by VorJack
As winter creeps in, the nights get colder and the air gets drier. This is my favorite time to go out stargazing, since the dry air is crisp and clear. If I can get away from the city lights, I can clearly see the band of the Milky Way cross the dark sky.
There was a time I took this for granted, but not anymore. For the past twenty years I’ve been a suburbanite, and light pollution has washed out all but the brightest stars. Now I have to head out into the mountains — the Adirondacks, the Helderbergs or the Taconics — to get far enough from the street lights.
A Question of Scale
Pullquote: God was right above them, looking down upon us. There wasn’t much else for him to look at.
Getting a clear view of the heavens brings a sense of awe, but also a sense of how tiny we really are. I don’t think it’s an accident that the three great monotheisms all sprang from arid climates, where the air was clear and the dome of the night sky was not obscured by walls of forest. The gods of the polytheists, with their petty squabble and their human foibles, would seem laughable in comparison to that immense field of stars.
But to the early monotheists, these stars were only points of light in the dome of the sky, or later in the crystal sphere. God was right above them, looking down upon us. There wasn’t much else for him to look at.
Now that smear of light in the sky is a galaxy of some 200 billion stars. The points of light in the sky are stars that rival — or exceed — our sun in size and power. In the past century, our universe has gone from containing “just” the Milky Way and a few clusters, to containing over 150 billion other galaxies. Right now, somewhere in the universe, entire galaxies are colliding with one another, black holes are siphoning off the matter from giant suns and a web of dark matter holds enormous clusters of galaxies together.
Suddenly, there’s a lot more going on.
Effing the Ineffable
Pullquote: During the Exile, God had to grow or die, and so he grew.
The early dwellers in Canaan may have honored a single God, but he remained in human form: a great monarch with a throne and a sword who occasionally descended to chat with Abraham. But as the world of the Israelites expanded, their God was forced to expand with it. As John Shelby Spong once put it, “During the Exile, God had to grow or die, and so he grew.” By the 1st century, they were living in a Ptolemaic universe with a God that was distant, exalted and unknowable.
So what now? Our cosmos has now expanded beyond our ability to measure. It’s a vast and alien place, and that doesn’t seem to pair well with a creator that isn’t equally vast and alien. God’s thoughts are above our thoughts as Heaven is above the Earth — and we now know that this is quite a bit higher than Isaiah realized. But what room does that leave for us to understand the divine?
I’m inclined to think that the only sustainable form of theism that remains in the face of the enormity of the universe is a sort of pious agnosticism. To try and comprehend an entity who could create all this is sheer hubris. Some speak as if a being that maintains the universe from moment to moment — from the vast structures of galaxies to the quantum froth at the base — is ultimately concerned about our mating habits. If that’s not an example of projection, I don’t know what is.
Better to be humble, I think. What is God? Why is God? Does God have a will, and if so, what is it? “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.” Should a creator exist, it must be too remote to be of relevance to our meager lives. We’re left here to find our own way, underneath the stars.
Tyler!: Sooooo who exactly are they taking our country back from??? And i am in the process of moving so... 
NoYourGod: Yerp – nuthin’ saiz “patriotic” like “love it or leave... 
LawnBoy: Gee.. when exactly was this golden age of pureness in politics and the reign of common sense? 
Daniel Florien: So why aren’t you out in Montana with a bomb shelter, stocked food, and tons of ammunition? 
nazani14: Things that can’t go on forever don’t. Following the record heat, the power outages in the D.C.... 
Nelly: my apologies for using “duplicate” way too many times………..I really wish... 
Ty: Please. A moon hoaxer talking about good science? “I personally do not believe that we can prove that... 
44 Comments
Very nice, very thoughtful.
The massive power going on that is our universe is seems to keep pushing us further, whether we look outward into the vastness of space or inward into the atomic structure.
A couple of trains of thought work their way out, either we are enjoying a strange niche of physics/biology by being able to think about this or something went to a lot of trouble to set us in motion.
Really neither train of thought makes our universe less wonderful.
“I’m inclined to think that the only sustainable form of theism that remains in the face of the enormity of the universe is a sort of pious agnosticism.”
I’m not sure how to take this, the vastness and complexity of the universe eliminates the possibility of an immanent creator, but the idea of a creator in general is sustainable.
“Should a creator exist, it must be too remote to be of relevance to our meager lives.”
I thought enlightenment ideals raised the value of mankind. If the idea of creator is sustainable why wouldn’t they be interested in biological miracle of human life. Though small are we any less complex than the universe as a whole. Think of how complex science has shown us to be in just two fields; genetics and neuroscience.
Though small are we any less complex than the universe as a whole?
Yes. The universe contains everything. We are a tiny subset of the universe. Hence, the universe is more complex than we are.
And given the vast size of the universe, and the near certainty of life appearing elsewhere in that vast expanse, human life is likely to be as “miraculous” and interesting to a prospective deity of that expanse as pond scum is to the average eight year old kid.
human life is likely to be as “miraculous” and interesting to a prospective deity of that expanse as pond scum is to the average eight year old kid.
I dunno. Algae was pretty fascinating to me when I was eight. Given how I’d get it all over my clothes, it was pretty “interesting” for my mother as well.
Exactly my point. When you’re eight, you might poke it with a stick, and if you were really industrious you might throw it under a microscope, but the interest ends there. Not “miraculous”, just poke-it-with-a-stick-to-see-what-happens worthy.
God could be an eight year old … his tantums point in the right direction.
When you’re eight, you might poke it with a stick,
Apparently, I was more the sort to just dive in. Or fall in, I suppose.
…
I’m not really helping this simile, am I?
point taken with qualification. Yes inherently the universe is more complex, but this isn’t like calculus to remedial math, human life is extremely complex. The amount of information carried in our genome is staggering and the ability of our cells to read and apply that information is also mind boggling. Even if you take that has occurred through natural means it is extremely complex and and intricate in ways that do rival the universe. I think it was in MIB that it was said that a human problem was that we found significance in size and often overlook important things come in small packages sometimes.
Also how many biologists have spent a lifetime researching something as mundane as lets say ants? Most don’t think that much about them, but they are still interesting to some regardless of how important others of us think they are.
Amoebas have a genome approximately three hundred times larger than a human’s.
Food for thought.
yes all life is complex including the amoeba. my humble point is and was, that though some call the attempt to completely understand God hubris (i think so too), i also think it hubris to make the assumption that vastness of the universe precludes the interest of a Creator in mankind.
My point is that while it may not preclude a hypothetical deity’s interest, it almost certainly precludes our “specialness”.
if you mean specialness in an objective sense you may have a case. There are many things including the universe which seem to dwarf our own material existence. I would make a contingent argument that if we were found to have some sort of immaterial soul that would elevate our “specialness” above the physical cosmos or other types of life.
specialness in the subjective sense would be harder to preclude though. The Creator or hypothetical deity might have some subjective reason to have an interest in us. we also do this. For some a song, book, park, etc holds a special interest for them due to a memory or some other attachment. Could this not at least be possible for said hypothetical deity?
Isn’t that personification, a literary device often used in the fiction genre?
It’s also possible that said hypothetical deity cares naught for us, or living things at all, but for the motion of atoms in the core of the stars – or for some strange alien creature we’ll never know about – or for phenomena we can’t conceive of.
Frankly I think it incredibly arrogant to believe – in this indescribable universe we live in – that we are somehow special above all else, so much that this deity – this creature – would care for our pains and tribulations so much as to personally intervene. Mayhaps it cares for planets as a whole and sees us as nothing more than an irritant.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1356#comic
Bwahahaha. Awesome comic :D
Hubris to attempt to understand an imaginary created thing with all of humankind’s faults.
A cartoon invented in cobbled-together and re-invented bits of writing by Bronze Age shepherds, or maybe by people intending to control the shepherds. (Or people who seemed to love sheep, probably in every imaginable way.)
That’s funny.
Wooo life complexity rivals the universes?
Boy you will be big surprised to see how complex even the sun is.
Stars so things that even life on Earth cannot do, that is creating new elements like hydrogen, Oxygen, Iron,,….. What life does is peanuts to what the universe does.
Scientists have far better understanding of life than of the sun since it is more complex.
‘Though small are we any less complex than the universe as a whole.’
We are but a monad of the cosmos.
I was just talking with a friend about this very subject a few days ago. I agree that a shift towards a theistic agnosticism will be the only tenable position for the religious in the future, but in the short term it seems like there will be increasing polarization on the issue. As science advances, and we humans learn more and more, the only responses theists really have are a move towards agnosticism or towards fundamentalism. It seems to me that both groups increase in numbers because being anywhere in the middle becomes less and less a realistic stance.
I used to spend time trying to conceive of a “modern” god, one that fits what we now know, as opposed to a guy who reportedly spoke directly to people. I’m not skeptical about the existence of god because he no longer (as if ever) interferes directly with people. That god is obviously a myth to almost everybody, including many Christians. But they think he’s still there, moving things and people around like a dollhouse, a giant little girl you can’t see, and our personalities and choices are what the giant little girl narrates and that’s why some Christians have fierce opinions; it’s a role-play. That’s really funny for me to think about.
Once you start to move away from a fundamental god of the bible, once you start to realize primitive humans made a lot of that stuff up, and at once are still believing there’s a god, a god who’s like some really good artist maybe, you are acknowledging both that god is made up and remains real to you in some form. I guess the “unknowable” description still applies. “Why, I think he’s this, so I better act accordingly.”
Determined to still believe in a god because the earth looks so pretty, ask why are we here? We’re just animals like a cow, but smart enough to feel more important than a cow. What does the cow think? We think the cow thinks “yay, grass!” but maybe there’s more to cows that we neither comprehend nor think to ask, nor have any way of discovering truly. Like god, people have differing personal definitions of a cow, but unlike god, we’ve all seen a cow. We seem pretty sure cows don’t wonder about god, but because we can, then we should, then we do.
As I was not raised in religion, I was able to reject the biblical model god quickly, but was still a thinker and curious of philosophy, and sometime in college found out about the watchmaker-style god; I thought that made sense, but the more I think about it, it makes the least sense. I suppose I can think if there’s a god who made the whole universe, that the giant little girl finished her art piece, grew up and moved to re-gentrify some up-and-coming planet far from here. Not even a Dear John letter. If I consider that much, I could say that’s also senseless, one who made the whole universe who doesn’t even care about humans (if he ever did, if he made this world for us), god-believing is obviously ego. The middle ground of god-believing is a departure from the total implausibility of fundamentalism, and yet doesn’t put the puzzle pieces together. If a creator existed in this way, what is his point? Why are we here? That’s what your question is? Why does god exist, if not for us? Why would that kind of god even bother to exist? The answer is, because we’re people and we made it up and distilled it to the essence of utter nonsense; we’re emotional and clingy and insecure.
The whole middle ground modern-thinking theism is as ridiculous to me as fundamental magic-believers. Science, reality, is awesome enough. I especially enjoyed the New York State geographical references in the article. I have never heard of the Helderbergs, but shout out for my hometown in the mid-Hudson Valley region!
What’s so miraculous about human life and what makes you so sure there aren’t thousands of millions of lives just as miraculous?
I’m not sure if there are or aren’t other forms of life in the universe, but even if there are would that negate the complexity and elegance and yes even the miraculous existence of life and especially human life? Even though the most stringent and hardcore naturalist will admit the sheer improbability of life evolving in the way that it has, they would add that we just happen to be lucky.
If life is so random and easily produced i would like to think that the level of technology that we have would make it an easy talk to reproduce. The best i’ve seen accomplished are some unorganized amino acids (Miller-Urrey), we haven’t even been able to manufacter a single cell organism from scratch. Surely if a lighting bolt in a prebiotic soup can produce life, someone at MIT or Stanford could pull it off.
“Surely if a lighting bolt in a prebiotic soup can produce life, someone at MIT or Stanford could pull it off.”
100 lightning strikes a second for maybe a billion years. Maybe a billion planets per galaxy reach this pre-biotic soup state and only one (or few) get to actual life. Randomly does not mean easily produced.
The universe is probably full of life everywhere. But so far we don’t know yet what to look for. There are 500.000 galaxies in an area of 5 times the moon. To understand the scale imagine that the solar system would be an atom in a our oceans.
For example Mars have very strong evidences that it can support life a long time ago and also moons like Europa could support life. There is even water on the hottest planet Mercury!
There is also this Mars meteorite that suggests fossil life, from Mars.
There might not be a advanced civilization on Mars, but the fact tat life is discovered tjere means that other planets will probably also have it.
Astronomy is at the verge of detecting Earth sized planets in the next 3 years. There is a 3 year project ongoing right now.
Also scientists can actually now program a computer that creates this programmed DNA sequence and from this create life from scratch that never existed or evolved before. Still basic stuff. Just check out the BBC documentary “The Cell”
One thing I do know, out there in the universe, there are planets that are far better placed than Earth, have real paradises and probably has evolved life forms that are way superior and complex than life on Earth.
“Some speak as if a being that maintains the universe from moment to moment — from the vast structures of galaxies to the quantum froth at the base — is ultimately concerned about our mating habits. If that’s not an example of projection, I don’t know what is.” – Terrific.
On the subject of the subject of the contrast between a scientific understanding of the universe and a religious understanding, try reading the Papal Encyclical on the Immaculate Conception. The first paragraph alone is so utterly divorced from reality that you might reasonably question the sanity of its authors (or the the very least lament the mental effort they put in to arrive at such an arcane understanding of their world).
I’m inclined to think that the only sustainable form of theism that remains in the face of the enormity of the universe is a sort of pious agnosticism. To try and comprehend an entity who could create all this is sheer hubris. Some speak as if a being that maintains the universe from moment to moment — from the vast structures of galaxies to the quantum froth at the base — is ultimately concerned about our mating habits. If that’s not an example of projection, I don’t know what is.
Better to be humble, I think. What is God? Why is God? Does God have a will, and if so, what is it? “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.” Should a creator exist, it must be too remote to be of relevance to our meager lives. We’re left here to find our own way, underneath the stars.
Very well-written, vorjack. These are issues I give a lot of thought to …
I’ve mentioned this author to you before, but this post again reminds me of the work of Gordon Kaufman. I honestly think that you would really enjoy reading his work, because he arrives at the type of god that you describe almost exactly.
It is all projection.
God’s jealousy, pettiness, rule making… The rank, position, power and authority that petty, squabbling humans who still need government extend to the next world, heaven God, angels, and themselves: A throne for Chrissake! Angels with rank: some are officers and some are enlisted. Christians who fancy themselves “loving” but are full of hate imagining themselves “exalted” (“finally! I’ll get mine, haha! I’ll gloat at all those heathens who persecuted me as they burn in hell! Bwaaahahahaha!”).
In short, all the tribal and national dysfunctionalities extended to heaven — forever!
My beliefs tend toward “new-age woo”, but I dislike a lot of space-case new-agers who also project their crap onto the next world: they were all great leaders in a past life, and they will all be great leaders in the next one; they’re just pathetic losers in this one. It’s still all projection!
Why stupid people continue to ASSume that any next life or next world would have to follow the pattern of the dysfunctional mess we have made of this one is beyond me… Oh, wait, it’s explained in the second word of this sentence.
Small minds create a small god in their own ugly image.
The bible subtitle: “God For Dummies”.
Why stupid people continue to ASSume that any next life or next world would have to follow the pattern of the dysfunctional mess we have made of this one is beyond me… Oh, wait, it’s explained in the second word of this sentence.
Small minds create a small god in their own ugly image.
The bible subtitle: “God For Dummies”
“God By the Dummies, For the Dummies, and Of the Dummies”
corrected.
Well, at least you’re not a jerk about it. I’m surprised you’re not successfully deconverting people in droves.
/sarcasm, if that wasn’t obvious.
Well, heaven is supposedly indescribably awesome, and hell is supposedly indescribably punishing, both unlike this world (?); some say it’s all right here, and some describe heaven and hell in earth-like terms also – like no place on earth, but it manages to resemble something we can imagine.
I think the new-age woo, I think claidheamh mor is talking about reincarnation? If god is a karmic reincarnation type of god who created our reality on earth, I suppose some people are imagining they will be reincarnated right here as something of earth (the only important place to go, with god as the judge and the broker), maybe as a snake or a prairie dog or a jellyfish, but preferably as one projects, deserving to be born into leadership and power. How many “past lives” experience being Caesar or Cleopatra, not someone ordinary or a beaver or a myrtle plant, for example. Like most Christians believe they’re doing Christianity the right way and a shoo-in for heaven, so people of other ridiculous faiths understand they will end up with the best lot after they die, and conceive of it on this earth.
With the limitless abilities of being god and creating the vast universe, if we suppose that much, the so-called “stupid” are presuming they will be reincarnated back to earth, when if you are figuring god has godlike powers, the earth is only one configuration out of limitless possibilities. If you’re going with woo, go large. I think you are doing that victim thing again I keep hearing about!
Yeah, maybe the the bible-time-subsistence farmers weren’t stupid for their time. Maybe simpletons. But yeah, Vorjack had it right the first time and I apply the label: something that created galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and superclusters being interested in our mating habits isn’t stupid. It’s beyond stupid.
This.
A deity like this sounds so incredibly petty. Like the supreme deity of all universe is obsessive-compulsive about everything being just so. Everything has to be spotless, everything has to work like a clockwork and don’t you dare step one milimeter out of the line, or s/he/it will throw a divine tantrum of universal proportions!
“A deity like this sounds so incredibly petty.”
I doubt if there where such an entity that words we used to describe are own attributes would in anyway be suitable to describe its attributes.
True, which is why I wrote “sounds”, not “would be”. Even if it’s utterly unsuitable – and it would be – doesn’t mean I wouldn’t perceive it as such.
Yeah, it made some sense for the original God Vorjack mentioned to be a micromanager of human lives: if he walked in their camps like a local monarch, then the bible verse ordering the people to bury their poop so he wouldn’t step in it made some sense. Kibitzing in people’s mating habits at least would be in character; he would want to control his people, and maybe have some of the unsullied maidens for himself.
But people now, who have astronomy in their faces, who know about superclusters of galaxies, and the earth not being the center of God’s special little heaven designed just for earth people to look at, who still think there is some certifiably neurotic God who gives a damn how people mate, whether they get a government license to mate, whether they read a cobbled-together book of Hebrew and Greek fiction, whether they go inside a building on their day off and chant and sing, whether the females have all the sex they want without being “punished” by a forced pregnancy, and whether they carry through a pregnancy to overpopulate the world still further, are abominably, execrably, egregiously stupid.
Maybe God is local. It’s pretty much the only way to salvage the personal aspect of deity in light of the enormity of the universe, not that many religious people would accede to the possibility…
Yeah! Maybe someone who lived before was a mushroom-like silicon-based life form, not “Cleopatra” like my woo-woo friend thought that (of course, could you see it coming?) she was.
“God By the Dummies, For the Dummies, and Of the Dummies”
corrected.
Vorjacks insightful post reminds me of David’s words in Ps 8:3&4 saying “When I consider the heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and the stars, which you have set in their place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Job says it like this “what is man that You magnify him, And that You are concerned about him”?, (7:17).
Our quandry is this, against such a wondrous backdrop as the whole of the universe, the splendor of the galaxies, how dare we assume some place of minor significance in all this grandeur. Seems arrogant, presumptious, foolish of us at best. But then JC said that God has counted even the numbers of hairs on our head (which for me is getting easier for Him every year, ha) and David says “He is familiar with all my ways, knows when I rise up and when I sit down”. How could this be? Is there any hope of it being true? My puny existance vs the universe, I am but a mere vapor in time here one minute and gone the next right?
Reminds me of Chauncey R. Piety’s reflections:
“God gave my world to me,
And I rebelliously cried out
“How small, and is this all?”
His voice was sad, yet mild:
“All that you love, my child.”
Myself that moment died,
And born anew I cried,
“Love take control and lead my soul
To serve my small estate.”
And lo, my world is great!
J, if God exists, and is as powerful as you say, why does he make the material world seem so self-contained and, well, Godless? I mean, your theory is that it’s some spiritual world which he really cares about, but if that is the case, why hasn’t he left any pointers to its existence in the material world?
(I wouldn’t count the Bible as a pointer. Having read large parts of that book, I have to say I haven’t detected anything half as transcendent as Mozart or Shakespeare. If God had a hand in it, even a small one, I would expect it to be truly beautiful throughout, instead of packed with the ugliness you can find by simply flipping through the pages and stopping it at a random point)
So how does saying “yes he does care about us” show that there is actually an anthropomorphic god that is especially interested in humanity? Isn’t it simply more rational to believe that it is simply projection on the universe, as I’m sure you would claim all other religions are?
D’n…ok, I’ll try man. First, there is nothing especially “rational” about Love my friend, It does not fall within those (man made) confines, is “above” that plane or level. We see “evidence” for Him in those He indwells, in whom He is the very Substance of their lives and so they manifest His Life and nature which is most unlike typical humanity in that they are not self-concerned, are (always) others-focused, sacrificial, humble, tender hearted, gentle, grounded in love. These are not merely “nice” people but other-worldly kinda folks who are few and far between and who live “from” the Life of Another having forsaken their own. They are InChristed followers in whom God has literally established His very kingdom and presence. He rules and reigns within them in peace & righteousness.
JC said the kingdom of God was within us, was not an external (viewable with our natural eyes) kind of kingdom. Mankind is the intended image and dwelling place of God. When they asked JC to “show them the Father” His response was this “when you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father” and that “He and the Father are One”. He is the Template, the Pattern Son and looked a lot like original, pre-death (sin, separation) mankind who was (originally) created in His very image & likeness, is His “temple” or intended dwelling place.
While the heavens (the galaxies, sun, moon, stars, etc) “declare His handiwork” as (OT) scripture declares, the truth of the (NT) is revealed in God-indwelt mankind, ie Christ. Paul said it this way “I have been crucified with Christ, its no longer I that lives, but now Christ is living his life thru me”.
So looking “out there” will eventually lead us to the truth inwardly, that has been my experience these many years. All the best.
Your article on the vastness of the universe is similar to one I wrote about innumeracy in general – the inability of humans to grasp the true scale of things. It’s one of the fundamental reasons creationists thrive. People have a really hard time grasping just how enormously long 4 billion years is. You can read about it here.
Yep, another way of saying it well.
Biblical subsistence shepherds maybe were just simple; now to believe that stuff, you have to be a simpleton.
I’ve long associated christianity and illiteracy (with the exception of some authors and thinkers); but I think innumeracy, which is just another symptom or expression of some kind of lack of ability to comprehend or simple-mindedness, is even more closely associated with it.
Hmmm… lack of ability to comprehend… concepts like:
anthropology; cultural diversity; sexual diversity, family structure over the world and over history; environmentalism (specifically, overpopulation); the scale you and others have noted from the atomic sub-micro to the universal macro; all of the factors involved in an ethical decision and action; the rigidity and irrelevance of absolute rules that substitute for conscience, empathy, and the ability to reason and be ethical; the irrelevance of 6,000 year old mythologies and 2,000 year old fables…..
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