Thursday, October 25, 2007

Perspective as a consciousness raiser...


MARCH 2004: On the 63rd Martian Day of its tour of duty, the Mars Rover “Spirit” raises its “eye” skyward and captures a series of mosaics of the horizon just one hour before sunrise to produce another symbolic nail in the coffin of God. Those images combined to form the first image ever taken of Earth from the surface of a planet beyond the Moon.




(click for larger image)

While this man-made robot and its brother, “Opportunity”, wander around on another planet looking back at us, they see no mountains. They see no oceans. They see no countries, no borders, no people and no religions. They see no traffic jams and they see no wars. They see no right and they see no wrong. They also see no souls heading off to Heaven - and in the infinite blackness that surrounds them, they see no sign of any God that would be playing “The Sims” on that tiny little insignificant speck.

Imagine how expensive this image is. How much did it cost to produce this undeniable piece of evidence? Was it worth it? You bet it was. It was worth every single cent and more to save us from destroying ourselves in the name of religion. Sometimes you have to go outside and look in to find a new perspective on life. Spirit went a long way to help mankind open its eyes to show us reality and to quash irrational fantasy. Let’s not waste our lives killing those whose “faith” differs from our own. Why are so many chasing the folly of eternal Paradise away from our little speck? This little speck is our Paradise and it won’t be eternal.

- With grateful acknowledgment to Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot

2 comments:

Jason said...

Hiya Robert,

I just had to check ya out.

There is a problem. You are still only presenting your perspective on that particular perspective but packaging it as if you have been given the bird's eye view which you assert nobody has.

How did you get the bird's eye view? How could you know that your perspective is more comprehensive than another if it is only yours?

If Voyager ran into an asteroid the perspective would no longer have the wide angle lens you imagine it has.

Robert said...

The perspective that I am offering is that it is a HUGE universe. To assume that all that we can perceive is meant just for us seems, to me, silly to the extreme. Could I be wrong? Of course.

I agree with the esteemed Mr. Carl Sagan in that life on Earth may very well be "One voice in the Cosmic Fugue". I think the Universe is a FULL of many other places graced by life and consciousness.

I don't know if a God is responsible for the origin/creation of life. To my mind that is incidental. What's more important is what we do with the life we have and how we behave as stewards of the planet on which we live.

Our machines can fail yes. But they didn't in this case. Some scientists at JPL had the foresight to have that little rover look back from where it came and take a snapshot of our fragile little home from the perspective of a Martian.

I look at that picture as a gift beyond price.

Robert