60,000 years

A

atheroy

Registered Senior Member
i'm not sure how many of you follow the news:p but i think most of you will know mars, last night, was the closest to earth it has been, in 60,000 years. i got a view last night and it was a beaut. nearly three times larger than it is normally, bright too.

what has this got to do with anything here? for the first time ever in human history we have wistnessed an event far beyond ourselves that we would have before neither comprehended or appreciated. i have witnessed an event that for another 60,000 years, will not be duplicated. do i feel special? hell yeah, how often do such things occur that as a people, anyone gets to see?

so what am i driving at? we are not significant. what i saw was much greater than i am, much greater than anyone will ever be. mars' eliptical orbit has brought it that much closer to us, for no reason what-so-ever. so why do we ascribe reason to ourselves? on a planet that we sparsely populate, in a solar system much greater than anything than we can comprehend, in a universe that is many times (already an understatement) greater than anything we will ever know- and yet a small population of animals, on an infinitesimally small collection of dust, has purpose given to them by their beliefs, contrary to the rest (another understatement) of the universe and nature itself.

don't get me wrong, it is slightly depressing (and generally liberating) to think that we have no reason. it's probably the hardest thing i've had to come to terms with in my set of ever changing beliefs, and one that doesn't sit well with most people.

so in reason is purpose and in purpose lies greatness (my opinion). we are none of these things. this is a beef that i have with our thoroughly self-involved species and their set of thoroughly involved beliefs. why would we be "gods glory" or anythings glory when a simple look into the night sky can very quickly affirm ones insignificance, while opening ones eyes to the beauty inherrent in everything around us. we have no impact on this beauty, but we insist on twisting our ideas about what we live in around us to secure our beliefs. it is the plight of the insignificant- how people have the gaul to say things are relative to us confounds me.

but despite what i believe, religion says otherwise to what the universe might bellow. religion is (nearly) wholly transparent to me, if people believe they have a personal connection to the creator of what we live in, please excuse me from being only slightly skeptical. i could be wholly skeptical but that is generally just rude. in an existance that can only be described as brief and unimportant, for us to assume importance delivered by devinity rubs me the wrong way. i won't argue against devinity (despite my reservations), but devinity delivered to us i will argue against.

people here talk about feelings instilled in them by something other than themselves. this idea just feels right to me.

cheers for listening to my rantings,

peace:m:

atheory*

*(what my name was supposed to be, but bad spelling days also confound me;) )
 
Spiritual experiences are certainly not limited to religion -- IMO spirituality can be found in earthly things as well, whether you believe in a deity or not. I would personally classify what you just described as a spiritual experience. While I find myself more disposed to believe in divinity, I certainly agree that experiencing the sheer magnitude of the world can be humbling.
 
To me, spirituality is the way we live out our deepest beliefs, values, and convictions in our daily lives. It is the way through which we search for and find peace and meaning.
 
Atheroy,

I'm a bit concerned to hear your evaluation. How is it that the presence of another heavenly body make you feel insignificant? Do you get the same feeling when you see the stars at night?

You should ponder the fact that you're looking up at all. And in my opinion, the fact that you're looking up makes you very, very important. Look at the planet around you, and how some of these species of life have been around so much longer than we have, yet they are not looking up, wondering what their purpose is. You, my friend, are one of a special group. We are, at worst, a curious speicies which has always, through it's history, wanted to learn about the stars which sprinkle so attractively across the black blanket that covers it.

If there are other intelligent life forms in this universe, one of them would nudge the passenger next to them, smiling, and say "Now Marge, there's one beautiful baby."

Always Look Up,
JD
 
Originally posted by atheroy
so what am i driving at? we are not significant. what i saw was much greater than i am, much greater than anyone will ever be.
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I'd be curious to discover the criteria that renders planetary motion "much greater" than sentience.
 
"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

If they are just experiences, they are not spiritual. It's just biological reactions based on chemicals generated in response to sensory information. But then again, have you ever tried to describe a beautiful sunset scientifically...
 
:bugeye:

What the fuck .... !!!


Jenyar...dude the post is very simple ... There are more larger than life things than we can imagine..and the sand box we play in creating religious castles are insignificant....

I am sorry your post is very confounding and gibberish about beautiful sunset .. which is relative ..it might be beautiful to you might not be to be ... what has that got to do here ...
 
I'm a bit concerned to hear your evaluation. How is it that the presence of another heavenly body make you feel insignificant? Do you get the same feeling when you see the stars at night?
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it's not heavenly bodies that make me feel insignificant, to be honest i don't quite know what heavenly bodies really are. indeed i do feel quite insignificant when i gaze upon a night full of stars, their light having travelled a distance that has no meaning to me. it's the over-whelming immensity of what we live in that strikes me to the core, for a species that is so self involoved in itself, everyone would be a little better off if they took some time to tilt their heads backwards, and accept where we are. everytime i gaze into the milky-way all the crap that goes on on this little planet seems all the more petty. don't get me wrong, quality of life is something to be held precious, something to share, but it's not. people ignore others, people hate people, sure not everyone ones is going to get along, but some human spirit would have a genuine welcome in my book- i don't see why we can't strive towards a utopian vision, yet it's just as apparent that we never will, always humanity will drag us down (and we are no where near close to even starting on that road). i really don't know, ever get the feeling your ahead of your time?

I'd be curious to discover the criteria that renders planetary motion "much greater" than sentience.
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what makes sentience great? i'm talking size here. we will appreciate our existance over anything else, i'm pretty sure i do, but if everyone mellowed out and realised that we aren't particularly important, maybe people would just get along better. perhaps too naive by me, but wouldn't be an awesome place where everyones ambition was to help others?

have you ever tried to describe a beautiful sunset scientifically...
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it's actually not very hard, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but to reverse my track i actually snapped a beautiful, firey(sp?) red sunset about a week ago. it's a good shot if i do say so myself :rolleyes:
 
My point was that a spiritual experience is characterized by its abstract truth. You aren't lying when you say the sunset is beautiful - you have the picture to prove it. Have you ever wondered about the fact that beauty in nature is just an optical effect? Ever felt a beautiful wind? But when you can see the grass and trees sway in it, the whole experience becomes pleasant. If you did not possess that particular sense, the experience would pass you by and you won't even know it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, feeling is in the skin of the receptor, taste is in the tongue of the taster... love is in the heart of the receiver.

But when you try to describe such beauty in another medium, it becomes difficult. In words, you need to use some kind of language, like a poem, or a vivid description. Merely saying the sunset was beautiful hardly conveys the true nature of your experience. If you describe the wavelengths of light, the precise angle of the sun in relation to the axis of the earth, and the composition of the atmosphere at that specific moment, the time and date, your psychological state of mind ... everything down to quantum level - is the truth of your experience still conveyed accurately?

Fot you, the planets and stars instilled a sense of wonder and relationship - you understood our insignificance in comparison to such magnitude. For ConsequentAtheist, it is means nothing more than the relationship between an ant and a rock. You cannot convey the truth of your experience to him without going to great lengths, and even then he could dismiss it as "purely subjective". Are you lying? No. Is he wrong? no. But you miss each other completely. You will continue knowing that moment intimately, and tell everyone who might appreciate it ... if you are an artist, you might be inspired to recreate your experience and people who enjoy art might share it. Or compose a song, put it in music. All are valid ways of expressing the truth and your message - your relationship with what you identified with. But if the medium, or even you, have no meaning or importance to someone, they will walk by without a second thought, or even shoot you down because they beg to differ...
 
Atheroy,

it's not heavenly bodies that make me feel insignificant, to be honest i don't quite know what heavenly bodies really are.
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By "heavenly bodies" I meant planets, comets and the sort.

it's the over-whelming immensity of what we live in that strikes me to the core,
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Agreed. And from what science tells us, we are only growing more distant from our neighbors as the universe expands. It's sad, really, that a species so willing to venture out amongst the stars has been born in a time not condusive to reaching out, if for no other reason than the ever-expanding distances between ourselves and any candidate for intelligent life.

everytime i gaze into the milky-way all the crap that goes on on this little planet seems all the more petty
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Even when I first thought of it, or whenever someone said what you just did, I never thought of us as petty. (I suppose my mentality in this case goes right along with my never believing in God, ever, even as a child in church) Maybe I don't see us that way because I am here, and this is all I have. Maybe because my problems are so small in comparison to the problems of this world are so small, yet they seem so large to me, that calling the world's problems insignificant would be selling my own struggles short. Whatever the case is, I know that just because we are, by comparison, so tiny and far away from anything else doesn't make us unimportant or petty.

Think of it this way: If we are given enough time, we will have an impact on the universe, one way or another, good or bad.

people ignore others, people hate people, sure not everyone ones is going to get along, but some human spirit would have a genuine welcome in my book- i don't see why we can't strive towards a utopian vision,
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Well, that is human nature. It's the "group mentality" problem. One person might hate the system, and want to fight the system, but for the good of himself and his family, he will smile as he shakes the hand of the system. That same person, in a group of like-minded men and women, will most likely attack the system, and try to destroy it.

I imagine that nearly everyone stops and wonders about our place in the universe, or at least their own place in the grand scheme of things. But very few individuals achive a societal change for the better, simply because once they become a part of the group, their focus and mentality changes as it melds with the rest of the individuals'.

i really don't know, ever get the feeling your ahead of your time?
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Again, I imagine almost everyone has that same feeling. It's just that once they re-join the group...

Jenyar,

If I'm reading your post correctly, you're not responding to Atheroy's post, right? I assumed that you were responding to coolsoldier's, right? If I am, and you are arguing against his opinion that spiritual experiences don't have to be religious...

Why can't what you've said be applied to your religion? With what coolsoldier considers to be spiritual, he can feel it, taste it, touch it, understand it, be one with it. Same goes for your religion. You hear it, read it, touch it's shrines and idols, light it's candles, pray at it's altars, confess to it's dignitaries. How is it different?

If I may digress for a moment, at least the experiences with coolsoldier's spirituality are appreciated in that moment, as opposed to waiting on a promise that you are supposed to see in the afterlife. His spirituality is beautiful now , which is, for all any of us know, is all that there is.

JD
 
jd, cheers for the contrasting thoughts, this last week here has been the best i've gotten out of my time at sciforums.

By "heavenly bodies" I meant planets, comets and the sort.
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lol my bad. i thought you might mean that.


Agreed. And from what science tells us, we are only growing more distant from our neighbors as the universe expands. It's sad, really, that a species so willing to venture out amongst the stars has been born in a time not condusive to reaching out, if for no other reason than the ever-expanding distances between ourselves and any candidate for intelligent life.
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i actually found out something very interesting that i didn't know was happenin- it's not quite the case for us, i'll get the stuff down that i read then post it here. surprised me, reckon it'll surprise you too :D

Even when I first thought of it, or whenever someone said what you just did, I never thought of us as petty. (I suppose my mentality in this case goes right along with my never believing in God, ever, even as a child in church) Maybe I don't see us that way because I am here, and this is all I have. Maybe because my problems are so small in comparison to the problems of this world are so small, yet they seem so large to me, that calling the world's problems insignificant would be selling my own struggles short. Whatever the case is, I know that just because we are, by comparison, so tiny and far away from anything else doesn't make us unimportant or petty
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yeah, i don't know, i know people have got much greater problems than i do, if i ever get to a position where i can help i will (despite being the realist that i am). but in the end all our problems could be solved under a collective effort, it just probably won't happen.

Think of it this way: If we are given enough time, we will have an impact on the universe, one way or another, good or bad.
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lets hope good aye, i would be horribly disappointed if we destroyed this beautiful planet before its time was up
 
atheroy,
I understand how you could feel insignificant when thinking about the vastness of the known universe (nevermind beyond that), and all the forces at work in it.
I have felt it myself many times.

However, like most anything else, significance is relative to the point of view of the observer.
Human beings are the only species we know of that can willfully greatly change and affect his environment.
Since we are effectively tied to the environment of earth (save a few lucky ones that travel in near space) we are the most significant species in our environment.
Sadly we use that immanse power (relatively speaking, of course ;) ) to negatively affect our envirnment more often than not.

The power we have (and should take more advantage of) is to positively affect our immediate surroundings.
With technological advances racing along at the exponential rate they have been, that power will expand further and further out into space (unless, of course we destroy ourselves first).

I think the most likely scenario would be us growing too fast for our britches (and given mankind's history of irresponsibility, short-sightedness and greed) and space will fall prey to a larger scale version of urban sprawl (also due in a large part to man's knowledge of his cosmic insignificance and desire to be a God).

However, that doesn't HAVE to happen.
For the most part I am wary at best, and hateful at worst, of technological "progress", but I know it is inevitable, and I hope, we at least learn to use it responsibly.

(I am good for going off on tangents today. Effect of short attention span and boredom at work, I guess.)
 
:DGood grief :D
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i know, i know:eek: lol

Sadly we use that immanse power (relatively speaking, of course ) to negatively affect our envirnment more often than not.
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i get caught up in the size of space, and sometimes question why the hell i'm here when i can't do anything to change anything on our planet, small as it is, small as we are. it's something rather depressing at times.

yeah, i don't know why humans are such destructive people. thats why i say look to the stars, be reminded of where we lie, mellow out, forget the ambitions of taking over nations, becoming powerful or whatever (it would be nice if you could do something positive with it though), and focus on ambitions of helping each other. this isn't some socialist bullcrap (human nature has proven that to be a most uneffective idea) it's more like you say, we gotta get to a good place otherwise we'll destroy ourselves and our planet. it would be a whole lot better if people were more accepting of other people who are of different cultures.

i'll excuse your tangents, lol, everyone does it here. i'm too tired to care anyway, its been a long week.
 
Unreasonable truth

Originally posted by JDawg
If I'm reading your post correctly, you're not responding to Atheroy's post, right? I assumed that you were responding to coolsoldier's, right? If I am, and you are arguing against his opinion that spiritual experiences don't have to be religious...

Why can't what you've said be applied to your religion? With what coolsoldier considers to be spiritual, he can feel it, taste it, touch it, understand it, be one with it. Same goes for your religion. You hear it, read it, touch it's shrines and idols, light it's candles, pray at it's altars, confess to it's dignitaries. How is it different?

If I may digress for a moment, at least the experiences with coolsoldier's spirituality are appreciated in that moment, as opposed to waiting on a promise that you are supposed to see in the afterlife. His spirituality is beautiful now , which is, for all any of us know, is all that there is. JD
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I started out addressing coolsoldier, and maybe atheroy's post a bit, but it was actually just one of my own tangents :) I develop these spider's webs and then see what sticks to them and what doesn't - hope you don't mind too much. I'm not forcing anybody to read them (except maybe ConsequentAtheist - he can't help but read them ;)).

I'm glad you made the connection I was getting at. Some things might be true in all their glory, and we might still have trouble relating them - catching them and making those truths presentable. I realize I use the word truth outside its general usage, but surely something that can be experienced with complete validity isn't a lie. Religion often gets attacked for not being "scientific" or "reasonable", but I have never seen why God should conform to a field it isn't contained in. If anything, science can be contained in religion, but otherwise, science is just a graveyard for dead religions. Of course there are some very absurd religions and beliefs, but in the end everybody is looking for a God that has been revealing himself since He created the universe. Everybody finds bits and pieces and try to puzzle Him together, but when God spoke nobody listened. People are tuned to many things, but usually "god" is just what they see in the mirror, or hear when they sing in the shower. His Word gets drowned in a cacophony of 2 billion deities.

If God does indeed exist, and His nature is something abstract like the nature of beauty or love - unseen but very real - I don't understand how science could describe Him, since true science limits itself to observable, repeatable testing. Even at its most basic, no one sunset is repeatable in its original form. And no history is either; you can't cross the same river twice, even though it is still for all intents and purposes the same exact river.

I really and truly believe God exists. You can ask me how, why, where, what contains my certainty - but I won't have any more proof than atheroy has for his experience of a sunset or the cosmos. Even if his camera had the strength and accuracy of the Hubble telescope, it still would not convey the essential truth of his experience - it will just be another glossy postcard to everybody else. A postcard Bible for one person is a record of experience for another. The writings of people whose certainty was contained in God.

If only truth weren't also in the eye of the beholder... but that's why we have science - The Single Soul Proprietor of "truth". That thought depresses me much more than my relative size or significance to things great or small.

We are small in God's creation, but His creation is great in us.
 
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Re: Unreasonable truth

Originally posted by Jenyar
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We are small in God's creation, but His creation is great in us.
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(Of course, you are wrong once again. Your statement should read: We are great in God's creation, because the One Spirit of God dwells in us making us One with God.)
 
Re: :bugeye:

Originally posted by Guru
Jenyar...dude the post is very simple ... There are more larger than life things than we can imagine..and the sand box we play in creating religious castles are insignificant....
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Could it perhaps be the other way around, and the vast universe is looking at us as the first ever life, the fruit of it's billions of years of operation, the cream of the crop of existance, the most accomplishment of the universe.

Looking at either evolution and creation stories, life seems to be the state of the art accomplishment of this universe, and thus such beautifull fruit must have a great purpose.
 
Originally posted by atheroy
so what am i driving at? we are not significant. what i saw was much greater than i am, much greater than anyone will ever be.
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Why do you judge significance with the size? Do you think that MARS was able to see us back and say, what a bunch of little insignificant creatures....No...MARS is a piece of dead rock that is less significant than an ant. MARS have no opinions, no feelings, no way of flying to the moon or developing science and theory.

Originally posted by atheroy
mars' eliptical orbit has brought it that much closer to us,
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Even you said that the orbit brought it to us, so MARS is nobody, just a piece of rock that revolves around an orbit.

Originally posted by atheroy
for no reason what-so-ever.
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Who said no reason what so ever. Mars is travelling at orderly speed at an orderly revlolution per minute. Perhaps Mars purpose is to stay in order and survive and not clash with another planet....survival is a good purpose, and I'd say the planets orderly movement is for the purpose of their survival and avoiding chaos and crash.
 
Why do you judge significance with the size? Do you think that MARS was able to see us back and say, what a bunch of little insignificant creatures....No...MARS is a piece of dead rock that is less significant than an ant. MARS have no opinions, no feelings, no way of flying to the moon or developing science and theory.
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:) ok, ok, i'll try and clarify myself a little bit more. when i meant size i mean comparative size. all the bs that goes on in this world annoys me because what some struggle for is significance, while stepping on and destoying others toes. if everyone sat back and said "hold on, why hurt people in the pursuit of personal significance when we aren't significant to anyone but ourselves", people would be better off for it. if people got over selfish ambitions and just decided to help instead of hinder each other, just imagine the places we could get to.

Even you said that the orbit brought it to us, so MARS is nobody, just a piece of rock that revolves around an orbit.
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of course i did, it's my point of view. my point was that who actually appreciates what is happening? this is an event 60,000 years in the making- do you know of how many people have come since the last time it happened? and for the first time ever what proption of all those who have lived on this planet will see it and understand it? our lives are fleeting, yet you bestow great importance on yourself over something much greater (in terms of time) than of that of yourself.

Who said no reason what so ever. Mars is travelling at orderly speed at an orderly revlolution per minute. Perhaps Mars purpose is to stay in order and survive and not clash with another planet....survival is a good purpose, and I'd say the planets orderly movement is for the purpose of their survival and avoiding chaos and crash.
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the point here was that we ascribe ourselves purpose (reason) when basically everything else doesn't have reason (first you say mars is a piece of dead rock then assign it purpose? please be a bit more constant in your ideas:p ). what makes us so important to have some kind of purpose when we are but tiny little organisms on a tiny little planet, when nothing else has purpose? do we live outside the natural bounds of this universe? or as a species are we blowing our own horns to make ourselves feel important? i believe the latter, and religion is just the manifestation of our belief in our own importance.
 
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