Rings

I went to a debate this evening between Bart Ehrman, an agnostic religious studies professor here, and Dinesh D'Souza, an author who was presenting 'the' Christian perspective. The title of the was 'God and the Problem of Suffering.' I have to say, the agnostic clearly won. I liked his points better, he had better (and unanswered) questions and he seemed much more open. Ehrman doesn't believe in the God of the Bible, the one who intervenes so often in the Old and New Testaments. He said that he couldn't know if there was or wasn't some bigger power up there and while D'Souza said something about science proving the existence of a creator and made one of his few nice points by mentioning his idea of the 'hiddeness of God,' which has apparently increased since Adam and Eve, D'Souza never flat out said that there must be a God and that God must be the one talked about in the Bible. I hated that he didn't say that. I mean, I don't know how the God of today that doesn't stop genocides and earthquakes lines up with the God of the Old Testament who talks to people, brings Israel out of Egypt and heals the sick.

But at the same time all this debate was going on, this little story was waiting for me to read it:

http://news.aol.com/article/california-nasa-telescope-sees-giant/706628?icid=mainhtmlws-maindl1link3http://news.aol.com/article/california-nasa-telescope-sees-giant/706628

There is a giant ring around Saturn and it is glorious when viewed in the infrared. Now, I'm not saying that this proves that there is a God and I'm not saying that this somehow undermines the problem of suffering, because that's a big deal to us confined to this Earth with the people we're confined with, but doesn't that make you wonder? I mean, I can see galaxies and maps of the universe, but they're all just big numbers to me. I've stopped seeing them as huge and just started seeing them. But this... makes me small. Makes us small. A billion Earths would be needed to fill in the space inside that ring. A billion copies of our planet. One billion.


From JPL (NASA)

The point is, my friends, that we are tiny and we should be thanking God for every nonsensical second of our existences that He decides to care for us, because He doesn't have to. Does He answer prayer? Does He work in our lives? Did He step down out of His heavens to bring us to Him? I mean, I don't know, but I do know that the One who sees things on scales much bigger than this and can control it is not the Person I want against me. I am so glad that by His grace, He's for me.