Signs of the Times

with contributions from Earl L. Douglass

An editorial in The New Daily London, England

It is always dangerous for the layman to intervene in a controversy between distinguished scientists who talk a different language from his own, and we have no intention of trying to sort out the controversy about the origin of the universe which has broken out between [two professors]...

To a mind unversed in the intricacies of astronomy there seems to be one simple question, which we here propose. [One professor] and his colleagues claim that the universe began with a colossal explosion some 10,000 million years ago. But if this was so, what was the origin of the matter which caused the explosion? It must surely have been in existence before the moment at which, as the scientists claim, the universe began.

The old problem about the chicken and the egg is familiar to all of us. Which came first? Chicken or egg? ... Unless a spiritual basis for the beginning of existence is accepted, it must be obvious that, from a material point of view, something cannot come from nothing.

For the present, ... we shall prefer to accept this account of the Creation:—"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. ... And God said, Let there be light: and there was light."

Earl L. Douglass in the Vallejo Times Herald Vallejo, California

Our generation is the richest generation in human history....

Is it not time that we asked ourselves what wealth really is? Is it a large bank balance? Is it vastness of property interests? Is it a matter of stocks and bonds?...

Wealth does not consist in the things which we possess but in the things which possess us. True wealth is a matter of the inner heart. No matter what external conditions may indicate, the only truly rich person is the person whose heart is undefiled, whose motives are pure, whose aspirations are high, whose spirit is self-effacing.

Material values have their place but ... moral and spiritual values come first and must remain first.

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August 26, 1961

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