How would it affect the workings of the sun though? Seems like the antimatter would react on the outside of the sun, and not get any significant penitration.
The difference between laying dynamite on a rock, and drilling a hole and putting it in the rock. Most of the blast would be outside the sun.
Heck seems like just the solar wind near the sun would be enough to react with the antimatter and start exploding. Some of it would get blasted away in space, and even what didn’t wouldn’t all come down at once. Some would get blasted right toward the sun, some would achieve some kind of orbit, some would get blasted up and then fall back down later.
Edit on second thought: matter-antimatter makes gamma rays, and without random walks through the sun to lower them to regular light we’d have a huge sterilizing radiation hazard till it was done. Image 3 hours worth of sunlight as gamma rays. Not good.
I’ve always been curious…why do people think the Mayan knew things about the universe that we don’t? Or that they had any kind of extraordinary grasp at all? Don’t get me wrong…like many ancient peoples they had great achievements given their technological level…but they never demonstrated (afaik) any extraordinary technological or cosmological understanding compared to other ancient peoples. And certainly nothing on par with our abilities today.
The idea that “the ancients” had advanced technologies and secrets that have been lost over the years is widespread. I think don’t think there’s any one reason, but lots of them:
You can point to the occasional case (Damascus Steel and it’s ilk) where a piece of knowledge really was lost (although even in these cases, the stories are usually embellished).
Most mythological stories and books talk casually about performing impossible and miraculous feats, and there are people even today unclear on the concept of “fiction.”
It’s romantic to think that there are “great secrets” to be uncovered (by chance or luck rather than tedious science).
The awe-inspiring amount of manual effort that must have gone into things like the pyramids cause people to believe that it was impossible, and they must have had a “secret edge.”
Tradition (“We’ve been drilling holes in people’s skulls for 50,000 years to let out demons, and all of those people can’t be wrong!”): hence the entire herbal, holistic, and homeopathic “medicine” industry.
In the early days of science, determining what was a legitimate field for study and what was not (especially in history) was tough – Issac Newton supposedly wrote far more documents on Alchemy and mysticism than actual science, and he’s held as a paragon of rational thinking.
Most fundamentalist Christians know better than to espouse such rubbish as you’ve stated above about everyone, or almost everyone, suffering forever in hell.
**Hell is the common grave of all mankind. (Sheol in Hebrew and Hades in Greek.)
Gehenna refers to ‘The Lake of Fire’ which is ‘The second DEATH.’ Please note the word DEATH here, not torment, torture, or suffering.
If, as the Bible states, ‘The wages for sin is death,’ then that rules out eternal torture in any location you care to name.
Christ came to pay for the sins of all mankind, and to do so He DIED on the cross. If your understanding, that eternal torment is the punishment for sin were correct, then Christ would still be on the cross, now wouldn’t He?
I know, I know, it’s waaaaaay too logical to fathom - but spoil yourself and give it a try. - Jesse.
Jesse Leigh, that was a mildly impressive bit of sophistry, but it hardly refutes the point to which you responded.
There is, indeed, a subset of Fundamentalist Christians who follow your logic to conclude that damnation is not an eternity of punishment. Regardless of that bit of rationale, however, the fact is that the overwhelming majority of Fundamentalist Christians actually do not follow that chain of argument and do, indeed, believe that the damned will suffer eternally.
ETA: the sophistry does not come from the chain of argument, but from the unspoken, but implied, claim that since the argument can be presented, then Fundamentalist Christians follow it.
Well, I’m not fond of arguing and if you were correct I would agree with you. I’ve been a missionary for thirty-four years, have run an Christian Internet Discussion Forum for a decade, and I’m here to tell you that eternal damnation is not the majority opinion. Eternal separation from God we can talk about, but the victim of such a fate would not be conscious. If ‘Damnation’ can be taken to mean separation from God then I won’t dispute the point further.
I don’t know what happens after death - precisely (and neither does anyone else). I know essentially what happens, but not the nitty-gritty details, and I don’t care because I trust that my Father in Heaven knows what He is doing. I believe in the fundamental Christian tenets, that through Christ we can be reconciled to YHWH and have everlasting life, but there are a few plausible theories ‘out there’ as to how that will be brought about and I find it makes more sense to concentrate on living decently and let God take care of what He’s going to anyway. He’s managed this far without my opinion - I’m quite sure He can handle the rest.
None of the early Christians believed in or conceived of eternal torture as the ‘Wages for sin’ for the reason I stated in my above post. It wasn’t until the Council of Nicea that fearmongering took hold and scared people into making an empire out of false doctrine. As with all man-made institutions in this world - follow the money - it’ll lead you to the lie every time.
Let’s not forget that ‘God is LOVE!’ When God speaks, I listen. When Jesus speaks, I listen. When The Holy Spirit speaks, I listen. When man speaks - I wonder what His motives are and compare what he’s said to what The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit have put forth.
Bryan the concept certainly does exist in serious physics circles … as a theoretical concept that has nothing to do with our op’s … uh … proposal.
First, Einstein’s theories show how no particle with mass (i.e. no particle other than a photon) can travel at the speed of light, but they in no way demonstrate that there cannot be particles that always travel faster than the speed of light. Science fiction writers (especially the Star Trek ones) glommed onto the physicists’ word for that hypothetical particle, a “tachyon”, but the concept has been seriously discussed.
There is also the concept of apparent superluminosity - that’s the basics of wormholes - again a real physics concept before sci-fi writers ran with it.
Finally there is the issue of entangled particles as a concept: EPR-pairs. Supraluminal information transmission…
Okay, no consensus among physicists about this stuff, and plenty of reason to doubt. But many serious physicists do accept the possibility of information or particles that travel at speeds faster than the speed of light
It occurs to me that if all the insane stuff in the OP were true, somebody would have about three different Nobels coming to them. (And I’d recommend blowing that money on some high livin’ in the next four years.)
I’d have to see more information before i took you at your word. religioustolerance.org claims that traditionalist teachings of hell are “fading fast,” without specifying numbers.
However, the Wikipedia article discussing Annihilationism claims that it is a minority opinion among Christians, held mostly by Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and related groups with a growing, (not large), number of other Evangelicals embracing it.
Since every member of every Baptist, Assembly of God, or similar church whom I know personally still adheres to the traditional belief of eternal punishment, I would have to see a bit more evidence that that has actually become a minority view among Fundamentalist Christians.
I can’t prove a 49%/51% ratio either way, or anything close to it - I haven’t taken a poll like that. Any Christian, whether Baptist, Catholic, Protestant, or whatever other label one likes to align oneself with, who believes that God tortures people in hell is in need of remedial Bible study.
In my experience, most Christians don’t know a great deal about the Bible and take whatever their minister says as Gospel - not the best idea. People can believe whatever they want to, of course, but to claim that something is a Biblical teaching when it’s clearly not, is different.
95% of all Fundamentalist Christians have never shared the Gospel with anyone, yet this is a mandate from Jesus.
68% of all Christians can’t tell you what John 3:16 says - a foundational statement of the Christain faith.
84% can’t tell you the 10 Commandments.
And my personal favorite - 12% of professing, church-going Christians believe that Noah’s wife was Joan of Arc. That’s pathetic!
I could go on but I’m sure you can see why I’m concerned and why people just may not have any idea that eternal torment is an RCC doctrine designed to keep the herd in line. That’s how the Inquisitions were justified since so-called heretics were going to hell anyway :rolleyes: giving them a preview of coming attractions wasn’t considered barbaric.
All of the atrocities committed in the NAME of ‘Christianity’ and ‘Religion’ had and have nothing to do with God and Christ at all.
Christ gave us two Commandments and they embody the original ten. ‘Love YHWH your God with your whole heart, mind, soul, and strength… (and) love your neighbor as yourself.’
The Bible is a love story - God’s love for us and ours for Him. Everything in between is just how to get from here to there.
Care to explain this statement to me? Mind you, I am not saying that either exists, but assuming they did (which is certainly possible), then why would it be impossible for either to transmit information?
- Jesse.