I was fascinated that on Easter weekend, the James Webb telescope was making historic finds on its search for the origins of life and time.
The opposing ideas of science and religion seem ages old, but relevant at the same time.
And I understand the two ideas don’t always conflict and sometimes actually support each other, but finding more and more universes as the telescope “goes back in time,” seems quite a conflict.
I sat watching the news on 60 Minutes of exploding universes, other planetary realms and the incredible finds this telescope is making,
I felt like the information was on the fringe of what I could understand.
I mean, if the telescope is searching for the origins of time, what happens when it gets there? Does it suck into a black void, does it cease to be?
What the heck?
Mike Mountain, mission specialist for the James Webb Telescope, explained some of the finds, like a planet surrounded by carbon dioxide, galaxies bumping into each other and one consuming the other.
He said there is no empty space.
In past, where we thought there was nothing out there but “space,” we were wrong.
There are billions and billions of galaxies, some forming, some dying, and it left me thinking, some must be just like ours?
The more we find out just shows us how little our perspective really is.
It boggles my mind.
It also made me think about the fact that we are learning more about space than we are our about own oceans.
For something that covers most of our planet, we sure don’t have a good grasp on what’s down there.
I find the more we learn, the more willing we need to be to re-write the very things we have always thought to be true.
I remember the old saying in school, “In 1492 Columbus sailed the oceans blue,” and supposedly discovered the “new world.”
We know better now. I wonder what my great grandchildren will “know” of the world in the future?
I wonder what history will say about the world we live in and our understanding of it now?
I’m willing to bet we would laugh at ourselves and our views.
It makes for an exciting, if not a little scary, future.
I am also willing to bet those new discoveries will challenge the same things, like religion, that they do today.
As I said in the beginning, because it was Easter weekend, I wondered what the Christian world would say about finding “the beginning of time?”
It was an interesting thought to entertain.
Regardless of what you believe, I think we are all are going to learn things that challenge our beliefs and foundations in the future.
I think we need to be open to possibilities, and curious about what is in space and beneath our feet, and our place in both.
I think it is part of our nature to search, we just need to be somewhat prepared for what we may find.
Spock from Star Trek would say it’s “fascinating.”