We look up at the morning sky and it is like a ceiling. It contains us. It feels like Mother Earth is holding us close to her breast. We feel comfortable and safe. Our ancestors were uncertain as to what was on the other side of the sky. At night they saw all kinds of things and struggled to explain it such that it fit with what they saw. Could they ever imagine the truth?
It was easier to imagine some kind of heaven above that “majestical roof”, as Shakespeare called it. “That brave o’re hanging firmament.” “Laden with Golden Fire”. I couldn’t have said it better myself. What is above that ceiling? The Attic? That was the stage upon which the less enlightened ancestors saw it all unfold before them on. I don’t blame them for getting it wrong. They didn’t have the tools, or perhaps the imagination, to find the truth back then. Add to that the politics of religion. To control the unruly masses something very much bigger than themselves had to be held over them. We were one church service away from being barbarians, from the religious leaders point of view. I’m not sure we weren’t. Wouldn’t it be convenient if there was an all powerful mysterious being that controlled our existence after we left this plain of existence? Heaven was his domain. We can’t know his plan. He is the Creator. How did he do it all? Well, let’s make him all powerful. That explains away just about all the loose ends, of which, at the time, there were many.
Not all the loose ends have been more reasonably filled in since then. However, most of the important ones have. I am amazed that I get to live right at this time of profound discovery and enlightenment. Now we are down to just a few big questions. The very very beginning is still a little sketchy, to say the least. What IS at the bottom of a black hole? Is there a bottom, or “the other side”? If we knew that, what else would we then know? What does this new perspective mean to beliefs that are up to 6000 years old? We better figure it out!
Before anybody is allowed to have inviolate beliefs some reality had better be included. Certainly the church has learned its lesson by now! Can we, in good conscience, allow ourselves to be in denial over simple facts? You can have Faith, but wouldn’t your faith be that much stronger if it were actually based in truth? It is hard for me to imagine an argument against this. Is denial some kind of badge of honor to prove your faith? God is not the Wizard of Oz. We are allowed to look behind the curtain, when whoever is back there is not a charlatan. There are many reasons to hide behind a curtain, but very few of them are good reasons. Eventually we grow up enough to be able to handle taking a peek. We develop the means to look. We understand what the curtain is and what it is for. Our sky protects us from the harsh radiation of space, but we have managed to go to the other side of it. There is at least one more curtain we have to get to the other side of.
