(22 votes, average: 4.77 out of 5)
Loading...I think a lot about significance these days, about why we, or rather, why I, matter. I mean really, this universe is 13.8 billion years old and I’ve been around for, well, 68 of those years and certainly won’t be around for another 68. So, for how much of time to this point? Do the math.
Then there’s the space factor. I’m a small dot in my house; my house is a small dot in my neighborhood; my neighborhood is a small dot in my city; my city is a small dot in my state; my state is a not-large dot in the country; the country is a not-large dot on the planet; our planet is a tiny dot in the solar system; the solar system is an infinitesimal dot in the galaxy of some 100 billion stars; our galaxy is an an even more infinitesimal dot in a universe of maybe 2 trillion galaxies. And the universe itself? Who knows if there is a multiverse?
Where
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Very stoic reflections… Your thoughts reminded me of Marcus Aurelius’s “Meditations”, his line of thought is very similar to yours. And mine too. Also, that verse from James was so beautiful, and coincidentally I ran across it just the other day while revisiting this book.
I totally agree with the notion that our actions matter for the well being of conscious creatures. In the same time, though, what I myself struggle with quite often is to find meaning while having realized there’s no free will. Because that leads to there’s no “I”; I mean, “I” am just a bag of particles doing their thing according to laws of nature – and I don’t think I can intervene in their unfolding. I find it really challenging to extract personal meaning from that fact.
Thanks for your post. It’s a nice exposition of how an atheist can find meaning in life. (Digression: Were you ever into Francis Schaefer? He argued that the only logical action for a non-Christian was to commit suicide! I never got that logic.) But my reason for writing is to point out an (inadvertent?) error: You repeatedly refer to the Big Dipper as Ursula Major; it’s Ursa Major (you also mention ursa minor, and you got it right!). I kinda like Ursula; I envisioned a female leader of a marching band! Alas, I Googled Ursula Major and found this: https://rupaulsdragrace.fandom.com/wiki/Ursula_Major. So perhaps your Ursula Major was the result of auto-correct? Is this what we have to look forward to with AI watching our every word?
Yup, was into Francis Schaeffer big time in my very conservative evangelical days — and his “line of despair” (as that what he called it?) (Monty Python was beneath the line for me)…. And yup, Ursa, not Ursula! Was thinking of my best friends’ daughter. The corruption of the text has now been corrected….disabledupes{365701d822249015bdb6af3f94aaecc1}disabledupes
Francis Schaeffer, that’s a horrible thing to say!
Maria Popova, the Bulgarian philosopher, expresses her support for the joy of death since it means that we were
alive: “For each of us, one thing is true: Had
any one variable been ever so subtly different — had your parents mated on a different day or
at a different altitude — had the early universe cooled a fraction of a second faster after the Big Bang, you
would not exist as the particular constellation of atoms configuring the particular
consciousness that makes you you. Because chance plays such dice with the universe, and
because the die dictates that the vast majority of energy and matter never had the luck of
cohering into this doomed delirium of aliveness, it is, in some profound and practical sense, a
staggering privilege to die — one that betokens the privilege of having lived. To lament death,
then, is to lament our luck, for any negation of the possibility of death is a negation of the
improbable miracle of life, a wish for there to be nothing to do the dying — nothing to have
partaken of the beautiful, bittersweet temporality of aliveness.“
Loved this! Forwarded it to Patrick 🙂
Beautiful.
Chaos theory and the butterfly effect tell us that everything matters. One small change in the initial condition can have large repercussions down the road. You matter. I matter. What we do with our lives matters. I’m reminded of a youth baseball coach my sons had whose byline was “excellence on and off the field.” Not only did he teach the kids quality baseball, he taught and insisted on personal qualities that would serve the kids well throughout their lives. If only one kid each year took those principles to heart and passed them on to their kids, and they passed them on to their kids, the world’s a better place.
Though I associate this idea with Pascal and maybe Bertrand Russell, no doubt many others gave made the same point. Our “greatness,” in spite of being infinitesimal, is that we can grasp so much of reality with our minds. In addition, mysticism tries to merge our individual identity with all of reality. The latter is highly speculative but the former seems well-grounded – and perhaps bears some analogy to the latter.
Thank you so much for this. It really spoke to me.
> Ursula Major
A truly delightful Freudian slip! 😉
Yup, Ursa, not Ursula! Was thinking of my best friends’ daughter (not an ex-girl-friend) The corruption of the text has now been corrected….
‘Ursula’, of course, is a Latin diminutive meaning ‘Little (female) bear.’
Thanks. We may not be as insignificant as it can seem. Without life the universe is meaningless. Meaning enters the universe through consciousness which is a property of living things. We may be the only civilization is our Milky Way galaxy. So we may be important despite out physical insignificance. We may be the only island of meaning in a universe of over 400 billion suns. So we may be far more important and valuable than we often give ourselves credit for.
Good point!
Have there been influential Christian biblical scholars or theologians who have tried to argue that divine (biblical) revelation can actually be expanded and even modified by biblical interpretation/exegesis/criticism, ie, what modern biblical scholars do?
I’m trying to distinguish between a better understanding of revelation and actual revisions to it as a result of scholar’s work. I’m imagining that God is still revealing himself precisely through the work of such scholars.
I don’t know how orthodox it is but I’m pretty sure the idea of “progressive” revelation has been around for a while. I associate it with a late 18th/early 19th century German thinker whose name I can’t recall. I understand it to mean that God’s revelation of himself and his will is tailored to what people were able to understand at various points in history.
I think I’m suggesting something similar to that but more radical in that some of the most important work of biblical scholars should actually be included in the Bible itself.
This could help meet the criticism that theology does not truly progress but is stuck in simply preserving previous convictions.
That’s a n interesting way to put the question. I’m not sure I know of biblical scholars/theologians who thinkg that modified *interpretation* was inspired; typically, of course, they simply think it is *right*….. But yes, progressive revelation itself has been around for a long time, so maybe some have applied it to interpretations of texts. Probably have and I just can’t think of examples off hand.
Glad you and Sarah got to see a large black bear. They do look large to any of us in the Eastern USA who see one. You simply paused. As a northern Mainer, that was a good “non-move.”
“Death is nothing to us. When we exist, death is not; and when death exists, we are not. All sensation and consciousness ends with death and therefore in death there is neither pleasure nor pain. The fear of death arises from the belief that in death, there is awareness.”
― Epicurus
I guess that makes me an Epicurean.
I think Epicurus makes more sense than believing in fantasies (invisible, immaterial, immortal soul; an eternal afterlife in some sort of imaginary spiritual realm where we exist with our mental faculties completely intact, etc. etc.).
You could do worse than be an Epicurean….
Remember that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return!
Stardust
Somehow living for a while.
That was a rich meditation. While I look forward to your academic and scholarly posts, this was a sweet and touching reflection. Thank you.
Just to note a scribal slip when referencing that last quote, it should be to Ecclesiastes 9 1 rather than Job 9:3-6. No need to post this comment.
Thanks. Arg.
An excellent post–thanks. This sort of contemplation is something I wish all humans had in their daily thoughts.
I rather like Lion King metaphysics: after death actually becoming one of those stars to forever guide the living …
For me, this is a very timely and important post.
Thank you!
Bart:
I too am 68 and find I reflect more often than my earlier years about such matters. Having survived Divinity School and 15 years as a church Pastor in which I devoted a lot of my time to meaning, purpose and significance I am sure evokes my current thoughts regarding this matter. In retirement I have enjoyed learning more deeply about physics on the quantum and the cosmological scale. The majesty, vastness and mystery of it all humbles me. Pondering it all I am rescued from falling into this pensive black hole by the wisdom of Monty Python: “Now, here’s the meaning of life..Well, it’s nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations…”
JRR
Nice reflection. There are good, helpful, virtuous ways to be significant, but there are also bad, destructive ones. Too often people gravitate towards the latter.
(If I may be so bold, the constellation is named Ursa Major, not Ursula Major.)
Damn. Of course it is. I was thinking of my best friends daughter for some reason!
Our collective Egos have taken a battering since
Descartes stated “I think, therefore I am” 400 years ago.
OK, I am not nothing, I am something, but following on from that, the next pertinent questions were, what am I?, where am I?, and what am I doing here?
Prevailing Western thought at that time was that we are the special creations of a special God that created this special place for us to fulfill a special purpose.
However, Copernicus, Galileo & Newton told us this place isn’t so special. Then Newton & Wallace told us we weren’t so special.
Cosmologist Brian Cox’s most recent work proposed that we are clever apes on a planet orbiting in the ‘Goldilocks zone’ of a mediocre star in a quiet outer neighbourhood of a mediocre galaxy. The thing that amazes him is that we can know this, but he is non-committal about whether the weak Anthropic principle confers any sense of meaning or purpose to existence.
I believe that it is feasible to incorporate a metaphysical aspect of existence, without straying too far from concrete Scienctific findings………
My modern day answers are that I am a living self-conscious processor of Information, in a Universe where everything is Information and Energy, and where, if there is a purpose, it could be characterised as “Information seeking understanding through experience”.
Carl Sagan captured it best when he said, “We are a way for The Cosmos to know itself”.
The “I” that I am aware of is the sum total of the input of information from the past and present (internal and external) experience of the real world that my body suffers.
My mind synthesises a simulation of reality based on this input, that enables me to survive and thrive on this planet.
However, this “I” is but one leaf on a greater ‘tree of experience’ that exists across a landscape of multiple alternate realities.
The alternate “I”s all share the same DNA, but their experience of reality, and contribution to the understanding our greater wholeness, diverges as our experience grows.
Our singular experience is real, valuable, and meaningful, and necessary, but is only a small slice of a broader range of experiential possibilities.
I agree that humans are not BIG, but humans are amazing – biologically, neurologically, intellectually, and creatively. I don’t think that our lives have to be “big” in order for them to be precious to us, as you say, in the here and now. And the brevity of life, the fact that we could snuff out of existence at any time, just makes the time we have (and spending it well) all the more precious.
Incidentally, I love your malapropism of Ursa Major, into “Ursula Major”. Was that intentional?
Even if it’s not intentional, it may be addictive. It’s going to be hard for me not to think of “Ursula Major” now, every time I look at the night sky.
Is this how ancient manuscripts get altered by new scribes?
Ugh. Thinking of my best friends’ daughter. I’ve corrected the scribal corruptoin now (to Urssulla)
small point…I believe it is “Ursa” Major (not Ursula)…
Ugh. Thinking of my best friends’ daughter. I’ve corrected the scribal corruptoin onw.
I liked that Bart. You have an eye for words. Thank You.
Very interesting musings. I wasn’t sure about commenting but sort of wanted to. The idea of people being “big”, and the significance of life reminded me of two sayings. The first on being “big” comes from the Tao Te Ching: “Success is as dangerous as fear. What does it mean that success is as dangerous as fear? Whether you go up the ladder or down it, your position is shaky”. The second on humanity’s place in the universe is from the Buddha: “Everything arises and passes away. When you see this, you are above sorrow. This is the shining way”.
Well sure, the Universe is not about us. But that doesn’t mean It’s not about anything. So what could that be, Grasshoppa?
Not sure. I’d say that “i5 doesn’t mean it’s not about anything” is different from saying that “it means that it is about something.”
The thing that you have that the constellations do not have is consciousness. That makes you bigger. That makes you more significant. The constellations have no idea that they or you even exist. But you know, and you’re able to ponder, enjoy and consider the wonder of the universe. Maybe this life isn’t the end. Maybe you will shed the shell of this life and wake up in a new body, a new place, on one of the planets circling one of the stars in ursa minor.
Who knows!
.I think that scientists might not agree with the idea that we don’t need to look beyond our own, personal “universe” to understand the vastness of our own existence.. Instead, by examining ourselves, we can see how incredibly “large” and complex we are. When we consider the enormous complexity of our physical being, right down to the smallest scales like the Planck scale, where matter and material law cease to exist, still within a single person, it’s just breathtaking!! This complexity includes not just the 86 billion neurons in our brains but goes far beyond, into realms that scientists are still trying to fully understand.
Beside all that, and beneath this physical layer, scientists point to quantum physical processes often claiming to be fundamental to everything. This is just suggesting an immense complexity within us that’s hard to grasp,and no scientists seems to have even understood (agreed on) it concpetually. This quantum world, within just one person, is vast and complicated, a universe in its own right that we’re only beginning to explore.
THen,, philosophers and scientists are exploring concepts out of space-time like Amplituhedrons and Decorated Permutations, which hint at realities existing outside of our normal space-time. Even this observations are just tiny, tiny observation, (still with no observed dynamic to it) of a scientific glimse into an out of space time realm,These ideas open up possibilities of aspects like the “mind” and consciousness existing beyond our physical world. This exploration would naturally includes looking for the “observer” in quantum mechanics which some scientists point at as the basic fundamental. Perhaps it is there we find the concept of soul. Such investigations expand our understanding of consciousness to include its various forms—conscious, unconscious, personal, collective, both local and non-local. The scope of this field is so large that it can be overwhelming, leading to its dismissal by many which even can’t or will not understand this complexity.
(to continue)
)Continued)
This framework could suggests that our souls, possibly connected to a spirit, a life force (from,,,perhaps “somewhere”) , are part of a constantly evolving existence and consciousness. This could include that our physical selves, even how small one might think we are, potentially encompasses part of a unity, or everything.
This viewpoint suggests that our existence is incredibly vast and complex, even if we don’t consider the non-local origin of the “observer” and its role.
So, the journey into understanding our existence not only reveals the physical immensity but also the deep complexity of our consciousness, both in my mind local and non-local and the possibility of realms beyond our current understanding.
I think we could even scholarly be open to the scale of our existence in a new light, not just in physical terms but as part of a vast, interconnected universe of matter, mind, will, soul conciousness, and in my mind probably spirit.
So, in my view, we are “BIG” !
Excellent sermon 🙂 ! I’ve had similar brief nature encounters both awe inspiring and terrifying!
Question, prompted from various sources including your Triumph of Christianity and your posts on your upcoming book:
So, it’s clearly amazing that Christianity “took over” the Roman World in 300 years time. Post 300, it even spread past the borders to Armenia and Georgia. So why didn’t it keep spreading organically outside the empire? Why didn’t it gradually take over the Persian/Parthian empire? Or India? (from the “St. Thomas” Christians in the south). China? Etc.? Thoughts? Has anyone written on this?
Good question. I don’t know. Certainly Christians did go to various spots far away, but I don’t know much of anything about it.
Maybe a another book? 🙂 . Even after reading Triumph of Christianity, I suspect some will still see its spread in the Roman Empire as still nothing short of miraculous. (yeah, Bart wrote this and that, but he doesn’t believe in the supernatural so of course he’ll say such and such … etc.).
Okay, so if the spread of Christianity inside the Empire was miraculous, why did it essentially stop just over the border? Why did whatever worked to turn the hearts and minds of Greco-Roman pagans into Christians not continue in Zoroastrian Culture in the 5th and 6th Centuries or Hindu Culture in the 7th, or Chinese culture in the 8th? What was holding back the Holy Spirit? Or, more likely, what were the socio-cultural factors involved?
Well, they may see it that way. But I don’t see how, if they pay attention to the actual information I give (e.g., the rate of growth over time)
You have to wonder if more people in the greco-roman culture aspired to some kind of salvation than in other parts of the world.
Thanks for the thoughtful essay on not getting egotistical. Puts things in proper perspective. I agree, insignificant as we may be, there are things we can enjoy, and should.
I noticed an odd error, though. In the last line, you mention Ursa Minor, which is correct. The 3 other times you wrote Ursa, however, when you mentioned Ursa Major, it came out as Ursula! Was that the spell checker’s doing?
So, the constellation of the big bear is a female with a cub, the little bear. And now we know her name to; It’s Ursula!
Yup, Ursa, not Ursula! Was thinking of my best friends’ daughter (not an ex-girl-friend) The corruption of the text has now been corrected…. (The spell check was off on a coffee break)
I think it is ALWAYS helpful to put some time & serious thought into contemplating such things – & allowing it to mould how we might, or should, think & behave. In addition to the biblical wisdom cited by Prof Ehrman I often return to Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot re appropriate perspective & response. Another mantra I often recall is never to forget the inescapable life reference points we have in simple biology (incl finiteness of life) and psychology, especially evolutionary psychology. We can NEVER be objective to, or outside, their constraints.
And re significance & meaning themselves? They are not to be found, as some secret pot of gold for a favoured few, presented to us by Another. We are to grow up, not expect to be spoon fed all our lives, and take responsibility for working out / making sense & meaning out of the one life we get – & living consistently with that, until we die. Ecclesiastes is on the right track!
I’m new to your blog, Dr. Ehrman. Thank you for the work you do and for sharing it with all of us
Best Regards,
Bill Phillips
Welcome to the blog!
Enjoyed the post very much. I think the constellation is Ursa Major. The only Ursula of fame I suspect was an A list Swedish actress named Ursula Andress.
Greg B
Yup, Ursa, not Ursula! Was thinking of my best friends’ daughter (not my ex-girl-friend) The corruption of the text has now been corrected….
Your post on “Significance” was beautiful. I would even say, “moving.” And I must admit it led me to wonder how you can experience creation in the ways you describe and yet believe that there was/is no un-caused causal (called God or whatever term you wish) and that it all happened and happens by random chance and the workings of “natural” forces, however they came to be. Have you really completely lost your faith?
Oh yes, I don’t think we need a Creator in order to stand in awe before what we see and experience. We evolved precisely (in part) in order to appreciate it! It’s part of being who we are.
IMHO it’s actually the *crucial* part of “being who we are.” It’s the very point of our “being” here at all. Whether we recognize the Creator or just the creation, what matters is that we “stand in awe” because *that* is what we came here to “see and experience.” (And how BTW does this capacity for transcending insight convey any adaptive, evolutionary advantage?)
Sheep and goats will get their just desserts — notwithstanding their appreciation (or not) of how what they do (or not) creates their own fate.
Merely proclaiming belief in a Creator will ring hollow, even for those who prophesy or cast out demons or do mighty works in His name.
If one of your sons promises to tend the vineyard but then blows off the chore, while the other one grumbles and complains (and even defiantly refuses!), but then does it, which one came through for you?
So go ahead and take Pascal’s denarii, Dr. Ehrman. By helping provide food to the hungry and shelter for the homeless, you’re going to win the bet either way.
In never passing up an opportunity in every forum to pronounce himself both an atheist and an agnostic, the professor doth protest too much, methinks. 😏
Right. Well, I’ll win as long as the Muslims aren’t right. Or the guy my dad knew who said that anyone not baptized in his particular church (not demonimation; church!) would go to hell…
I know very little about Islam — other than that its followers seem to aspire to live in the 7th century, and its fanatics are suicidally devoted to imposing their Divine “Truth” on the rest of the world.
Is this imperious “We’re right, therefore, everyone else be damned” mindset peculiar to the Abrahamic religions of Judaism (God’s “Chosen People”) and its progeny of Christianity (“No one comes to the Father but by me”) and Islam (“There is no God but God, and Mohammed is His prophet”)?
I don’t recall such condescending exclusivism being a part of any other religious tradition. Hinduism and its progeny of Buddhism and Jainism, for example, merely claim to be *a* Way — not *the* Way.
Your dad’s friend was in fact merely an extreme example of the monopoly on salvation averred by ALL Christian denominations. The self-proclaimed followers of the sage who said “Judge not, lest ye be judged” are surely (and ironically) among the most unabashedly judgmental people on earth!
As the late, great satirist, Tom Lehrer, observed in one his pithy tunes:
🎵 All the Protestants hate the Catholics,
And the Catholics hate the Protestants.
All the Hindus hate all the Muslims,
And EVERYBODY hates the Jews! 🎵
🙄
I know this was addressed to Bart and not to anyone else, but the question just triggers me since for the most part of my first fifty years I was trying to find this faith my parents and family were saying I should have. Never could, and I tried hard. Faith is simply an irrational jump of the mind and I cannot understand how the realization of the complexity and vastness of the universe can impose on someone the conclusion that there must be some… person… out there designing all this. I can’t make that mental jump.
Also, there are other options to an external creator.
Yes, we matter to each other.
Whenever I strive for or get a self-satisfied feeling of “bigness”, I come down to earth by a reading of Alexander Pope’s Ode to Solitude. Try it.
Yet in one respect, we are the center of the universe! As I understand it, the earth falls roughly in the middle of the orders of magnitude between the smallest measurement in the universe (the Planck length) and the size of the universe itself
Excellent post! I think the same things, especially looking up at the stars at night. Probably one of the reasons I like astronomy!
Can I post this on my Facebook page? I would give you credit for it of course.
Yup.
The constellation is Ursa Major, you probably have Ursula Andress on your mind. HaHa!
Yup, probalby! The scribal corruptoin has now been corrected!
I grew up in the country and after 40 years in the big city have returned to the country and again enjoy the immense night sky with thousands of stars in front of the Milky Way’s band of stars even further away. Then, to pick out Andromeda and know that if I was there looking back at us the Milky Way would look like a tiny sparkly spiral. The big city is not really so big.
Thank you for sharing a piece of yourself and quotes that mean something to you–like James 4. I have read it before but the whole chapter is now more clear. [I have learned from you and others one must read the whole thing] I could only hope that one day I would have found the advice that “…a living dog is better than a dead lion.” Priceless!!!
Interesting. Makes me realize how the old testament is intricated into our preconception that matter (space and time) precedes consciousness. Einstein’s 1905 papers shot a hole into that paradigm, to his dismay. Space and time are no longer absolutes, with an existence independent from the observer.
If space, time and thus matter emerge from consciousness, and not the other way around, then we matter a lot. More so if this consciousness is a universal consciousness, which would make us ways with which it experiences the world. Anyways…
A growing number of western scientists and philosophers are migrating towards such a paradigm. Schopenhauer was not the first.
Just figured I would share a few idle ruminations, watching the stars, thinking about lthe meaning of our existences…
The partial answer to the question of how to understand the size of the universe is exponents, but from there the answer is still mindboggling. Here is link to a marvelous video called Powers of Ten:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0&t=30s
Deeply moving and beautifully written. Thank you for sharing your reflections and ruminations. They struck a deep chord with me, as I feel same insignificance but also attempts to make my short and tiny life (relative to the universe) mean something positive.
In the words of Livia Soprano, “It’s all a big nothing.” The only shred of good that we can convey is in our lessening of someone’s suffering or helping someone enjoy some of their brief moments of life.
Dr. Ehrman, I have recently been thinking about John 14:6 and wondering about “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me”. If taken literally and interpreted dogmatically, it can be used in an exclusionary way to say that unless you accept and follow Jesus, you cannot know God (the Father). This would seem to be bad news for tens of millions in the non-Christian world. I personally don’t believe that a loving, all-powerful, all-knowing, merciful God would establish “belief in Jesus” as a gatekeeper requirement to knowing God. What is your take on these words of Jesus?
Yes, roughly 6 billion people in the world. And the vast majority of everyone who has ever lived. Some Christian thinkers who say that this is not to be read in an exclusionary way, but to say that because of Jesus’ death, those who live in the way the God of Israel would want (helping those in need and being good persons, e.g.) would be made right with God, even if the ydidn’t know or believe in him (think: Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25).
New to this blog, and really enjoying it!
I’m 77, and if I ever I think about an afterlife or my place in the great scheme of things, it is this: all the matter and energy currently configured as “me” will be recycled by the universe according to its own laws. Maybe it will go into building rocks, soil, trees, all the wonderful things I see in nature (even bears).
Made up Christian human “heaven” sounds like eternal boredom – no thanks!
Great thoughts and that verse has always been special to me, despite no longer being a Christian.
One thing that I keep in mind when I feel “small” on the grand cosmological scale is that as many times as we can zoom out to the stars and galaxies and beyond, we can also zoom in. From the cell to the atom to the smallest sub-atomic particles. The same cosmological scale that makes us small also makes us very large. Of course this is looking through more of a scientific lens than a philosophical one, but it still gives me a bit of comfort.
Yup, I agree. A bit freaky how big big is and how small is.
I often think about the relative importance of the Big Bang and the evolution of human consciousness. Which is more important? Brian Swimme, I think, refers to human consciousness as where the universe becomes self aware. Now that’s msking us humans BIG. The Greeks had two symbols for this puzzle: chaos and cosmos. Cosmos means order or perhaps harmony while chaos means precisely what it means to us. Cosmos is order created out of chaos. Our modern scientific instruments allow us to see farther out in space and further back in time. We see that the universe is expanding. But into what. It can’t be nothing. It’s chaos. We’re in the same boat as the ancient Greeks, finding order out of chaos. Is that order inherently in the universe or do we humans create this order out of the chaos of trillions of galaxies? It’s unforgivable hubris to imagine our puny attempts at understanding somehow constitute eternal meaning. But we seem to be driven to find meaning anyway, don’t we.
With so many comments will you get to mine? Whatever the case, I will say, Thanks for this post Bart. My sister passed this week and so your post touched me deeply. Thanks for all you do. Know I think of you as a bright light in the world and that what you do makes a difference. Blessings for the light you carry and share. Onward….
I am so sorry to hear about your sister. Please accept my sincere condolences. I hope you and your family are finding the comfort and support youneed.
I’m really enjoying this blog conversation. Very interesting topic!