Hubble photo of deep space is naturally divine

There's no reason, none at all, to look for divinity in a holy book, person, building, or icon. The Hubble space telescope's Ultra Deep Field photograph of the farthest reaches of space contains more authentic mystery and awe than any religious dogma.

And readers of the Sunday comics were exposed to it last weekend, thanks to Opus.

Berkeley Breathed, Opus' creator, points to the craziness of considering that we humans are the center of the cosmos. Science has revealed, in countless ways, that the Earth and everything on it is just a part of the whole called Universe.

A very small part. Very, very, very small.

Seeking humility? Embrace science, not religion. Religious believers hold that God looks with special fondness upon the members of Homo sapiens, that we are made in the image of the Creator, that we occupy a pinnacle at the top of creation.

Well, I doubt very much that this is so, since the universe is vastly over-designed if its purpose is to showcase you and me.

The Hubble telescope was trained on a minute speck of space for about a million seconds, 11.3 days of viewing time. As described in this 2004 news release, 800 exposures were taken of a seemingly almost empty small section of sky.

How small? The Opus comic describes it as the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length. Alternatively, science writer Chet Raymo explained it this way.

Take two pins or sewing needles and, at arm's length, cross them. The small square where the two pins overlap is approximately the visual area represented by the Hubble Ultra Deep Field photograph.

There are about ten thousand galaxies in the image. Ten thousand. An average galaxy has around 100 billion stars. Ten thousand times a hundred billion. That's a lot of stars. Many of which surely have planets. Of which some sustain life. Where, I bet, beings much more sentient than us ponder the nature of the universe in a much wiser fashion than we do.

For we humans are, by and large, completely clueless about our place in the grand scheme of things. Back in my health policy days, I used to give quite a few talks on health care rationing, death with dignity, and other subjects.

I remember going to the medical school in Portland to speak. I asked a class, "does anyone know how many galaxies there are in the universe?" I figured that these science students were good candidates to have an approximate answer. I figured wrong. No one even hazarded a guess.

It's at least 100 billion. Galaxies, not stars. Each of which, remember, has about a hundred billion stars. A hundred billion times a hundred billion. That's more than a lot. It's inconceivable.

Like how God is supposed to be. Except, the universe is really real. The whole sky is 12.7 million times larger than the tiny deep space speck of it photographed by the Hubble telescope. Yet that infinitesimal bit contains at least 10,000 galaxies.

And we're on a planet orbiting one of several hundred billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, which is 100,000 light years in diameter, another impossible-to-conceive-of number, but which pales in comparison to the 13.7 billion light year distance from us to the edge of the observable universe.

Observable. Not the whole thing.

So come on, religious true believers who consider that your faith knows What It Is All About. Get real. You don't. You haven't even got a glimmer of understanding of what It is, not to mention what It is About.

I'm deeply grateful to live in a time when humans can point a telescope at a minute speck of sky and reveal a hint of the universe's nature. I called it "divine."

That's just a word. But it's a fitting word. For if anything is going to fill us with a sense of divinity, of how marvelous it is to be existent, alive, and conscious, it's the Whole Thing – Universe.

Comments

[Collin]

Truly, a brilliant picture...

Sweet site... definitely my kind of stuff.

:)

[researcher seeker]

"Like how God is supposed to be. Except, the universe is really real."

Is the universe real? Maybe it is just an illusion and nothing more that consciousness revealing itself. Without an observer does it even exist?

As far as “like how god is supposed to be.” God has been made in man’s image due to a variety of factors. One being our lack of knowing reality whatever that is and another our own self-deception. Of course our self-deception is due to our lack of knowing or unawareness of reality. There would be no you or me without our lack of knowing or our self-deception.

Are we the center of the universe? Maybe every observer is the center of the universe. The great challenge appears to be discovering that we are that that is expressing itself as perceived individual entities. How else could oneness express itself and know itself without the illusion that we are separate and unique individuals.

The illusion even gets better in that most people believe they are not only separate from one another but have absolute free will to put themselves in a place they call hell for eternity. That would be like this isness putting itself in hell for eternity. Ouch!

A master said something to the effect what you do to the least of my people you do to me. Appears to be pretty good teaching.

I wonder if capitalists that are out to maximize profits at any cost ever take that teaching into serious consideration.

[dave]

most of those capitalists are of the christian faith so I am sure they take that teaching very seriously.

after all jesus was a capitalist.

[Cypher]

Yes that's beautiful. I love cosmology. There are no for sure answers to fundamental questions. It just gets more mystical the farther we follow the logic. Enstein and many since, spectulate that this universe is expanding into another dimension. You know, if space time is expanding, what is it expanding into ? Then can time/space be transcended ?

Also, does size matter? Intelligent life is the most complexed thing known in the universe, it's not the biggest.

I often agree w/ some cosmologist that perhaps light is equivalent to spirit in this universe/dimensional configuration. Since all life comes from the sun and light is the conveyer of all information and the source of all action and everything is made of light, the ultimate form/expression of energy. Such a proposition doesn't violate physics either. The photon is perhaps the "legal loop hole" thru which spirit becomes material.

Probably not. I'll go meditate on it!! - Perhaps i'll "see the light".. :0))

Louie

ps. I think you mean a millon seconds not minutes. A million minutes is about 694 days.

[Cyfer]

R. Seeker said

"Is the universe real? Maybe it is just an illusion and nothing more that consciousness revealing itself. Without an observer does it even exist?"

to be honest, and after much thought, i think it may be a dream like thing. Why ? because, taking the truth of relativity a step further, nothing can possibly exist w/o an observer. It take two to make a reality, - always.

[Greg Grimer]

How can an all powerful God "over design" the universe? He might have put it there just because he enjoys looking at it spinning around, supernovaing and watching gamma ray bursts.

Over design is only meaningful to people with limited time and resources. God could make a billion such universes before breakfast by simply willing them into existence.

The reason humans think we are special is because God became man and died for us, in order that we could share in his glorious creation eternally. That might be a heck of a concept, but it's a lot more joyful optimistic and out there than becoming worm poop and then star-dust.

That concept also defined the peaceful society you live in, the culture, laws and pretty much everything you know and are. So don't be too quick to dismiss it, unless you know for sure the thing you are replacing it with is better and will produce happiness. Turn me into an atheist and I might turn you, or your children, into soyent green. Stalin did after all. So did Mao and Hitler.