A Mote of Dust

We’ve all heard the phrase. “The universe will provide.” Many of us have probably said this numerous times. There are so many problems with this declaration. 

First, all we’ve done here is replace the God of monotheism as a provider with a fuzzy, feel-good, pseudo-pantheist “universe.” Replacing “God” with the “Universe” doesn’t solve the multitude of problems of Abrahamic monotheism. This replacement simply adds new problems on top of the already existing ones.

A significant problem is scale. The observable universe is estimated to be 46.508 billion light-years across. To put this in context, the distance from Earth to the Moon is 1.3 light seconds away. 

Admittedly it can be hard to wrap one’s brain around these numbers. Take a look at the image below. This is a photograph taken on February 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 space probe from a distance of about 3.7 billion miles from Earth. Speaking of Earth, if you look closely at the light beam on the right-hand side, you can see our tiny little planet. Carl Sagan eloquently captured this image when he described the Earth as appearing as “a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” 

"Pale Blue Dot" image taken by Voyager 1

Even accepting that the universe is conscious, to declare that our problems are so significant that this massive universe cares about us is hubris to the point of delusion. Instead, we must accept responsibility for our actions and not place blind faith for our salvation in either gods or the universe. Success or failure is ours and ours alone.