Nov
19
Written by:
Dennis Atwood
11/19/2009 4:19 PM
L
ast weekend, my family gathered around the big screen TV and watched the Disney movie “Earth.” It was quite spectacular... and there were no animated characters. It was just the raw wonderful world of nature. During the movie the voice of James Earl Jones mentioned how different the earth would be if it were not titled at an angle of 23.5 degrees. It set me to thinking.
With my quick Google research I discovered that 23.5 (or to be exact 23.43) is the angle of degrees that the earth is tilted on its celestial axis, or the angle the earth is positioned from pole to pole.
While that may appear to be of little significance, this number determines much of life on our planet. Without the 23.5 degree tilt our earth would be vastly different. Birds would have no reason to migrate; plants would grow at different times and in exotic places, and day and night would be altered. The earth’s tilt is the cause of our ever-changing environment and the determinant of our calendar year and seasonal changes.
Apparently scientists are not sure as to why the earth is angled at 23.5 degrees, but there several theories do exist—including conspiracy theories about the power of the magical number 23.5. From the Egyptian pyramids to the Masons to Leonardo da Vinci’s famous piece Vitruvian Man—depicting a man with his limbs outstretched at a 23.5 degree angle within a circle representing the circumference of the earth and divinity—there is a virtual cottage industry built on the number 23.5. It has been a symbol of both creation and destruction. Who would have figured that we humans could do so much with this one bit of scientific fact?
Scientists have explored the effects of the tilt and hypothesized the drastic difference our world would have undergone had the tilt been at any number besides 23.5. Slight variations in either direction would have resulted in an extremely different and unfamiliar planet one with a very different evolution. (For more see: www.tandemodus.com/about/research/)
Here’s my point. God has designed the earth to the 23.5th degree. God cares mightily for God’s creation—including the earth and all its inhabitants. I, for one, can’t explain or understand it, but I’m left stumbling in awe of God. As we speed into the week of Thanksgiving, we need to get a real perspective of our tiny little existence… and the greatness of our God.
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“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers-- all things have been created through him and for him.
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He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
so that he might come to have first place in everything.
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For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”
—Colossians 1:15-20
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