Does the Cosmos Know the Pope Exists?

Picture yourself in a universe so vast, so boundless that it is beyond the perception of the average mind. Expand your consciousness as far out into infinity as you possibly can. See the immensity and depth of the cosmos, with infinite billions of stars all around, massive spans of milky debris, six-trillion mile high clouds of gas that give birth to stars, stupendous black holes that suck in everything in their path. Imagine that you could cruise through this universe for eternity with no end in sight, that you could never run out of worlds to visit or the pure blackness of space.

Now feel the energy underlying that mindboggling vastness; become one with the creative source behind that immeasurable creation. Familiarize yourself with how unbelievably tremendous is that creative life principle in its scope and breadth. Let yourself flow in all its directions, its omnidimensionality, its ever-present sentience. Study the variety of this creator's innumerable creations, the limitless colors of its palette. See that this creation has no end to it but is inexhaustible and unbounded. Know that such a creative force can produce whatever it so wills, in any form it so wishes, in any shape it so desires, at any time it so needs.

Are you beginning to get the picture? Can you grasp the sublime infinitude of what we call life? Of our cosmos, our universe, our creation and "creator"? Can you grok that such a vastness cannot be contained in any one form, shape, gender, book or thing, but is contained in all forms, shapes, genders, books and things? Do you realize that such boundless void transcends and incorporates all dimensions and aspects of existence?

Does Anything Matter?

Now, do you honestly believe that such an immeasurable creation/creator is a nice old white man with a long white beard sitting on a cloud alternately smiling and scowling over the behavior of a bunch of smaller-than-minuscule creatures parading about on an quark-sized particle way off in the middle of nowhere? In other words, does this illimitable universe really care about microscopic human beings residing on a fleck of matter floating in an endless ocean of space? Indeed, does the cosmos give a fig about the pope?

On the one hand, since there are infinite worlds in the eye of a shrimp, one could say that even the minutest bit of matter has significance and an effect on its surroundings and, perhaps, the universe itself. But, on the other hand, let's get real. The cosmos/creator will exist, nonchalantly and unattached, whether or not any of us lives or dies. There has never been a single human being upon whose life or death the universe depended for its sustenance and continuation. Nobody is that important, not even what are perceived as "godmen" or "godwomen." No one is that big; nobody matters that much.

Such is not to instill in one a sense of insignificance to the point of depression and disillusionment, but rather to point out that no matter how pompous and vainglorious we become, how serious we take ourselves, how important we deem ourselves, we are really simply small, frail creatures in a creation beyond the scope of the average mind.

All Pumped Up with Nowhere to Go

In light of this, those who pretentiously parade around this teeny speck of space dust in grandiose and megalomaniacal self-importance, whether political, religious, industrial or celebrity figures, appear rather humorous and pitiful, not to mention egotistical and just plain silly. We can guarantee that such characters have never been heard of even as a rumor by anyone outside of this solar system, much less beyond this dinky orb. They matter not an iota in the cosmic scheme of things.

Thus, it would seem reasonable - even amusing - if those who can see the folly of such behavior were to point it out, much as the boy who saw through the emperor's nakedness. Indeed, we would do well to tell the pope that "God" - the universe - has no idea who he is.

All Hubble images are from the Space Telescope Science Institute, operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. UARA/STScI. More images can be found at The Best of the Hubble Space Telescope.

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