It all came from dust.
That's right.
Dust.
Cosmic dust.
I did a little (ok, very little) research on the subject and found out that this some variations of this theory have been around for a few years now. Fascinating.
For a few years the scientific community has proposed that everything we know comes (one way or another) from dust. Believers have known this for a few thousand years already. God made us from the dust.
Genesis 2:7
Some people are worried that science is killing God. Science isn't killing God. Science can't kill God.
I saw an amusing t-shirt. It read:
God is dead.
-Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead.
-God
Science is revealing God, little by little, in all His Glory and Majesty.
Science is a gift from God. He created us with questioning minds. We want to understand where we came from, who and what we are. He gave us science so we could learn everything except that which we were never meant to know. That we might learn all there is to know about everything except the one thing we can't ever explain: God Himself.
Years ago, I had an interesting conversation in a coffee shop with a lady several decades my senior. We were talking about modern medicine. I had just finished reading an article about nanobots, tiny little robots small enough to actually travel through the human body and perform surgical repairs on critical areas like the heart and brain. The article also hinted at the possibility that these little robots could be used to create smaller robots which in turn could create smaller robots and so on, down to an unbelievably small size. There is also the hypothesis that these little buggers might someday be programmed with (or scarier still, develop) artificial intelligence and maybe create other little robots spontaneously. As I shared this information with this elderly lady, she seemed to grow a little uneasy with the whole concept. She straightened herself in her chair, looked me in the eye and said in a slow, dignified, confident tone:
"God will stop it."
Well, maybe. God certainly could stop it, but does God have to stop it?
That's what you call one of those rhetorical questions.
Fact is, He doesn't have to. God isn't worried about us finding out what's behind the curtain. The mystery of creation is safe from human understanding unless and until God decides to reveal it to us. Right now, we're just not ready. We may never be. If He decided to show us before we were ready, then we'd probably all end up like the dude in the turban at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's absolutely mind blowing. In this life, we can't possibly understand or handle His glory. God revealed himself ever so slightly to Moses and afterward, Moses' face was so bright that no one could look upon him. We cannot fathom the utter majesty of the Lord's face.
Every mystery science solves in this area, leaves another mystery. The answer to the greatest mysteries is always the greatest mystery of all, God.
Some people believe in the big bang theory, that everything in the entire universe was condensed into one impossibly small speck of 'nothing' that (for no particular reason) exploded and scattered to eventually form all the 'something' that we now "know."
God-fearing believers know that the Lord created everything ex nihilo, out of nothing. Before and the boundless and infinite universe, there was only God, The Great "I Am."
If you contend as I do that these two scenarios are equally plausible, then it comes down to what you believe. It comes down to faith. You can either believe that God created the universe, or that it somehow created itself.
It's a lot like the question of whether God created man or man created God. It's the ultimate 'Which came first the chicken or the egg?' question. (My take on that one, BTW is that God made the first chickens [and roosters] and they got together and laid eggs and made more chickens. The bottom line is that it doesn't matter, because God could just as easily made fertilized chicken eggs which hatched into chickens which bred more chickens.)
I digress.
At the risk of knocking over a straw horse, I'm going to say that it's a no-brainer. If you believe that man created God, then you must believe that the universe created itself and we made up stories about God or gods to explain everything we didn't understand. Humans have done plenty of that. Even "civilized" ancient cultures like those found in Egypt, Greece, South and Central America, the Far East and so on, have or have had (mostly polytheistic, idolatrous) religions to explain why the world is the way it is and how it got that way. It is encouraging to note that many of the peoples in these cultures have found comfort in the Truth about the Living God. It is disheartening to think that many may have been converted under duress. It's also sobering to think of the billions who haven't yet heard or accepted the Truth. Depsite the advance of Christianity, there's still a long long way to go.
Wow. Looking back on this little e-pistle, such as it is, I realize just how rambling it is. That's the risk I run, I suppose, for writing stream-of-consciousness style. It's not exactly James Joyce or T.S. Eliot, but... it is what it is.
When we ponder something as infinite as the universe, we start to question things. I used to think that my questions and doubts were fatal flaws. I know now that God is way bigger than any doubts my feeble little mind can come up with. It's OK to doubt. God can handle it. Just don't let your doubts win in the end. Don't give up on your faith just because you have questions. Jeremiah questioned God. Moses questioned God. God responded. God will answer your questions, too. He's got all the answers. All of God's answers are the right ones, to boot, BTW. Look to Him for the answers.
Peace be with you.
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