{"id":289,"date":"2015-04-11T03:57:34","date_gmt":"2015-04-11T03:57:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.undergroundmediaware.com\/?p=289"},"modified":"2015-04-11T03:57:34","modified_gmt":"2015-04-11T03:57:34","slug":"goldilocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.undergroundmediaware.com\/?p=289","title":{"rendered":"Goldilocks"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a fanatical atheist (previous post<\/a>), bitter that I \u201cwasted\u201d my life being a fanatical Christian (previouser post<\/a>), I anointed science as my new god.\u00a0 Unlike religion, science was empirical.\u00a0 Unlike religion, science provided proof.\u00a0 And unlike religion, science invited, even encouraged, questions to its authority.<\/p>\n

Or so I thought.<\/p>\n

According to the boffins, the universe is accelerating in its expansion; instead of all the galaxies eventually slowing down due to their gravitational attraction to one another, they’re actually speeding away from each other faster and faster<\/em>.\u00a0 This phenomenon is due to something called dark energy<\/a>, which supposedly makes up nearly 3\/4 of the entire universe.\u00a0 (About 1\/4 of the universe is dark matter<\/a>.\u00a0 A tiny sliver is ordinary matter, which makes up all of our perceived reality: the stars, the planets, your home, your car, you<\/em>, your cat, a rock in Kolkata…)<\/p>\n

But this rate of acceleration is very finely tuned.\u00a0 If it was minutely faster, individual molecules would have long since scattered away from one another, never having the chance to gather together to form the stars, planets, your home, your car, you, your cat, a rock in Kolkata.\u00a0 But if the acceleration was minutely slower, all the ordinary matter of the universe would’ve long since clumped together into one big omni-ball.<\/p>\n

So how could the universe be so perfectly tuned to allow for life to exist?\u00a0 Does this imply the existence of a meticulous Creator?<\/p>\n

Of course not!<\/em> the boffins contend.\u00a0 The reason is because we live in one of\u00a0several universes<\/a>.\u00a0 The universe we inhabit just happens to have the perfect rate of acceleration.\u00a0 There are many other universes with faster rates of acceleration (scattered molecules).\u00a0 And several others with slower rates (omni-balls).<\/em><\/p>\n

“Very cool theory!\u00a0 How can we test it?” I want to know.<\/p>\n

Er, well we have computer models<\/a>.\u00a0 We’re still coming up with experiments<\/em>, the boffins reply.\u00a0 In the meantime, just take our word for it.<\/em><\/p>\n

I left Christianity due to its adherence to blind faith.\u00a0 I went from one dubious god to another.<\/p>\n

So where am I now, spiritually?\u00a0 Well, religion wasn’t the answer.\u00a0 But neither fully is science.<\/p>\n

I do earnestly hope there is a caring god out there.\u00a0 I hope there is an afterlife.\u00a0 And I hope that my teeny tiny life matters in the mind-numbingly large celestial scheme of things.<\/p>\n

But if all those hopes are for naught, I’m finally OK with that too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a fanatical atheist (previous post), bitter that I \u201cwasted\u201d my life being a fanatical Christian (previouser post), I anointed science as my new god. Unlike religion, science was empirical. Unlike religion, science provided proof. And unlike religion, science invited, even encouraged, questions to its authority.<\/p>\n

Or so I thought.<\/p>\n

According to the boffins, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.undergroundmediaware.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.undergroundmediaware.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.undergroundmediaware.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.undergroundmediaware.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.undergroundmediaware.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.undergroundmediaware.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290,"href":"https:\/\/www.undergroundmediaware.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions\/290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.undergroundmediaware.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.undergroundmediaware.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.undergroundmediaware.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}