Owen K Waters – In the Middle Ages, most people worked the land. They were peasants who rarely ventured far away from their place of birth, so their concept of the world was quite small. Likewise, their concept of God the Creator was small in scale. To them, God was an all-powerful, wise, elderly, human-like figure who lived somewhere above them and would, one day, judge them in person.

People, at the time, didn’t realize the massive size of the planet upon which they stood. To them, most of their universe could be seen from the top of the nearest hill. Today, with cosmology and the Hubble telescope to help us, our view of the size of the universe has been stretched farther and farther.

What we have learned, since the Middle Ages, includes these realizations:

1. The Earth is not the center of the universe. Apparently, when this was discovered, it came as quite a shock.

2. The Earth is round. This was excellent news at the time: No more worrying that you might take to sea and sail off the edge of the world.

3. The Earth travels around the Sun. This means that, while modern-day life on Earth may seem to be expensive at times, it does come with the added bonus, once a year, of a free trip around the Sun.

4. The Sun is over a million times bigger than the Earth.

5. There are 200 billion other suns in our own galaxy.

6. There are well over 100 billion galaxies in the universe.

7. As big as the universe is, in order for God to be everywhere, God has to be bigger still. Continue reading →