The Cosmos And The Human Condition

December 1990
Musings 1991

The vast reaches of our universe overpower the most fertile imaginations. In October, a news story reported the discovery of the largest galaxy: Abell 2029 has more than 100 trillion stars, dwarfing “our” Milky Way galaxy which has “only” about 3 billion stars. Abell 2029 is a cluster of about 1000 galaxies, each with billions of stars. Abell 2029 is about one billion light-years away. In one of our calendar years, a light-year travels 5.89 trillion miles. One billion multiplied by nearly 6 trillion!! Can you honestly say that you comprehend that mathematical stunner? I can’t. Our Sun is a glowing mass that lights, feeds and warms our planet Earth. The Sun is a star so bright we can only for a moment gaze at it directly. Can you grasp at all that there are trillions of stars like our Sun?

In COSMOS, Carl Sagan wrote that our Sun is eight light-minutes distant. A “near” star, Beta Andromeda is 75 light-years from us. If it blew itself up, we would not know for 75 years. Should we receive a message from a planet in a distant solar system, it is possible that the life form that sent it will have been extinct for millions of years by the time the message reaches Earth. Similarly, if Voyagers I and II are interpreted by another life form, thousands or millions of light-years hence, our civilization will have been extinct and our planet a cinder or cloud of gas for millions of years by that time. The discovery of Abell 2029 informs the astro-physicists and astronomers of what these billions of stars were a billion years ago. What may have happened in a billion years? Are such times and distances within the capacity of the human mind?

Present scientific thought places the origin of the universe, the Big Bang, 10 to 20 billions of years ago. Perhaps accepted theories of “how” may develop. But I submit to you that there may never be a widely acceptable answer to “Why?” there was a Big Bang at all. Why is there something rather than nothing? I guess I have quoted J.B.S. Haldane to about everyone I know, “The universe is not only queerer than you suppose; it is queerer than you CAN suppose.”

I remember a cartoon showing a bear emerging from hibernation in Spring, looking at the green leaves and buds, saying, “Some year I'm going to stay up and see how those leaves get back on the trees.” I have a hunch like that about the universe. There may be a gap in our knowledge and methods, leaving us ignorant of some astonishing, amazing process (reality, force, perception) of which, perhaps, we can never know, let alone understand.

After all, isn’t it true that we have imposed our human dimensions and perceptions on the universe? Math, astronomy, optics, telemetry, Red Shift, and all the other tools of science assumptions are learnings, definitions, and conclusions acquired in human history. However challenging, persuasive, winsome, or comforting scientific research may be, it is an achievement of men and women on planet Earth. There is no evidence that if there are life forms on distant planets that their scientific ways are those tracked out for us here by Pythagoras, Euclid, Galileo, Einstein, Hawking, and the multitudes of others who have established, refined, experimented, and enlarged our knowledge. Perhaps in the unreachable depths of space, some beings communicate by singing, as do our great ocean creatures, the whales, or by dancing messages as a swarm of bees. Nietzsche once wrote, “... physics, too, is only an interpretation of the world and an arrangement of it (to suit ourselves, if I may say so!) and not an explanation.”

But the arduous difficulty of mentally comprehending the mystery does not preclude the feelings of awe and wonder as we bask in the Sun’s warmth or behold the beauty of the heavens on a clear, star-gemmed night. Sara Teasdale had poetic lines:

“And I know that I
am honored to be
Witness of so much
Majesty.”

The poet capitalizes “Majesty” – awarding, presumably, Divinity to the beautiful skyscape. For me, the lines are aesthetic, not theological. The theologues have posited a Creator who was First Cause or Uncaused Cause. Uncaused Cause is a leap of faith, but grammatically it is an oxymoron. Theologians, most of them, proclaim an additional assumption that this Creator has a singular devotion to the humans on this planet, providing them with the assurance of salvation upon performance of rites, testimonies, repentance, sacrifice, belief, or sacraments.

I have no quarrel with the vast majority of persons who make this leap of faith. Faith, by definition, is belief without convincing evidence for its truth. Faith is not fact. Otherwise, why so many different faiths? Persons are inspired, comforted, freed from fear, or solaced in hardship by believing that God will “wipe away the tears.” If you have that religious trust, my agnostic inquiries will not weaken your faith. But, as one of a tiny minority, I perceive formidable obstacles to holding such a faith.

First, there is not much that convinces me that a God, Creator, Allah, Yahveh, Trinity, Force (insert your own name for it) has any unique or special interest in humans on planet Earth. One is saved from earthquake, volcanic eruption, flood, hurricane, plague, drought by luck and human skill, not divine intervention. When survivors of a disaster thank God for being saved when many others, equally innocent, perish, the testimony is questionable. “The rain falls on the just and unjust.” The Management of events is impersonal or non-personal. “Management” is a term a writer recently used because the usual names for the forces that seem to prevail in the universe are too faith-bound. But “Management” is just as culture-bound as any other name; and raises the same questions. What Board of Trustees appointed “The MANAGEMENT?”

My second heretical question is, why planet Earth should be singled out as the scene for God’s Salvation Scheme? Earth is a single drop in a Pacific Ocean of galaxies, solar systems, planets, satellites. Where is the evidence or reason that this planet and its people have been awarded special status? With the usual acid mixed with with his ink, H. L. Mencken wrote, “The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him a ride.” (quoted PORTABLE CURMUDGEON) I hope I’m not as biting as Mencken, although there are those who tell me I’m well on the way to the curmudgeon class. But I am persuaded that “Special Divine Choosing” for the human beings on our planet is anthropocentric arrogance.

Do these observations indicate that I do not hold human life of worth? Quite the contrary. We are here; we are here on this planet; we must live together or die together. We need no Bible or Koran to convince us that freedom ennobles, that the boundaries of human justice must widen, that children are precious, that human hunger needs to be fed, that illness needs skilled, tender care, that governments and bureaucracies can be disciplined IF enough of us insist, that human love is fulfilling and self-justifying whether or not it has any “divine” links. If there is another life, prepare for it by being responsible here. If there is no other life, live this one well.

One final disclaimer: I freely acknowledge that what is factual and reasonable to me may be dreary theory for you – and conversely. So let us share our fears and hopes. Paraphrasing Nietzsche (I cannot locate the exact quote): When there are two, truth begins. Most of all, let us be kind to one another. If we are alone in the Cosmos, we are alone together.