THE BOOK OF LOVE: PART THREE

For all the skeptics out there (none of whom probably take the time to read my blog), the Big Bang Theory is about as wise as is the fear of flooding due to melting ice from global warming. If you will remember, the freezing of water increases its volume, so if, and when it melts, you still have the same amount of water as was there in the first place. Sure, the glaciers are melting, but hey, Oxford Mississippi had eight inches of snow this week. Maybe God has simply decided to "share the wealth." But I digress.

An explosion, such as is described by the Big Bang Theory, would normally send the heaviest matter further than the lighter matter, except everyone knows space is a vacuum, right? However, using our solar system as an example (note the word "system"), our Sun is made of nearly one hundred percent gas (91.2 % Hydrogen, 8.7 % Helium, and about 1 % Oxygen and Carbon), and four of the planets, called "gas giants," are further from the Sun than the four inner "rocks." I am not sure what that means, but it seems odd to me.

In A.D. 1772, at the age of twenty-five, Johann E. Bode published his mathematical equation in Anleitung zur Kenntniss des gestirnten Himmels. He recognized that the planets were positioned at specific mathematical distances from the Sun. Bode's Theory, now known as Bode's Law, has to be one of the strangest discoveries in recorded history. Bode assigned each known planet a basic number: Mercury - 0; Venus - 3; Earth - 6; Mars - 12; a missing planet - 24; Jupiter - 48; Saturn - 96; and an unknown planet - 192. He then, for who knows what reason, added 4.0 to each number, making Mercury - 4.0, Venus - 7.0, etc. Again, who knows why, he divided each number by 10.0. That gave him the following: Mercury - .4; Venus - .7; Earth - 1.0; Mars - 1.6; missing - 2.8; Jupiter - 5.2; Saturn - 10.0; unknown - 19.6. Each of these numbers represents the distance of the planet from the Sun in Astronomical Units (A.U. = 93,000,000 miles, the Earth's average distance from the Sun). Today, we know that the formula is accurate within .4 of the actual distances, with three of his estimates being exact. His formula was the basis for the discovery of the "unknown" planet (Uranus) by Sir William Herschel in 1781. And as a result of his "theory," in 1801, Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the identity of the "missing planet" to be the Asteroid Belt.

Does Bode's Law prove the existence of God as the Designer of the Universe? No. But the fact that science has recognized it as a law, places it in the same realm with Kepler's three laws, Boyle's Law, and Newton's Law of Gravity. Those who are threatened by the idea that there is a design to the Universe, because to accept it would require them to believe in a Designer, have rejected Bode's Law as a genuine scientific law. Isn't it strange that when data is discovered that supports Creation, it is rejected as "bad science?" Perhaps that is good in a way, because the Bible does not accept a "science" that denies the Word of God, calling it "profane and vain babblings" and a false science (1 Tim. 6:20).