This just in: Three seemingly unrelated topics have brought me to this moment. First, I’m reading a book (more on that in a bit). Secondly, the Supreme Court decided that a minority view of the unknowable will of God is correct and thus, a 10-year old rape victim must carry a baby to birth. Thirdly, tomorrow (7/12) we get the first pictures from the James Webb telescope.

Let’s start with the telescope. I saw a preview of one of the new pictures. It shows a portion of the sky equivalent to holding a grain of sand at arm’s length. In it you can see hundred of galaxies. How big is a galaxy? Well, it take about 100,000 years for light to pass from one end of our Milky Way galaxy to the other. For larger galaxies, it can take millions of years for light to make the journey. In short, we on Earth are insignificant.

Now about the book I’m reading…In it, a woman living in the Dark Ages gives birth to a child with a cleft lip. Just as she is wondering what to do, her dad comes home an announces that her husband and his horse died when they fell into a frozen river. That night, the dad comes to her and takes the child. Times are tough and that little boy will make it tougher. Plus, what kind of life could such a child expect. The dad leaves with the child but returns with it later. He had put the child on the ground and left it for the wild animals. However, he quickly went back and picked it up; unable to let it die. The villagers heard about this and drove the family out of the village that night using pitch forks and torches. The boy was obviously cursed and was certainly the cause of the father dying in the river.

Side note: I took a course in Philosophy where the instructor was fond of saying, “Mystery therefore magic.” In other words, if it couldn’t be explained, it must be God’s will.

The villagers feared that the baby may be a demon. Fear makes people do strange things, like drive a family from a village where they had lived for generations. It’s as if they thought, “God will smile on us when he sees how we drove away the demon.”

This is similar to the thought that must have accompanied sacrificing a virgin to a volcano. “We don’t know what God wants but maybe this will do the trick. Best to be safe so go ahead and give her a little push over the edge.”

Back to the telescope. You can look at these pictures and think, “Yes, the universe is really big but God still doesn’t want me to masturbate” Never mind that the more likely reason you are told to behave a certain way is that some people want to control others. This is why religion invented hell after all. The sheep think, “Well, there probably isn’t any hell but I think I’ll push her into the volcano just to be sure. And tithe always tithe.”

So now we have a cornucopia of abortion restrictions. None of these laws are based on science. None. Not one. All are based on control. Control and instilling the fear needed to ensure control. “God will make sure my harvest is good if I make that little girl carry her rape baby to term.”

In my view, the universe notices and so, if there is a God, he/she notices. But, neither the universe nor God cares. The universe experiences our experiences, without judgement. We are stardust. We started as stardust and we will end as stardust. The physical laws of the universe say this is so, thus, it is so. Or….and I’m just saying, you can listen to someone that will push your daughter into a volcano to win an election.

Now for a video…

Time to save the world.

Up, up and away…

Jim