The Speck

There are those who wish to belittle the importance of humanity as 'a speck on a speck on a speck (on a speck)'. In short, in a vast, expanding universe, we're tiny, unimportant nothings.

I never found this a convincing argument. For starters, it actually encourages us to not take the entirety of the universe seriously. Alien worlds, alien lives? Speck on specks on specks (on specks) too. Each as tiny and unimportant as us. Take that, SETI.

Even in earthly terms, size isn't the keystone. A Giant Redwood is a magnificent tree. But it isn't human. It isn't self aware. It isn't able to consider its place in creation. It also far overshadows we mere humans. Yet it's asinine to argue that a tree is superior to a person, or a person unimportant merely because the tree is larger. 

In short, size, mass and relative geography aren't the end all be all. Moral value and moral virtue are not in them. They're just there. But individual human beings? We're aware that we're here. And we can do something about that.

Is Science based on Religious Justifications?

They say the Universe is constantly expanding. But if it is, what is it expanding into?

- Ferb Fletcher

Yes, that is a (reasonably accurate) quote from a cartoon character. And yes, too, it was said for the joke value. But as the best jokes have some truth to them, the idea behind the quip seems too good to leave alone.

What is one of the primary criticisms of the existence of God? Simply put, that the agnostic or atheist cannot accept that some being has just been around for all eternity. They cannot get a grasp on the infinite. Yet here we find a twofold example of science expecting that the believer accept pretty much the same thing, don't you think?

To begin away from young Mr. Fletcher's witticism, popular science (which we wonder might actually and only be a straw man used by atheists and Stephen Hawking to support their worldview) denies God by asking what was there before Him? Yet the corollary question, what was there before the ball of matter from which we had the Big Bang, appears unfair. It was just there, of course. But in those same minds, God could not have been 'just there' as philosophy (not religion, we feel compelled to add) may dictate.

Now Ferb's inquiry comes directly into play. If that ball of matter was just there, merely hanging around, what was it hanging around in? And if the Universe is constantly expanding, what is being displaced by the expansion? The obvious answer is that it can't be displacing anything. But then, where is space expanding, and how?

We did find the scientific answer, by the way, and it's almost quaint: it's just expanding. You can read a bit about that here: http://www.universetoday.com/1455/podcast-what-is-the-universe-expanding-into/ But we will say, at the risk of prejudicing you, that we think that author's assertion little but a mind game. The balloon/raisin bread analogy strikes us as weak; there is still something outside of the balloon or the bread which the areas of the balloon and the bread are displacing. Even the idea of understanding the expanding universe better if we were 4 dimensional beings feels lame. It sounds rather like attempting to justify a preexisting belief, quite frankly. And it profoundly fails to address the question of eternal being anyway.

However you view it, we are wont to believe that quite a lot of modern science is predicated upon exactly the same philosophic ideas as those behind the existence of God. When coming from purveyors of science, we're supposed to accept that things just are. When those same folks aim those same ideas at philosophy or religion, they're childish delusions.

We can't help wonder who is truly delusional.