(July 30, 2021 at 12:55 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:(July 30, 2021 at 11:58 am)HappySkeptic Wrote: And yet I do not see these "vast cosmic forces". Where are they and what are they doing? That seems like a prerequisite for trying to "align one's life to best account for them".
The number of things we do not know about is vastly greater than even the the few things we think we know...and even those seem tentative. Heck, Jupiter exerts more gavitational pull on my body than the cell phone in my pocket and yet I can pass my days oblivious to the effects of that distant planet. Chance seems to play a pretty big role in life and yet in hindsight it often looks like neccessity. For all it is worth, chance and necessity might as well be gods.
In at least one respect, I consider my intellectual belief in God similar to believing in other intangibles like ownership or virtue...not physically apparent yet seemingly conceptually indispensible.
Just calculated that, and you're right. By more than 10000 times.
And yes, there are many things we don't know. Rather than trying to align our life to unknowns, why don't we align it to what is known? Part of the reason I became a scientist was to be able to understand as much as I can about the universe. This is both an intellectual and spiritual exercise.
What is known is: we are in many ways separate beings, alone in our mind's simulations of the world around us. At the same time, we are connected with people, nature, and the universe in real ways.
