Jard has often wandered in awe under the stars in the clear, dry nights of the New
Mexico desert, trying to picture what the universe is really like out there. And finally,
after half a century of study, he only thinks he understands the Cosmos. He really
doesn’t. No one does although astronomers and cosmologists are learning more and
more about existence. There is nothing simple about this cosmic alchemy that
culminated eventually in the meta-universe in a time frame our flea-bitten, snaggle-
toothed ancestors couldn’t possibly understand. Indeed, how can we ourselves describe
a worm hole that may open into a multi-dimensional parallel universe in an alien space-
time continuum? Or explain a cosmic singularity, a black hole of ultimate density in
which time and space cease to exist? Of course, the time span and the distances of the
Cosmos are much too vast for our limited human frames of reference to comprehend. We
are like people watching a movie in which each frozen frame lasts longer than our lives.
The universe only appears to be static because we don't live long enough to see much of
the show. This apparent lack of movement confused our ancestors, especially
bewildering ancient theologians and philosophers who tried to understand the Cosmos in
relationship to God without any real understanding of science to shape their legends.
Unfortunately, many individuals, denominations and bureaucracies have
frozen that illusion of rigidity into their traditions and ideologies where it
causes great harm when circumstances shift and they and their reluctant
organizations must adapt enthusiastically or perish.
According to researchers Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Alan Guth, Stephen
Hawking and others, the Cosmos seems to function beyond normal scientific principles
as we understand them -- in a metaphysical or spiritual manner. Nothing shows this
better than research into the origins of existence -- cosmology. God has always
functioned on an eternal time scale and that in itself causes many of the apparent conflicts
between science and religion. We believe, while Islam, Judaism and Christianity
originated in Eastern mysticism, the time has come when we must weave Western
empiricism in with the metaphysical in order to keep our faith from becoming sterile and
absurd. Of course, we understand that many souls within human religions have clung to
concepts that are obviously impossible myths used by our ancient ancestors to explain
events they couldn’t comprehend. Today, thoughtful persons can better understand
nature’s laws -- but only through long study for which few persons have the time. The
laws of life are not simple and very few things are what they appear to be to our unaided
senses. And worse, our understanding of nature through science keeps changing because
of new knowledge. And if there is anything we humans hate with a vehement passion, it
is abandoning once and for all - anything we learned while growing up! We do like our
knowledge plain and simple, without any shifting ambiguities to confuse us. As Voltaire
wrote, most men and women think only enough to confirm their prejudices!
