A Case for Cosmic Unbelief

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.