How many stars are there?
20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
How many planets?
Probably more.
How many chemical bonds are there in the genomes of all of the life forms on earth?
6,000,000,000,000,000,000
When was the big bang?
13,800,000,000 years ago
How big is the federal debt……today?
$30,000,000,000,000
Really big numbers. But in practical terms…..in terms of their application to our lives……..what do they mean?
The simple truth is that these numbers are so big that, from a practical perspective………we cannot comprehend them. In other words, we haven’t a clue as to how to react to them……how to use them to make decisions on a day to day basis in our lives. That is why the federal debt doesn’t seem to get any traction in terms of what we should do about it.
I call these numbers God numbers. The ultimate God number?……infinity. Infinity is such a large number that it doesn’t actually exist. Infinity, when you get down to it, is not real. It is a theoretical construct.
If you take an infinite number of monkeys, word processors, time, and paper………they will type the Encyclopedia Brittanica. This is a true statement……theoretically. But we both know that it will never happen…….that it is impossible. This is the problem when we use very large numbers……God numbers…….and try to build practical applications using them……..when we try to make practical daily decisions based on them.
And yet, very smart people try to do this every day. They draw conclusions from very big numbers and tell us how we should live:
With all of those stars and planets, there must be extraterrestrial life out there somewhere.
The federal debt hasn’t hurt us yet…….so we can let it grow.
With billions upon billions of years, there was enough time for the earth and all of its genomes to accumulate………purely by random accident.
With all of that time, life could begin out of non living material, begin to reproduce, and then morph onto Angelia Jolie.
With all of that time, we can explain our existence and the existence of the amazing ecosystem that we call earth on the basis of random accidents.
But how many accidents did it take?
1 with how many zeros? 100……1,000…..1 million
Remember, the accidents must be cumulative, they must be consecutive, and they must spread over the entire earth and run off their competitors. Furthermore, accidents that don’t improve the species don’t count.
This is the “science” that our teachers teach our children as fact. We accept it because we cannot comprehend the really big numbers that it is based on. We accept it because the scientists say it is so…….and they are much smarter than we are.
The problem is that we have allowed this “science” to push creation……and with it, the creator……out of the conversation. But, the entire scientific “house of cards” is built on numbers that are so big that we cannot comprehend them. Our eyes get glassy and we just accept it……..because the people selling it are much smarter than we are.
The trouble is that the scientists have no better practical understanding of these numbers than we do. In point of fact, the basic theory that this science is based on….Darwinian evolution…….was formulated before we even knew just how big these numbers are.
If you bet your future…….your eternity…….on the accident theory, you are gambling on an explanation that is built on numbers that none of us truly understand.
God numbers.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1, ESV
And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.”
Genesis 1:11, ESV
And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.”
Genesis 1:20, ESV
And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.”
Genesis 1:24, ESV
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Genesis 1:26, ESV
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.
Genesis 1:31, ESV