THE UNIVERSE
The Universe is approximately 15 Billion years old. So scientists say. This calculation is based on the distance that it takes light to travel in one year calculated against the position of various galaxies and stars in the universe.
The earth is approximately 4.5 Billion years old. This calculation is based on the movement of rock strata in various locations on the earth and the carbon decay rate of some of the oldest rocks on earth.
That is science. Religion, specifically Christianity, Islam and Judaism say that the earth is around 6000 years old.
The problem with most religions is that they do not make an allowance for the accumulation of knowledge.
We as humans live only a moment in comparison to the passage of time in the Universe. We have a tendency to look at things relative to what we have experienced and learned in our lifetime and this fact is magnified when it comes to the integration of religious teachings into the equation.
Example: In approximately 175 BCE Antiochus IV Epiphanes was given control over Palestine which he inherited from his great, great, great, great grandfather Antiochus I which received his kingdom from his father Seleucid in the division of the known world by the generals of Alexander the Great after his sudden death at the age of 33. In an act of desecration to the Hebrew temple he slaughtered a pig on the altar of YAH. This was a true historical act that can be indentified as an abomination of desolation as described by the Hebrew prophet Dani’el (Daniel 12:11). This act ultimately resulted in the Maccabean Revolt.
So some guy comes along born in 1850 that reads the Bible and as with most religious people have a tendency to think that everything written in the bible prophetically will happen in his time having no knowledge of world history. He creates a time-line and projects that the world will end in 1914. So these all live and die without any change coming to the earth and some other person comes along and makes the same improper assumptions and the cycle of ignorance continues.
SCIENCE
Science has always been at odds with religion. Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton and others were persecuted by the Catholic Church because the scientific observations that they made were in contrast to what the church believed at that time. Today we accept their observations and the clarifications made by Einstein and others. We know that the earth revolves around the sun. It is a scientific fact. But we still cling to ignorance and openly reject certain scientific proofs about the universe because it does not line up with the accepted religious ignorance. I submit to you that what religion believes today is at odds with the reality of the Universe. If the Universe is as old as scientist say then there is a strong possibility that the Universe is teaming with life. According to the Drake Equation it is estimated that 10,000 communicative civilizations exist in the Milky Way alone. In 1999 according to the Hubble Space Telescope estimates, there were 125 billion galaxies in the universe, and recently with the new camera Hubble Space Telescope has observed 3,000 visible galaxies. 3000 x 10000 = 30,000,000 communicative civilizations in the Universe. That’s 30,000,000 civilizations that have the ability to communicate with other civilizations in the Universe including us!
OTHER WORLDS
One summer night I was sitting outside of my cousin’s house in the yard beside the open garage. Everyone was having fun and drinking and playing pool and I was sitting outside about 11:00 PM at night in a lawn chair just looking up at the sky. I noticed a star that was out of place. It was a star that I had never seen before. I focused in on this star and watched it for about five minutes as I calculated in my head what star this could be in proximity to the night sky that I was observing. Suddenly the star shot off in a south western direction and then turned upward and disappeared instantly and strangely enough I felt that that star was looking at me just like I was looking at it. Many people have claimed to have seen UFOs. Recently many documented cases of UFO encounters have been released by government agencies throughout the world. As time has gone by, it seems as though the occurances of documented UFO encounters has increased. Some even believe that there is some type of climax building up that will result in an “Independence Day” event. I will admit that the whole subject has become very interesting.
