And also according to relativity, it's impossible for information to travel faster than c. Our sun is 149.6 Gm away from us so light takes about 8 minutes to get from there to here. Omnicroxicon 7 is a lot further than that, so when they look at Earth - or we look at them - the light has taken thousands of years to get there. For any selected frame of reference, an observer making astronomical observations from that frame will be looking into the 'past'.

And according to Hubble's law, a stellar object's relative velocity away from Earth is directly proportional to its distance from Earth.

I welcome the end of "big dick" arguments about who has killed more people. However I am disturbed that we are now off onto a discussion of relativity. In other words the natural sciences have hijacked the discussion. My article is about eschatological time, the central concept without which neither the New testament of the theology based on it can be understood.

Yes, as I was saying, its relative velocity not distance matters.

Dear Sells,

It was you who started an argument about who killed more people.

I just responded to your post, ""Not all religious narratives have the historical property of the Judeo-Christian. Some lead to disfunctional and cruel cultures, and the societies that are formed around them are evidence of their lack of truth and a subsequent lack of an ability to nurture life and freedom."

I did not argue about who killed more people.I merely contended that from its bloody history Christianity was a cruel and dysfunctional culture not too different from other cruel and dysfunctional cultures.

From Diarmaid MacCulloch's "A History of Christianity"

For most of its existence, Christianity has been the most intolerant of world faiths, doing its best to eliminate all competitors, with Judaism a qualified exception, for which (thanks to some thoughts from Augustine of Hippo) it found space to serve its own theological and social purposes.

//In other words the natural sciences have hijacked the discussion.//

Well what did you think was going to happen when you invoked the spectre of Newton? Shot yourself in the foot there, didn't you?

Wikipedia had this to say about eschatology:

//Eschatology is a part of theology concerned with the final events of history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity. This concept is commonly referred to as the "end of the world" or "end time".//

There are number of theories about the the end of the world. Some of them are more plausible than others: heat death is a more reasonable theory than John of Patmos's hallucinogen-inspired ravings. The plausible ones that I've read all predict that we've got a few billion years to go before we have to start worrying. It's unlikely that I'll live longer than fourscore more years, which is somewhat less than billions. I'm not particularly worried about something which is going to happen long after my death.

Dear JBSH,

I'm a bit late in this discussion (sorry, no time to visit these days): usually I like Peter's articles, but I cringe from this contamination of religion by science as he did in this article.

<<So what you are saying Sells is that if believing the moon is made of green cheese makes people lead moral lives, and prevents the development of "cruel and dysfunctional" cultures, then the belief in the cheese-like nature of the earth's satellite is "true" in some sense?>>

I can't speak for Peter, but my answer is 'Yes': If such a belief miraculously worked that way, then I would consider it as a religious practice - and "true" in the sense of bringing us closer to God, the only Truth, so if the green cheese of the moon does the trick for you, then I would recommend that belief to all my friends.

<<The problem with that argument is simple. How do you decide which particular set of stories you are going to believe, when there are many contradictory stories to choose from? They can't all be true, so how do you decide which is true and which is false, if you reject the very notion of evidence as being determinative in such questions?>>

How? Just decide, follow your heart, or someone you love and respect, whatever, but for heaven's sake, do jump in! Choose such a set of stories that inspires you to follow God (but if you can't even make sense of it, then select something that would make you a better person and build your character to grow beyond the animal's bodily desires and concerns), whatever, then stick with it, rain or shine and may God bless you so you attain eternal life with Him, in Him, as Him - your true self!