By Mack Samples|
Isnít time as we know it based on our solar system. Isnít that where we get the concept of a day, a month, a year? Or, looking at it another way, isnít time as we know it a product of the human mind? Scientists measure the speed of light in terms of ďlight years.Ē But I wonder how long a light year is for those beings who do not live in our solar system. Wouldnít their year (if they have such a measure) be a very different concept from what we call a year?
Is it possible that when we finally do escape the surly bonds of our solar system and sail out into the nitherlands of the universe, we will have to completely redefine our concept of time?
Is it possible that there really isnít such a thing as time in the greater universe(s)? Some are now arguing that there is more than one universe, you know. Isnít it entirely possible that the universe has always been and always will be? There is certainly no sunrise and sunset out beyond our solar system.
How long is a lifetime way out beyond our galaxy? If we really found a way to travel zillions of miles into space and set up housekeeping, how long would we live? If there is no sunrise, sunset, weeks, months, or years, how would we measure how long the body will last?
People who are supposed to be smarter than those of us who live up O'Brion Road in Clay County are always telling us that they know the answer to those questions. But do they really? Is the universe flat, round, expanding, or standing still? I doubt that anyone
really knows. In my mind, it is going to take something much more magnificent that the Hubble Telescope to answer all of those questions. When they tell me something is 100 light years away, I just wonder how folks on some far away galaxy measures that same distance. Iím positive that they do not say that their sun is ninety-three million miles away because they donít have a clue how far a mile is.
During the late middle ages and early Renaissance, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) thought he had it all figured out when he decided that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the universe. For a time, all of the great minds agreed with him. But as it turned out, the sun was not the center of the universe at all. It was only the center of our solar system. Isnít it very possible that the great minds of today will also be wrong five hundred years from now?
Is it possible that the reason life will be everlasting in heaven is because there is no time out there, wherever heaven happens to be? How old are we going to be when we get to heaven? Are we all going to be twenty, thirty, forty-five? When we are reunited with our kids, how old are they going to be? Iíll bet some people are hoping that they will not be the same age that they were when they died.
I may be wrong, and I probably am, but I am pretty well convinced that the great keeper of the universe, whatever your particular religion calls him (or her), does not carry a pocket watch. I donít think the entity that we call God gives a hoot what time it is, or how far a light year is, or long it would take to travel from the dog star to the big dipper. I think the great Supreme Being is amused at the folly of earthly human beings who think they know what time it is.