NASA’s Webb Depicts Staggering Structure in 19 Nearby Spiral Galaxies - NASA Science
How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?” Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.” A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.
Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Face-on spiral galaxy, NGC 628, is split diagonally in this image: The James Webb Space Telescope’s observations appear at top left, and the Hubble Space Telescope’s on bottom right. Webb and Hubble’s images show a striking contrast, an inverse of darkness and light. Why? Webb’s observations combine near- and mid-infrared light and Hubble’s showcase visible light. Dust absorbs ultraviolet and visible light, and then re-emits it in the infrared. In Webb's images, we see dust glowing in infrared light. In Hubble’s images, dark regions are where starlight is absorbed by dust.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), and the PHANGS team
By contrast, here are the latest clutch of images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). They are all of face-on spiral galaxies taken in the infra-red spectrum. Compare them to the description in Genesis where the entire Universe has a small, flat Earth at the centre of it.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.(Gen 1: 6-10)
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. (Gen 1: 16-17)
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. (Gen 1: 16-17)
IC 5332
NGC 628
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It would be laughable if these people couldn't vote and put like-minded fools in charge of nuclear weapons.
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The universe is vast beyond imagining. The authors of Genesis didn't have a clue about the vastness and complexity of galaxies, solar systems, stars, other planets, pulsar. Were they aware there were other planets with their own moons? Not likely at all.
ReplyDeleteThe universe has great beauty much like planet earth but unfortunately there's a lot of danger as well just as planet earth is full of danger. As far as is known there are no other planets and no other moons which have a breathable oxygen rich atmosphere. There are no other known places in the universe with complex intelligent life forms. Only anaerobic bacteria and microorganisms have been found in space. The temperatures in outer space are either unimaginably cold or unimaginably hot and there is either too much pressure or not enough pressure to support human life. Only science fiction has humans living on other planets and living on the moon. Do intelligent aliens exist? Do the Annunaki aliens exist? Does Planet X exist? Does the planet Serpco exist with its intelligent alien life? No one really knows.The universe is estimated to be 14 billion years old and the earth is 4.6 billion years old. According to creationists the entire creation was made in 6 literal days from 6000 to 13,000 years ago. This is a misinterpretation of the Bible and this is taking Genesis too literally. These delusional creationists and Fundamentalists think that by just adding up all the human genealogies from the Bible this gives us an accurate age for the world and universe. No it doesn't. This only tells us the age of the human genealogies in the book of Genesis but this does NOT tell us the age of the world and universe. The authors of Genesis had no idea what the age of the creation was. It wasn't their fault. This was before science and before telescopes and before microscopes existed. It was the golden age of ignorance, myth, and superstition the Bible authors lived in. The author or authors of Genesis also seemed not to know that both humans and much of the animal kingdom killed and ate animals as He states that a vegetarian diet was worldwide. This is either the height of ignorance or the author knew full well killing and eating meat not only existed but was prevalent. Was the author ignorant or lying? No one can be this ignorant and this stupid not even the authors of Genesis. Predation and meat eating are so numerous and so prevalent one can see it everywhere all the time. It doesn't take a trip to Africa or the Amazon to see how much predation and meat eating occurs all over the world. There's predation all around us even in our own backyards and houses and butcher shops. Ancient hominids , Neanderthals, and Cro Magnon man were basically hunters and meat eaters. There's predation that can be witnessed up close in our gardens and homes by spiders, preying mantis, snakes, hawks, and cats. Creationists claim that this vegetarian diet was before the Original Sin of Adam and Eve. So only after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden apple the diet of humans and animals changed. This is fake science, fake history, and fake reality, and it's also unfair, unjust, cruel. Diseases, parasites, venoms, poisons and other ills were added as punishments for Adam and Eve's sin. Creationists and Fundamentalists are unable to see how unfair, unjust, irrational, insane, unreasoning, unforgiving, cruel and stupid this makes God. This is not love. This is not mercifulness. This is a cruel, pitiless, merciless, heartless being who has not an iota of common sense and who has not an iota of a conscience. It's a reprehensible being who has shown more cruelty and who has caused and created more suffering to His creation all because two primitive humans ate a forbidden fruit which He orchestrated for them to eat. It makes my blood boil in anger. It's not at all a likeable God.
Back in school in the early 1980s, I had a teacher, a Catholic monk, who used the vastness of the universe as an argument *for* the existence of "god". [Shows a chart of giant stars, nebulae, quasars etc, says "And the fools say there's no god!"] A lot of us even then realised he was proving the opposite if anything.
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