You're an interesting species. An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut of… - Carl Sagan

In all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.

In all our searching the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.

Does trying to understand the universe at all betray a lack of humility? I believe it is true that humility is the only just response in a confrontation with the universe, but not a humility that prevents us from seeking the nature of the universe we are admiring. If we seek that nature, then love can be informed by truth instead of being based on ignorance or self-deception. If a Creator God exists, would He or She or It or whatever the appropriate pronoun is, prefer a kind of sodden blockhead who worships while understanding nothing? Or would He prefer His votaries to admire the real universe in all its intricacy? I would suggest that science is, at least in part, informed worship.

Would you say, “Billy, be home by the time the Earth has rotated enough so as to occult the Sun below the local horizon”? Billy would be long gone before you’re finished.

It almost never feels like prejudice. Instead, it feels fitting and just - the idea that, because of an accident of birth, ‘our’ group (whichever one it is) should have a central position in the social universe.