Just heard this on an Australian TV show - Andrew Denton was interviewing Dame Elizabeth Murdoch, and she repeated this quote:
It struck me as capturing something I had felt, but not always been able to express neatly. I thought perhaps some on this message board might also like it (we seem to have a fair number of non-religious people here).
Google tells me it is from a book called *The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason * by Sam Harris.
(… and I need to learn to check for typos in the title before I post)
Carl Sagan also had some wonderful quotes about the beauty of the universe without religion, but this one (probably already familiar to many here) is my all time favorite: “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”
Beautiful quote, but one word bothers me: “creation”. It implies a creator, by whatever name. So why the mention of an unneeded god in the same quote ? The world has not been created IMHO (but this is another matter).
(Gymnopithys is also a strange bird)
Carl Sagan was always great at being able to express what was so awesome about the universe and its many intricacies all by itself. I’ve never been religious yet I’ve always been fascinated by the beauty, immensity, complexity and raw power that’s going on all around us, which has given me a lifelong interest in astronomy and cosmology, and watching Cosmos was a big part of that. I didn’t really learn about Douglas Adams until into my adult life and the advent of the Internet.
I think that’s one of the reasons creationists tend to stick in my craw as firmly as they do; ignoring everything science has already proven beyond any shadow of a doubt is just willful ignorance and stupidity and seems to suggest that “ordinary” modern religion has strayed too far away from the biblical accreditation of all of creation to God. Because, you know, adapting one’s thinking to accommodate new discoveries that prove old beliefs wrong is bad.
“The ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ is a condition of the heart—not something that comes ‘upon the earth’ or ‘after death’…The ‘Kingdom of God’ is not something one waits for; it has no yesterday or tomorrow, it does not come ‘in a thousand years’—it is an experience within a heart; it is everywhere, it is nowhere…”
I actually like that the word “creation” is used. To start with, the universe does plenty of creating without need of a conscious hand do create it. Stars form all on their own from cosmic dust and the basic rules of physics and thermodynamics. Stars cluster around black holes, feed it until it becomes massive enough to attract millions and even billions of them to form galaxies. Nebulas form from dying stars, main sequence stars gather dust and debris and gases to form protoplanetary discs which form into planets … all shaped without any consciousness.
But the use of the word “creation” in a quote meant to obviate the need for a supreme being in order to appreciate the universe for what it is subverts the term from its use in religion. Referring to the “heavens” as creation in a non-religious context that creation itself is not a fundamentally religious concept and need not have anything to do with the machinations of a supreme being.
I have to disagree with this. Things interact in nature all the time, resulting in new entities. That’s how we, and everything around us, came to be. That is creation . . . and religious people don’t own that word.
Mindfield“To start with, the universe does plenty of creating without need of a conscious hand do create it. Stars form all on their own from cosmic dust and the basic rules of physics and thermodynamics. Stars cluster around black holes, feed it until it becomes massive enough to attract millions and even billions of them to form galaxies. Nebulas form from dying stars, main sequence stars gather dust and debris and gases to form protoplanetary discs which form into planets … all shaped without any consciousness.”
If “things” have always existed, as I believe, they are evolving, not being created, as you just explained.
I like to say that I “see god in my garden”. Maybe I had that Douglas Adams quote racketing around in the back of my head, without actually remembering it.
I’m not sure I’d agree with that. Stars and planets are formed from cosmic dust particles, which seems to meet the criteria of something being created; they did not evolve from a single dust partcle, which is inanimate and incapable of evolving, but are an accretion of dust particles which, in the case of stars, achieve such size and density that the particles begin to fuse.
I suppose you could argue that black holes are evolutionary after a fashion, and by tenuous extension, so are galaxies, but I have a tough time applying the concept of evolution to non-biological entities, as the creation and progression of stages of an entity is entirely based upon the physical properties of the universe rather than any biological imperative.
A couple that I like. I don’t know the source of the first one.
“Sometimes the questions are more powerful than the answers.”
“Not knowing is much more interesting than believing an answer which might be wrong.” Richard Feynman
“Through our eyes the universe is perceiving itself.” Alan Watts
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.” Albert Einstein
“The universe is not just stranger than we imagine; it’s stranger than we can imagine.” J.B.S. Haldane
“We sense we are right in the middle of something infinitely wonderful, and the more we try to understand it, the more amazing it seems to be. It’s in our nature to keep going out and pushing the limits of the known until we come to a new edge. Naming what’s beyond seems to help accommodate that which cannot be understood.” Robert Fulghum
Last but not least, according to Ralph Estling, here’s what God Herself had to say about it:
“On the subject of My Divine Essence, Character, Attributes, Inclinations, Motives, Philosophy, Politics, and modus operandi, especially as regards what are vulgarly referred to as miracles, and even more especially as regards My hypothesized role in Universe Construction where, so it has been alleged, I, in the form of a bipedal primate outwardly resembling an elderly and bearded male Homo sapiens sapiens, created The Universe for the amusement and edification of men, I would like to state that I am rather inclined to take a dim view of all people, of whatever persuasion, voicing opinions on Me, for the simple reason that as I am ineffable and exist beyond all human comprehension in no particular spatio-temporal relation to the physical cosmos, all opinions about Me are meaningless, when not actually insulting, and, what is worse, are tiresomely predictable, especially to one Who knows all things, reflecting as they do only the outlooks and attitudes of these, My unsolicited and intellectually and imaginatively limited interpreters who, if they ever really thought about Me, would be more inclined to keep silent.”
Another Douglas Adams quote: “There is a theory which states that if ever for any reason anyone discovers what exactly the Universe is for and why it is here it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another that states that this has already happened.”
The thought that we need quotes to point out that atheists can accept the beauty and mystery in our world is rather odd to me, not that I don’t appreciate them, because I do. However, I’ve always thought that folks that believed that God formed man out of clay suffered from a severe, near pathological lack of imagination.
Really? That is the best they could come up with? I can shape crap out of mud, granted, the breath of life is a tad trickier, although I gave birth, so ya know…anyway, our world and the vast, varied and amazing life that exists on ONLY this planet (so far) is mesmerizing, befuddling, fascinating and odd.
Heck, my intro to anthropology class taught us about the Yanomamo who believe that we come from the blood of the moon. That is better than mud pies.
Think of all the accolades that Avatar is receiving for the visual effects. Even I recognized many things that exist in nature being used to good effect in that film. Heck, I even had the little feather duster thingies in my fish tank. The most amazing things we can think of can not even hold a candle to the least amazing things we have yet to discover.