ericmurphy
Posts: 2460
Joined: Oct. 2005
|
You know, I've spent about (realistically, here) the last thirty years reading about some of the most fascinating natural objects imaginable. I've read articles on black hole formation; how supernovas create neutron stars, how they create the entire periodic table (except for hydrogen, some helium, and trace amounts of primordial lithium); on how the nature of quasars is beginning to be understood, how they convert matter to energy with a mind-blowing efficiency of 30 percent; about the extremely-large-scale structure of the universe (above the level of galactic superclusters); about gamma-ray bursts that can be seen from one end of the universe to the other; about how neutrinos from SN1987a sluiced through all of us for weeks on end around 20 years ago, without us ever noticing it; how the universe expanded from the size of an apple to the size of the solar system in tiny, tiny fractions of a second, how one percent of those white dots you see in TV static is a remnant from the big bang, the birth of the observable universe; and on and on and on and on.
But now AF Dave is here to tell me that all of that is complete fiction, a fairy tale, false evidence planted for us to find by a deceitful and duplicitous god. All those tens of thousands of scientists, working their entire professional careers over the past five hundred years, they're all deluded fools who have been driven, motivated, and misled by their incomprehensible desire to deny the obvious existence of God (presumably so they can cheat on their wives without feeling guilty about it).
Instead, we live in this tiny, cramped little universe, barely larger than the moon's orbit, with stars and galaxies painted on the ceiling like a cheap 19th-Century opera house. It's all an illusion, folks, and God's laughing at us as He watches us scramble about, trying to make sense of a universe that makes no sense, and doesn't need to make sense; that follows no rhyme or reason other than that God wanted it that way.
This is the universe Dave wants us all to live in, his dark, dank little universe, with no wonders, no spectacles, just tawdry parlor tricks performed by a bored god for no reason other than to show us all how bad-ass He is and how worthless and impotent we all are. And Bill Paley is right there, cheering him on, with his constipated, restricted universe of Christmas ornament crystal shells of informational energy, no more exciting or intriguing than a Christmas display at the local Walgreen's.
Really makes life worth living, doesn't it?
--------------
2006 MVD award for most dogged defense of scientific sanity
"Atheism is a religion the same way NOT collecting stamps is a hobby." —Scott Adams
|
