NATURE AND SCIENCE SPEAK ABOUT GOD

Nature and Science Speak about God ~ 139 ~ A tendency to take human existence too much for granted is easily corrected by considering for a moment the proposition that since the earth is moving continuously at a velocity of one thousand miles per hour (and although our feet are in contact with the ground, we are all of us hanging with our heads down in space), we ought to be cast off centrifugally into outer space, just like so many grains of sand flying off a rotating bicycle wheel. An alarming idea, isn’t it! But, of course, nothing of the sort happens, because, fortunately for us, the gravitational force of the earth and the atmospheric pressure together hold our bodies safely in position on the earth’s surface. This bilateral action keeps us clinging to the earth’s surface no matter in which hemisphere we happen to be. The pressure which the atmosphere exerts upon the human body is the rather surprising figure of 15½ lbs (about 8 kilograms) per square inch. But we do not feel the effect of such intense pressure, because the blood in our bodies exerts an equal pressure in the opposite direction. On the basis of his own observation and studies, Newton came to the conclusion that all bodies exert