What Is This Place?
Stream Unconsciousness
What is this place? I used to think religion was simply fairytales. I still do but now I understand why people turn to religion. It gives people a way to understand what this place is. It gives them a roadmap—some security. Faith. Science cannot answer the main question which is how did it all start? When people say the big bang it's just idiotic. Sure there may have been a big bang but what happened before that? I asked a science teacher once how it all started. He actually said it started with blue green algae. No idea. I asked him where the blue green algae came from. I think he said some thing like it just formed and then the rest of life did billions of years ago and now we have evolved into this. WHAT?
We used to go to temple on the high holidays in NYC. There was this Rabbi, Rabbi Sobel, who led the congregation. He had gone to college with my mother. I told my mother I wanted to tell the Rabbi that I didn't believe in the Book of Genesis or any of the Bible. What kind of story is this that God built the world in six days and rested on the seventh. Eve coming from Adam's rib. Just fantastical stories and I wanted to know if he really believed it. So I approached him on one of the holidays, probably Rosh Hashanah because Yom Kippur is such a somber day I didn't want to upset him. So I asked him and he says and I'm paraphrasing here, "Sabrina think of these stories as symbolic. They don't have to be literal. There are some good life lessons in the stories.” He was right. Eve coming from Adam’s rib—that one I don't see the life lesson but I get the overall gist of what he saying. Also his sermons were not really religious in nature but great stories with great appeal. He was such a wonderful orator and Rabbi. Such a beautiful energy able to affect people in the best of ways.
It's unfortunate there is so much dogma attached to religion. So many wars fought over it. Some people are born into a very religious family and that's all they know. Perhaps ignorance is bliss. If you have that book that tells you how it is, it probably gives you some peace. I guess just saying God did it is enough for some. Not for me. I always wanted to know what, how, why we existed.
So the “facts” are everything began about 13.7 billion years ago with a big bang I guess. How we know that I have no idea. So the universe just popped out of nothingness and started to expand. And life somehow began 3.9 billion years ago. So we are to believe that some molecules and atoms just randomly collided and created I think 92 natural elements.
Science is excellent at explaining things already happening in our universe like how a virus replicates or comets and meteors come about. Science cannot answer the question how it all began. What exactly is this place we will not know until we leave it. It's a mystery that we will never solve or fully understand. String theory, the theory of everything—all pseudoscience. They, whoever they are, say we will figure it out in time but the problem is there is no time. Time is a human construct. It’s our reflection of change. Life creates the universe. That is the only thing that makes sense. I’m not sure I fully understand what that means but I do get it on some level and I know all is ok. #WhatIsThisPlace