{"id":19313,"date":"2015-04-05T12:36:15","date_gmt":"2015-04-05T18:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=19313"},"modified":"2015-04-05T12:36:15","modified_gmt":"2015-04-05T18:36:15","slug":"how-to-save-the-universe-from-certain-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2015\/04\/how-to-save-the-universe-from-certain-death.html","title":{"rendered":"“How to Save the Universe from Certain Death”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"When<\/a>
Two colliding galaxies, from the Hubble telescope
(Click to enlarge.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The natural prospects of the Universe, and of life within it, aren\u2019t good.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell eloquently recognized this more than a century ago:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man\u2019s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins\u2014all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair can the soul\u2019s habitation be safely built.\u201d \u00a0(From\u00a0A Free Man\u2019s Worship<\/i>, 1903)<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>

Here\u2019s one British science writer\u2019s appeal for an effort to save<\/em> the Universe:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

http:\/\/aeon.co\/magazine\/science\/how-to-save-the-universe-from-certain-death\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m so grateful for the message and gift of Easter.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The natural prospects of the Universe, and of life within it, aren\u2019t good. \u00a0 The atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell eloquently recognized this more than a century ago: \u00a0 \u201cThat Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n"How to Save the Universe from Certain Death"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"      The natural prospects of the Universe, and of life within it, aren't good.   The atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell eloquently\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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