One of the best sermons I ever heard for our church campus minister a great message for every one in our community MSU and the town of Murray May we have a blessed year

26:38 The Karl G. Jansky VLA (or VLART, as it at least used to be called, the Very Large Array Radio Telescope, pronounced "V-Lart" which is kinda fun to say) figures prominently in the film "Contact" with Jodie Foster, and, beautifully photographed by Peter Hyams, in his earlier 1984 sequel to "2001: a Space Odyssey", entitled "2010: the Year We Make Contact" (1984). The preacher does well in his physical description of the scale and sensitivity of the instrument -- I plan to steal the illustration of the cumulative radio power collected by the massive telescope as comparable to that of the impact of a single snowflake (with the mercy, at least, of full attribution). The primary mission of the Jansky VLA is pure radio astronomy, observing the Universe of stars and galaxies in the radio spectrum, light that eyes cannot see, but which Murrayites such as Nathan B. Stubblefield (1860-1928) and Murray State and Professor of Physics Ardath G. Canon (1907-1999) understood as intimately as a carpenter understands a spirit level (and Stubblefield and Canon had that practical knowledge as well). The mission of the VLART is *not* primarily, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), though it has been used for that purpose, as (optimistically) depicted in the Jodie Foster film. Much of that use has been passive: the data collected in the course of the telescope's primary mission of pure science can, at no cost to the telescope, be copied for study by those who wonder, as Enrico Fermi did, "Where IS everybody?" The Great Silence, as someone else has termed it, is a great mystery. In such a vast cosmos, are we really alone? Or could it be that the Universe is teeming with a trillion trillion times more civilizations than there are Kentucky Lake carp, but we are so spread out in space, and in time, that no civilization ever gets a chance to contact each other? No one knows. As Arthur C. Clarke wrote, we may never know the answer: or it could be the only headline in tomorrow morning's newspaper. The preacher speaks rightly that the VLART observes galaxies at distances on the order of ten million light years away. That means that the radio waves emitted by those galaxies were emitted ten million years ago: a light year is defined as the distance that light travels in one earth year, or about 6 quadrillion miles. We know the distances by indirect measurement of the redshift of those distant galaxies: the astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) was the first to discover this effect, though it had theoretical antecedents in the work of Hubble's contemporaries Albert Einstein (1889-1955), and the Belgian priest and astronomer, Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître (1894-1966). The redshift of the light is due to those galaxies receding ever faster from our own, and from each other. Hubble's initial measurement was based on a particular kind of "standard candle" star, the Cephid Variables, and his measured values were in error by as much as an order of magnitude, but the discovery in the 20th century of the incredible uniformity of a different kind of star, a Type Ia Supernova, have corrected Hubble's original measurements and the expansion rate is now established to a very high degree of precision indeed. I applaud the preacher for being bold to mention the figure of ten million light years, measured by the VLA, implying as it does a history for our Universe which stretches ten million years into the past. Other astronomical observations confirm a continuous history of objects into the deep past, ending at the impenetrable wall of the Cosmic Microwave Background, some 13.8 billion years in the past. Measurements of gravitational waves, predicted by Einstein ca. 1915, but only detected by the Enhanced LIGO Experiment one hundred years later, in 2015, may allow this optically opaque curtain to be penetrated, with the potential to understand the first 175,000 years of the existence of the Universe as we know it. A former preacher at 7th and Poplar church of Christ, which used to meet in a building designed by that same Professor Canon of Murray State, has asserted in a sermon that our earth, and presumably the Universe it is embedded within, was created far more recently, "with the appearance of age". This idea is not a new one but dates from the 19th century, when it was articulated by the Plymouth Brethren minister (Anglicans that didn't like liturgy or located preachers) Philip Henry Gosse (1810-1888) in his 1857 book "Omphalos". Members of the churches of Christ who know their Classical and New Testament Greek will of course know the word better as ὀμφᾰλός, "navel", a reference to Gosse's hypothesis that Adam was created with a bellybutton. For better or worse, Gosse's name "Omphalos" stuck, and the view that God created the Universe with "the appearance of age", in John Dale's phrase, is now termed the "Omphalos Hypothesis" among scholars. The theological difficulty with the Omphalos Hypothesis is, that by its very nature, it presents God as an ultimate deceiver, hell-bent on painting a recently created world (October 23, 4004 BC in the famous "Biblical" chronology of the Church of Ireland's Bishop James Ussher (1581-1656), and other contemporary Christian natural philosophers such as Kepler and Sir Isaac Newton made similar estimates). I choose the phrase "hell-bent" advisedly, for I cannot imagine any other reason for a creator god to intentionally deceive its creation. Neither do I find a Biblical warrant for this point of view that I could otherwise reconcile with a Restoration Movement viewpoint, for the psalmist writes The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward. Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. Selah. (Whatever that means, again as with much of the distant past, no one is really sure.)

Thank you Charley ❤️

Thanks.