(no subject)
Had the day off today. It's a rare Good Friday that doesn't fall during Quarter End, which means that usually we only get a half day. But today was a whole day off, and I did a bit of shopping. Actually tried on dresses for the first time in years - the only dresses I've worn since my first or second year of college were choir uniforms. And after going through half a dozen or more different dresses, I slipped on this black thing that just fell right into place. It was perfect. But it was also $54 on sale, and I really don't have the money. So hopefully it will still be there in a couple paychecks' time.
Of course, my internal calendar is completely messed up now, with the day off and the Good Friday service and all. I keep thinking tomorrow's Sunday.
I also did a bit of thinking today, about some line I'd written in a probably-never-to-be-published bit of fanfic I was working on. And also the perspective of the cosmos that Diane Duane has written into her Young Wizards series. See, Duane linked sin, death, and suffering to the concept of entropy, that entropy did not exist until Satan's rebellion. And that's just a fascinating idea. As for the bit of fanfic, it was in a discussion about Christianity that I wrote a line that went like this:
"Everyone knows the disputes between faith and science, but one never hears of scientists refuting the most scientifically preposterous claim Christianity makes, that the blood sacrifice of one man can undo the Second Law of Thermodynamics."
Most times you hear people saying how unscientific and silly the Bible is, they drag up Genesis and the Creation story. With all the beautiful language and imagery and stuff, still it sounds to folks as silly as Larry the Cucumber put it in Where's God When I'm Scared: "God made all those stars outta nothin'. He just went 'pbbbb!' and there they were!" But that's not the craziest idea the Bible has ever set forth. I'm a young earth creationist myself, but we have infinite arguments one way or another how the universe was brought into being.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is the famous one that talks about how everything in the universe is going from a state of order to a state of chaos. That is to say, right now we can tell apart wood and stone and air and metal, light and dark, hot and cold, planet and sun and empty space. But second by second that's changing. The universe is wearing down. What is now planets and galaxies and things will someday be no more than an indistinguishable soup. All temperatures, all masses, all energies will reach equilibrium, and all order will be lost. But I don't think this is a property merely of the physical world.
As I've been reading through the Bible this year, I've been struck with the way things progress from Genesis on into, say, I & II Kings. Society changes. People change. You read in Genesis all that happened with Abraham, and everywhere he goes, everybody knows about the God he worships. The world is much smaller in those days, people all seem to know each other, and rules are clear cut. Life is simple, ordered, and underestandable. But as you go on, through the rest of Moses' books (that is, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, & Deuteronomy), and then on into Joshua and Judges, and the history of Israel, it's like society is breaking down. People do stupider and stupider things. Nobody knows anybody, no one knows which way to go, or what to worship. God institutes a pretty straight and clear set of laws for his people to follow, and within a couple generations they've completely forgotten it. By the time you get to the New Testament, the world is a vast, messy, terrible place. Civilization is brutal. Rome rules with an iron fist, and Israel is split between those who want to stick to the old ways (which aren't even the real old ways) and those who've pretty much given up and assimilated into the dominant culture. Whatever God had instituted back in the days of Moses has gotten twisted and mangled beyond recognition.
Then there's today. Civilization has become one vast, messy, chaotic soup. Nobody knows what truth is, or which way is up. What's the difference between being pro-choice and pro-capital punishment? How far should a government go to protect people from each other, or themselves? If there's such thing as absolute truth, can we even know what it is? Is all love borne of lust, or selfishness, or evolutionary concerns? Who deserves the right to raise a child, the birth parents or someone who's got education and a stable life? It's all getting confused, all going to pot, all getting eaten by entropy.
And I'm not exactly the first person to notice.
A recurring theme in the new Doctor Who is, "everything has its time, and everything ends." Which is pretty much quoting the book of Ecclesiastes. That's the way of life with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Since the fall of mankind entropy's been wearing down the universe. The more work we do trying to put things right, trying to set things in order, the more ground it gains. Everything we do turns to dust in the end.
When Jesus came to earth, claiming to be the Messiah, the people who believed him assumed that he was there to set up a tangible, earthly Kingdom, wherein he would break the yoke of Rome and establish Israel as a glorious new nation where everyone would be happy and prosperous. Which didn't happen, obviously. And then he got killed. And everybody assumed that was it. Why shouldn't it be? Death is the way of the universe, and everybody ends up as dust. Nobody knew the word "thermodynamics" back then, but they knew the Second Law instinctively, and it never even occurred to them that things might be different this time. What's different, what's new? Nothing new under the sun, that's in Ecclesiastes too, and even those who were said to have been raised back to life, they died for good eventually.
And then Jesus came back. Alive, in the flesh. Which is the only rational explanation for why the disciples went from cowering in fear one day to risking their lives and freedom telling the world about it the next. Why shouldn't they? The impossible had happened. That which should have been dead and decayed was whole and living. "Death itself would start working backward." But "backward" is almost the wrong word: This was no rewinding, no turning back the clock. Time is going forward, as always, the universe progressing, but entropy has not increased. It hasn't even been held back. It's gone the other way. All things alive are slowly dying, but on that day, that which was dead progressed towards life. Chaos tended to order.
Which is ludicrous. It's also the gospel message all the way through. That which is dying and decaying and long since dust can turn around and come back to life. All the noise, all the mess, all the incoherent disaster that surrounds us can be put back in order, can be made to make sense. Hatred can be transformed into love, and bitterness to joy. A heart can lose its callouses and a mind can open up, back to the way they were before the assault of sin. Everything that has been lost can be found. Everything that has been destroyed can be raised up again. In the end, it will be death itself - entropy - that will die.
In the course of scientific study, it becomes so painfully obvious that one cannot break the laws of physics that there's no point even considering it. Odd, then, to think that all it really took to undo the most famous law was the blood sacrifice of a sinless man.
He is risen! He is risen indeed!
Of course, my internal calendar is completely messed up now, with the day off and the Good Friday service and all. I keep thinking tomorrow's Sunday.
I also did a bit of thinking today, about some line I'd written in a probably-never-to-be-published bit of fanfic I was working on. And also the perspective of the cosmos that Diane Duane has written into her Young Wizards series. See, Duane linked sin, death, and suffering to the concept of entropy, that entropy did not exist until Satan's rebellion. And that's just a fascinating idea. As for the bit of fanfic, it was in a discussion about Christianity that I wrote a line that went like this:
"Everyone knows the disputes between faith and science, but one never hears of scientists refuting the most scientifically preposterous claim Christianity makes, that the blood sacrifice of one man can undo the Second Law of Thermodynamics."
Most times you hear people saying how unscientific and silly the Bible is, they drag up Genesis and the Creation story. With all the beautiful language and imagery and stuff, still it sounds to folks as silly as Larry the Cucumber put it in Where's God When I'm Scared: "God made all those stars outta nothin'. He just went 'pbbbb!' and there they were!" But that's not the craziest idea the Bible has ever set forth. I'm a young earth creationist myself, but we have infinite arguments one way or another how the universe was brought into being.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is the famous one that talks about how everything in the universe is going from a state of order to a state of chaos. That is to say, right now we can tell apart wood and stone and air and metal, light and dark, hot and cold, planet and sun and empty space. But second by second that's changing. The universe is wearing down. What is now planets and galaxies and things will someday be no more than an indistinguishable soup. All temperatures, all masses, all energies will reach equilibrium, and all order will be lost. But I don't think this is a property merely of the physical world.
As I've been reading through the Bible this year, I've been struck with the way things progress from Genesis on into, say, I & II Kings. Society changes. People change. You read in Genesis all that happened with Abraham, and everywhere he goes, everybody knows about the God he worships. The world is much smaller in those days, people all seem to know each other, and rules are clear cut. Life is simple, ordered, and underestandable. But as you go on, through the rest of Moses' books (that is, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, & Deuteronomy), and then on into Joshua and Judges, and the history of Israel, it's like society is breaking down. People do stupider and stupider things. Nobody knows anybody, no one knows which way to go, or what to worship. God institutes a pretty straight and clear set of laws for his people to follow, and within a couple generations they've completely forgotten it. By the time you get to the New Testament, the world is a vast, messy, terrible place. Civilization is brutal. Rome rules with an iron fist, and Israel is split between those who want to stick to the old ways (which aren't even the real old ways) and those who've pretty much given up and assimilated into the dominant culture. Whatever God had instituted back in the days of Moses has gotten twisted and mangled beyond recognition.
Then there's today. Civilization has become one vast, messy, chaotic soup. Nobody knows what truth is, or which way is up. What's the difference between being pro-choice and pro-capital punishment? How far should a government go to protect people from each other, or themselves? If there's such thing as absolute truth, can we even know what it is? Is all love borne of lust, or selfishness, or evolutionary concerns? Who deserves the right to raise a child, the birth parents or someone who's got education and a stable life? It's all getting confused, all going to pot, all getting eaten by entropy.
And I'm not exactly the first person to notice.
A recurring theme in the new Doctor Who is, "everything has its time, and everything ends." Which is pretty much quoting the book of Ecclesiastes. That's the way of life with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Since the fall of mankind entropy's been wearing down the universe. The more work we do trying to put things right, trying to set things in order, the more ground it gains. Everything we do turns to dust in the end.
When Jesus came to earth, claiming to be the Messiah, the people who believed him assumed that he was there to set up a tangible, earthly Kingdom, wherein he would break the yoke of Rome and establish Israel as a glorious new nation where everyone would be happy and prosperous. Which didn't happen, obviously. And then he got killed. And everybody assumed that was it. Why shouldn't it be? Death is the way of the universe, and everybody ends up as dust. Nobody knew the word "thermodynamics" back then, but they knew the Second Law instinctively, and it never even occurred to them that things might be different this time. What's different, what's new? Nothing new under the sun, that's in Ecclesiastes too, and even those who were said to have been raised back to life, they died for good eventually.
And then Jesus came back. Alive, in the flesh. Which is the only rational explanation for why the disciples went from cowering in fear one day to risking their lives and freedom telling the world about it the next. Why shouldn't they? The impossible had happened. That which should have been dead and decayed was whole and living. "Death itself would start working backward." But "backward" is almost the wrong word: This was no rewinding, no turning back the clock. Time is going forward, as always, the universe progressing, but entropy has not increased. It hasn't even been held back. It's gone the other way. All things alive are slowly dying, but on that day, that which was dead progressed towards life. Chaos tended to order.
Which is ludicrous. It's also the gospel message all the way through. That which is dying and decaying and long since dust can turn around and come back to life. All the noise, all the mess, all the incoherent disaster that surrounds us can be put back in order, can be made to make sense. Hatred can be transformed into love, and bitterness to joy. A heart can lose its callouses and a mind can open up, back to the way they were before the assault of sin. Everything that has been lost can be found. Everything that has been destroyed can be raised up again. In the end, it will be death itself - entropy - that will die.
In the course of scientific study, it becomes so painfully obvious that one cannot break the laws of physics that there's no point even considering it. Odd, then, to think that all it really took to undo the most famous law was the blood sacrifice of a sinless man.
He is risen! He is risen indeed!