abbotsford.org.uk

Faster than light

Apparently physicists have proved that time travel isn't possible. It's got something to do with singular protons being limited in a vacuum to travel any faster than light. It was thought that if singular one could then in theory time travel was possible. They can't, so it isn't.

Bang goes a lifetime of crossed fingers from someone who as a small boy was convinced it would be possible in the future and was aiming to hang around to see the day.

Of course none of these physicists have taken into consideration the church. I know that usually things happen slower than evolution in this great institution but I have found some news gets passed around fairly quickly. In fact it's across the town before the original sentence has finished sometimes.

Some may see this as the speed of gossip. And in part it possibly is. Alternatively it could be the sign of community and I'm throwing my weight (slowly) behind that one.

Planck in your eye

The new Planck space telescope has just made a massive discovery of something even more massive than the discovery itself.

As a human race we've just sumbled across some of the largest structures we have ever seen in our universe. These are galaxy clusters, 169 of them. "The clusters contain up to a hundred galaxies, and each galaxy has a billion stars," said Dr Nabila Aghanim of the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale in Orsay, France.

Does God get further away each time we dosciver something like this? Or in some beautifully wondrous way does God come closer? Or perhaps becasue human are able to hold two contradicting ideas at the one time, God does both?

I hope we never get a sense that we are too small in this expanding universe. Few in number and bundled on a tiny planet out on the edge of the Milky Way (a bit new complared to these galaxy clusters) but the ability we have (if we lived to our full potential) in terms of justice and love and grace is huge.

Just as horizon shifting as Planck's galaxies.

New Life

On the cusp of Pentecost we hear of scientists creating artificial life. What are you theological, ethical, political thoughts about that.

It's totally massive. Imagine what being able to create artificial life could result in. What does it mean?

Who is God? And didn't we always know that already?