Found In the Woods

August 22, 2006

Well put

Filed under: Blogging — bsullivan @ 12:20 pm

Its funny to listen to bono go on about the poor dying and then to read in the paper about dark matter. " the researchers said yesterday that visible and detectable matter, the atoms in everything from gases to stars and elephants, makes up only 5 percent of the matter in the universe. Another estimated 20 percent is subatomic dark matter, which has no discernable qualities except the ability to create gravitational fields and pass through any object without leaving a trace. The rest they said, is the even more mysterious dark energy which fills empty space with a force that appears to negate gravity and push the universe to expand ever faster." When you consider how big the universe is and how long it has been around, and then think about the millions of years that dinosaurs ruled this planet only to be wiped out with no one intelligent enough to mourn them and then contemplate the million years or so that early hominids tried to master fire, stones and other elements only to wiped out 30,000 years ago by homo sapiens who continued to wander the globe aimlessly before establishing a semblance of culture in the last five to six thousand years. Now in the last hundred years we have exploded in population and technological advancement and are finally intellectually evolved to mourn loosing a fraction of our 6.5 billion people. Just 80 years ago this world had 4.5 billion people less.

1 billion was reached in 1802.
2 billion was reached 125 years later in 1927.
3 billion was reached 34 years later in 1961.
4 billion was reached 13 years later in 1974.
5 billion was reached 13 years later in 1987.
6 billion was reached 12 years later in 1999.

The scientific perspective kind of makes you question the whole endeavor. Its not like we are going to become extinct or anything. when I contemplate the true nature of this universe I feel very fatalilistic but I think that this is the beginnings of true faith. To understand how truly insignificant we are and our lives are and yet to believe that God has made them significant in his choice to incarnate in our paltry history. But we should not be mistaken into thinking that God's purpose was to cure our recent and self defined poverty.

Thanks Kevin!

One Response to “Well put”

  1. Kumar Says:

    How can the world be so old when God created it only 5,000 years ago?

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