Anthropologists and paleontologists tell us that we Homo sapiens attained our present brain size of about 1400 cc some 200,000 years ago, a milestone indicating we had finally become fully human. Compared to the 4.6 billion age of the earth, we have been around a very short time indeed.
This poses a question. Considering that the Christian god waited some 198,000 years after we became human to proclaim his one and only son as the gateway to salvation, would it have been asking too much to wait another two thousand years?
Why?
Because Jesus would have landed right in the middle of the information age, where, with the invention of the internet, YouTube, Facebook and texting, the good news would have traveled around the world in an instant.
Considering His omniscience, He was surely aware that in God time, the internet was only a couple of days away. (”one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.--2 Peter 3:8 )
Instead, God inexplicably plopped his son out of a virgin in the middle of a desert among some of the most ignorant people on earth. The message would not even begin to filter out for nearly 300 years, when Constantine convened the First Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D.
Over a short lazy week-end in His time, we would have been capable of capturing everything on video cameras and cell phones; Jesus’ ascension, Mahomet in the cave, Joseph Smith eagerly digging for those golden plates; all of it. With Islam, Christianity, and Mormonism offering up wildly differing accounts we could have quickly determined who was lying.
With unbelievably serious stakes involved, is it really prudent to have the most important ideas ever offered up to mankind when 99% of them couldn’t even read? Even the printing press, slow and cumbersome by today’s standards would have to wait another 1400 years (33 hours and 36 minutes in God time) before the good news could be cranked out in paperback.
Meanwhile, look what has happened in just two days of God time. Chaos reigns. Without e-mail, Facebook and YouTube, some 38,000 Christian denominations have sprung up. Lacking documentation, believers have jumped on their horses and ridden off in all directions.
A couple of good video cameras for less than 200 bucks each at Best Buy and we could have straightened all this mess out.
In his eagerness to spread the good news, did God jump the gun?
Now we may never discover who the liars are.
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Charlie asked, "In his eagerness to spread the good news, did God jump the gun?" Uh,Charlie, he/she/it (no comment on my pronouns, please!}, but there seems to have been no hurry in issuing a press release on the supreme being's will. Assuming it all began just 6,000 years ago why wait until 1250 BCE to write out the rules to a clumsy angry guy who immediately destroyed them. So after that the rulers simply winged it making up their own rules and saying god was giving them instructions. President Bush claimed that is where he got his instructions. We all know how that worked out! People now are using the internet to check things out and churches are about to become extinct.
ReplyDeleteJim
Great comments Jim
ReplyDeleteHere are some facts (as opposed to faith); my particular religious group numbered 3,000,000 in 1955 when the US population was about 155,000,000. In 2004 we numbered 1,200,000 and the population was about 300,000,000. It's just too easy to check the preacher out today. They must miss the dark ages.
ReplyDeleteJim
Jim said: "So after that the rulers simply winged it making up their own rules and saying god was giving them instructions."
ReplyDeleteCome to think of it we have a guy in our midst (well actually in SLC) who gets instructions from god on a regular basis. Thomas Monson currently holds the top spot as designated prophet, seer and revelator. (It goes by seniority)
One of his minions wants to be our next President. I think we should consider voting for the guy. Having a direct line to somebody who has a direct line to god is not without its attraction.