Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!rex!ukma!seismo!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: lindborg@cs.washington.edu (Jeff Lindborg) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Don't mean to be rude, but..... Message-ID: Date: 12 Feb 91 09:13:15 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: University of Washington Computer Science Lines: 50 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article pillera@etd4260a.erim.org (Joe Pillera) writes: [obnoxious and inflamitory quote deleted in good taste.] >I encourage you (as an amateur astronomer and Christian) to go outside >tonite and look up. What you will see is the Milky Way (galaxy) >consisting of over a 100 million stars like our Sun, and 100's >of billions galaxies (like the Milky Way) in the observable Universe. > >When the Voyager I spacecraft reached the orbit of Pluto, it looked >back and tried to photograph the earth. From that relatively small >distance, the earth was only 12% of one picture element, and thus >didn't even show up in the photograph. > >I find it impossible to ponder that, and not see the hand of God. An awsome sight, no doubt. That's interesting, because that is exactly the opposite reaction I had when pondering the same thing years ago. I find it difficult to imagine a god that would create such a huge cosmos with billions of universes and suns and planets and then proceed to inhabit only our relatively insignificant planet with life. I'm much more apt to believe there are other life forms out there somewhere, intelligent or not. The odds just seem to favor it. If you can so easily believe in the eternal existence of your god, why is it so difficult to imagine the eternal existence of the cosmos in one form or another? Further, the simple inability of the human mind to comprehend a phenomena does not nescesitate the hand of a superior celestial being. How long did we assume the earth was flat and the sun rotated around us and the 'stars' were suspended in ether? Given time I believe man shall reveal much more about the origins of the cosmos (if, indeed, it is not eternal in and of itself) and the development of mankind. Only time will tell... >Regards, >-Joe Jeff Lindborg Disclaimer: The U.W. doesn't really care what I say. [A couple of times in L'Engle's science fiction an angel who is dealing with humans says that they intentionally avoid encouraging humans to think about the immensity of the cosmos because people tend to be overly impressed by sheer magnitude. In L'Engle's world, there are beings on both the stellar and microscopic scale. While they are both larger and smaller than humans, this does not reflect their relative importance. --clh]