201.
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread.
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Are we at home in the universe? Or are we an accident?
Many non-theists turn to life in the cosmos to instill and inspire wonder and awe, the surest materialistic route to something akin to religious transcendence. Carl Sagan was famous for making this move. Given the long cosmic odds, and all the necessary fine-tuning of the physical constants of the universe, it's really quite remarkable, even miraculous, that we find ourselves existing on this Pale Blue Dot.
And as I point out in Hunting Magic Eels, these facts about our existence, and the energy of its attendant wonder, can be leveraged into a moral response, a materialistic warrant for loving and caring for life and the world we inhabit. Life is so very precious and rare, we must cherish and care for it.
Amen. But as I go on to point out in Hunting Magic Eels, and as Pascal points out above, our winning the cosmic lottery can cut both ways. There's a difference between feeling grateful versus feeling lucky. A difference between feeling at home in the universe and feeling liked you dodged a cosmic bullet to the head. As the scientists remind us, we're all quite fortunate and lucky to be here. But feeling lucky for life is different from feeling grateful. Gratitude is a social emotion, the response we feel when we've been given a gift. And where there is a gift, there is a gift-giver. As I say in the book, you can't feel grateful for life and creation and be an atheist, not emotionally. Being awed at the cosmic odds is different from saying "Thank you."
As I describe in Hunting Magic Eels, the psychological and existential difference between luck and grace (grace is the same word as gift in the New Testament) is illustrated in how feeling lucky, while able to be leveraged positively, also has the nagging and chronic vulnerability of slipping into despair and nihilism. This is Pascal's point. Feeling lucky is not too far from feeling like an accident, even a mistake, that the universe didn't want us, need us, and, regardless, will soon be rid of us. As the great atheist Jean-Paul Sartre put it, "Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance." Suck on that Carl Sagan.
Experiencing your life and creation as a gift, however, protects us from this nihilistic pit. Life is more than luck. You were meant to be here. Life is a gift. Existence is graced. A grace that provides a sturdier platform for both mental health and love than chance and cosmic rolls of the dice.
So look around, in wonder and awe, and say, "Thank you."
