Until Copernicus came along the cleverest people in Europe believed that the sun and the stars in the heavens orbited the earth.
Many children, not all of them by any means, are aware that the earth orbits the sun and the sun is a star; one of billions of stars in a galaxy called The Milky Way.
On the earth today there are more than seven billion carbon based humans.
Earth's seven billion humans have invented 7,000 languages and 4,000 religions.
They have constructed telescopes and flying machines in order to explore the moons and planets of the solar system, the other stars and planets in the galaxy and the visible and invisible universe in and beyond the galaxy, and to monitor events below on earth.
These are great achievements.
And yet there are always conflicts and wars.
People forget they are all part of the One.
Peoples throughout history have been killing each other on a regular basis. Whole civilizations have been wiped out. And that is without weapons of mad destruction.
If there are highly developed beings living in the Milky Way, and statistically there will be, I imagine they'll will give us a wide berth and observe us quietly from a safe distance.
To attain the pinnacle of evolution the human species needs much more time.
They live in wisdom
who see themselves
in all
and all in them
Bhagavad Gita
Were you by any chance able to watch this year's Royal Institution lectures given by Professor Alice Roberts on What it is to be Human Gwil? They are given to children every year - three of them on three successive nights. This year's were so very good - Prof. Roberts is the new President of Humanists UK of which I am a member. If you can watch our TV in Vienna please do try and watch - I thought they were very good for children.
ReplyDeleteThanks Pat. I can get two BBC channels and most of the Radio Channels (but no sports!). BBC World and BBC Entertainment are the two TV Channels. I will also search TED Talks and other likely places.
DeleteToday is a religious holiday in Austria. It's called Three Kings Day. I think it started about 65 years ago. Good Friday is not a religious holiday here. Apparently they want it to be but they say they have to ask the EU. I find it all very odd.
There have been terrible natural disasters too like the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs and the great flood. People go to work on Good Friday in Ireland. Last year they allowed the pubs to be open.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention the mysterious Oumuamua. We live in a very interesting place. I remember once I couldn't find a pub open was Christmas Day and had to amused myself for an afternoon in a snooker club. The dim lights, the green baize, the click of the balls, all very peaceful. Religious, almost. Very meditative. Silent. No women allowed. That was long ago. It's probably a ten pin bowling alley or a bingo hall now.
DeleteSnooker can be mesmerising almost spiritual. Especially when Rocket Ronnie plays. I read somewhere that Billiards was invented to be played outside. The green baize was supposed to look like grass. This was in British colonial India. Then it was monsoon season and the table was took inside and snooker was invented. Apparently snooker is an old army word. Not many people know that.
ReplyDeleteDavid (it's Sunday) thank you for the insight into the game of snooker. My favourite snooker player was Ray 'Dracula' Reardon.
DeleteYeah good old Dracula. He was once buried in a rockfall in a Welsh coal mine. A really nice guy. Alex Hurricane Higgins and Jimmy whirlwind White and the Rocket are my snooker heroes.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dave. I didn't know about the monsoon. It's amazing the number of sports the Brits have given the world. The ex-pats brought with them cricket, tennis and football to Vienna for example.
DeleteCricket never took off in Ireland though. Probably "rain stopped play'.
ReplyDeleteI heard that our cricket club play one match a year just between themselves.
DeleteFootball and tennis proved more popular.
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