Tuesday, May 15, 2012

A Most Astounding Fact

A friend and schoolmate of mine (Blake Burgess) shared this today and I was immediately smitten with it. I have always liked Neil deGrasse Tyson although I do not share his secular humanist perspective all the while profoundly respecting his keen intellect, passionate soul, and not insubstantial communication skills. Unlike him, when I look at the sky I feel small to the point of having to resist the urge to experience an existentialist anxiety attack. And yet I feel big at the same time when I think of my Creator and my connection to him and not merely my physical connection to all those celestial bodies strung out across the cosmos.


2 comments:

  1. We studied this in an Environmental Biology class in the '90's--all part of the Gaia Theory. On a smaller scale, we saw ourselves as part of all who had come before, but recycled into us, as we would be recycled for future life forms. Therefore, the Hindis may have a point, just not quite so attached to Karma as they thought. The title of the lecture was "Plato's Atoms," and through the process of decay, re-absorption via plants, devoured by life and that life being eaten by another higher form of life, we once more realize that Plato's atoms still exist in ourselves. It's a fantastic and inarguable concept that lends purpose to my own existence, as nothing is coincidence. Just as there is purpose in your own. :-)

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  2. We are all made of stardust and that is a fact as is the fact that many millions of atoms that used to comprise other people at various times are incorporated into my meat bag/monkey suit. ;-p

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