From a cosmic perspective, the future has already
happened, and the past is yet to be, and the moment where we are now is the
beginning, and the end, and every moment in between.
* * * * *
On Planet Terra (Earth) of the Solar Planetary System
in Orion’s Spur of the Milky Way Galaxy in the Local Galaxy Group of the Virgo
Cluster in the Laniakea Supercluster, Jews believe that Yahuweh speaks Hebrew,
Muslims that Allah speaks Arabic, American evangelical Christians that Almighty
God speaks Elizabethan English, Roman Catholics that Dominus Dei speaks Latin,
Eastern Orthodox that Kyrios speaks Greek, Hindus that Brahman speaks Sanskrit,
Zoroastrians that Ormazd speaks Avestan, Buddhists that Adibuddha speaks Pali,
Shintoists that Amaterasu speaks Japanese, and religious Daoists that Tai Di
speaks Mandarin Chinese. Each of these groups, and each subgroup and
splinter and cult and sect within each of them, believes they are the Chosen
People from which will come the Anointed One to assert their rightful dominion
over all Creation for all Eternity. That
belief is absurd.
* * * * *
A
single member of the Homo sapiens sapiens
race (subspecies) is, on average, 664 billionths (0.000000000664 or 6.64 x 10-11)
km3 in volume, with an average lifespan of 67.2 years. There are currently 7.3 billion (109) individuals of that
race on Terra.
Terra is 1.12 trillion (1012) km3
by 4.54 billion years. It rotates on its
axis at a speed of 1674.4 km/h while hurtling through space revolving around
Sol at 108 thousand (103) km/h.
Sol, our star, is 1.4 quintillion (1018)
km3 by 4.56 billion years.
The Solar Planetary System is 1.7 duodecillion (1039) km3
by the same 4.56 billion years.
The Milky Way Galaxy is 8 sedecillion (1051)
km3 by 13.2 billion years. Of
its 200 billion stars, 40 billion support Class-M planets, with 8-10 billion of
these hosting life-forms analogous to Humans, making some 61.6 quintillion (1018)
sapient beings in our galaxy.
There are 500 billion galaxies hosting 30.8
nonillion (1030) sapient beings across the Universe.
The Universe is 213 duovigintillion (1069)
km3 by 13.8 billion years. It
is expanding outward at a rate increased by the like-polarity of the
electromagnetic fields of different galaxy groups.
Our Universe is just one of innumerable such cosmic
bodies making up the Omniverse (aka Multiverse), and is currently the only one
we can measure.
* * * * *
The Universe is formed of a single matrix called
spacetime.
Everything in the Universe not of the matrix of
spacetime is composed of energy. Energy
can be neither created nor destroyed but only change forms. All matter that exists is but alternate forms
of energy.
Spacetime and energy are thus the fundamental
building blocks of the Universe and everything in it, the emanations from which
all that is evolves.
There are four basic dimensions—height, length,
width, time—which define the point in the spacetime matrix at which we are at
any given moment. Energy flows to and
from that single point in spacetime—forward and backward, up and down, left and
right, past and future—along each of these dimensions.
The force of gravity provides the cohesion for the
Universe in a relationship with the dimension of time that is correlative if
not causal. Without gravity, there would
be no time; without time, there would be no gravity.
* * * * *
Life is a function of energy, of
thermodynamics. Given appropriate
conditions, life is inevitable, because energy in the form of matter will
spontaneously self-organize through abiogenesis.
Once manifest, life evolves into more complex forms
which themselves evolve further, with those most adaptable being the best able to
survive, reproduce, and flourish.
Life has existed on Terra for 4.1 billion years,
and in the Universe since 10-17 million years after the Big Bang.
The essence of life is change and evolution, growth
and decay. For individual organisms,
birth and death define the boundaries of life.
Without death, life has no meaning.
Whether or not there is another form of existence once
the organic shell has been shed in death and life on this plane ends does not
matter; Humans debating those questions are like fetuses discussing questions
on life after birth.
* * * * *
The
H. sapiens sapiens race is currently
30 thousand (103) years
old. The H. sapiens species has been around 200 thousand years. The Homo
genus has existed 2.8 million (106) years. The three other known races of the species H. sapiens and the six other known
species of the genus Homo are
extinct, leaving just the One Human Race.
In 5 million years, the H. sapiens sapiens race, and along with it the H. sapiens species and the Homo genus,, will
be extinct due to degradation of the Y-chromosome, if we have not already
destroyed ourselves and/or our biosphere or suffered a mass extinction.
In 800 million years, multi-cellular lifeforms will
have vanished from Terra.
In 1.3 billion years, eukaryotes will be extinct
and life on Terra reduced to prokaryotes due to CO2 starvation
caused by chemical disruption from Sol’s increasing luminescence.
In 2.4 billion years, the Milky Way Galaxy and the
Andromeda Galaxy will collide and merge into one Milkomeda Galaxy, altering the
structure of everything in them, though most stars and planetary systems will
remain intact.
In 5.4 billion years, Sol will enter its red giant
phase, incinerating Mercury, Venus, and possibly Terra, destroying any
remaining life on Terra if not. The
habitable zone will move out to Mars, and Saturn’s moon Titan may become
habitable.
In 8 billion years, Sol will collapse into a white
dwarf, expelling half its mass into the interstellar medium, making elements
available for nucleosynthesis and forming an emission nebula. Any remaining planetary bodies will be stolen
by passing stars, leaving the Solar Nebula.
In 14.4 billion years, Sol will be a totally dead
black dwarf star.
The Universe will eventually end in the next Big
Bounce (a Big Crunch facilitating another Big Bang) in 60 trillion years, dying
so another can be born anew as it was formed before.*
All
of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again, and again, and
again.
(*Provided, that the End of the Universe is
not a Big Freeze, a Big Rip, or a Big Crunch ending in a super massive black
hole.)
* * * * *
There
is no Divine Creator; any such being is far too small for the actual
Universe. In fact, there are no gods,
such as Humans or other sapient races have created in their own image, at all.
The Source of the Universe and of all that is in
it, of spacetime and energy and life, is beyond personhood, beyond being, beyond
description, beyond effability.
The Source was before Time, is now, and will remain
after the end of Time. Time begins and
ends along with the Universe and its other three dimensions.
The Source has no name and no need of one, for
there is nothing else Other from which to distinguish itself.
The Source is a paradox; perpetual yet
ever-changing, transcendent yet immanent, metacosmic yet omnipresent, eternal
yet omnitemporal, everything yet nothing.
The Source is One; neither male nor female, it
emanates both light and dark, good and evil, order and chaos, yin and yang,
life and death, integrity and entropy, creation and destruction.
The Source permeates the Universe, energizing all
that is in it and shaping the flow of its manifestation.
The Source animates without claiming possession; bolsters without requiring gratitude; stewards
without exercising authority.
The Source does not demand our submission,
obedience, penitence, worship, adoration, praise, prayer, confession,
thanksgiving, supplication, benediction, love, respect, or even belief.
The Source does not reward good deeds or punish
ill, nor does it exact karmic retribution for imagined imperfection.
The Source favors none; there is no Anointed One,
no Chosen People, no Exceptional Nation, no Elect Species; not on Terra, not in
the Milky Way, not in the entire Universe.
The Source does not need us nor want anything from
us; individual beings are too infinitesimal and ephemeral within the Universe
for it to take much note.
* * * * *
To paraphrase sociologist Clifford Geertz, the One
Human Race is a sapient animal species mired in a self-created web of
significance called belief. The same is
probably true for every sapient species across the Universe, past, present, and
future.
Do not worry about the future, for the future will
take care of itself. The only moment
that matters is the now. The only beings
that matter are those that are here in the now.
Make a better life not just for yourself but for
those around you, and, better yet, all those in your nation, and in the world,
and in worlds around you when that time comes.
Remember that Humans will be around for thousands
and even millions of years, and that they and members of others species and
lifeforms will need the planet too.
All lifeforms—floral and faunal—are sentient and
deserve to be respected. Do not take the
life of any form except out of necessity.
Synthetic lifeforms, whether of organic or
artificial make, deserve the same inherent rights as lifeforms that naturally
occur, for the energy which animates them is the same, and if sapient, they
deserve all the rights of natural sapient beings.
All lifeforms, floral, faunal, synthetic, exist in
the same Universe that, no matter how vast, is ultimately as finite as they.
Love each other person as yourself, and do not do
to another what you would not done to you.
Try to be happy. That is all you
need.
Belief…any and all belief…in anything…by anyone
anywhere…is an illusion.
The only way to really love, the only way to
actually know, the only way to truly live, the only way to keep the faith, is
to give up belief completely. To
unbelieve.
* * * * *
I am a Terran, a child of the Universe and a
citizen of Earth. The whole world is my
home, and all its people my brothers, sisters, and cousins of the One Human
Race, and of the sapient races and species across the Galaxy, and throughout the
Universe.
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