Look Up #2

This picture, entitled Galaxies in Pegasus (copyright Dietmar Hagar), is from one of my favorite sites, Astronomy Picture of the Day.

The large galaxy on the upper right is known as NGC 7331. (Poetic, no?) It's 50 million light-years away.

It's not just our own Milky Way galaxy that's headed for eventual collision with another galaxy (Andromeda.) Take a look at the grouping in the lower left of the picture.

"The disturbed looking group of galaxies at the lower left is well-known as Stephan's Quintet. About 300 million light-years distant, the quintet dramatically illustrates a multiple galaxy collision, its powerful, ongoing interactions posed for a brief cosmic snapshot."

Every living thing in that quintet of galaxies had a very bad day back then. I'm talking extinction events all over the place. I guess by now the quintet has formed itself into one great galactic mass. If any stargazers were left, they'd be quite confused. I hope they're a little more poetic than ours.

Look Up

[speaking in frightfully posh British accent]

Good morning, Class. [adjusts monocle] Today we're going to watch a veddy interesting four-minute video of Sir Patrick Moore discussing, with Prof. Derek Ward Thompson and Prof. Carlos Frenka, the eventual collision of our own Milky Way Galaxy with the nearby Andromeda Galaxy. [wags finger, chuckles slightly] Do not be frightened, children. Although galaxies are bashing into each other all the time, this particular collision won't occur for at least another three billion years. However, when it does ... [frowns, lowers voice] everyone in both galaxies will undoubtedly have a veddy, veddy bad day. [brightens] Ahem. Well then. Let's watch, shall we?



Do have a nice day. Class dismissed.
Oh yes, please review related material, here. Cheerio.

Post post

I love the responses from everyone to the last post - thank you! I'll respond here instead of in Comments.

Mary Ellen raises the point that Jesus, like George Washington, was a real historical person, and not an invention. Of course that's right, and I'm sorry for not being more clear. I did not mean to imply that historical persons were inventions, only the theology that surrounds them. Was Jesus the Son of God? Was Buddha The Enlightened One? Was Mohammad God's Holy Prophet? These are theological questions. (The "Big Hairy Thunderer," along with Zeus and Oden, for example, are inventions, however.) The theology that is connected to deity(ies) is the part that is man-made. I am sensitive to the fact that people who are devoted to any one of these are sincere and fervent in their belief that, for example, Jesus is the Messiah. That is a matter of faith, and it is quite profound and very personal. (I know; I've been there.) It is faith, not fact. You could not prove it to a Muslim any more than a Muslim could prove to you that Jesus was not divine, but only a minor prophet. If any of this could be proved, we wouldn't have had all these wars over it. What I want to point out is that the theology that surrounds religious figures was invented. For example, it wasn't until almost 400 years after the death of Jesus that the church fathers sat down and decided which books to include, and to exclude, in a bible. Over the centuries since that time, people kept killing each other over the contents of that book, a book which was put together by committee.

Dan wondered if my post was saying that religion serves no real purpose to humanity. Tom Harper mentioned the question over whether or not religion is "hard-wired" into us. Garnie says now she wants to go read more Joseph Campbell. Randal says this (religion) is a way of explaining things. I think all of these comments are tied together. We don't know yet if humanity is hard-wired for religion. What seems evident is that intelligent beings want to explain things - they are intelligent enough to ask questions and speculate about the answers. As Niose's article pointed out, there is evidence that even Neanderthals had religion. Joseph Campbell's outstanding work examines man's quest for purpose and meaning.

I think there is a real need inside of us to know "Who's in charge." Going off on my own tangent now about this, I think this need is one of survival. We are primates, and we live in tribes. We call them countries now, but essentially, we are tribal. Tribes have social structure, and must have leaders. It's a matter of survival to know exactly who is in charge, because if we don't, we run the terrible risk of accidentally pissing that person off. The penalty could be severe - anything from death to being ostracized. Therefore, as a matter of survival, we must know who's in charge. Not only that, we must know what the rules are.

Imagine that you are the leader of a primitive tribe. You got there by being the strongest. You kept your power because you are savvy. Like all tribal groups, you, as leader, have a few select lieutenants around you to enforce your wishes. They've got your back. Now say that there's a great thunderstorm and everyone is afraid (including yourself, but you don't show that because it's a sign of unacceptable weakness in a leader.) Lightening strikes the tree that one of the tribe members is sitting in, and he is killed. Everyone wants to know why - why was Ernie struck down, and not Joe? Everyone is frightened, traumatized. They come to you demanding an answer. What are you going to tell them? Either you or one of your homeboys had better come up with something. It's easy to see how the theology of a Big Hairy Thunderer is born. Even the leader needs to have a Leader. He can promote one of his lieutenants to priest (shaman, medicine man, etc.) to intervene with the BHT, and the priest - usually with the assistance of some magic herbal sacrament - tells everyone what the rules are. It was the BHT's will that Ernie be struck down by a mighty lightening bolt, as punishment for some infraction - did not everyone see Ernie hoarding food last week? Well, there ya go... Hey, someone points out, Joe did stuff even worse than Ernie, yet he lives - what about that? Oh, well - the BHT works in mysterious ways, and in fact, now that you've questioned Him, you'd better look out the next time He brings a storm. In fact, why don't you all STFU and we, the Church, will tell you, the ignorant masses, what to believe. And so on.

The point of Niose's article was that we no longer need to rely on theology to explain what we don't understand. To go back to the epilepsy example in the previous post, it must have been scary to watch people having seizures, and because we are such a curious species, we needed to know why. Demonic possession seemed to fit the bill, until - centuries later - we discovered that epilepsy is a disease, just as plague is a disease, not a divine scourge. This is the progress spoken of, the freedom to discover what is, as opposed to what has been conjured.

These subjects fascinate me. I know there's lots more to discuss, and I appreciate everyone's viewpoints. It's great to be able to discuss this stuff in a non-hostile manner. I hope we don't get a troll.

Speaking of trolls, and to address the question of how atheists are perceived in this society, take a look at this letter to the editor that I Stumbled upon. (I also ran across a poll somewhere stating that most Americans would rather have a (gasp!) homosexual president than an atheist president. Atheists are in the last closet.)

The Post-Theological Era

Have you ever struggled to find just the right word to express a concept? Of course you have, and writers, especially, are familiar with that thrilling eureka! moment when The Precise Word presents Itself. (Oh yes, writers have thrilling moments, too.)

I've had a concept rattling around the dusty floor of my brain for at least a year now that I just couldn't adequately express. It concerns my atheism. Now see, right there? That word, "atheism?" It means "without theism," and that was the word I used for myself because it was the only one I knew. But it wasn't quite right. I toyed with "nontheist" for a while, but that didn't exactly fit the concept, either.

When you say you're an atheist, people immediately want to argue the existence/non-existence of deity(ies.) That always set off my unnamed concept. It would shake off the dust rhinos clinging to it and start rattling around rather loudly. "No, no , no!" it insisted. "Look at the big picture, look beyond the deity bit because that's only a small part of my conceptness." So, I would try to tell the theist, "Step way back and look at this whole dang thing in a larger context." I would say, "Look up." Meaning, realize that this planet is only one of billions of other waterworlds out there with sapient beings on it. Do you suppose they are all actually arguing over whether females can be in the clergy, or if it's okay to be gay? Don't waste your life on this crap. Broaden your outlook for ricecakes! At which point, I only annoyed the theist and got myself all worked up because I couldn't express my concept properly.

Until now. I may still annoy the theists, but at least I can clearly express my concept and move beyond the existence/non-existence thingy. I subscribe to The Humanist magazine, and in an article in the latest issue (Jan.-Feb. 2008) I found The Precise Word to express the concept. Okay, okay - it's two words, but it's hyphenated, so it's permitted, gimme a break.

The article is The Post-Theological Umbrella, by David Niose, board member and treasurer of the American Humanist Association. Niose's article focuses on the poor image we atheists have and how it adversely affects the advancement of humanism. At a recent conference, he met a woman who said, "When people ask me about atheism, I just tell them I consider myself post-theological."

Post-Theological. Eureka! [imagine my joy] Niose points out that (according to a 2001 survey) "over 13 percent of the population identifies as secular/nonreligious, but only 1 percent identify as atheist, agnostic, or humanist." It seems to be a question of labels, so if we put all of the labels under one umbrella, then probably more people would feel comfortable identifying themselves as post-theological.

My concept wasn't concerned so much with labels, though, but with how to say, "Let's move on to the big picture." The "big picture" is this:

The period before humans became intelligent enough to ask, "Why are we here, and Who's in charge?" might be called the "pre-theological" stage.

When we advanced enough to ask those questions, we began to speculate on the answers. Thus, the theology of The Big Hairy Thunderer evolved, as well as many, many others over time. This might be called the "theological stage." (The more knowledge we gained, the more our theology had to be altered. For example, we discovered that epilepsy is a disease, not a manifestation of demonic possession.)

Now, we are entering (just barely) the post-theological stage of our development. "By calling herself post-theological," Niose says about the woman he met at the conference, "she isn't making the rejection of God-belief the key ingredient in her identity; she is pointing out that, from a historical perspective, theological inquiry itself is no longer a valid means of finding truth or morality." This expresses that concept I had rattling around in my head perfectly. I am post-theological.

It is interesting to read about the various theologies that mankind has come up with over the eons. Interesting from a historical perspective, but not relevant because each theology was invented. Once we let go of our emotional attachment to whatever variety of Thunderer we believed in, we are truly free to look beyond what we have conjured and see what we can discover about what is. Now we are in the realm of science. We are free to look up, without bias, preconceived notions, or (if in a fully post-theological world), persecution. (As Niose suggests, "Given time, the image of atheism in America might improve, as people slowly realize that atheists are more likely to be found in research labs than in prisons or drug hideouts.")

I'll be writing more about this from time to time. I think it's important, especially now that it looks like another Fundie nutjob is going to be the Republican front-runner. We simply must move beyond the theological stage if we're going to survive as a species (it may already be too late.)

I leave you with this latest gem from Fundies Say the Darndest Things:

[> Right. We spend a few years growing a tree and all the Christians can
> think of is killing the tree, dragging it inside, covering it with
> unsafe electrical wiring, and then throwing it away after about a
> month. If I had my way, I would correct such ecologically incorrect
> bad habits and make Christians plant trees instead of killing them. ]

You didn't grow the tree. Show me a Jew that is anywhere near a
Christmas tree farm and I will show you a Jew masquerading as a
Christian.

In any case, your interference with our rights is why you all ought to
be either deported back to Jewistan or sent up the smokestacks.

Galaxy Wars

Speaking of that whole space-time continuum thingy, the April 15th Astronomy Picture of the Day (click that under my Links to see it) shows two massive galaxies at war with each other. They've been at it for a billion years. That's like, way longer than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Christians vs. Islam, Cowboys and Indians, and even the war between the sexes.

Every hundred million years these two galaxies pass each other, and the gravitational pull from one causes everybody in the other to have a really bad "day" (cosmically speaking), and vice-versa. In just a few billion years, they will collide and form one big galaxy. I hope whoever's left will learn to get along with each other.