to be continued
"THE DAYS OF OUR YEARS"
By Bill Cavender
"The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off and we fly away" (Psalms 90:10).
Psalms 90 is the only one of the Psalms written by Moses. It is the oldest of the Psalms in point of time. He also sang (and later wrote) "The Song of Victory" over Pharaoh and his army when the Israelites had passed safely through the Red Sea and their oppressors had all drowned (Exodus 15:1-19). Moses also was commanded to write and teach "The Song of Moses" recorded in Deuteronomy (31:19-22, 30; 32:1-45).
Moses lived to be one hundred and twenty years of age (Deut.32:2). "So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor: but no man knoweth his sepulchre unto this day. And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated" (Deut.34:5-7).
In the last forty years of his life, Moses had witnessed the deaths of approximately two millions of Israelites, those who left Egypt twenty years of age and above, and who then perished in the thirty eight years of wilderness wanderings before the nation came to the Plains of Moab, on the east side of the Jordan opposite to Jericho. Here the survivors of the wanderings in the wilderness, plus the two new generations born since Sinai, waited for Jehovah's directions regarding the crossing of the Jordan into the land of Canaan, "the Promised Land!" Probably averaging the ages of those who perished in the wilderness wanderings, the ages would be seventy to eighty years of age.
If one were to die at age "threescore years and ten," seventy years, on the seventieth birthday, he would have lived exactly 25,568 days, counting the "leap years." If one were to die at age "fourscore years," eighty years, on his eightieth birthday, he would have lived exactly 29,220 days, counting the "leap years."
No wonder Moses spoke of "the days of our years" of our life. In Psalms 90, he speaks of "days" 5 times, of "years" 6 times, of "yesterday" 1 time, of "morning" 2 times, and of "evening" 1 time. Mornings and evenings rapidly come and go, or "the evening and the morning," (Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31), as Jehovah first said it. Such past days become "yesterdays." Days and yesterdays become weeks, months, years - and a lifetime! "For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told" (Psalms 90:9).
Having recently passed my eightieth birthday, I realize more and more the beauty, truthfulness, and meaning of Psalms 90. These many short days, weeks, months and years are truly "like a vapor that appeareth for a little while, and then vanisheth away," and are "swifter than a weaver's shuttle," and "all the glory of man is as the flower of grass; the grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth." A poet wrote, "Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave; Still, like muffled drums are beating, Funeral marches to the grave" (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "A Psalm Of Life," stanza 4). So what can one do and what should one do, being powerless to slow or check "the clock of time"?
Moses answered: "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom...O satisfy us early with thy mercy ... Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil ... Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children ... Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us" (Psalms 90:12, 14, 15, 16, 17).
Moses
learned how to live, how to exit this life and world, and how to prepare to
enter into eternity and life with our Creator and our God. He used the last
forty years of his one hundred and twenty years to seriously make the spiritual
preparations necessary to meeting God face to face
(Deut. 34:10-12; Hebrews 11:23-29). We
are all aware of God's will and Moses' example. "Go, and do thou likewise,"
(Luke 10:37), our Lord Jesus Christ would
also say to us!