9th Grade Group Retreat Slide Presentation
SJN 2000 Confirmation Class
"God, Science and You" - Dated Nov 4, 2000
Use this slide to introduce the "Questions" this presentation will address. Suggest the "Answers" are scrambled answers to questions which must be reordered and organized by the end of the presentation. The presentation is made using a question and answer dialog technique.
Ask the question - What is Light? Collect answers. Describe how light is really the absence of darkness.
Religion is full of paradoxes. Some of these paradoxes can lead to unbelief if not resolved. Resolve the light paradox using the Light Demo by blending 3 colored beakers ( red, green and blue food coloring ) of water going to "black" and then using filters over light projectors blend the three beams of colored light to "white". Explain the nature of Light resolving the paradox. Be sure to point out that the liquid is a greedy system that absorbs each others' colors or "gifts." The light beams are a sharing system where our individual "gifts" are shared producing a bright world as opposed to the dark greedy system. A student's shirt is not red of itself...it is red because it is reflecting the color red from a white light source. God is the source of our gifts. If the source is extinguished, we go "black."
Set up the analogy of light to the paradox of the Trinity and other religious paradoxes.
Compare the similarity of the two "three in one" examples. Ask the audience to define time. Collect answers.
Ask for three words that define time. Hint that the three words all have 6 letters,start with the letter C, second letter of H, and last letter is E. After explaining the slide, ask the question... "Why are we separated from God? Collect answers.
Ask how the universe began? Read Genesis 1:1-27. Watch excerpt from the Movie "The Global Brain" by Peter Russell which describes the big bang. Discuss Evolution versus Creation controversy. Do a Big Bang with a 3L baggie of hydrogen and oxygen gas prepared on stage or before hand.
Explain that the red text lines on this slide are spiritual analogies contrasted with the physical analogies or black text lines of science.
"Could it be" that at the "Big Bang" the electron (Eve) emerged from the rib of a neutron (Adam) setting up a dance between proton and electron creating the first "Atom" or "marriage" from which humans eventually where "born" validating Genesis
The turning point in history is God's covenant with Abraham. The sacrifice of Isaac foretold the Passover events of Moses and Jesus' death. Easter is the 2nd Big Bang opening up the heavens closed at "the fall."
What are the three Sacraments of Initiation? Collect answers. Describe the play on the words Chance, Choice and Change.
At this point take a break allowing each student to get a test tube of sodium thiosulfate crystals. Explain we are like a fallen crystal that has broken into many pieces and don't know how to get back together again. Have the students place the test tubes in a beaker of hot water which will slowly melt the crystals to a supersaturated liquid ( 10 minutes in 80 Deg C water) which when later cooled will not recrystalize.
What was the "first" and "last" miracle of Jesus? Describe how the changing of water to wine at Cana and the the final changing of wine to his blood at the last supper were no accident. Do the Water to Blood demo using potassium hydroxide pellet and Phenophalene acid base indicator. The pellet of KOH can be attached to the side of a empty glass beaker such that when a solution of alcohol, water and indicator is later added, the water changes into "wine" as the beaker is swirled. Then have the students read Mark 5:25-34 as the "middle" miracle ...which describes how a woman with a hemorrhage disorder is healed by believing her "touching" the robe of Jesus will heal her.
Explain the size of a mole as 18ml of blood or 6 x 10 to the 23 power H2O molecules. Pour out 18 ml of red "wine" from phenophalene Demo. Describe how one mole of water, if a molecule is made the thickness of a sheet of paper, would stack from here to the planet Pluto and back 6 million times... a lot of molecules. Explain how water from the blood of Christ has "touched" us through the kinetic motion of gas over 2000 years...a statistical "lock" using Physics. Explain Eucharistic Prayer 2 - "Lord you are holy indeed, the fountain..." with the image of an inverted spiritual water fountain flowing down from the heavens described. Explain the reality of the Eucharist as Christ's blood "touching" our hearts and converting us to the apostle Paul's Mystical Body of Christ. Finish the sodium thiosulfate supersaturated crystal demo by adding a single crystal to each persons cooled liquid in their test tubes. Describe the analogy of Christ as the seed crystal leading us back to "one" just as the communion host is the seed crystal of our weekly religious activity.
During the presentation, place a large "Ice Man" made with green (neutral pH) water using universal indicator to produce a deep green color. Place the tall ice man in a small beaker and start the meltdown as the talk proceeds using a hot plate under the beaker and a cookie sheet between the beaker and hot plate. Place a glass tube of dilute HCl acid in the beaker in a vertical position such that as the ice melts, the water level will reach the top of the glass tube causing acid to diffuse into the water creating a red color to the liquid. If the Ice Man is taller than the beaker, water will eventually flow onto the cookie tray bursting into steam. The analogy here is that there are three phases to one substance, water. History is like energy flowing into frozen water. Before Christ our religion was cold and hard as in stone commandments. With the appearance of Christ, we find a red liquid (blood shed) religion that is warmer, more fluid and more "touchable" more like the one great commandment of love. As Christ disappeared into "Spirit", we are left with a gas that surrounds us, penetrates us and binds us together (Star Wars Force concept) into the mystical body of Christ returning us to the "heavens" completing the cycle begun by the big bang.