Tuesday, January 14, 2025 at 1:48 PM

My friend, and a mentor of mine, Paul Pliester, sent me this email that has only added to my curiosity about our existence, life, and earth’s relationship with the rest of the universe. Paul writes, and I quote: “In the last few years it has become obvious that the universe is far larger and older than we had any notion of. In fact, new theory suggests that it may easily consist of many enormous universes, side by side, perhaps with a different set of balanced forces. It suggests that the universe has always existed and always will, as incomprehensible as that might seem.”  He goes on to examine religious beliefs and what Jesus would have said if he were aware of the size and scope of our universe.

According to science and physics and again scientific discoveries made in just the last 20 years, we know almost nothing about the vastness, the scope and the complexity of what we consider to be the universe. It is said that we are only aware of about 15% of the size of the universe. We do know about the billions of planets, the black holes that suck in stars, depriving them of any light. This mysterious dark matter that expands as the universe expands, and is mostly unexplainable. But on a whole we are just now discovering facts about our universe, through the Hubble telescope, and more recently, the James Webb telescope, which is taking us all the way back to the supposed birth of the universe 13.5 billion years ago! Wat a ting!

We know, scientifically and factually, how our little planet evolved into what it is today, and also our moon that accompanies it and controls our weather, our tides, our cycles. We also know that prehistoric creatures ruled the world millions of years before we evolved as Homo sapiens; that tectonic plates shift; and asteroids that pummeled earth consistently, shaped this planet into the world we now live on. Until Columbus made the voyage to the Americas, most of the people, including scientists of that time, believed that the world was flat. This is a little over 500 years ago, folks.

Now, we are aware that there are more stars in the universe than every grain of sand on earth. That fact alone should make us realize how little we know about our place in the larger scheme of things. Are we supposed to believe that we are the only living things or beings in a universe we know little or nothing of? Are we to believe all the superstitions that have been passed down orally, or since humans began communicating with each other through writing and in print? Are we so conceited as to believe that this little world of ours is the centre of the universe?

Over the last half of a century, we have learned a lot through technology and scientific research and advances, that have overturned much of our antediluvian beliefs about creation and evolution and our place in the universe. It has made us more skeptical of all the fairy tales that were meant to keep us in line, politically and socially and religiously, or were from people that just made stuff up!

And as more advances are made, as we become more aware of our surroundings, the infiniteness, and I mean that in a universal sense, we will become unshackled from the fears that we have lived with all of our lives. I believe that we will start appreciating the beauty and the majesty of this vast unknown we call the universe, and especially of this 3rd rock from the sun, known as earth.

As Paul said at the end of his email, nothing serious here, just random thoughts.

Glen