Meet my friend Jennifer Fulwiler. Jennifer is a must-read blogger, whom I've been reading for years, as she has blogged her way from skeptical scientific atheism to belief. Her posts are humorous, stirring, moving, and above all intelligent. You can subscribe to her feed at Conversion Diary. This post which she's generously allowed me to share with you, was first posted in October of 2007. She is writing a book on her conversion experience--you'll be sure to see an announcement here when it becomes available. (Part I to this post is featured here)
Unapproachable Light
I had a little experience this weekend that was what my aunt would call a "Godincidence", and what I would call "an event that seems like it might have been a direct answer to a prayer but could have just been a coincidence and since I try not to state definitively what is and is not a direct act of God in my life I'll leave it to you to decide". (My aunt's term is better). Anyway, since I know everyone likes to hear little stories like this I thought I'd share:
As I mentioned in my last post, I'm reading Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe. When I got to the part about the fascinating behavior of light I was reminded that, for a long time, it's seemed to me that light might be very closely associated with God. Even when I was still basically an atheist but considering exploring religion, when I read about light and its behavior I thought, very un-eloquently, "that seems kind of God-ish". I would read about things like the fact that time slows down as you approach light speed; or that light exists in an "immortal" timeless/ageless state (as one physicist put it: "the universe ages, light does not"); that the combined speed of any object's motion through space and its motion though time is always exactly equal to the speed of light, etc.; then I would recall that those Christians were always associating God with light, and I'd think...hmmm...is there anything to that?
Anyway, all these thoughts were rekindled Saturday night as I read about light and relativity. The last sentence I read said:
No matter how hard you chase after a beam of light, it still retreats from you at light speed.
Wow! I put the book down after I read that to think about it. I find this concept of not ever being able to approach light so fascinating, especially the potential relation to God, that I cost myself some much-needed sleep lying awake to ponder it. I eventually said a heart-felt prayer asking God to let me know if there was anything to this, and finally drifted off to sleep.
The next day my mother-in-law was feeling down, so I Googled around for some inspirational Bible verses to cheer her up, and I came across the "fight the good fight" line in Chapter 6 of Paul's First Letter to Timothy. In true procrastinator fashion, decided to skim the rest of the chapter. The first thing I saw was verse 16, which refers to God as he "who lives in unapproachable light".
I thought that was interesting.
I like your first part more then second one but i wanna say one thing that your writing is impressive keep posting..!
Posted by: Term papers | 11/05/2009 at 02:16 AM
Are science and religion in conflict or is there a compromise?
I think Science and religion can stregthen each other, for example, Evolution theory and creation theory can go hand in hand. While Christian accounts give the outline of how God created the world, science tells exactly how it was done.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind" - Albert Einstein.
Posted by: Generic Viagra | 12/18/2009 at 12:56 PM
we must call up yet darker and more dreadful visions, of the heretic hiding himself in secret places
Posted by: NFL shop | 06/08/2011 at 02:22 AM