Black Holes

by Jannie

Prologue

This short meditation should be read with the meditation entitled “Evolution” on this website.  This is a separate meditation because of an incorrect interpretation of specifically Rom 5:12 by many – a typical example of unnecessary forcing of ideas due to information bias. It is a sad fact that some humans seem to adamantly stick to the belief that they have either complete or superior knowledge of something while they don’t; or that they’re right while they’re not.   Both sides are at times guilty of this, proponents of young and old creations.  History shows that human theories and understanding of what we classify under science have changed radically while we find that The Bible is unparalleled in its consistency.  (The meditation “The Bible” refers; 1 Cor 13:11-15,18-20).

A brief introductory note on fallacies (from the Internet Encyclopaedia of philosophy)

A fallacy is a kind of error in reasoning. If the reader researches this subject independently, definitions of more than two hundred of the most common fallacies will be discovered and might prove enlightening.  Fallacies should not be persuasive, but they often are. Fallacies may be created unintentionally, or they may be created intentionally in order to deceive other people. The vast majority of the commonly identified fallacies involve arguments, although some involve explanations, or definitions, or other products of reasoning. Sometimes the term “fallacy” is used even more broadly to indicate any false belief or cause of a false belief.

An informal fallacy is fallacious because of both its form and its content. The formal fallacies are fallacious only because of their logical form.

The term “fallacy” is not a precise term. One reason is that it is ambiguous. It can refer either to (a) a kind of error in an argument, (b) a kind of error in reasoning (including arguments, definitions, explanations, and so forth), (c) a false belief, or (d) the cause of any of the previous errors including what are normally referred to as “rhetorical techniques.” Philosophers who are researchers in fallacy theory prefer to emphasize (a), but their lead is often not followed in textbooks and public discussion.

Regarding (d), ill health, being a bigot, being hungry, being stupid, and being hypercritical of our enemies are all sources of error in reasoning, so they could qualify as fallacies of kind (d), but they are not included in the normal list of fallacies. On the other hand, wishful thinking, stereotyping, being superstitious, rationalizing, and having a poor sense of proportion are sources of error and are included in the common list though they wouldn’t be included in a list devoted only to faulty arguments. In describing fallacies, the custom is followed of not distinguishing between a reasoner using a fallacy and the reasoning itself containing the fallacy.

An example is the Appeal to Ignorance

The Fallacy of Appeal to Ignorance comes in two forms: (1) Not knowing that a certain statement is true is taken to be a proof that it is false. (2) Not knowing that a statement is false is taken to be a proof that it is true. The fallacy occurs in cases where absence of evidence is not good enough evidence of absence. The fallacy uses an unjustified attempt to shift the burden of proof. The fallacy is also called “Argument from Ignorance.”

Example:  Nobody has ever proved to me there’s a God, so I know there is no God.

This kind of reasoning is generally fallacious. It would be proper reasoning only if the proof attempts were quite thorough, and it were the case that, if the being or object were to exist, then there would be a discoverable proof of this (sic).  Peruse www.gospel-truth.co.za for a deeper investigation of real Christianity. Another common example of the fallacy involves ignorance of a future event: “You people have been complaining about the danger of Xs ever since they were invented, but there’s never been any big problem with Xs, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

Introduction

Please note that this mentioning of Rom 5:12 following, is not intended as a red herring technique, but an honest opinion that the misinterpretation of specifically Rom 5:12 is worth pointing out due to its application in old vs young arguments. In the meditation on this website, “Apparent controversies in The Bible”, # 5.4, the question is pondered, Does Gen 1:29-30 and Rom 5:12 say there was no non-human death before Adam?

The apparent problem is that, even though we are post-flood, do current physical observations and fossils suggest that, for example, bacteria, sharks, animals with canine teeth and poisonous creatures most probably had cause death before the fall of mankind.  Some thought should reveal that (1) human [death] is different from other created forms (1 Cor 15:38-40), and (2) this should not pose any problem whatsoever for the idea of a young earth.  Surely God could have created the ecology like this from day one of their existence and found it to be good!  We need no long periods of time to make Gen 1:29,30 and Rom 5:12 true.  The meditation “Evolution” expands on this. Rom 5:12 simply makes no mention of death or loss of non-human life.  Rom 5:12 in its context is concerned with us as humans and our sinful nature since Adam and our only salvation in Jesus Christ, our last Adam (1 Cor 15:45; even Rom 8:2); it is not denying existence of non-human life prior to Adam.  Rom 5:12 should therefore pose no problem for advocates of a young (or even an old) world – unless the intent is to dispute the inerrancy of The Bible as God’s Word and the purpose for [of] Jesus Christ and His deity.

God did not leave us a scientific explanation and technical formulae of how He created, only that He did create everything (for example Col 1:12-21 or Jn 1:1-4; even Mt 19:4).  Exactly when God created is also rather inconsequential unless the Bible is misquoted, misrepresented or disputed regarding God and His Good News of our salvation and authority in Jesus Christ. Fair deductions can be made, though, based on the genealogies found in the Bible and is mentioned in the meditation “Who is Jesus Christ”.

It is possible that death and predation was present outside the paradise before the fall and possibly even not within up to the fall, or within as well. We simply don’t know. (Note that Gen 2:15 could suggest that man was created outside the garden of Eden and then placed within). We can’t argue meaningful about what none of us know for a fact and what is not crucial to our salvation; but more importantly, our relationship with God [Jesus Christ]. Selah with Jn 16:9.

Although black holes, real or not, might not directly determine our salvation must we be mindful with the precepts and principles taught by Jesus Christ (Jn 1:1-4; Col 1:12-20).  They must be unequivocally understood and intelligently and wisely applied.  Crucial among these is the seed-principle (Mk 4:13). This is expanded on in the meditations “Prayer” and “Tithing” and is shown to be greatly misunderstood as well. What Jesus taught and demonstrated was that God’s Word (Jn 1:14; 6:32-33,47-51,63) must first be in you – like Seed – before any real power and good results will/can come from what you speak/pray (1 Cor 4:20; also Mt 7:15-23; 12:31-37; 15:6-9; even Jn 3:17-21); so we therefore ought to be very careful with following lightly or even blindly ideas of those in essence seeking not so much truth as an alternative for God’s Word (Jn 3:3; 8:32,36; 14:6; 15:1-5).

The Bible is inerrant, and God offers no compromise, and neither should followers of Jesus Christ (1 Jn 2:4).  The sad fact is, however, that many (perhaps most) Christians interpret The Bible in error.  The Bible is not in error, the superficial reading of it with pre-conceived ideas or information-bias is.  This is expanded on in “Apparent Controversies in The Bible”, for the purpose of this writing, specifically in reference to Gen 1:29,30 and Rom 5:12, concerning death before and after Adam sinned.

In short, yes, certainly there must have been non-human deaths prior to Adam’s sin [fall].  For example, bacteria and plants and probably some animals consumed by even sharks, canine teethed animals and organisms containing poison (Dt 20:19,20; Is 151:6).  This needs no long period of time since God could most certainly have created these creatures perfectly functioning in an ecosystem since their first day on earth.

The point is that there are people who are motivated by a disbelief in The Bible as the inerrant Word of God, even by a disbelief in God as the Creator, and try to use (misuse) science to give weight to their alternative ideas on how this universe and all its diversity and complexity all could have come about (without a Creator). Black holes are, for example, used to explain the uneven distribution of visible matter in space.

Bear in mind that our salvation does not depend on black holes.  It depends on our acceptance and following of the precepts and teachings of Jesus Christ (Col 2:8).  The meditations on www.gospel-truth.co.za address this issue.

The hole story

Black holes may or may not exist. If they do exist, they are invisible, weigh billions of tons, and are smaller than a kernel of corn! To put forward a mathematical plausible explanation of a certain assumption, is far from a real physical discovery.  School is not out yet, but most importantly, the age of the universe does not affect your salvation. This knowledge is not a pre-requisite for salvation (Rom 10:9-10; Acts 4:12; Jn 3:16-21…). However, distrust in the Word of God, The Bible, can demonstrate Hos 4:6…

Universe Today reports that a team of researchers has proposed that advanced extra-terrestrial civilizations could be using black holes as quantum computers. Um, this author has no comment on this proposal. Let’s move on.

While they have become popular with science-fiction buffs in recent years, black holes were first proposed some 200 years ago by French astronomer Pierre Laplace.  Laplace reasoned that a star must collapse when it dies, that is, when it consumes all its fuel. Because of its enormous gravitational pull, it would cave in on itself. It is then said to shrink with the same mass until finally it would effectively have no size at all but still all the original mass.

It is claimed that the matter inside a black hole would be so dense that a piece less than one centimeter across could weigh as much as planet earth! Still, this author knows so little of this that he still wonders how so much mass can be retained after having consumed itself! For him, it compares as an analogy, to the conceited mind battling to escape its own self-righteousness and hypocrisy.

It is then hypothesized that if a star collapses like this below a certain radius, it will become so dense, and its gravitational pull so strong, that even light could not escape (hence the name ‘black hole’). This assumes the mass of this burning ball of gas has changed out of proportion with its size.  Also, it is assumed that light is affected by gravity in this specific way.  This is unproven.

No black holes have yet been positively identified, and not all astronomers accept their existence. But even if black holes do exist, they give no support to the theory of evolution. Black holes are simply in line with the fact that the universe is decaying. Things do not spontaneously improve and become more orderly, as evolution theory would have people believe. They decay, run down, and lose their orderliness.  This is completely in line with creationist thinking. But it does not lend support to the evolutionary idea that today’s complexity has evolved and become more ordered from a chaos of long ago.

In order to escape the gravitational pull of the earth, a rocket must go 25,000 miles per hour. If it goes less than this, it will fall back down. This speed is known as the escape velocity of earth. If a planet has stronger gravity, the escape velocity will be even greater.  The theory behind a black hole is the idea that if enough mass is in one location, the gravity would be so great that the escape velocity would be 186,000 miles per second so that even light could not escape. This, of course, is assuming that light can be affected by gravity in exactly this way. No one has ever seen a black hole since no light could escape one if it existed.

The fact is that Black Holes are not irrefutably proven.   The problem black holes are supposed to fix for some Old Age Ministries and evolutionists is this: if the big bang theory were true, the matter should be evenly distributed in space. But matter is not evenly distributed in space.  We have clumps of matter called galaxies, then vast spaces of seemingly nothing between them.  The believers in the big bang theory are trying to explain why. They are trying to say, “There is matter in between the clumps but we can’t see it because it is in black holes.” Actually, they are arguing from a lack of evidence not from evidence.  The existence of a black hole is simply not proven (other than by theoretical physics).  It could just simply have been a void – or something else – since day one of a creation.

Again, God does not specifically tell us in The Bible how He created, only that He created everything.  If it was important for us to know how He did it, He would surely have made it clear in The Bible (2 Tim 3:15-17).

And no, God did not create with an explosion – it isn’t logical and does not fit the Biblical account.

Another contradiction for evolutionists and some Old Age believers would be that millions and even billions of years would have produced vast quantities of black holes for then one would expect that many more celestial bodies would have been swallowed up by such black holes by now.  All we observe today are a few black spots that are really still unknown, between vast numbers of celestial bodies.

Whatever the facts, it is quite plausible that God the Creator could instantly have created vast distances that at current [subsequent] rates and speeds and relativity, would take millions of years to reach each other.  It would then rather illustrate God’s immeasurable superiority over our limited abilities.  Likewise, His immeasurable Love compared to our feeble attempts at discrediting Him and His creation with our unthankful distrust in His Word.

It must be put into perspective that black holes and their supposed recent [since 2000] discoveries are propagated by Old Earth Ministries such as spearheaded by Greg Newman.  They started publishing in 2005.  However, as long as both Old and Young preach the same Jesus Christ, it should not split the church of the same Jesus Christ (Eph 4:4-5).  Pardon the pun, but this is to my mind the long and short of it.

The myth of the “Geological Column” and the misapplication of “science” by Evolutionists are a different matter and lead to more serious departures in faith and are discussed further in the meditation “Evolution” in www.gospel-truth.co.za.

On the website that publishes the supposed discovery of a second (only two in all this time?) new black hole (http://www.space.com/533-surprising-black-hole-milky-center.html); you’ll find a link with a question “Is Jesus God?” and is from the website Y-Jesus.com.  It makes disconcerting statements such as Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount as “The most superlative teaching of human ethic”; that “only Jesus claimed his deity”, and so on.  It eventually concludes on page 10 that Jesus was merely a self-deceived man and not God, or not even of God.  Compare this with “Who is Jesus Christ” and “The Gospel” on www.gospel-truth.co.za.

Wikipedia, TV broadcasters such as National Geography and Discovery Channels, and news stations globally all subscribe to atheist Stephen Hawkins and his ideas as fact. The attempt to mix two opposing worlds [belief systems] in one compromise to “rid The Bible of its intellectual embarrassment” is blasphemous and fatal.  See the meditation “The Bible” on www.gospel-truth.co.za.

And, for old age ministries to reason that God – in time and space – would not refer to literal days (roughly 24-hour periods with light and darkness that are only applicable to inhabitants of earth), is losing sight of the fact that God could very plausibly address humans on their familiar terms.  After all, He created earth for us and His Spirit indwells us here (Ps 74:16-18), if we allow Him (He’s not a manipulator), hence for example, 2 Tim 3:15-17 and Jn 4:24 with Rom 8:14.  As for the argument about the sun that, according to Gen 1:16 only appeared on day four, and the enigma bout the Light in Gen 1:3-4; refer to the footnote in the meditation “Evolution”, p. 12/34 that points to the revelation found in Jn 1:1-4; 9:5,39; 2 Cor 4:6 and Col 1:12-20.

As far as long periods of time, evolution and compromises adopting these hypotheses are concerned, please contemplate the other meditations in gospel-truth.co.za.  To avoid duplication, they have their own exegeses.

And remember even 1 Cor 3:11, “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ”.  Also, Gal 1:6-9: “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preaches any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed”.

Then also, “Whoever says, I know Him but fails to keep and obey His commandments is a liar, and the Truth is not in him.  – 1 Jn 2:4 (Ampl).  (Note that “Commandments” here refer to the teachings and precepts of Jesus Christ and not the 10 commandments given unto Israel in the desert – see the meditation entitled “The Covenant and The Law” in www.gospel-truth.co.za).  An example would be just the following two statements from Jesus Christ:

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. – Jn 14:6 (KJV)

And he answered and said unto them, have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, for this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.  – Mt 19:4-6 (KJV) (Emphasis mine)

You are modern/post-modern?

Does this imply you possess more intelligence and wisdom than what is found in The Bible? Perhaps reconsider Rom 1:16-17: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, the just shall live by faith”.

In 1Cor 1:18-31 we read, “For the preaching of the cross is foolishness to those being lost, but to us being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the understanding of the perceiving ones.” Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the lawyer of this world? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom did not know God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe. For the Jews ask for a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness.  But to them, the called-out ones, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolish thing of God is wiser than men, and the weak thing of God is stronger than men.  For you see your calling, brothers, that not many wise men according to the flesh are called, not many mighty, not many noble.  But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and God has chosen the base things of the world, and things which are despised, and things which are not, in order to bring to nothing things that are; so that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who of God is made to us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption; so that, according as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.”

The meditations in www.gospel-truth.co.za should convincingly show that God in His Word (1 Tim 3:15-17) reveal Himself as sole Creator that allows for no place neither reason for foreign ideas such as evolution of humans from other forms.  The mind rejecting God [Jesus Christ as His perfect salvation plan and a victorious/everlasting life with His Spirit in us] is perhaps the deepest black hole we can be in from where our self-righteousness does not allow us to escape – ironically by our own conceited choice [the free will given us by this very God that is Love and the Light/life of humans].

E=MC2?

A Creator has no need for long periods of time to create.  All can be done instantly by a Creator such as God.  The immense distances between the created celestial bodies can thus be created in an instant.  Together with these, will then be created relativity and laws governing this universe (literally meaning “one spoken sentence”).  At the resultant current rate, light (waves) would indeed require a long period of time to travel between such remote bodies.  This would rather illustrate beautifully the unfathomable ability of God our Creator in relation to our feeble self-righteous minds and current limited ability. Also, would it hint to us the immeasurable intellect, Love and Grace of God as opposed to what we return to God in a shameful lack of thankfulness?

Summary

A mathematical calculation per se, however brilliant it is, is still but a probability and as a mere plausibility [until an absolute obvious observable and unchallenged truth], is a far cry yet from reality. For such irrefutable proof, only time [our observation and means of observation], will tell.

Heb 11:1 (Ampl) says of faith, “Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].”

Conclusion

It is remarkable that David (that also penned a crucifixion in Ps 22:16 astonishingly 1000 years before its invention by the Romans), referred to God’s expanse (expansion) in Ps 19:1 by saying, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork”. Also in Ps 150:1, “Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power”.

The word “firmament” is רקיע‛ (H7549, raw-kee’-ah), and is from H7554, that refers to an expanse being stretched!  Perhaps the Bible should –literally – not be taken too lightly!…

An explosion (divergent instability) cannot create; and a creation implies an intelligent design with specific purpose.  A creation by God then, will have a divine meaning and purpose to those created to His image

We must take care in using only theoretical physics as irrefutable proof for explanations, such as for black holes, and perhaps fall into traps of questionable fallacies and errors in reasoning due to plain unbelief.  The Bible is not irrelevant or an irrational piece of literature – please refer to the meditation “The Bible” for a more thorough examination of how true this is?

Now then, please again try to consume (and/or please correct the author) what is discussed on www.gospel-truth.co.za, in Jesus name?

Suggested further reading on the scientific aspects can be found on websites such as http://creation.com/dr-jonathan-d-sarfati.

Be blessed in Jesus’ Name (Eph 1:3) …

(Parts adapted from Astronomy and the Bible, Q&A, by Donald B. DeYoung, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1989.)