My Trip in Time Read online

“We brought you here to prove that – here – actually exists. The universe is really comprised of two halves.”

  “At least two halves,” Jacob muttered.

  “Anyway,” Aaron continued, giving Jacob a slightly exasperated look. “Grandfather we thought this would be an ideal spot to discuss your questions. The 41st century view of God. I have already given you the general statistics on how many Christians, Muslims and etc. there are. So you know that the majority of mankind still believes in some sort of divine being, or presence, in the universe. And that science, just like in your day, has neither proven nor disproven the existence of a divine being. In fact, the general consensus is that it would be impossible for science to do either; because if God does exist, then He would exist outside our Universe and therefore His presence would be undetectable.”

  “So Grandfather, where would you like to begin?” Aaron asked.

  “Begin?”

  “Yes, which topic would you like to discuss first? I mean about the existence of God. The complexity theory, suffering...?”

  I think I muttered something like, I don't know, which I admit was a rather lame response. But, like I mentioned before, now that I was here in the future all my questions about God seemed rather mundane. So, I would have been happy to spend my remaining time in the future just staring out the window at the two halves of the universe. Of course, my multi-millennial descendants wouldn't be put off.

  “Why don't we start with a couple of the basics,” Aaron stated. “The complexity argument and the size of the universe.”

  “Alright,” Jacob replied, pulling out his own iPad like device, apparently to read his notes. “The complexity argument is that the universe is just too complex for it to have occurred simply on its own. In the 21st century, one of the strongest cases for the complexity argument was that if the rate of acceleration after the Big Bang was a fraction greater or smaller than it was, the right proportions of base elements wouldn't have been created to support the formation of matter. In short, there would have just been a bang. So the argument in your time was that the chances of the rate of acceleration occurring at exactly the right speed were so small, that it was statistically zero. So therefore there had to be a creator involved.”

  I nodded my head, though I hadn't really heard that argument before. I must admit that I was so tied up in thinking that the Creation Story was supposed to be literally true, that the idea that the Big Bang could have been how God did it, never even occurred to me.

  “Well about 500 years into your future, mankind discovers how to recreate the Big Bang, at what you think of as the sub-atomic level,” Jacob continued.

  I was both amazed and at the same time I wasn't. After all, I knew scientists were already experimenting with particle accelerators in an attempt to recreate some of the conditions of the Big Bang. “Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you saying that mankind is in the process of creating sub-atomic universes?”

  “No,” Jacob answered. “At least not yet, scientists have run over 4,300 Big Bang simulations over the last 1,500 years, and the outcome has always been the same. All the right elements, but nothing takes shape. But what we have discovered is that the rate of expansion is constant. In short, once you actually have the bang, the rate of acceleration is always the same. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “So in the 41st century you have proven the complexity argument to be false.”

  “Not exactly,” Jacob continued. “Scientist can create sub-atomic Big Bangs, but we are the initiating force, the creator if you will. At this point, we still do not understand how you could have a spontaneous bang, but we do know once a Big Bang starts the rate of expansion is exactly the same. Now let's continue. In the 21st century, one of the strongest cases against the complexity argument was that the earth was so remote in the universe, and that man was basically a microbe on it. In short, if there was a creator, mankind clearly was not the object of his creation. In the 41st century, this has now become the strongest points for the complexity argument. As we told you earlier, mankind has now achieved inter-galactic space travel. We have explored almost a third of our galaxy, but none of that would have been possible if all the prime elements needed for anti-fission propulsion couldn't be found in our solar system. In short, without iron from Mercury, carbon from Venus, vibranium from Jupiter and a dozen other elements, anti-fission couldn't be achieved and we would have been stuck, so to speak, in our own solar system. So far, ours is the only solar system that we have found that contains all the necessary elements. So today, many people argue that this is indeed proof that mankind's origin on earth was not accidental.”

  “Scientists also predict that we will have the entire Milky Way galaxy mapped out in the next 100 years,” Jacob continued. “And today we are getting back data from trans-galactic probes that were launched fifty years ago. In short, the universe doesn't seem quite as big to us today, as it did in your time.”

  “Right,” Aaron agreed. “So by the 41st century the strongest case for the complexity argument in your day is now the weakest, and what was the weakest, is now the strongest. Who knows, in another 2,000 years the reverse could be true.”

  OK, I could see their point. After all the size of the universe is a matter of perspective. For example, if the first Homo sapiens knew how big the earth really was, it would have seemed infinite to them, but it was starting to feel a little crowded to us in the 21st century. But as interesting as these arguments may be – and I admit they were interesting – they still didn't sway my position in the slightest.

  “So what topic would you like to discuss next?” Jacob asked. “Soul theory, the Divine Truth, Moral law, Suffering, Inverse Chaos Theory…”

  “Suffering,” I replied, grasping onto a topic that I at least recognized.

  You know, as I recall my tip into the future I think Aaron, Jacob, and the Professor must have thought I was a little on the slow side, but in my defense, I was being bombarded with so much information that my mind was literally being overloaded. I mean case in point; I went from Boston to 2000 years into the future, then to a space station on the fringes of our universe – that was literally outside of time. I mean come on, that was all mega cool, but it was also mega overwhelming. So in retrospect, I didn't really care to talk about whether human suffering disproved the existence of God or not, but it was a least a topic that I was familiar with.

  “Ok, suffering is one of the leading con arguments in your era and ours,” Aaron began. “Though it really is a poor argument against the divine.”

  “What do you mean it's a poor argument?”

  It was Jacob who responded, “The suffering argument is really more of a debate on the nature of God, not whether or not He exists; because there is no logical tie between suffering and the existence of the divine.”

  “Right, it really is just a question on whether or not God is All Powerful, All Knowing and All Good,” Aaron agreed. “Or to put it another way, is there any meaning to suffering?”

  “Meaning to suffering?” I asked, skeptically.

  “Yes, everyone suffers and eventually dies. Some people may suffer more than others, but the end result is still the same. We all die. The con argument, against an all Good, all Powerful, and all Knowing God, is that suffering is meaningless and disproportionate, i.e. some people suffer a lot more than others. The common Christian response to these arguments are that the Bible clearly tells us that we will all face trials in our lives, and that Jesus himself was betrayed by his friends, tortured, and unjustly executed. And that these trials push us out of our comfort zone, help us to grow, and bring us closer to God. And finally, that human life is finite, we will all die, but we will live forever in the next life.”

  “As you see,” the Professor added. “This question really hasn't changed since your time. At its core, it is still just the basic question on whether or not life has meaning.”

  Well that was in
teresting, but as I said, I didn't really care that much about the suffering topic, mainly because I could see their point. After all, if God did exist and there was an afterlife, then any good person that suffered and died wasn’t really dead. So in the grand scheme of things, what difference did it really make? I know some anti-Christian blogs and authors try to make a big deal of it, but I always found their arguments to be shortsighted. There are plenty reasons to not believe in God without trying to apply man's finite view of life to an infinite existence. Heck for all we know, how much you suffered in this life could be something to brag about in the afterlife.

  Another argument that many atheists authors and anti-Christian blogs would beat the drums on was all the violence, and wars, that occur in the name of religion. This was another argument that never held much sway with me. I had watched enough History Channel specials to know that mankind doesn't need religion to justify waging war on one another. Sure religion has been a convenient tool to help justify a war, but mankind has always been good at coming up with reasons on why it was OK to kill or oppress other groups. So, at least in my opinion, it was grossly naïve to believe that violence and war would be even marginally less if religion didn't exists. So with