bob b said:
It appears that most people are coming around to the belief that the universe expanded from a condition where it was once very much smaller than its current size.
It may surprise many creationists that scripture states many times that God "stretched out the heavens", and this may mean that scientists are essentially correct in proposing something akin to the Big Bang.
I am curious about the opinions of people as to what effect, if any, such an expansion might have on the variable of time.
For instance, when the universe was 100 times smaller than it is now would time go by 100 times (or some non-linear function) faster or would it go by at the same rate it does today?
Hi Bob b,
I have never really scripturally researched the ideas I am about to express ... so this is an off my head pondering ... but I think it is interesting. Please some of you well read scientist point out where I am going all-wrong.
FIRST, I am prone to accept a Big Bang event. I think Gen.1 describes it in the first few verses. I have begun reading a book called
Wrinkles in Time ... and it was saying where cosmologists are discovering that they were wrong in their assumptions that the galaxies would have evolved in a random arrangement ... for they are finding that the expanding universe is very much logically ordered. This smacks of a divine intellectual creator ... a bit.
This book compared the entire universe to a large can of foam, which is made up of individual bubbles. The arrangement of the order of the galaxies is compared to the arrangement of the juncture of the bubble walls within the foam. The emptiness inside the bubbles is compared to the seemingly empty invisible space between the galaxies. There is more invisible space than there is visible matter in the foam and the universe.
So now, scientists have begun to value the invisible areas of the darkness of space to be something more worthy of study than the visible matter.
Gen.1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and the darkness was upon the face of the deep... And the (invisible) Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
MY INTERPRETATION:
In the beginning God ...
And the
solid visible created matter to come was without form, and void; and the darkness was upon the face of the deep of infinity and eternity. And the invisible infinite Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep morass of infinity that filled everything with its omni-presence like spreading waters of life.
My conclusion is that the invisible dark areas of creations are just as important as the visible things brought forth out of it.
Concerning time and the effects, which the flowing expansion of the invisible waters of darkness and the spreading of the created visible matter have on it., I say: It does affect time as we know it on earth... so this is what makes time relative.
I have pondered that God may even use another way to measure time for mankind - in conjunction with revolving and rotating of planets ... This third unit of time measurement would also be affected by the expansion of the universe due to its affect on rotating and revolving.
I have pondered a third unit of time called - "generations". It is a much more personal unit of measurement and marks off time of work and reproducing according to the times of humanity and not according to just heavenly bodies.
TIME:
rotating earth = days
revolving earth = years
human times of work and reproducing = generations
Consider the effects of an expanding universe upon these things.
Smaller universe = faster rotations of the earth with shorter days and higher tallies when counting
Smaller universe = faster revolutions of the earth around the sun and shorter years with higher tallies when counting.
Smaller universe = more days and years to count to mark off generations of work and reproduction
Therefore Adam lived to be hundreds of years old according to this 'fast-pace-counting of time'
But by the time of Abraham - Joseph ... the expansion of the universe had yielded slower rotations and revolutions and therefore longer days and years resulted - which resulted in a 'slower counting of time units'. Therefore people died before the high numbers of days and years could be counted.
For example
In Gen.1, the mornings and evenings of the first 6 days may have been fast and furious events, and may not have even been counted by rotations and revolutions at all ... but may have been more like a big bang event ...
While the generations of the LORD (Gen.2), when the LORD created the sun, moon, and man and then planted a garden within the creation were slightly longer due to the marking of time by the sun and moon. But the generations of the LORD may have been measured in larger numbers than the generations of Adam that followed the expulsion from the garden ... due to the expansion of the created universe. One day of man may have been more like 1000 years to the LORD in the Garden.
The generations of Adam through the generations of Methuselah were counted in higher numbers than the generational days of Noah and Abraham ... The generations of Abraham through Joseph were counted with higher numbers than the generations from Joseph - King David. And from Jesus to 19 century ... the generations to work and reproduce were even shorter.
In these latter days of the 20th and 21st centuries ... the days of our lives do seem to have increased slightly, but I think that this is due to the increase in knowledge in the health fields instead of a shrinking of the universe with faster days and years.
Now, I know that people will argue that if rotating and revolving of things were sped up or slowed down even minutely, then the universe would self-destruct, and life could not exist as we know it ... but I say that God is in control of this BIG PICTURE and knows the times of things and for things, and there is to come a need for God to step in and personally control things … and then renew things.