The blacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the coals; he shapes an idol with hammers, he forges it with the might of his arm. He gets hungry and loses his strength; he drinks no water and grows faint. The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker; he roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses. He shapes it in the form of man, of man in all his glory, that it may dwell in a shrine. He cut down cedars, or perhaps took a cypress or oak. He let it grow among the trees of the forest, or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow. It is man’s fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it. Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal; he roasts his meat and eats his fill. He also warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.” From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, “Save me; you are my god.” They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand. No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, “Half of it I used for fuel; I even baked bread over its coals, I roasted meat, and I ate. Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?” He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?” (Isaiah 44:12–20, NIV 1984).
My Musings – We read passages like this and think, how could they have been so foolish? We are so much more enlightened, so much wiser. But are we?
There was a time when some of our most brilliant scientists believed that the cosmos always existed. That there was always something, which included the necessary “building blocks” for life to begin.
After continued observations (scientific method), beliefs changed. The cosmos had a beginning (the Big Bang, or singularity). Once there was nothing (no time, matter or space), then instantaneously there was something. Something sprang out of nothing (ex nihilo).
But for enlightened modern man, there was a problem with that belief too. To get something from nothing, there must be “something” to cause nothing to become something. A problem, that is, if one does not believe the something was God.
The solution? There was a Big Bang a long time ago, but it was not the beginning. It was preceded by a phase named Cosmic Inflation. “A period, prior to the hot Big Bang, where the universe was dominated by a large cosmological constant (or something that behaves similarly) …that could have gone on for an eternity.” (Surprise: the Big Bang isn’t the beginning of the universe anymore, https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/big-bang-beginning-universe/, October 13, 2021).
My Advice – “A large cosmological constant (or something that behaves similarly) …that could have gone on for eternity? Hmmm, I wonder what, (or who that behaves similarly) that could be? Just stop to think about it.
Cosmological constant – “I the Lord do not change.” (Malachi 3:6, NIV 1984).
For eternity – “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.'” (Revelation 1:8, NIV 1984).
Believe in the someone who made all things from no things.
The Brew Is A Musing 