Last week Tom Ashbrook’s On Point* devoted a fascinating hour to Time Travel with guest James Gleick. You think you know what time is, until you really think about it. A good way to define it is “man’s measurement of eternity”. Somebody else declared “Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from all happening at once”. Or, let me ask you, when is “Now”? Perhaps you just smiled and thought out loud “This is Now!” The problem though, is as soon as you’ve said it, that was then and this is now.
Modern science does not exactly believe in time travel, but neither can they completely rule it out. One of two conditions is the likely reality with respect to time. Condition 1 is that while the past is gone, our actions impact the future as it is yet to happen. Condition 2 is that time is a block simultaneously containing the past, the present, and the future and we pass through this to our inevitable fates. Time travel could not be possible in Condition 1, but might be in 2.
The presence of a higher being further complicates things for true believers: does God travel along with us as we exercise free will, or is She capable of seeing or even being in the past and future at once?
As a kid, maybe 9 or 10, I struggled to reconcile the first page of Genesis with the science Mr. Wizard taught me to love. Eventually I seized upon my own theory: God’s days are much longer than those of men. If so, maybe he’s still resting on this, his 7th day. This might go far toward explaining man’s long history of cruelty to other men without noticeable interference from above.
This summer we spotted several billboards about The Creation Museum, which is near Cincinnati. They are eye-catching, showing pterodactyls flying over curious children, or a T-Rex eating leaves (without even a possum in them). I wanted to see it, but we ran out of time and it wasn’t exactly on our route. The Google found their website faster than you can say “this is now”. It’s $40 a head. I would not have paid that. But I did read about it. It is a museum dedicated to the science of Creationism, that is, the literal interpretation of Genesis. Creationists put the age of the earth and all the stars at about 6,000 years. The earth was made to look much older than it really is, for reasons unknown.
I know the world is run by C students, but Creationism won’t get you into Harvard, or earn you a science degree even from the U of Louisiana – Monroe. Critics have observed that this museum is actually a mega-church amusement park. Even so, they sell a lot of tickets, and reportedly people come out marveling at science for the very first time. A Gallup poll taken in 2014 discovered that 42% of Americans believe in the Creationist view of human origins. A Pew poll said many of the rest believe in some form and degree of evolution. I believe I’ll have a drink.
(*) http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510053/on-point-with-tom-ashbrook (Thanks to reader K. D.!)
Life on the Blue Highways 
My take for a long time has been that time is simultaneous, and that what we do in any Now affects all of it in some way.
We do a kind of time travel now, so I bet there will be more to come on that in the relatively near future.
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As for God, god, or other names preferred, that is too long a comment for here. 🙂
I can say that I am not a member, or advocate, of The Creation Museum, and I’ll have that drink, too..
Had no idea the number was as high as 42%.
Oy. Make that drink a double, please.
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Great post, as always.
Love the Dali image at the top. Excellent choice.
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Thanks for the shout-out.
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http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2015/09/27/443899221/quantum-physics-and-the-need-for-a-new-paradigm
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So many kind words and good ideas, Kahuna. We may have to offer you a staff position here at Blue Highways. What does it pay? S&H Greenstamps … remember them?
Jackson
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Sign me up, please! 😉 🙂
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Yes, I do remember them. It seemed to take forever to amass enough to redeem for prizes.
Still, it was fun and satisfying to watch the books fill up with the stamps.
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Per a search just now, I found that they are now Greenpoints, but I can’t seem to find names of stores that currently offer them.
I found old news about places that once offered them, but when I do a search on some of them, I’m not seeing any evidence now.
Here is the site for them, and like the stamps, it takes a lot of points to get even a small reward:
https://www.greenpoints.com/
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I’ll take that drink too. We are currently in a state park near Cincinnati, and the number of Trump yard signs in this area has simply boggled my (simple) mind. At least 19 Trumps for each of the very few-and-far-between HRCs. When I see the latter, I cheer. Outloud. I guess I’m not overly surprised that a museum focused on creationism is located here. And they say the south is the Bible Belt?!
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Three points to make here, Em.
Cinci is so close to Kentucky it had its fair share of Confederates, combatants and supporters. Not the deep South, but close enough these days.
You are so near to Campbellsville you should spend a few days at Holmes Bend Campground, a Corps of Engineers park, seven miles to the south. Brothers BBQ serves good barbecue and better beer in C’ville.
HRC supporters think twelve times about wearing her yard signs or bumper stickers. No one associates her people with violence, even to property. I wonder and doubt whether that is true of Donald’s wild eyed boys.
Jackson
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