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Sidewalk astronomy and heaven
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The Night the Missionaries talked about heaven. by Eric Norland
This wasn’t the first time that this happened. I was with our astronomy club, doing a sidewalk star party at Canal Park in Duluth, when some missionaries happened across our telescope viewing. They were curious about what we were looking at. I showed them Jupiter. I said it was the ancient god Zeus, that Zupiter is a corruption of the god Zeus. They asked me if I believed that heaven is the place where God lives. This did not take me by surprise. I have had this happen before. Astronomy and religion share so many things in common. I wanted to tread carefully with them, in order to not scare them off.
We’d set up our telescopes along a busy tourist walkway on a weekend night and began showing the night sky to the public. It was a windy summer evening, but the night was clear, Jupiter was in the west, the moon in the south. There were six of us amateur astronomers offering anyone who wanted to take a look at the nights wonders.
I noticed these two twenty-ish young ladies standing nearby looking at us, but not coming over to look through the scopes. We invited them over and they talked to each other and then shuffled closer to look through our scope. They kind of had a zombie like stare. When they approached me I could see a longing in their eyes. “What are you doing out here?” asked one of the ladies. I told her we were looking at the sky above and she seemed puzzled. She said, “That (she nodded upward with her head) is Gods realm and we thought maybe you were with another church,” she said. “No we are with an astronomy club,” I responded. “Are you with a church?” I asked. “Yes,” she said, “ we are missionaries for a local church.”
She looked through my telescope but wondered if I’d seen any unusual lights moving in the night sky. I had not. She told me that this occurred to her and that it might be a sign of things to come. I asked her what was coming. She said the son of God was due and they were out to evangelize and get people ready for that coming day.
She then told me that Jesus ascended up into heaven and that he would descend at anytime. She wondered if I had accepted the Lord and saviour into my heart. I delayed the answer and instead told them about our atmosphere and that it is not that far to outer space. I told her that it is a very thin but hostile atmosphere, that there isn’t enough air to breathe above thirty thousand feet and it is much to cold for us to survive without artificial means. “As for space it is 450 degrees below zero and an absolute vacuum. Your brains would be sucked out your ears in outer space,” I said adding, “without a space suit,” of course. “Space is no paradise for us warm loving creatures accustomed to earth pressure and gravity.”
The way they looked at me, I could tell that I had not convinced them of anything, and they pressed on telling me that Jesus died for the sins of mankind and that the judgement day was close at hand. I pointed out to them the summer triangle and told them about the stellar distances to Altair, Vega and Deneb. “The distance to Deneb is about 1500 light years,” I said adding. “If Jesus went there and was currently returning at the speed of light, then he had another 1000 years before he’d make it back here. That is of course if he was traveling at the speed of light, which theoretically no physical body can do.”
“Do you believe in God?” asked one of them with a sincere look on her face. “It depends on what you mean by God,” I said. If you mean that planet Jupiter over there, (I pointed at it) then no, though the Greeks thought of it as Zeus. And if you mean the moon up there, no, though the Greeks and Romans thought of it as the goddess Diana. If you mean the sun, then no, it is a star, though it was worshipped by just about everybody on earth at one time or another. Without the sun we would all be dead, so I guess it is as close to God as anything.” They were not impressed by what I said.
“Ever wonder why people pray upward,” I asked them. “That is where God lives and where Jesus ascended too,” they responded. So do you think Jesus is looking down on us right now?” I asked. “Yes of course,” they said. “Do you see that blob up there?” I pointed to the Andromeda galaxy. “Yes, we do,” they said. “That is the furthest thing that our human eyes can see without a telescope. It is 2.2 million light years away. The light left that galaxy when our ancestors were stepping out of Oldavai Gorge in Africa. That was a long time ago. But the Hubble Space Telescope can see thousands of galaxies which are up to 3 billion light years away. That was when our planet earth was cooling down after its formation.
They truly did not listen to me. The next thing they said was kind of a shocker. “We believe that the earth is under 6 thousand years old and that any day now Jesus will return and take away all of those that he needs to help him complete his mission and he probably won’t take you with,” she said.
“Where will he take you away to?” I asked. “Heaven,” they said. “Ok, I wish you well,” I said. |
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