Pale blue Dot

**Ahiga** · November 12, 2006, 04:14 AM

http://palebluedot.ytmnd.com/ - Original
http://paledotprovesgod.ytmnd.com/ - Edited

I've viewed both and it's been a very moving and profound viewing experience for a site notorious for silliness. It may be simplified in it's message, but it can reach out to more people that way. It gives a very human and very personal yet impossibly profound experience to the viewer which astronomy generally does not do.

I'd suggest those who are religious view both, because while the original is very moving, it is atheist-based. The latter refutes an argument of the former, in saying such a fragile mote of existence, the only of it's kind so far, could not have been accidental. However, the former has important messages that bear listening to which may be missing in the latter.

The pale blue dot is a picture of the furthest image of earth ever taken, and whether you believe, don't believe, or are not certain, it should move you, and strengthen your feelings on the subject.

I'd accept that this will boil to science vs religion after a bit, but I'd like to see that held off for a little, and to hear something more personal and more profound than one more example of human conflict on this pale blue dot of ours.

**The White Knight** · November 12, 2006, 05:35 AM

Very moving, and humbling indeed. It reminds me of this song "It Overtakes Me / The Stars Are So Big...I Am So Small...Do I Stand A Chance?". It's beyond our stoutest imagination and comprehension, isn't it? We're billions of cells, atoms, in a world that's unimaginably bigger, in an infinite universe.

**Zenith Darksea** · November 12, 2006, 07:58 AM

It's all very interesting, but I don't really see how it's supposed to make us all atheists. From my point of view all it did was to demonstrate the majesty of God's creation.

**over-man** · November 12, 2006, 11:52 AM

Carl lives on! Carl can probably explain this notion best, he invented it after all.

**Fenris** · November 12, 2006, 03:12 PM

Originally Posted by Zenith Darksea

It's all very interesting, but I don't really see how it's supposed to make us all atheists. From my point of view all it did was to demonstrate the majesty of God's creation.

It's not supposed to. And it did not "demonstrate the majesty of god's creation" that's what you think it did. And what's so majestic about a lonely pale blue dot where, alone in all this emptiness, isloated from any other life form, like on a small island in the middle of the ocean where some people are trying to survive, we fight and kill each other, and for what? For a part of this pale blue dot, for a piece of sand of the island.

If this is indeed god's creation, there's no way I am gonna respect him because he has created pointless havoc and pain.

**Garbarsardar** · November 12, 2006, 06:15 PM

I don't know what you are talking about but if it managed to celebrate "God's creation" and score a point for atheism at the same time, it must be indeed clever. Is it a mirror?

**Fenris** · November 12, 2006, 07:15 PM

Originally Posted by Garbarsardar

I don't know what you are talking about but if it managed to celebrate "God's creation" and score a point for atheism at the same time, it must be indeed clever. Is it a mirror?

Who was this directed to?

**alman9898** · November 15, 2006, 04:34 PM

Originally Posted by Fenris

It's not supposed to. And it did not "demonstrate the majesty of god's creation" that's what you think it did. And what's so majestic about a lonely pale blue dot where, alone in all this emptiness, isloated from any other life form, like on a small island in the middle of the ocean where some people are trying to survive, we fight and kill each other, and for what? For a part of this pale blue dot, for a piece of sand of the island.

If this is indeed god's creation, there's no way I am gonna respect him because he has created pointless havoc and pain.

What the quote was intended to mean is one story. it can be interpreted both ways. uniqueness in the universe could show our special place in the universe (god) or how we only have so little and need to cherish what we have and not fight petty, stupid wars (applies to atheism and religion).

**Fenris** · November 17, 2006, 12:46 AM

Originally Posted by alman9898

What the quote was intended to mean is one story. it can be interpreted both ways. uniqueness in the universe could show our special place in the universe (god) or how we only have so little and need to cherish what we have and not fight petty, stupid wars (applies to atheism and religion).

Hmmm? How does it says we have a special place in the universe? It says we are so infime and ridiculous on the universe's scale, on the contrary.

**Turbo** · November 17, 2006, 05:58 PM

Originally Posted by Fenris

Hmmm? How does it says we have a special place in the universe? It says we are so infime and ridiculous on the universe's scale, on the contrary.

Nevertheless we are there and we see that we are there. This makes us special as see that we are a part of things, and that things are a part of us. If we were ridicious on the universe's scale, then we would not be part of the image at all.

**Tom Paine** · November 17, 2006, 06:02 PM

Not so; everything is part of the image, that doesn't prevent it being ridiculously small and irrelevant. Even protons are part of the image...

**LoZz** · November 17, 2006, 06:13 PM

you know, that did make me think, we are pritty pointless, we are just so small, we are kinda a poor excuse for a race arnt we?

**Da Skinna** · November 17, 2006, 06:35 PM

Why can't this be shown we people talk about global warming? I don't give a flying **** how it happened, but something unkind is happening to the Earth, and this presentation here underscores that we must take responsibility and use the responsibility we already have over this planet and stop destroying it.

We are small, unfathomably so, so why is it that we have to keep on going being careless about the only thing we know, our world.

**Tom Paine** · November 18, 2006, 05:02 PM

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, entry for Universe, the population thereof:

It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

(From Restaurant at the End of the Universe)