Religion or Reality

Third Rock from the Sun

"The universe is full of stuff; anything we say about that stuff is purely a concept invented by humans."

-Richard Bradie, Virus of the Mind

To quickly recap, the universe, and everything contained within it, was once all in the exact same spot in the form of pure radiation. Then something happened. The forces broke away from the perfect unity, and photons entered the universe forming light, even though the sources for light that we think of, namely stars, didn't exist yet.

The Biblical creation stories suggests that the Earth was created before stars. Other things that the Bible claims were created before stars include continents (Genesis 1:10), plant life (Genesis 1:11), and I think the sky? Apparently Genesis 1:6 states that the purpose of the sky was to separate the waters above from the waters below. I'm guessing the author(s) of Genesis thought that rain, which is water falling from the sky, indicated that there must be a body of water beyond the sky. I like the inclusion of this because it demonstrates that the author(s) of the account formulated their theory based on an observation. Gasp, were they scientists?! They then proceed to have God create literally the rest of the universe on day four, before returning to provide the finishing touches on the Earth during day five and day six.

If you're keeping count, that's one day to create light, one day to create every other star and planet in the universe, and four days to create the Earth and all of its inhabitants. Needless to say, our ancestors were a little self-centered, but can you blame them? They had no idea what mysteries were held in the wonders of space. I mean, these people thought that rain came from an ocean in the sky, so we can't be too hard on them for believing that the Earth was the main attraction of the universe. 

In science, the events that took place on day four of the Biblical creation story were 15 billion years longer, and the majority of it happened before the Earth existed.

After the Big Bang, the first elements to appear in the universe were hydrogen and helium. Just in case you're unsure what an element is, let's take a brief field trip to the 5th grade to brush up on our knowledge of the Periodic Table of Elements. Simply put, elements are atoms. We know from the last chapter that atoms are tiny particles of matter that are comprised of protons, neutrons, and electrons. The difference between elements is found in the quantity of protons, neutrons, and electrons inside of them. For example, helium contains two protons, two neutrons, and two electrons while hydrogen only contains one proton, one neutron, and zero (although sometimes one) neutron. Common sense would tell us that less of the same material means less heavy, thus hydrogen is less heavy than helium, which is why it is the first element found on the Periodic Table of Elements. Helium is slightly heavier than hydrogen and is the second element found on the table. As the number of protons, neutrons and electrons increases, different, heavier elements are formed. 

Knowing this, it is easy to see why hydrogen and helium were the first elements created; they are the simplest elements in the universe since they require such a small amount of building blocks. They are also kind of important to stars, which were among the first cosmic objects to form. Stars are made of around 70% hydrogen and a little under 30% helium, with the rest being heavier elements (those with more protons, neutrons, and electrons) like carbon and oxygen. These last two will become extremely important in the next chapter. Spoiler alert: they involve the creation, but we're not there yet. We're still talking about stars, and in case you're curious to know why stars do what they do (remain on fire and consequently giving off energy through heat and light) allow me to sum up the activities of a star. Fuse hydrogen, make helium. That's essentially it. That should be a song. As long as there's hydrogen to fuse together, the party keeps going, but once it runs out, the star does one of two things; either it collapses in on itself and becomes a black hole, which is an extremely dense ball that not even light can escape from (making it look like a literal hole), or it collapses in on itself and becomes a neutron star (a wannabe black hole). Fun fact: at the center of every galaxy there is a Super Massive Black Hole, which is exactly what it sounds like. 

What's that? We haven't defined a galaxy yet?

Shame. Shame. Shame. (I'd ring a bell but for obvious reasons you wouldn't hear it.)

The universe is the word we use to refer to the collective mass of everything that is creation. A galaxy is a group of stars that prefer to hang out in the same part of the universe. And when I say prefer, I really mean they are forced to stay there by the Super Massive Black Hole in the center pulling them around it. We don't know how many galaxies there are in the universe, but we know there's a bunch, and they all contain thousands of stars that surround a Super Massive Black Hole. As of yet, scientists have not seen a Super Massive Black Hole, they just see a really big empty space, which I guess is kind of the same thing. Nobody knows what these Super Massive Black Holes really are, or how they are formed. If they are anything like regular black holes, then they are just remnants of really big stars, but as of right now, there is no way to be sure. 

Anyways, stars formed as a result of gravity pulling a bunch of particles together, a process which creates heat. At a certain temperature, hydrogen atoms are able to fuse together, making helium. Let the star party begin! In the aftermath of this formation, a bunch of dust is blown away before it starts circling around the star in what's called an orbit. By the way, dust is classified as tiny particles of matter. All of this dust surrounding a star eventually gathered together in certain locations thanks to our good friend, gravity, and created other cosmic objects, like meteors, asteroids, and planets. A star and the objects around the star are referred to as a solar system. So the contents of our solar system are really just an evolved form of dust. I suppose we should give a point to the Bible for calling this one with its famous "from dust you are" line (Genesis 3:19).

And you thought evolving from apes was bad.

But apes involve life, and we're still not there yet. In order to have life we must have an environment where life is able to survive, and the initial environment on Earth was not that.. 

Both the Bible and science agree that the early stages of the Earth were formless and void. Formless meaning not clearly defined or perhaps without purpose, and void meaning without contents (no life). As I mentioned in chapter 2, the Bible leaves out the explanation for the creation of water, but science does not. There are two theories put forth to explain the origin of water on Earth, and one of them incorporates aliens. Let's start with that one.

The idea here is that the Earth originally formed as a rather dry planet. It wasn't until meteors crashed into the Earth that it became wet. Lurking in the depths of meteors and meteorites are special rocks called carbonaceous chondrites, which essentially contain water crystals. When these objects crashed into Earth, the water crystals inside of them were released into the atmosphere, giving us water. Throughout its history, Earth has been hit with countless amounts of spacial debris. At one point, the debris that struck was so massive that it broke off a piece of that Earth that still orbits our planet to this day. Hello moon. Fun fact: without the moon the Earth's rotation would be different, which might've prevented life from developing in the first place. So you can add the moon to your list of things to thank for being alive. And while you're at it, go ahead and add water as well, since all life needs water to survive. In this scenario, water is not native to Earth but instead arrived from outer space, which indicates that life is not native to Earth either. Thus, we are aliens!

Unfortunately, that's probably not true.

A more recent theory about water being formed along with the Earth is more probable. A mineral known as ringwoodite, which has the capacity to store water, was found deep within the Earth's crust. This means that the formation of water was associated with the process of the Earth's creation. Thinking about it, this may be the reason that Genesis neglects to mention the creation of water. In the author's mind, there is no Earth without water. Anyways, there's still quite a bit of water that arrives on Earth from space (an estimated 30,000 tons each year), but it only adds to what was already here. In conclusion, we're probably not aliens after all.

Bummer.

The truth may be that all life on this planet originated here, making us all earthlings. But how did it all get started? Claiming that life was magically created at the sound of words is about as useful as claiming that babies are born when a mommy and daddy really love each other and decide to make one. That's better than the stork story for sure, but it still doesn't explain much. I want detail, and I'm sure deep down you do too. So let's talk about sex bay-be!

Just kidding. Let's talk about the origins of life on Earth, with a splash of sex talk.