Just finished watching the terrific 8-part Discovery series "How the Universe Works."
And I'm currently reading Charles Darwin's second great book: "The Descent of Man" (written after the revolutionary "On the Origin of Species," which I read many years ago).
For 22 years, I've been reading and applying the works of the objective philosopher Ayn Rand (morality is discovered through reason and applied via reason).
I've been studying evolution, astronomy, geology and other sciences for 30 years.
Got me to thinking: Do Christians and other mystical peoples EVER watch and/or read this stuff? Do they CARE to know about reality? Do they enjoy living in the dark? Are they afraid to be human? Do they really think there is a Devil who is horny (has horns).
'Cause if they did read/watch all of the above, and they were honest, they could NEVER be Christians.
Our universe began with a "big bang" almost 14 billions years ago and is expanding rapidly (we have proof of this via the Doppler red shit and blue shift of galaxies and stars that were first discovered by Edwin Hubble).
All early primitive people, including Christians (Jesus included) thought (without proof) the universe was just some "stars" and "planets" hanging a few miles above the Earth), and that was it. They all also thought the "heavens' were fixed into place.
The universe is 13.7 billion years old. (we have proof of this number via photon red shift and exploding neutron stars at different distances in the universe)
Many Christians say it's only 6,400 years old. (no proof). Some don't "believe" it's that old.
Our Milky Way galaxy is 12 billion years old, and our solar system (sun and planets) are 4.6 billion years old (we have proof via elemental half-life dating and samples from our Earth, the moon, other planets, asteroids, etc.)
Many Christians say it's all 6,400 years old. (they say that if you count the generations in the Bible, they add up to about 6,400 years). These myopists think everything only began with some certain people being alive about 6,400 years go.
There are currently trillions upon trillions of events occurring in the universe every second that humans can't possibly detect all at once, including exploding volcanoes ever second on the moon Io around Jupiter, spinning neutron stars, exploding supernovae, millions of neutrinos going through your body as I write this, hydrogen turning into helium inside stars, trillions of comets and asteroids dancing around space, dark matter pervading the universe and causing its expansion and ultimate perishing, black holes spitting out gamma rays, gold and silver being created by exploding giant stars (no, it's not Jews who make gold).
Darwin and subsequent scientists have proved that evolution is real and that humanoid type individuals began separating themselves from apes about five million years ago (small amount of time on the cosmic scale, but a large amount of time for the 6,400ers). Modern humans (home sapiens) have only been around for about 200,000 years. Our paths out of Africa are now well known, via the proof of genetic testing (mitochondrial DNA, etc.).
Please see "myopists" comment above for those zany little Christian beliefs in 6,400.
Home sapiens have a rational faculty that was finally understood by Rand, who discovered that that faculty is capable of understanding everything in the universe, including the rational faculty itself. It is capable of hegemony, of running itself perfectly without the aid or intrusion of an outsider (an alleged greater being). It is capable of understanding its own goals, its own means of achieving those goals, of honoring others' rights to their own goals, of realizing that happiness is supposed to be the ultimate meaning for life, of understanding that all things real and good must have a basis in the facts of life (proof).
Christians, et al, think humans are incapable and "fallen," that they need help, that they must surrender their rational faculty to verbiage written or spoken by an alleged being that has no physical form or proof. They believe life is a train of hopeless transgressions, instead of a series of satisfying accomplishments that were humanly and willfully designed.
When supernovae explode, they create nucleosynthesis and spit out the primary elements (what sane person doesn't love the Periodic Chart?) in the universe that are vital to life: hydrogen, helium, oxygen, carbon, iron, gold, nickel, platinum, zinc, neon, silica, silver, uranium, etc. This is the "stardust" they spit out. The oxygen and hydrogen fuse together and populate the universe with water (usually ice crystals in space), huge amounts of it. These ice crystals (usually in the form of comets) bombarded the early Earth about a half-billion years after formation and gave us our oceans and fresh water.
This is the genesis of life, despite the crude and primitive ejaculations of the Bible.
We are the stuff of stars (carbon, water, iron, etc.). We are stardust. And, as evolved rational animals, the universe is now our playground.
It is not the place of make-believe worlds of "good" and "evil." There are no gods in the machine. Our very old universe couldn't care less about what primitive Christians or any other mystics (Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc.) have "faith" in. The universe gets the last laugh.
But us rational stardust-folks get to giggle a good bit along the way to the playground each morning when we arise.
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