Belief Does Not Matter
This post of thoughts comes to you via several hours working on my lawn. With my morning coffee I read a post by One World. Many Gods. In the post the author talks about the sheer inspiration at the immensity of the universe and the dumbfounding insignificance of humanity in that largest expanse of harsh uncaring existence.
To quote the post:
Every time I read this it sends chills down my spine. I think very few people realize the significance of this fact and I don’t think I could put it in better words then Carl Sagan. So I ask that you read this several times and let the gravity of his words sink in.
From the video:
We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
I have had a few things to say about Neil deGrasse Tyson in the past week so it is at this moment that I can think of no better time than to try to highlight what it is that he does so very well. Where Mr Sagan has stopped, Mr Tyson continues the journey as if he is simply the next stage in the rocket that is space exploration. If there are humans that can inspire us as much as the shear immensity of the universe, I think Sagan and Tyson are those kind of humans.
He worries. I worry with him. Vote wisely people. Our future depends on it.
myatheistlife 
I like the post!
Thanks. I think people like Sagan and Tyson are quite inspirational.
This blue dot we call home will one day be no more…What a mighty and brilliant Creator that made this temporary place 🙂
Indeed… and before that creator gets around to making sure it is useful no more I am hopeful that we humans will find another blue dot or 50. A task that we need to get on with.