All of the annotations by Daniel B. Sedory appear in BLUE or RED font colors between brackets; nothing else has been changed.
[ All of the following between the two GRAY lines is how Leith Lyman Cunningham quoted Mr. Doyle Rice's article from USA Today, and it was quoted correctly; including the 'us take' typo: ]
How long does it take to get to the end of the universe?
USA TODAY NETWORK Doyle Rice, USA TODAY4:38 p.m. EDT May 2, 2014
(Photo: NASA via AFP/Getty Images)
It's Space Day, but traveling the vast entity that is space would take far longer than a single day.
It's big out there! And, based on our current level of technology, here's about how long it would us take to reach:
The moon: 1-3 days
Mars 150-300 days
The "end" of our solar system: 40 years
RELATED: Celebrating Space Day
The nearest star: 80,000 years
The nearest galaxy: 749,000,000 (that's 749 million) years.
The end of the known universe: 225,000,000,000,000 years (that's 225 trillion) years.
[ Mr. Cunningham's words begin here: ]
-Will we be ready when God calls?
Traveling at the speed of light would never allow for physical human beings to reach the end of the known universe. Mankind does not know, nor have they found anything that travels as fast as the speed of light, at approximately 186,000 miles per second. We also know that the known edge of the universe is expanding at the speed of light too. [ What did Leith base that upon? His conclusion: ] In that respect, then it would be impossible to ever reach the edge of the known universe at the speed of light. [ That it would be impossible for any man-made object — even theoretically with nothing to block its way — to ever reach the edge of the known universe, is however, something that evolutionary cosmologists would agree with. (And why Doyle Rice's article may no longer exist.) But Leith really should have given some kind of reference for that, rather than simply saying "We... know that..." because MOST people do NOT know that as a fact. The value itself, which anyone using a search engine will find, is generally given today as 72 (or 73) kilometers per second per megaparsec (72 km/sec/mpc, or about 45 miles/sec/mpc). But that is not uniform. Everyone knows for sure that we do NOT see planets in our solar system expanding out of their orbits at the speed of light! Gravity is much stronger than this expansion. In fact, astronomers can't even apply it to the space between the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxies, because Andromeda is actually getting CLOSER to us. There are in fact a handful of galaxies showing blueshift rather than 'redshift'. However, when you get very far away (beyond our local galactic group), all the way to the edge of the known universe, the rate of expansion is assumed to approach (if not go even faster than) the speed of light; which is why cosmologists say we can only see light from that far away! NOTE: Please keep in mind that I personally do NOT agree with the theories of evolutionary cosmology; including the 'Big Bang' or any other worldview without God as the Creator of the Universe. ] The known edge of the universe which is 225 trillion light years away and growing still at the speed of light. [ Leith's statement here of a distance of "225 trillion light years away" is just plain incorrect, because Mr. Rice never wrote that the edge of the known universe was any DISTANCE from earth, but rather how long he believed it would theoretically take some object to get there. It seems that Mr. Cunningham mistakenly assumed that Mr. Rice was talking about traveling at the speed of light, and never checked to see if that was true! ]
Our worm like human minds compared to that of our Father God, simply cannot grasp the unmeasurable magnitude of the plan that our God has put into motion. Having said that requires me to point out here, that within God's appointed time that He selected before the world began, before anything else existed within the universe, His purpose and plan will come to fruition and completeness, exactly as He has directed and predetermined it to be. The One whose exactness, strength, power, wisdom, ability, omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, whom is the same yesterday, today and forever, and changes not, will do all that He has told us He will do in His Word which is His Son Jesus Christ.
We need to begin to expand our minds in this physical life; to be of use to the future plans of God in our spirit, and immortal lives to come, that He has not yet given us, or told us exactly what that will mean, at this time.
We should know as followers of God and the teachings of Jesus Christ; that for everything there is a purpose and a time. God is not the author of confusion, instead He is a God of law and order, a God with a purpose and a plan, a God of love, forgiveness, compassion, empathy and sympathy, a God whom has created every single one of us for a specific purpose that He will reveal to each one of us at the exact moment of time He has predetermined from the beginning. Again, I ask you, will you be ready when He calls out your name and explains the position He has planned for you to fill in His coming kingdom?
. . . [ I skipped some here. ]
What has this got to do with my explaining in the beginning, about such truth concerning the speed of light and the edges of the known universe? I wanted to open the minds of my readers to expand their own minds for a moment on a subject larger than life itself. A mind-boggling vision that is almost beyond the physical mind to understand. We can mull it over awhile but come up short in any real understanding. That is today, but God has plans for us for all eternity, for ever after, as we become as He and His Son Jesus Christ now are. Immortal, spirit beings.
-Have we got any concept of what that means?
Let me put an image and a beautiful word picture in front of your eyes, if we will only try and project ourselves out into the future immortal, spirit life that God has planned for us all. As we found out at the beginning of this piece, that the edge of the known universe is 225 trillion light years away.
That is, traveling at the speed of light at 186,000 miles per second, it would take us 225 trillion years to reach the edge of the known universe. Now my friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ, get ready for the good news of the kingdom of God. God has an awesome, magnificent and wonderful gift to bestow upon each and every one of us, within the time frame and prearranged plans He established before the world began.
[ This is where I stopped quoting from Mr. Cunningham's article. ]
Written by: Leith Lyman Cunningham 1/1/2017, on new year's day.