SSM Plebiscite

[PaulP]

If that's the case, then Rees is a goose. Must be one of these 'if I can't see it, smell it, hear it, touch it or taste it ... it doesn't exist' types. And there's no arguing with people like this... like fundamentalist (insert any religion) types - 'my frame of reference is all there is.' There are those of us who are happy to say, 'stuffed if I know', to not be threatened by ambiguity or mystery or even the unknowable.

There are many things in this experience called life that have a variety of modalities that attempt to help us explain and understand what is happening around us. From psychology, to logic, to spirituality, to science, to philosophy... and the list goes on. Each brings their own gifts and mysteries and even contradictions. Knowing when to discern is probably the key. So, in a way, we may agree PP... perhaps philosophically 

Whatever Rees may think personally, publicly he needs to toe the line.

Even the scientists will tell you that there are an umpteen number of things that needed to go right for us to even be on this planet. The initial rate of expansion of the Big Bang had to be just right, the earth's temperature, the position, size and power of the sun (apparently the result of another dying star), the air/atmosphere, the moon (whose gravitational force helps shape our orbit and therefore our climate), the emergence of molecules and cells (initially simple, later complex), a new type of bacteria that created oxygen, the wiping out of the dinosaurs etc. I could go on. All these constants (as the scientists call them) had to be bang on.

Quite apart from all of that, we have on our planet everything that we need to survive - water, food, raw materials etc. Our existence is basically like winning the lottery every week for a decade. I simply do not believe that this is simply down to chance. I don't believe that we could be so lucky over and over again - an amount of luck the human brain cannot even comprehend.

I do believe that this place and everything in it is a blessing, and an expression of some serious cosmic joy and love that is just simply amazing, and not just directed to us, but everything on earth. Nothing nature makes is ugly. The only ugly thing on this planet is human sin.

I don't know where it comes from, I don't know what it's called (if anything), I don't know what it looks like or what shape it is. I don't know anything about it. All I know is that it's something pretty amazing.