Chapter 4 Part 1 - 3

The size and volume of the earth have only been determined within the last three centuries.Once a few boats followed the route of the ocean and completely circled the world, as if a person walked in a circle, passed the opposite side and returned to the starting point.The length of the circumference of our world, at its widest part, as one measures the widest circumference of an apple or a ball, is only twenty-five thousand and two miles per degree on the equator. It is ten miles long and takes about three years to sail around. A world of this size may, at first thought, seem great to us; but if we compare the earth with the immensity of space in which it hangs, the earth is like a soap bubble or a balloon suspended in the air. Just as a grain of sand is compared with this world or the smallest dewdrop is compared with the whole ocean, it is infinitely smaller in proportion, so the earth is extremely small; A world in a world system of .

If we follow our minds along, it is not difficult to get some vague idea of ​​the immensity of the space in which this and other worlds hang.When we think of the size and dimensions of a room, our ideas confine them to the walls, and they end at the walls; but when our eyes, or our imagination, are cast into space, When we look up into the so-called open sky, we don't think of its walls or boundaries.If we imagine a boundary in order to make our ideas settle, a new question will immediately arise, which is to ask what is on the other side of the boundary?After asking questions like this one after another, the tired imagination finally came back to say that there is no end.Of course, the Creator did not make the world larger than it is now, but He was not confined to one room; so we should look for evidence in other things.

If we take a peek into our own world, or the part that the Creator allocated to us and the world that we use in the vast and boundless system of creation, we see every part of it, land, water and the surrounding air, it It is as full of life as ever, from the largest animals we know to the smallest insects we can see with our naked eyes, and there are things smaller than insects that are completely invisible without a microscope.Every tree, every plant, every leaf is not only an inhabitant of the earth, but a world including innumerable races, until the existence of animals becomes so minute that the smell of a blade of grass can be food for thousands of animals.

Since there is no part of our globe that is not occupied, why should the vastness of space be thought to be a void, forever in desolation?In such a space there could be millions of worlds as large as ours or larger, and separated by millions of miles from each other. We have come to this point, and if we push our thoughts a little further, we may perhaps see a real reason, at least a good one, why the Creator did not, for our happiness, create a world of great size, space, but to divide that mass of matter into separate and separate worlds, those worlds we call planets, and our earth is one of them.But before I explain my ideas on the subject, it is necessary (not for those who already know, but for those who do not know) to point out what the system of the universe is.

There is a part in the middle of the universe called the solar system (referring to the world system to which our earth belongs, which is the system centered on the sun), which contains six independent planets, or planets, besides the sun, and there are second-class planets called satellites Or the moon, our earth has a moon that follows it around the sun once a year, just as other satellites or moons follow their respective planets. If it travels in a straight circle, it can circle the world in less than a year; but it must follow the course of the sea. --author The world is the same, which can be seen through a telescope.

The sun is the center, and the six worlds or planets revolve around the sun at different distances, and the circles they revolve are concentric with each other.Each world revolves constantly around the sun in nearly the same orbit, and at the same time revolves continually around itself in a nearly upright position, as a top spins on the earth, and tilts slightly to the side. Because of this tilt of the earth (231/2 degrees), there are winter and summer, and the length of day and night is also different.If the position of the earth when it rotates is perpendicular to the plane or level of the circle it revolves around the sun, like a spinning top standing upright on the ground, then there will be no difference between the length of day and night, and there will be twelve days per day. One hour of day and twelve hours of night, and the seasons will be the same throughout the year.

Each rotation of any planet (our earth is an example) gives what we call day and night; While revolving around the sun, it rotates 365 times at the same time. As I said before, the sun is in the center, and the planet or world closest to the sun is Mercury; the distance between it and the sun is 34 million miles, and it revolves in a circle to keep the distance from the sun forever. Imagine a top spinning along the route followed by a horse driving a mill.The second world is Venus, which is fifty-seven million miles away from the sun, and therefore makes a much larger circle than Mercury does.The third world is the one we live in, and it is eighty-eight million miles away from the sun, so it turns in a circle larger than that of Venus.

The fourth world is Mars, which is 134,000,000 miles away from the sun, and therefore turns in a larger circle than the earth.The fifth is Jupiter, whose distance from the sun is fifty-five-seven million miles, so that its circle is larger than that of Mars.The sixth world is Saturn, whose distance from the sun is 763,000,000 miles, so that a circle it turns encloses the circle or orbit of all other worlds or planets. Therefore, the space occupied by our solar system in the sky or in the infinite space for those worlds to revolve around the sun may be measured by the length of the diameter of the orbit or circle that Saturn makes when it revolves around the sun. The standard is equal to twice its distance from the sun, or one hundred and twenty-six million miles; and the length of its circumference is nearly five billion miles; and the area of ​​a sphere is about three and a half billion times Three and a half billion square miles.But a system as large as this is just one of the world systems.In addition to this, there are other stars in space, separated by a great distance, which is too far away to be calculated, which are called fixed stars.They are called stars because they have no rotational motion like the six worlds or planets I have pictured.Those stars are always at the same distance from each other, and are always in the same place, as the sun is in our system.So every star may also be a sun, around which another system of worlds or planets, though too remote to be discovered, revolves there, just as our system of worlds revolves around our central sun. .

①Those who think that the sun revolves around the earth every twenty-four hours will make the same mistake in their thinking as when a cook roasts meat, that is, they think that the fire should be moved around the meat instead of rotating the meat around the fire . --author ②If anyone asks, how can man know these things, I have a clear answer, that is, because man knows how to calculate solar and lunar eclipses, and how to figure out at what minute Venus will come out when it revolves around the sun. Come to a straight line between our earth and the sun, and pass in front of the sun like a big bean to us.This kind of thing happens twice in about a hundred years, and the interval between the two times is about eight years.Deriving from such a simple idea, we can see that this vast and boundless space is full of the system of the world; no part of the space is deserted, just as no part of this earth or land and water is unoccupied.

I have used simple and familiar terms to explain the general idea of ​​the structure of the universe. Now I want to go back and explain the point I mentioned before, that is, the Creator did not create only one extremely large world, but many worlds , For example, our system contains a central sun, six worlds, and satellites. This way, the result is very beneficial to human beings. There is an idea, which I shall never forget, that all our scientific knowledge derives from the revolution around the sun of the planets or worlds of which our system is composed, and this revolution unfolds in our in front of us, and thus understandable to us.

If we combine all the masses of the six worlds into a single ball, the result is that we have encountered it twice in our generation, and both times have been pre-calculated.And it can be calculated when this phenomenon will happen again in the next thousand years, or any period of time.Therefore, if a person does not understand how the solar system and several planets or worlds rotate, he will not do these things, and the fact that he can calculate the time for a solar or lunar eclipse or for Venus to pass in front of the sun is enough to prove that he has this knowledge. ; as for the difference of thousands of miles, or even millions of miles, at such a large distance, it hardly matters. --author Either there is no such rotating motion as it is now, or it is not enough to allow us to obtain the kind of concepts and scientific knowledge we have now.The technology of all machines, which contributes greatly to our worldly happiness and comfort, is derived from science. Since the Creator does not do anything unprofitable, it must be believed that his composition of the universe must also be in the manner most beneficial to mankind; and as we see and feel from experience, our benefit from the cosmic structure of the form.If its structure, as far as our system is concerned, is a single ball, we have no chance of enjoying these benefits - and we can find at least one reason.Explain why so many worlds were created, and this reason arouses man's sincere gratitude, as well as his admiration. However, the benefits produced by many worlds are not limited to those of us who inhabit this planet.The worlds of which our system is composed, the inhabitants of each of them, have the same opportunity of enjoying knowledge as we do.They see the rotational motion of our earth as we see theirs.The motions of all the planets are visible to each other; and therefore a school of science of the same general nature appears in all worlds. Nor does knowledge stay with us.The world system adjacent to us, in its revolution, exhibits to the inhabitants of their system the same principles and schools of science that our system does to us.And so it is with infinite space. Our ideas, not only of the Creator's omnipotence, but of his wisdom and benevolence, are scaled up when we think of the structure and extent of the universe.A single idea of ​​a single world, whether that world turns or stands still in an infinite ocean of space, has given way to a pleasing idea of ​​a society of many worlds.The societies of this majority world are so ingeniously designed that even their movements are instructive.We see our own earth full of abundance; but we forget to study how much of this abundance is due to the scientific knowledge exhibited by the great machinery of the universe. But, in those considerations, what do we think about the Christian belief system, which is based on the idea of ​​a single world, and which, as previously indicated, does not extend beyond twenty thousand five thousand miles.For such a range, if a person walks three miles per hour and twelve hours a day, if he can continue to walk in the direction of a circle, he can cover a whole week in less than two years.well!Compare this range with the vast ocean of space and the almighty power of the Creator, how can it be compared! Almighty God, he has millions of worlds, also depends on him to protect, he will give up everything else, and come and die in our world, as they say, for a man and a woman I don't know where to start with such a strange idea!On the other hand, do we think that in every world in this vast creation there is an Eve, an apple, a serpent, and a savior? If so, does the man who is disrespectfully called the Son of God, and sometimes God Himself, have nothing else to do but travel from world to world, and continue in death without end , hardly a moment's survival. So many fantastic belief systems and religions have been invented and established only by rejecting the evidence of our senses that God has given us in His Word or creation, and by abandoning our rational response to such evidence.There may be many religious systems, which, far from being morally innocuous, are morally good in many respects: but only one can be true, and that true religious system must always follow in everything What we experience in God's creation, God's everlasting Word is consistent.But the Christian belief system has such a strange structure that the evidence each celestial body presents to man either directly conflicts with it or renders it absurd. It is possible to believe, and I have often found it a pleasure to encourage myself to believe, that there are people in the world who believe that so-called "lie of convenience" can, at least in exceptional cases, yield benefits.But that lie, once established, cannot be explained afterwards; for a "convenient lie," like a bad act, creates a miserable obsession. Those who originally preached the Christian belief system, more or less combined with the morality preached by Jesus Christ, probably believed that doing so was better than the prevailing pagan mythology of the time.From the first propagandists of the lie passed to the second, and then to the third, until at last the idea of ​​a "lie of convenience" was lost and believed to be true; Inspired by the interests of the living. Although such a belief, by such means, may become almost universal among secular people, it is almost impossible to explain why the Church has continued to persecute science and its professors for hundreds of years, if The Church has no records and traditions which at first proved nothing more than a "lie of convenience," or which did not foresee that such a claim could not be made against the evidence given by the structure of the universe. It has been pointed out that there is an irreconcilable contradiction between the true Word of God that exists in the universe and the so-called Bible printed in a book that anyone can make.I will now speak of the three principal means which have been employed, perhaps in all nations, to deceive mankind through the ages. Those three means are mystery, miracle, and prophecy.The first two are incompatible with true religion, and the third should always be doubted.Speaking of mystery, everything we see is, in some sense, a mystery to us.Our own existence is a mystery; the whole vegetable kingdom is a mystery.We cannot explain how an acorn planted in the ground can develop itself into an oak tree.We don't understand how the seed we sow spreads out and multiplies; why we get so much interest with a little capital. This fact, however, is not mysterious, as is the cause of the impetus, for this is what we see; and we know what method is to be used to do it, nothing more than putting the seed in the ground. —So we know what we need to know; as for the part that works that we don't know, or the part that we can't do even if we know it, the Creator himself undertakes to do it for us.So, it goes much smoother than if we take part in the secret and let us do it ourselves. Though everything created is, in this sense, a mystery, yet the word mystery is no more applicable to moral truth than "darkness" to light.The God we believe in is a God of moral truth, not a mysterious or shadowy God.Mystery and truth are opposites.Mystery is a man-made smoke that obscures truth and presents it in a distorted manner.Truth never wraps itself in mystery.Anytime it is wrapped in mystery, that is the work of those who oppose the truth, not by itself. Therefore, since religion is the belief in a God and the practice of moral truth, it cannot have anything to do with mystery.The belief in one God, which involves nothing mysterious, is the easiest of all beliefs, because, as has been said, it arises for us out of necessity.As for the practice of moral truth, in other words, it is the practice of learning the virtues of God, that is, our dealing with one another as he is merciful to all.We cannot serve God as we serve those who must be so; and therefore the only conception we should have of serving God is that of contributing to the happiness of man whom he has created.To do this, we cannot withdraw from society in this world.And in selfish piety lived a life of seclusion. The true nature and purpose of religion (if I may say so) proves, even manifests, that it must be completely free from the mystical, and cut off from all that is mystical.Religion, as an obligation, should treat every living person equally, so everyone should be understood on the same level.A man's study of religion is not the same as his study of the secrets and mysteries of a profession.He learned religious theories by reflection.It arises from his mind's reaction to what he sees, hears, or reads, and practice is combined with it. When men, whether from policy or "lie of convenience," establish religious systems that are incompatible with God's Word or God's work in creation, and that not only exceed human comprehension but contradict it, A rationale has to be made or adopted which precludes all questioning, investigation or conjecture.The word mystic can be used for this purpose; so there is no mystery in religion itself, but after the Fall it has become a mystic smoke. Mystery is employed in all general ends, and miracles follow as occasional aids. The former is used to confuse people's minds; the latter is used to confuse people's feelings.One is language and the other is magic. Before delving further into this subject, one should first ask what a miracle is. Everything can be said to be a mystery, and in the same sense that everything can be said to be a miracle, and miracles cannot be divided into big and small. It cannot be said that this is a big miracle, it is a small miracle.Although an elephant is larger, it cannot be said that it is a greater miracle than a tiny spider; nor can it be said that a mountain is a greater miracle than an atom.It is no more difficult for an omnipotent power to make this one than that; therefore it is no more difficult to make a million worlds than one.So everything is in one sense a miracle, and in another sense there is no such thing as a miracle.A thing is a miracle when compared with our power and our understanding; but it is not a miracle compared with the power that made it.But such a statement is not enough to express the idea attached to the word miracle, so further research is necessary. Men have conceived to themselves certain laws by which they think that which they call nature acts; and regard miracles as things contrary to the operations and effects of those laws.But unless we know those laws and the whole range of what is commonly called the forces of nature, we cannot judge whether anything that is wonderful or strange to us is within, outside, or contrary to the acting forces of nature. . A man's ascension to a height of several miles in the air would be fully qualified to constitute a miraculous idea, if we do not understand that man can create a special kind of air, several times lighter than the air in the ordinary atmosphere, and that it has enough The elasticity of the air prevents the balloon, filled with light air, from being compressed by the ordinary air around it, so that the volume of the balloon will not be reduced by the same multiple.Likewise, the drawing of flames or sparks from the human body, which can be seen clearly as if steel were being used to strike flakes of stone, and the ability to move iron or steel without any visible force, would produce a miraculous idea, If we don't understand electricity and magnetism.There are many other experiments in natural philosophy, which will feel the same way to those who do not know this branch.A person who is apparently dead but is brought back to life, like a person who is rescued from drowning, will also be a miracle if one does not know that breathing can be suspended without dying.In addition to these, there are other actions, either due to the effort of one hand or the cooperation of several people. On the surface, it seems miraculous, but after understanding it, it is not surprising.And beyond that, there are mechanical and optical illusions.Now, in Paris, there is an exhibition of ghosts or monsters, which, though not forcing the audience to believe it, is superficially surprising.So if we don't know the extent of what nature or technology can achieve, we have no standard by which to decide what a miracle is; and human beings, by believing in appearances, may be constantly deceived under the idea that they are miracles. Because of the deceitfulness of appearances, false things look like real things, and there is nothing more contradictory than to think that God uses means such as so-called miracles, so that people who perform miracles are suspected of being liars, and those things are told. people are suspected of being a liar, and the doctrines they seek to support are suspected of being fantastic falsities. Of all the evidences which are attempted to secure belief in any system or opinion called religion, the miracle alone is most contradictory, however successful it may be in deceiving.For, first, whenever ostentation is used as a means for the purpose of gaining faith (for a miracle, however significant it may be, is a ostentation), there is a defect or weakness in the preached doctrine.Second, it reduces the almighty God to a juggler, performing tricks for the entertainment and amazement of the audience.It is also one of the most dubious kinds of evidence that can be established; for faith consists not in the thing called a miracle, but in the credit of the narrator who claims to have seen it.So that thing, if it is true, is no more likely to be believed than a lie. If I say that when I sat down to write this book, a hand appeared in the air, took the pen, and wrote every word in this book; will anyone believe me?Of course people won't believe it.If that was true, would they believe me more?Of course they don't.Thus a true miracle, even if it occurs, will suffer the same fate as a false one; and the contradiction becomes greater, if God is supposed to use such means, even if true, would not achieve the end to which they tend. If we think of a miracle as something completely out of the normal course of the so-called natural world, which must be deviated from the normal course in order to accomplish a miracle, and we see records of such miracles by people who claim to have witnessed such miracles, then it is in the human mind. An easily resolved question arises, which is more probable, is nature going out of its way, or is this man lying?We have never in our time seen nature go out of its way; but we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same period, so that the man who reports a miracle, his lying and not lying The ratio is at least several million to one. The story of the whale swallowing Jonah in the Bible, although the whale is big enough to do such a thing, is very close to miracles; but if it is said that Jonah swallowed the whale, the concept of miracles should be closer. Here, too, the same applies to all cases of miracles, for, as has been said, the matter can be decided by itself, which is more probable, whether man swallowed a whale, or man told a lie. But suppose Jonah had swallowed a whale, and carried that fish in his belly to Nineveh, to convince the people there that it was true, and to spit out a full-sized whale in their presence, would they not Believe he was a devil and not a prophet?Or, if the whale took Jonah to Nineveh, and spit him out in the same public, would it not be believed that the whale was a devil, and that Jonah was one of his imps. Of all the things called miracles, the strangest one found in the New Testament of the Bible is that the devil took Jesus Christ away and led him to the top of a high mountain; and led him to the top of the highest temple God, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and promised them to him.Why didn't he find America; or was it only those kingdoms that the dark lord had his eye on? I have so much respect for the moral character of Christ that I do not believe that he himself would tell a miracle about a whale; and it is not easy to say for what purpose the miracle was fabricated, except to deceive those who appreciate miracles, as if Sometimes connoisseurs of antiquities and collectors of relics and curiosities deceive Queen Anna; Belief in miracles is bewildered by doubts about the power by which miracles are performed, God or the devil.In any case, one must have great faith in the devil to believe in this one miracle. No matter from which point of view those things called miracles are studied, their reality is not sure, and there is no need for them to exist.Even if they were true, as has been said, they are of little use, for it is much more difficult to get a man to believe in a miracle than in a principle which is obviously moral without a miracle.Moral principles are universally self-evident.A miracle is only a temporary thing, and can only be seen by a few, after which it requires a shift from belief in God to belief in man, to believe in a miracle according to man's reports.So statements of miracles should not be taken as evidence of the truth of any religious system, but as symbols of the hypocrisy of that system. Truth, being of a perfect and upright nature, must cast off the crutch; and it is in keeping with its nature that allegory should resort to what truth casts off.We have said much about mystery and wonder. Mysteries and miracles control the past and present, and prophecies control the future, so that the three tenses of belief can be fulfilled.It cannot know the past, but it can know the future.He who is considered a prophet is considered a historian of the future; if he accidentally shoots a target within a thousand miles with a longbow of a thousand years in his hand, the creation of future generations may make it a target; If you are wrong, you have to think that as in the case of Jonah and Nineveh, God has regretted and changed his original intention.How the false system is played by people as fools! In the previous part of this work, it has been pointed out that the original meaning of the words prophet and prophecy has changed, and the so-called prophet, in the sense now used, is a doll of modern invention; , so that the whims and metaphors of the Jewish poets, and idioms and phrases which have become obscure because of our unfamiliarity with the local conditions in which they were employed, were carried over to prophecy, and left to a sect of disciples, interpreters, and commentators. will and whim to explain.Everything unknown is the object of prophecy; and everything insignificant is taken as a portent. Every mistake is a prophecy; and every dishcloth a portent. If the so-called prophet refers to a person, God told him that something will happen in the future, or there is such a person, or there is no such person.If there is such a person, it should be believed that the things thus taught must be spoken in understandable language, and not in such loose and obscure language that those who hear them cannot understand, nor do they speak in such a way. Ambiguous, applicable to almost any situation that may come later.It would be gross disrespect to God to assume that God would treat human beings in such a childish manner.But in that book called the Bible, everything that is called prophecy falls into this category. But a prophecy is just as much a miracle as it is; even if it were true, it would not achieve the desired goal.If a prophecy is told to certain persons, they cannot tell whether that person was prophesying or lying, whether it was really revealed to him, or whether he thought it up himself.If, among the many, many things that happen every day, what he foretells or intends to foretell, or something of the like, no one can tell any longer whether he foresaw, guessed, or It happened by chance. So prophet is a useless and unnecessary role.To be on the safe side, don't believe those claims to avoid being fooled. On the whole, mysteries, miracles, and prophecies are appendages of false religions rather than true religions. They are the means by which so many "Look here!" "Look there!" lies are spread in the world, and religion becomes a profession.The success of one cheater encourages the other, and the poised pretext of "doing something good" with "convenient lies" keeps them from remorse. I have extended the title much longer than I at first thought, and I shall now close it by drawing a summary from the whole. First, the idea or belief concerning the Bible, as it exists in print, in writing, or in words, shows itself to be indefensible, for the reasons already indicated.Among many other reasons, there are some reasons: there is no common language; language is prone to change; there may be errors in translation; such a sermon may not be published at all; it may be falsified or entirely forged to deceive the world. . Second, the creation as we see it is the true and everlasting Word of God, where we cannot be deceived.It proclaims the power of God, it shows the wisdom of God, it embodies the goodness and mercy of God. Third, it is man's moral duty to emulate God's virtue and benevolence embodied in all of God's creation.The loving kindness of God towards all that we see every day is a demonstration, calling all to love one another in the same way; so every persecution and revenge between man and every cruelty to animals is a breach of moral responsibility.I don't worry about the way I will be in the future. I am content to believe, even positively convinced, that the power given to me to exist can be continued in any way and in any way it pleases, with or without this body; The possibility of existence is greater than the possibility of my existence now before that existence came. On one point all nations and all religions on earth are sure to agree; all believe in one God; what they disagree with is superfluous things attached to that belief; Not to believe in something new, but to believe in what people originally believed and discard the superfluous.If there was such a man as Adam, he was created as a deist; but at the same time, everyone has the right to practice the religion and worship he likes.