I began taking an interest in this church, when I discovered that Doctor Pat Robertson, described the Unitarian Universalists, on his fun programme, "700 Club" as "going straight to hell" It's at this point I tend to take more of an interest. I find what Doctor Pat Robertson opposes to be a great endorsement system!
Liberals are asked for millions of litmus tests, from the Christian right, to demonstrate that their faith is "correct" and "true", (which I've always thought was missing the point of faith).
Faith is where you bring up your kids, the best way you know how. If you've been a good parent, you've led by example and you got the ground rules right, then more often than not, you will find your kids will suprise you with how good they are.
You never subject your family or your friends to a barrage of tests. You don't have to boss them to care for others and accept them for who they are. Equally, our sons know bigots whenever they see them. They don't need any parental prompting from me!
A church, like Pat Robertson's, that says that gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people are sinful, is not speaking for God. Surely this rainbow of sexual and gender design is God's own?
Don't these right wing evangelist churches ever read the news? All of the wars on the planet are fuelled by people who haven't merely got a temporary dispute going on. They are fuelled by people who want us British and Americans dead. Just like Hitler wanted all the Jews dead. Simple. We will beat them, because we must. Not from making bigger wars, but by fighting for peace and leading by example. This is the way we prove ourselves to be decent.
Pat Robertson, just like those warring factions, can't live with people who are part of the gender/sexual rainbow, those who don't fit neatly into the straight man and straight woman orthodoxy. This kind of human bar-coding is the stuff of wars.
Look at all of the societies which were liberal, before we arrived. Polynesia, certain parts of Africa and also the various tribes of native Americans, like the Berdache. They all worked perfectly well. Where you have acceptance and tolerance of people's differences, you have peace.
Christopher Reeve was a great friend of the Unitarian Universalist Church. The more I read of him, it becomes clear to me that he was a super man. A kind, quiet, diginified and gentle man who clearly had great strength. A church with people like that is certainly worth joining.
17 August 2007
14 August 2007
3 August 2007
Greatest Wonders
"Kizzy, Behold! The only thing greater than yourself!" cried Kunta Kinte, in the life story called "Roots". For a very long time before that 1970's TV series, a much younger Mark Willis had stared into the night sky and wondered what was out there.
Most people are humbled by the awesome majesty of the cosmos. Our tiny pale blue planet circling it's local star, called simply, the Sun, seems so fragile, like our own lives. The distance between our existence as living beings and being departed, seems so hair's breadth sometimes, when you reflect upon it. Our planet, being hurled around the Sun at 67,000 miles per hour, while we turn at 1,000 miles per hour, seems unreal. And yet, we live our lives, most of us, as though we are quite impervious to any dangers out there.
Kunte Kinte must have reflected upon what was in the heavens above him and his lovely daughter, like so many people before him and since. For centuries, people with inquiring minds, have always wondered that when they look at almost any star in the sky, it could well be the host sun to another planet like our Earth and on that planet too, there'll be people driving around in their cars, being late for work, getting married, getting sacked, dying and being born.
We cannot actually see stars that are the same size as our Sun, because our Sun, is a main sequence star. Our Sun becomes quite a lot dimmer, even just outside our own solar system, a few billion miles distant. Our Sun is a bit of a stellar nobody really. Not too small, not too big, but just right. I've learned that there are stars that are like ours, classed as a G2V star on the astronomer's stellar league table called the "Hertzsprung-Russell diagram".
It is fascinating to speculate on the possibility of life on other planets. What do we know so far? Well, from life in our universe, we know that in one solar system, 8 out of 9 planets, (I still count Pluto), seem unlikely to have life on them like us. One planet does have intelligent, (well the potential of intelligence at any rate), life on it. To look for life like us, it seems reasonable to look for another G2V star, with say, 8 or 9 planets around them. Find one planet that is, like Goldilocks and the three bear's porridge, not too hot, not too cold, but... just right.
Further, the same size, or nearly, as Earth and also, in order to have the porridge just right, be about 149 million kilometres or 93 million miles distant from it's Sun, which of course will have two different names. The name we've given it and also the name that the locals have given it.
With only one known planet bearing life, we simply have no way of being able to determine very intelligently, just how likely life is on other planets. It could be that there are 20, 100 or even 1,000 solar systems without any life in them at all. Equally, unlike our solar neighbourhood, there could be 5 out 8 planets inhabited with alien life.
There are stars about 11 light years away that are very like our own sun. Superimposing our own solar system knowledge over that 11 light years distant one, it might seem reasonable to assume that we could have another "Earth" quite nearby. If so, they may be able to, if they've developed technology like ours, be able to hear our radio and see our television, although with an 11 year delay. Programmes being broadcast today in 2007, therefore won't be picked up by them until 2018.
With only that one template of the only solar system we have, our own, to go on, it is very difficult to make anything but a best "educated" guess.
So from the dramatic proclaimation of Kunte Kinte, we end with Patrick Moore saying "Frankly, we just don't know!"
Most people are humbled by the awesome majesty of the cosmos. Our tiny pale blue planet circling it's local star, called simply, the Sun, seems so fragile, like our own lives. The distance between our existence as living beings and being departed, seems so hair's breadth sometimes, when you reflect upon it. Our planet, being hurled around the Sun at 67,000 miles per hour, while we turn at 1,000 miles per hour, seems unreal. And yet, we live our lives, most of us, as though we are quite impervious to any dangers out there.
Kunte Kinte must have reflected upon what was in the heavens above him and his lovely daughter, like so many people before him and since. For centuries, people with inquiring minds, have always wondered that when they look at almost any star in the sky, it could well be the host sun to another planet like our Earth and on that planet too, there'll be people driving around in their cars, being late for work, getting married, getting sacked, dying and being born.
We cannot actually see stars that are the same size as our Sun, because our Sun, is a main sequence star. Our Sun becomes quite a lot dimmer, even just outside our own solar system, a few billion miles distant. Our Sun is a bit of a stellar nobody really. Not too small, not too big, but just right. I've learned that there are stars that are like ours, classed as a G2V star on the astronomer's stellar league table called the "Hertzsprung-Russell diagram".
It is fascinating to speculate on the possibility of life on other planets. What do we know so far? Well, from life in our universe, we know that in one solar system, 8 out of 9 planets, (I still count Pluto), seem unlikely to have life on them like us. One planet does have intelligent, (well the potential of intelligence at any rate), life on it. To look for life like us, it seems reasonable to look for another G2V star, with say, 8 or 9 planets around them. Find one planet that is, like Goldilocks and the three bear's porridge, not too hot, not too cold, but... just right.
Further, the same size, or nearly, as Earth and also, in order to have the porridge just right, be about 149 million kilometres or 93 million miles distant from it's Sun, which of course will have two different names. The name we've given it and also the name that the locals have given it.
With only one known planet bearing life, we simply have no way of being able to determine very intelligently, just how likely life is on other planets. It could be that there are 20, 100 or even 1,000 solar systems without any life in them at all. Equally, unlike our solar neighbourhood, there could be 5 out 8 planets inhabited with alien life.
There are stars about 11 light years away that are very like our own sun. Superimposing our own solar system knowledge over that 11 light years distant one, it might seem reasonable to assume that we could have another "Earth" quite nearby. If so, they may be able to, if they've developed technology like ours, be able to hear our radio and see our television, although with an 11 year delay. Programmes being broadcast today in 2007, therefore won't be picked up by them until 2018.
With only that one template of the only solar system we have, our own, to go on, it is very difficult to make anything but a best "educated" guess.
So from the dramatic proclaimation of Kunte Kinte, we end with Patrick Moore saying "Frankly, we just don't know!"
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