[Zardoz]

As Armageddon approaches, and we're plagued with fear and dread of what may become of us, it helps to put things in perspective.

All our concerns amount to nothing, really, when you look at the big picture. We're an infinitely-insignificant part of an infinitely-huge whole:
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From the 2006 "Astronomy" wall calendar, published by Firefly Books:


The Universe Train -

The universe is so vast that it's difficult to establish a scale of reference, but this freight-train analogy might help put it into perspective:

Imagine each star in the known universe is represented by a grain of sand. A thimble would hold all the stars visible on a clear, dark summer night. A dump truck would contain the Milky Way, the galaxy in which the Sun resides.

To demonstrate all the stars in the known universe, we need a freight train with hopper cars filled with sand. The train begins to cross us at a level crossing. We count the cars as they roar by at one per second. The minutes pass, then hours, then days. We would have to keep count 24 hours a day for three years before the universe train would complete its pass.

The universe train would use all the sand on all the beaches on Earth and would be long enough to stretch around the planet 25 times.

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Whatever happens to us, happens to us. Five billion years from now, who will know the difference?

[Jack]

That does, indeed, put things into perspective.

Thanks!

[AirlinePilot]

Brings this one to mind, very appropriate for these forums too!

The Galaxy Song

[PenultimateManStanding]

True, but it's still no fun to die in panic and horror. To watch one's children suffer and die of starvation. Quite a bummer and I don't give a rat's ass about the stars.

[eastbay]

I don't think you believe that (about the stars) for a second PMS.

The stars put everything about us into proper perspective, and that analogy puts all of the stars nicely into perspective.

edit: phrase within parenthesis added.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', 'I') don't think you believe that (about the stars) for a second PMS.

[seldom_seen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ferrelgiraffe', 'a')ll those stars are worth less than one human being.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seldom_seen', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ferrelgiraffe', '.')..all those stars are worth less than one human being...

[jboogy]

starz,shmarz-I feel ya' on this one PMS,I took astronomy in 11th grade just cause I thought it would be an easy grade.Turns out I flunked it cause it was the period after lunch and me and my friends would leave school to burn em' and eat Micky D's drivethru for lunch. I more often than not would nod off halfway thru class.Borrrinnggg

[eastbay]

What I mean PMS is that everything we are was created by stars. Stars created us. We should look at them in awe and wonder.

Much as we look at fish. Or a single grain of sand.

[eastbay]

darn double posting...

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ferrelgiraffe', 'A')nd one humnan being is of more worth to God than all those stars.

[jboogy]

I don't think I've ever looked at sand with awe or wonder,me and my cousins were spearfishing in the gulf off duck key once and this friggin humongous grouper came barreling out of a hole right at me, I don't know if it was the magnifying effects of my mask or what but this thing looked huge(I'd guess 120 lbs. at LEAST)anyway ,it looked at me and just as quick turned on a dime and disappeared back into the hole,needless to say it happened so fast we didn't get a shaft in em'. I hafta say I was in awe of that fishes size and speed.some years after that my aunt told my mom that my cousins had taken a 130 lb. fish in the same area and it had taken like 4 shafts and a couple hours for them to get him out of the coral.I wonder if it was the one we saw years before.

[seldom_seen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'P')erhaps human-kind was created as comic relief - a divine comedy, if you will.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'P')erhaps human-kind was created as comic relief - a divine comedy, if you will.

[jboogy]

For GOD so loved man that he gave his only son up to the cross so that we shall have everlasting life, god loves us THAT much?Try telling that to the iraqi's or the sudanese or the ashpiles of hiroshima and nagasaki,or the cambodians/fertilizer in the killing fields,the hutus and tutsi's of rowanda,the european jews in41',42',43',44'-1/3 of europe during the plague,american indians with their nice new diseased blankets,our boys on the bataan death march,thousands upon thousands of young men choking on lung fluid and mustard gas in the bottom of some slop filled trench on the western front,the chinese during the rape of nanking,millions of russians that stalin didn't take a likin' to , the spanish inquisition,the burned and drowned "witches" of massachusetts,the dark ages,medeival times,etc.,etc.,etc. GOD?he either hates us or has the most wicked ,twisted sense of humor ever.