I remember when I was young hearing that our Sun was a star. I honestly do not remember if I learned this simple fact in my science class at the Christian school I attended or heard this on T.V. I promptly told my father. My father told me it wasn't true. He told me that our Sun is a Sun; it is not a star. Well, yeah but ... As silly as this sounds it cuts to the problem with growing up in a religious environment being educated in a religious school all of my life. With each discovery in science we find out human beings are clearly not the center of attention in the universe. As Carl Sagan said correctly, "The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." At first we had to be pulled off our pedestal by coming to grips with the sun (a star) not orbit around the Earth, but vice versa. Then we had to come to grips with the fact that our Sun was just a star among many stars in a vast galaxy. Then we had to accept the evidence that our galaxy was not the only galaxy, but one of hundreds of billions of galaxies. Now M-theory is suggesting that there may be more than one universe. The mind boggles at these realizations that are backed up by physics and math. We also have found that life can form in the most inhospitable environments. Bacteria were recently discovered to thrive in arsenic. Life may not be so unique. And as famous physicist Lawrence Krauss said, "So the real thing that physics tell us about the universe is that it's big, rare event happens all the time — including life — and that doesn't mean it's special."
My father may not have understood the terminology in basic cosmology. It's sort of the same thing I suppose as not understanding that homo sapiens are apes. (Hence uniformed statements like and I quote.. , "I didn't evolve from no ape.") The words theory in "the theory of evolution" confuse many of the Christian faith too. There is a germ theory, a theory of gravity, a theory of special relativity, etc etc. It simply doesn't mean that the theory of evolution isn't chalked full of facts (each tested and proven over time).
I was thinking of these memories today as I sat at a red light. I was listening to "Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris. This audio book was a gift from a friend. I've listen to it a few times and thought I would listen to it again today. As I'm enjoying and nodding my head in agreement to many points in the last tracks of the audiobook, I notice the car next to me blaring an audiobook or talk radio. I quickly turned down Sam Harris to pay attention. It was a preacher talking about sin and how sin can spread like a disease in a church. He was going on about how homosexuality was wrong and the sin of two people in a relationship living together who are not married. It was sort of the type of indoctrination I was exposed to as a child.
Now I know it's all nonsense of course, but it just made me realize even more that when religion starts to seep over into the real world, we have a real problem. As Hitchens puts plainly - Religion poisons everything. It rejoices in slave-master mentality. It's a dead way of thinking of the relationship of humanity with the cosmos. It's incorrect. Simply, it needs to die off like all the other myths throughout human history. We are not the center of it all. We have evolved to be self-centered like the rest of the animals but our big brains have overcome these misconceptions. We know what's up now. We are awake finally! It gives me chills to put this into context of the evolution of our species. We are amazing creatures. We don't need these superstitions anymore. The real universe is fascinating enough. We are aware at a great moment in human history. The death of faith. The death of religion. Front row seats!
So, I turned up my radio for counterattack. He looked over. I smiled, the light turned green, and off we went. That was me no less than a decade ago. Getting pumped up listening to preachers talk about God and feeling passion for evangelism. It's such a long winding road back to that day my father said to me that the Sun is not a star.
The sun is not a star. We are not animals. We are unique and God loves us. Funny thing is... as you grow up, you realize things aren't so simple, but you don't have to be afraid! It's quite different then the "leap of faith" you may have made accepting God. This is the opposite of a "leap of faith". You can set your feet soundly on grounded evidence-based facts. The reality of this natural world in which we live for a flicker of time, is beautiful. Discovering facts about this universe through science is the most noble of career paths, the most exciting of ventures, and the most productive way to live one's life. In the words of Carl Sagan, "It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."
*Originally written 4/18/2012
I was thinking of these memories today as I sat at a red light. I was listening to "Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris. This audio book was a gift from a friend. I've listen to it a few times and thought I would listen to it again today. As I'm enjoying and nodding my head in agreement to many points in the last tracks of the audiobook, I notice the car next to me blaring an audiobook or talk radio. I quickly turned down Sam Harris to pay attention. It was a preacher talking about sin and how sin can spread like a disease in a church. He was going on about how homosexuality was wrong and the sin of two people in a relationship living together who are not married. It was sort of the type of indoctrination I was exposed to as a child.
Now I know it's all nonsense of course, but it just made me realize even more that when religion starts to seep over into the real world, we have a real problem. As Hitchens puts plainly - Religion poisons everything. It rejoices in slave-master mentality. It's a dead way of thinking of the relationship of humanity with the cosmos. It's incorrect. Simply, it needs to die off like all the other myths throughout human history. We are not the center of it all. We have evolved to be self-centered like the rest of the animals but our big brains have overcome these misconceptions. We know what's up now. We are awake finally! It gives me chills to put this into context of the evolution of our species. We are amazing creatures. We don't need these superstitions anymore. The real universe is fascinating enough. We are aware at a great moment in human history. The death of faith. The death of religion. Front row seats!
So, I turned up my radio for counterattack. He looked over. I smiled, the light turned green, and off we went. That was me no less than a decade ago. Getting pumped up listening to preachers talk about God and feeling passion for evangelism. It's such a long winding road back to that day my father said to me that the Sun is not a star.
The sun is not a star. We are not animals. We are unique and God loves us. Funny thing is... as you grow up, you realize things aren't so simple, but you don't have to be afraid! It's quite different then the "leap of faith" you may have made accepting God. This is the opposite of a "leap of faith". You can set your feet soundly on grounded evidence-based facts. The reality of this natural world in which we live for a flicker of time, is beautiful. Discovering facts about this universe through science is the most noble of career paths, the most exciting of ventures, and the most productive way to live one's life. In the words of Carl Sagan, "It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."
*Originally written 4/18/2012
