Trillions of Worlds

I just watched a TV interview on CNN with a well-known scientist discussing the recent discovery of a super-galaxy that makes our own Milky Way look tinier than ever. He concluded by estimating that the entire universe consisted of at least 100 billion galaxies each containing 100 billion stars. This calculation means there are literally trillions of planets out there. Think of a pizza, he said, with a pinprick somewhere on it; the pinprick represents all of the stars we can see or detect. Now imagine 100 similar pizzas scattered over an area the size of a football field; he said that is just the beginning in comprehending the true size of our cosmos.

This discussion made me think once again about how narrow-minded religions on Earth can be, and the probability of intelligent life existing elsewhere. This scientist felt the sheer number of heavenly bodies suggested earthlings would be arrogant to think we were the only game in town, as he said with a smile. In light of these discoveries, I find the dictates of leading religious groups astounding. Consider, for instance, the following examples from two representative Western religions:

Catholicism-- Galileo was imprisoned and forced to recant his finding that the earth travels around the sun, because it violated Church doctrine; priests must be celibate; birth control, contraception, and stem-cell research offend God; the Pope is infallible when speaking ex cathedra about God.

Judaism-- God cares what we eat, so non-kosher food like shrimp and pork must be avoided like the plague; God created the world in six days exactly 5,772 years ago; a snake talked intelligently in the Garden of Eden, Noah's Ark carried two of every living creature for forty days and nights, Jonah lived inside a whale for three days, and Moses held up his arms and delayed the sun from setting.

Both religions, like many others, claim they are the only path to God. In neither religion, however, has God ever spoken directly to mankind as a whole; there is always some intermediary. I have always believed that God is too busy to concern himself with the minutiae of our everyday lives. This is different from saying there is no God. This recent discovery about the overwhelming vastness and diversity of the universe makes me more convinced than ever that we're just inventing rules and dictates from God that simply don't exist.