Everything around us constantly changing. Everything. Always. From the seeds growing in the ground, to every cell in our bodies constantly growing and moving without our conscious will, to the sun that rises and falls everyday without any of our effort, to metal oxidizing, to the decay of organic materials, to the shaping of the earth's land by it's oceans, to the automatic, natural transitions between gas, liquid and solid states, to the forces of gravity and electromagnetism, expanding and contracting all around the universe, to the the perpetually expanding universe itself.
It is all moving, growing, changing, dying, redefining, rejuvenating, and reconstituting itself all the time, and always has been. But is there a birth to all of this? Conceptually, it does not seem feasible for there to have been a time before all of this movement where "nothing" was happening. For if there was "nothing", how could any "thing" be started from "nothing"? There would have to be "a something" to start something.
Imagine the universe and everything that is in a state of nothingness, what could have possibly happened during that time, to initiate some kind of motion, from absolute nothing, that would begin all of this going on right now in the universe? If the Big Bang was correct, so what? Is it not infinity before the nothingness that preceded the Big Bang anyways? Or even if God created everything in 7 days, what was he doing for eternity before that? Was he born? Maybe this perspective, or this understanding we have of time is the problem. We have a need to know what the "beginning" is. Because that would then dictate the "end".
We also have to admit, science has come along quite a bit since the days of Galileo. We have solid, concrete evidence of certain things, and not of other things. I'm not talking about things that are debated today, but those things we all know without a shadow of a doubt are true, but once thought were ridiculous, such as the earth being round.
But the mere idea of this when it was first introduced was fiercely ridiculed by the church because it suggested that man and Earth were not at the center of the universe. Everyone please stop and think about this for a second, we are not the center of the universe.
"Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."
-Arthur C. Clarke
Do you know how old mankind is? I believe the oldest human remains are about 6 million years old, but who knows, maybe there are older remains that are 20 million, or even 100 million years old. Whatever it is, now think about how much longer has the earth been around before mankind, unless you believe in creationism. The difference would probably be somewhere between millions and billions of years. On top of that, the universe would have to be much older than the earth. So how can humans really be a significant element in the context of the life of the universe? We are just a tiny fragment, an insignificant blip in the life of the universe. Just look at how much space we occupy in the universe. Imagine if we blew up our own planet, destroying all life as we know it, it wouldn't change much in the grander scheme of things in the universe. Really, what would happen to the rest of the universe? Would just sit there? For the rest of time...forever? Doing nothing? In all that time, wouldn't you think the possibility of life starting again would be pretty good- I mean, its eternity, there is no time limit. Somehow it happened before, chances are it could happen again given the infinite time frame. And maybe we came from nothing, but what came before the nothing? Isn't it probable some life was there before? If not already there in another part of the universe.
So if our planet, life as we know it, all of mankind and its history, is such a small, insignificant speck in the overall universe, what is the significance of our existence? It all comes down to appreciating what has happened so far.
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine not being. Imagine you never existed. You would not even know it, right? Compare this absolute nothingness to the something of an existence you have right now. Doesn't this make Anything better than nothing? In fact, it makes everything that exists around us... a miracle.
It is all moving, growing, changing, dying, redefining, rejuvenating, and reconstituting itself all the time, and always has been. But is there a birth to all of this? Conceptually, it does not seem feasible for there to have been a time before all of this movement where "nothing" was happening. For if there was "nothing", how could any "thing" be started from "nothing"? There would have to be "a something" to start something.
Imagine the universe and everything that is in a state of nothingness, what could have possibly happened during that time, to initiate some kind of motion, from absolute nothing, that would begin all of this going on right now in the universe? If the Big Bang was correct, so what? Is it not infinity before the nothingness that preceded the Big Bang anyways? Or even if God created everything in 7 days, what was he doing for eternity before that? Was he born? Maybe this perspective, or this understanding we have of time is the problem. We have a need to know what the "beginning" is. Because that would then dictate the "end".
We also have to admit, science has come along quite a bit since the days of Galileo. We have solid, concrete evidence of certain things, and not of other things. I'm not talking about things that are debated today, but those things we all know without a shadow of a doubt are true, but once thought were ridiculous, such as the earth being round.
But the mere idea of this when it was first introduced was fiercely ridiculed by the church because it suggested that man and Earth were not at the center of the universe. Everyone please stop and think about this for a second, we are not the center of the universe.
"Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."
-Arthur C. Clarke
Do you know how old mankind is? I believe the oldest human remains are about 6 million years old, but who knows, maybe there are older remains that are 20 million, or even 100 million years old. Whatever it is, now think about how much longer has the earth been around before mankind, unless you believe in creationism. The difference would probably be somewhere between millions and billions of years. On top of that, the universe would have to be much older than the earth. So how can humans really be a significant element in the context of the life of the universe? We are just a tiny fragment, an insignificant blip in the life of the universe. Just look at how much space we occupy in the universe. Imagine if we blew up our own planet, destroying all life as we know it, it wouldn't change much in the grander scheme of things in the universe. Really, what would happen to the rest of the universe? Would just sit there? For the rest of time...forever? Doing nothing? In all that time, wouldn't you think the possibility of life starting again would be pretty good- I mean, its eternity, there is no time limit. Somehow it happened before, chances are it could happen again given the infinite time frame. And maybe we came from nothing, but what came before the nothing? Isn't it probable some life was there before? If not already there in another part of the universe.
So if our planet, life as we know it, all of mankind and its history, is such a small, insignificant speck in the overall universe, what is the significance of our existence? It all comes down to appreciating what has happened so far.
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine not being. Imagine you never existed. You would not even know it, right? Compare this absolute nothingness to the something of an existence you have right now. Doesn't this make Anything better than nothing? In fact, it makes everything that exists around us... a miracle.
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